04.11.2004

Gerrymandering, exclusions and the farce of three- minute democracy

The October 30-31 conference of Respect showed the SWP at its worst, writes Peter Manson: fixing delegations, voting down socialist and democratic principles, demonising opponents and riding roughshod over any remaining pretence of inclusivity

The first annual conference was a farce. Respect national secretary and Socialist Workers Party leader John Rees used his small army of loyal delegates to crudely bulldoze through what had already been stitched up between himself, George Galloway and those representing the muslim ‘community’.

As we have reported in these pages, the SWP went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that critical or oppositional voices - above all the CPGB - were unable to attend as delegates. Some of this gerrymandering was boasted about internally. The central committee proudly holds up the example of Birmingham SWP and how its caucusing ensured that “all hostile motions on abortion and black sections” were defeated and none of their movers got “elected to Respect conference” (SWP Pre-conference bulletin No1).

It is quite remarkable that the SWP leadership considers it necessary, indeed vital, to prevent motions with which it disagrees or finds embarrassing from being heard. That Martin Smith had to issue a fatwa against CPCB members and supporters, shows beyond doubt that the SWP is itself riven with fear and internal tensions and is highly vulnerable to criticism. The only way the SWP can now win an argument is bureaucratically. In the event the SWP had around 70% of the 270 delegates in the Camden Centre and was able, with its smattering of allies, to win every vote by a large majority.

Road ahead
The most important immediate task for Respect is, of course, to prepare for the next general election, which is very likely to be held next spring. By comparison to the 2001 campaign of the Socialist Alliance, when the SWP came round to the view that there needed to be enough candidates to secure a party political broadcast, Respect is to contest very few constituencies. No-one was prepared to put an exact figure on this, but the emphasis of SWP speakers was, in the words of the successful motion, “the need to limit the number of seats we intend to stand in” (my emphasis).

The rationale for this turn is the belief that, by concentrating our forces in seats where we have polled well - in London’s East End, Birmingham and Leicester, for example - or where a good result might be expected, Respect will avoid another humiliating round of small votes and lost deposits. Non-humiliation will supposedly produce credibility and recruits.

Not everyone is yet on message though. Some were still parroting the John Rees line of earlier this year of junking principles for the sake of an imminent breakthrough. So, for example, the SWP’s Elaine Heffernan chuntered on about getting Respect MPs to Westminster: “There is a dynamic in politics. We have to win to gain respect. We should put everything into selected seats.” Simon Hester (also SWP) added: “We must fight to win and make a difference.” To contest where we had no chance of a victory was just “cynical”, he said; it was “not taking our voters seriously”.

Perhaps it was Michael Lavalette, Respect’s first councillor (elected as Socialist Alliance), who expressed the new line the most succinctly (and less ambitiously): “Left organisations usually get a few hundred votes, so if we only contest 20-30 seats and get eight percent, that will be much better.” It is true, of course, that Respect actually topped the poll in areas of Tower Hamlet in the EU elections. But a general election, with its pull towards the centre - towards the two main parties, that is - is a very different thing.

But there was something of a contradiction in this trajectory. In his rallying speech to close conference, John Rees declared that “votes are the product of what you’ve done in the past.” In other words, they do not come primarily from flooding a constituency with activists in the weeks before an election. He was actually urging members to build the organisation in their own localities, where, for the majority, there will be no opportunity to convert this work into general election votes.

Culture
Earlier comrade Rees had moved an amendment to the NEC motion on electoral strategy which read: “All branches should endeavour to organise broad cultural events in their area”. These should include “visits to museums, cinema, theatres, art galleries, etc”. The participants from outside Respect “should not be pressured to join, or buy papers, etc. Newspapers and leaflets for other events can be left on a table in the area where people socialise, but announcements about meetings and events can be made.

“As socialists, we would argue that culture cannot be detached from politics. Therefore the reverse is also true: politics cannot be detached from culture. Respect’s cultural programmes should not be a chore, but they could enrich the lives of all those who take part.”

It is perfectly clear what comrade Rees intends. We need to dig roots in the community over a long period, so that local people come to know us not just as political fighters, but as organisers in many spheres. In that way, eventually we will be able to contest elections with credible results.

The problem with all this talk about running film clubs or having picnics is that it represents bureaucratic dictat, not organic growth and development. SWP cadres - already busy with Stop the War, Unite, Globalise Resistance and the routine business of the Saturday stall and paper sales - will indeed organise their ‘cultural’ event. They will duly fulfil the plan and report 100% success to those above. That no one else turned up, or that the whole thing was stilted, artificial and smacked of merely carrying out orders, will, of course, not be reported.

The fact of the matter is that Rees is putting the cart before the horse. Respect, if it is ever going to get anywhere, must take its programme and politics seriously. Without that everything else is eclecticism or opportunist short-termism. Only on the basis of firm politics and firm principles can anything lasting, anything serious, be built. Rees’s scheme is in reality a way of further depoliticising Respect.

Comrade Rees referred to the fact that “working people in this country no longer have a single organisation to represent all their needs. We are the best hope of creating such a vehicle.” Unfortunately, there are no short cuts in this necessary process of building a programmatically coherent working class party to challenge Labour.

General election
George Galloway has his eyes focused on the general election. We have probably six months to go, he said, yet “the great majority have not yet heard of Respect”. This was a much more sober (and accurate) assessment than some of the statements coming out of Respect HQ following the Leicester and Birmingham by-elections. Something about the unity coalition being the fourth electoral force, I seem to recall.

According to Galloway, Respect has “a serious chance of winning in the East End” and in “at least two” Birmingham constituencies. Such seats should be contested, where because perhaps “the anti-war movement is strong”, or Respect has “got off the ground”, or “class and demographic factors favour us”, or the “sitting MP has betrayed the movement”, we have a real chance of winning.

But, continued the comrade, “I am not suggesting we should only stand where we can win.” We should also contest “where our intervention can be decisive in defeating the worst of the New Labour warmongers and privateers”. However, he said, “we locate ourselves in the labour movement. We don’t want to see Howard win and we need to win the hearts and minds of traditional Labour voters. We have in our minds which of the two evils we would prefer.”

Therefore, in seats where we were not standing, in general “we will urge our supporters to vote Labour”. We will not only never stand against Labour MPs who “stood with the movement against war and privatisation”. But we “wish them every success”.

So Respect will put up candidates in a small number of constituencies and vote Labour in most others. But there is a third category of seats - the ones where Respect will be supporting “left of Labour” candidates. That includes not only forces like the Socialist Party and Scottish Socialist Party, but also the Green Party, with whom Respect was still seeking a “non-aggression pact”. However, prospects of an agreement are “not great”, said Galloway, so we “might have to pitch our red and green banner against their green banner”.

As for the other left groups, “we think you should be in Respect, but if not and you intend to stand, we will not seek to stand against credible candidates. And we hope you won’t stand against us.”

Although it was comrade Rees who moved the amendment proposing this electoral pact to ensure there is only one left candidate in a given seat, he was clear that, elsewhere, support for candidates of other left groups would only be forthcoming on a reciprocal basis - “a lot of them will spend a great deal of time printing attacks on Respect”. However, he said, more important than our attitude to the “very small organisations of the left” was our approach to Labour. We must “keep the door open to the millions of ordinary people” who still support Blair’s party - four Labour councillors who have now switched to Respect were cited as the result of such an approach. We were adopting this attitude not to the Labour government, but to “your next-door neighbour, to shop stewards, to anti-war activists”.

Unlike Galloway, however, he did not call for a general Labour vote where there is no Respect or left candidate - nor was such a call spelled out in the NEC motion. I suppose it would be too much to expect the SWP, having switched from decades of auto-Labourism to auto-anti-Labourism in the Socialist Alliance, to switch back again at comrade Galloway’s behest. Better to maintain a discreet silence on the matter. A non-SWP comrade did bring up the old line - “Every Labour MP is one more for Blair” - but this did not bring forth any response from SWP tops.
Sean Doherty intervened to oppose a motion on left cooperation that was very similar to John Rees’s. This motion, moved by 20 individual members, including John Nicholson, would have committed Respect to “working with others to ensure the maximum number of socialist candidates”. Comrade Doherty complained that its “orientation is wrong”. We should be “orientating to the Labour Party and the trade unions, not to small political sects”.

He gave the example of Diane Abbott: “When she sent her child to a private school, I said I would rather cut off my right arm than vote for her.” But now he realised that this would “send out the wrong messages” (particularly since Respect’s own candidate in Leicester South, Yvonne Ridley, sends her child to a very expensive public school).

More shibboleths ditched
As we know, the SWP has already dropped open borders, a worker’s wage, a republic and extending abortion rights from its list of cherished principles. But, as this conference showed, it has not finished yet. Its positions on Palestine, secularism and even socialism itself are all being watered down or abandoned altogether when it comes to Respect.

Forewarned of the opposition that was about to come, Roland Rance argued passionately for his motion in favour of a “unitary, democratic and secular state” in Palestine. He said: “There is no intention to tell Palestinians what they should be doing, but we have had no end of proposals for two states - they amount to redrawing borders or repartitioning. It wouldn’t work”. The Palestinians would be left with a “form of Bantustan without resources”.
Moira Nolan of the SWP argued for an amendment which sought to delete the whole paragraph containing the offending phrase, thus leaving Respect purposely without any position on the state form of Israel-Palestine: “Personally I agree with a unitary state. But it’s about entering into a dialogue with people. Maybe we can come back to this at a future conference, but people might not join Respect if they disagree with a one-state solution. We should be one step ahead of them, not 15.”

I think I prefer comrade Rance’s defence of an honest, but wrong position to the SWP’s cowardly refusal to say what it thinks. But what does the SWP imagine is the problem with a unitary state for those coming towards Respect? Nothing actually. The problem is with the word ‘secular’ that sits alongside it, as conference was to be shown the following day.

In the absence of the mover, Dave Landau - who was disgracefully prevented from attending as a delegate by the block vote of Islington SWP - Tom Rubens of Hackney proposed his motion declaring Respect to be a “secular organisation”. Unfortunately comrade Rubens did not find the best line of attack: “Our main allegiance is to the spirit of science and rationality.” That ought to be true, but it is not the point. The point is that by proclaiming our secularity we are proclaiming the equality of believers and non-believers in our practice.

The response of the SWP’s Chris Bambery was to express his “concern with Respect calling itself secular”. After all, secularism was used in France to justify the islamophobic ban on the hijab in state schools. In all comrade Bambery’s long years of experience of the labour movement in the west of Scotland, where of course religious sectarianism was a problem, he had never known “a resolution being put saying we are secular”. He asked: “Do we have a problem here with people with extreme religious views?” No, the real religious extremists are Bush and Blair, who are deliberately stoking up islamophobia. Those calling for secularity should “think very carefully” about whose game they are playing.

Is comrade Bambery really so stupid as to be ignorant of the true meaning of secularism? Again the answer is no. But he is so stupid as to believe that muslims cannot be won to champion secularism themselves - in fact it cannot be separated from the right to practise (or not practise) a religion. Either he is under the misapprehension that the progressive muslims attracted to Respect are somehow against equality or he favours giving them a privileged position when it comes to elaborating policy. Surely it cannot be the latter - can it?

Not socialist
Another SWP retreat came on common ownership. Comrade Rubens had got overwhelming support in Hackney branch for his motion calling for “common ownership” of British-based “multinational corporations”. But his local comrades deserted him and voted against when it came to the conference itself. Lindsey German explained that, while “most people in this room would agree with the sentiment, I don’t like the wording: it goes against what Respect is standing for at the moment.”

The following day, comrade German took the argument one stage further in opposing socialism itself: or, more precisely, opposing the CPGB constitutional amendment setting out the aim of “a socialist society where the working class is the ruling class”. She said: “This conference has been a tremendous success in terms of diversity. That’s why we must oppose a clause which inserts socialism as a defining characteristic. I wouldn’t have joined Respect if it was just socialist.” In fact, as she and other SWPers argued, it is not socialist at all (despite the assertions of some of the SWP’s leftist apologists).

The CPGB motion on open borders was moved by comrade Graham Martin from York, who is not a CPGB supporter, of course. His message was simple: “If the government can move money around, we should say people should be able to move too.” He said that states are separated by a fence through which money can be pushed, but people may not pass.

Elaine Heffernan (SWP) was having none of it: the policy passed the previous day on asylum-seekers and refugees was “the most progressive of any organisation in Britain”. But open borders “are not a logical extension” of that policy. In fact they would be “a step backwards”. Comrade Heffernan is no longer having to argue against what she believes in (as she stated at Respect’s founding convention in January). Today she argues against open borders because she does not believe in them any more.

It was all a waste of time anyway: since immigration policy was now being taken over by the EU, “it’s not something we can attempt to do”. It was a “false debate if we can’t implement it”. She challenged us starry-eyed idealists to “go into areas like Dagenham with your meaningless slogans instead of concrete policies”. It has to be pointed out, however, that our current inability to actually carry out what we stand for did not prevent the SWP voting unanimously to write off the entire debt of the ‘third world’.

Aborted principle
When it came to abortion, Moira Nolan was still claiming to support a woman’s right to choose (at least up to 24 weeks): “We want the broadest movement possible, so we mustn’t approach this issue by saying, ‘You must support abortion if you want to be part of Respect.’ We have to be inclusive - we can’t impose our views.” Certainly not on our elected representatives. If they decided to vote for the latest Bush-Blair war, that would be all right too, I suppose.

In fact the SWP should have voted down motions that limited themselves to opposing further restrictions, since some Respect members think all abortion is wrong: “This whole issue has gone too far,” said one female delegate. “There should be room for us all, whether we are pro-choice or pro-life.” If Respect claims to be all-inclusive, then we should not adopt positions which are “alienating to our muslim brothers and sisters”. She was right: if it wants to be consistent, the SWP should refuse to defend existing rights, since some members want to ban abortion altogether.

“Congratulations,” said Sheila Ma-lone of the International Socialist Group to the SWP, for finally agreeing to include a “woman’s right to choose” in your motion. It was “better late than never” to remember what ought to be a “fundamental part of our platform”.

Lindsey German dismissed the notion that “a woman’s right to choose” was some kind of afterthought: “It was always part of the Greenwich and Lewisham motion.” Not true, actually. In its original form the motion presented by Greenwich SWP comrades omitted this and was only added at the very last moment during the meeting to discuss motions. In fact the phrase itself had been explicitly rejected by SWP speakers in Hackney the previous evening.

The ISG and CPGB motions were nothing to do with championing women’s rights apparently. “We are a coalition”, but they are “just trying to divide us”. This was echoed by NEC member Sait Agkul: the “arguments over abortion are all aimed at weakening Respect”. Those who fought for the people’s interests were not the ones putting forward these demands, “which have been defeated up and down the country”.

Rich candidates
Jim Jepps moved the CPGB-sponsored motion on a worker’s wage. He explained that this was “not about having a pop at anyone”. It was about “equality and the need to demonstrate we’re different”. We need to show we have “no truck with the careerism that everyone associates with parliament”. He made it absolutely clear that the motion was not aimed at limiting expenses - it would be counterproductive if it prevented our elected representatives from acting as tribunes. He pointed out that people like Mark Serwotka and Tommy Sheridan only take a skilled worker’s wage and they still seem to be able to function as leaders.

The SWP wheeled out no less a figure than councillor Michael Lavalette to oppose the motion. Perhaps I am wrong, but comrade Lavalette appeared to me to be distinctly uncomfortable arguing the party line. After all, as he pointed out, he himself hands over the £200 in expenses he receives each month from Preston council straight to the Respect office.

According to comrade Lavalette, five of the six Respect candidates who stood in the local elections in Preston “earn more than a skilled worker’s wage” and it was unfair to ask them to take a pay cut. They came from the anti-war movement and were “not revolutionaries”. This is “not an appropriate demand for the broad movement”. What is more, it is “dishonest” in that it was “really trying to target certain people”: namely George Galloway. No, comrade, we are not targeting George Galloway. We are targeting the outrageous opportunism of the SWP, as it drops principle after principle.

Broad resistance
Strangely, there is one issue where it is not considered necessary to appeal to “the broad movement”, and that is Iraq and our attitude to the resistance. It is not considered too ‘extreme’ or too ‘revolutionary’ to swim against the patriotic tide that has engulfed many ‘ordinary’ working class people who do not take kindly to the killing of ‘our’ boys and girls in the occupying army. As Lindsey German said, “People have an absolute right to resist and Respect should be fully behind people’s right to do so.” She even claimed that the “supporters of the policies of Respect and the Stop the War Coalition are in a big majority” in the country on this question.

In that case, when she speaks on TV or radio as spokesperson for the STWC, why does she never attempt to put the principled internationalist case for the defeat of the occupation? She has one position for the particular audience Respect is addressing, but quite another for “the broad movement”.

A representative of the SWP’s particular target audience was present in the shape of the guest speaker from the Muslim Association of Britain, who talked about MAB’s “brotherly relationship with Respect”. Respect was, after all, “based on honesty and ethics”. MAB would “support Respect throughout the country, so long as it upholds the values it has been holding high” up to now. He hoped MAB would be a “major factor in your success”.

In my opinion, it is excellent that the MAB milieu is being pulled to the left through its contact and involvement with the anti-war movement. Former president Anas Altikriti sounds more and more socialist every time he speaks nowadays. But his is a contradictory, petty bourgeois socialism. In part it is a protest against the Iraq war, in part an attempt to find allies and social leverage, now that old Labour has all but collapsed. But in part it is also a reactionary dream of going back to some theocratic ideal. However, while MAB moves to the left, the SWP moves to the right and takes Respect with it. Moreover, ironic through it might appear, it is MAB which has stayed true to its principles.

This particular MAB speaker at conference came out with a particularly revealing phrase that made me and others wince. Noting that the coalition’s task would be particularly hard in view of the hostile press, he singled out the Mail and the Telegraph, “where Zionists are in control”.

Minority rights
Mark Serwotka, in calling for solidarity with his PCSU members in their struggle to save the 100,000 jobs threatened by Brown’s cuts, pointed out the obvious need for a working class alternative. In his view any such alternative must embrace the “core principles” of “tolerance, democracy, inclusiveness and socialism”. Of course, comrade Serwotka is far too diplomatic to say how he thinks such principles are being applied within Respect (assuming he has an opinion on the matter).

A number of delegates did, though, express concern - in the most cautious of terms - about the SWP’s control-freakery. Sean Thompson from Barnet and Camden was unhappy with the slate system for electing the national committee: “It won’t win over trade union and Labour Party members, who are used to individual nominations”. If it became permanent, “this ‘guided democracy’ will leave us open to accusations that the leadership is ‘fixed’ by the SWP”. An accusation that is totally untrue, of course.

He was backed up by John Bloom, Respect candidate in the Hartlepool by-election. We need to be “the most socialist, the most democratic. For the future we need a proper system.” Whereas the current executive was clearly beyond reproach, “we might not be able to trust a future NC”. It is noticeable that comrade Bloom’s election agent, Peter Smith, was proposed for the national committee rather than the candidate himself.

Greg Tucker of the ISG also thought the SWP should back off. It was comrade Tucker who moved the motion calling for platforms to be recognised, and to have the right to be represented and to move resolutions at conference. We need to show that “we are much more than the electoral wing of the SWP,” he said. It was not a problem for a group of 20 members, as opposed to a branch, to be allowed to put forward motions.

It was a timely speech, since SWP comrades have already begun to undermine this right - even before the constitution which enshrines it had been voted in. Socialist Worker editor Chris Bambery was the main culprit. He followed comrade Tucker to the microphone and droned: “There is something undemocratic about people who can’t get elected as delegates, who can’t get their motions through locally, putting them forward at conference.”
While of course he did not mention the CPGB by name, it was clear who he was referring to (although ISG comrades were not best pleased to be accused implicitly of defending this “undemocratic” practice of daring to propose motions). Nobody in the real world - not least the Kurds, the Bengalis, the Kashmiris and the muslims to whom Respect was relating so well - had the slightest interest in the issues the CPGB was raising, said Bambery. They were only interested in education, housing, the NHS (the uncontentious questions that had all gone through on the nod the previous day). Respect was “inclusive” towards these communities, he said (by implication dismissing the notion that awkward minorities should be given the time of day).

Declan O’Neill called this a “disgraceful attack on the right of 20 members to put motions”. It was not lost on delegates that the CPGB motion he was speaking in favour of could not be moved by any of the 20 signatories, since the SWP had mobilised its members to ensure, by fair means or foul, that no CPGB comrade was elected to conference.

In our absence from conference floor, there was no-one to object to the fact that our four short, but separate constitutional amendments were all lumped together into one. Comrade O’Neill did his best to move them in the three minutes available to him, but did not manage to get as far as mentioning the proposal that Respect should aim for “a socialist society where the working class is the ruling class”. Nor was he able to explain why we wanted to remove the obligation to “treat [Respect’s] decisions and procedures in a positive and cooperative way” - such vague and subjective phrases are open to all kinds of oppressive interpretations.

Comrade O’Neill did, however, make a good case for changing the first paragraph in the proposed constitution, to read: “[Respect] shall be a political coalition of groups, parties, organisations and individuals who accept [not support] Respect’s founding declaration and the decisions of its annual conference.” He pointed out that a small minority of delegates did not “support” Respect’s commitment, agreed the previous day, to defend existing abortion rights, but they should clearly have the right to remain members.

Now it was the turn of Lindsey German to go into anti-CPGB mode. The motion, she said, was “moved in bad taste”. Ignoring the reference to the decisions of annual conference, she said: “If you don’t support the founding declaration, then you don’t accept the basis on which the organisation is set up. Why don’t you go and found another organisation?”

Getting into her stride, she went on: “These people don’t want to act in a cooperative way. These people never supported Respect or the Stop the War Coalition. Anyone can see that’s true from the leaflets given out this weekend.” While this led to much whooping and hollering from the assembled SWPers, her false claims did have one “positive” effect: it caused delegates to flock to the CPGB stall to see what we were really saying.
In moving a subsequent motion, John Nicholson responded to this tellingly: “You do not achieve unity by suggesting that people with different and difficult views are divisive or are not supporting the STWC.” His final contribution was to “look forward to socialists in England developing the same broad way of working in future that has brought the Scottish Socialist Party its success.”

In saying this comrade Nicholson withdrew the three names he was proposing for the new national committee - the CPGB’s Anne Mc Shane, Kath Owen from Yorkshire and himself. Unfortunately both he and comrade Owen have now resigned from Respect in protest at the SWP’s undemocratic and unprincipled behaviour.
Counterproductive

Why do they do it? The SWP’s arrogant and high-handed behaviour is not only unnecessary, considering its absolute majority within Respect. It is counterproductive. Time and time again it alienates its allies and drives out good comrades from every organisation it attempts to dominate.

Worse, the rightward lurch that is part and parcel of this control-freakery threatens it with disaster. The SWP is an organisation facing a crisis of monumental proportions. We will do all in our power to persuade the comrades to change course.