26.09.2007
Pots calling the kettle black
CPGB national organiser Mark Fischer was right to appear on Newsnight to comment on the Respect crisis, says Cameron Richards
One interesting feature of the current row in Respect has been the role of leftwing blogs in publishing documents of the warring factions. Whether it be documents written by the Galloway camp or responses from the Socialist Workers Party or from Alan Thornett's group, blogs have usually proved to be the first place to find the arguments of the protagonists.
Pride of place must go to the Socialist Unity site of Andy Newman (www.socialistunity.com) and the blog of Socialist Resistance's Liam Mac Uaid (http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com). Comrade Newman seems to have sources in both the Galloway and SWP camps, whilst comrade Mac Uaid specialises in information coming from Socialist Resistance supporters on Respect's national council.
The coverage they have given to the crisis and the way in which they have facilitated debate amongst Respect members and the wider left stand in marked contrast to the way the main protagonists - above all Galloway and the SWP's John Rees - have officially kept the general membership in the dark about the problems of their party (although both have been quite prepared to leak their side of the story unofficially).
Of course, it has been possible to read between the lines for a long, long time. The Weekly Worker has been unique amongst the left press in exposing the developing tensions in Respect in numerous articles. What the likes of Newman and Mac Uaid have done in publishing recent documents is to confirm what the Weekly Worker has consistently argued - that the 'unity coalition' was bound to implode at some point in the future.
Yet, curiously, neither sees things in quite this way. In fact, both seem to think that the current rumpus is potentially a positive step for Respect which was, hitherto, being stunted in its progressive development by the control-freakery of the SWP. The Galloway document, so both seem to believe, provides the opportunity to turn Respect into the genuine vehicle for left advance that they eagerly hoped it would become when they joined it first time around.
Both Newman and Mac Uaid had previously resigned their membership of Respect, disillusioned in its inability to regroup the 'non-sectarian' left in a democratic and inclusive manner. Now, however, spurred on by the rebellion of Galloway and Salma Yaqoob against the SWP, these 'socialists' have both rejoined as supporters, albeit critical, of Galloway - who, of course, also has the support of the businessmen's wing, not least in Tower Hamlets.
Newman and Mac Uaid come from different traditions within the left. Comrade Newman had been a longstanding member of the SWP, whilst comrade Mac Uaid is a sympathiser of the Mandelite Fourth International. Yet both are believers in the 'halfway house' left regroupment project that has become the orthodoxy among most of the revolutionary left.
Thus, it is not difficult to see why Newman and Mac Uaid are not exactly fans of the CPGB's critique of Respect or the Weekly Worker's coverage. Indeed such is their loathing of our project that both have reacted with some horror to the fact that the CPGB's Mark Fischer was interviewed on the BBC's Newsnight on September 21 as part of a report by Michael Crick on Respect's crisis.
Newman restricted his comments to describing Mark's appearance as "appalling and self-serving". Mac Uaid, however, went somewhat further: "If anyone knows a way that will allow me to prevent Weekly Worker contributors reading this site please let me know. Having a discussion between socialists is one thing. Having one of your most prominent members collaborate with a sneering, anti-socialist BBC Newsnight reporter is beyond contempt" (http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/respects-nc/).
In the comments section of his blog he then asserted: "The Newsnight business is very straightforward. You don't assist the bourgeois press when they attack an organisation in the workers' movement. That's what Mark did by giving the interview.
"Putting discussion documents in the public domain so that socialist activists can have an informed dialogue is part of the political tradition from which I come. My guess is that Andy would have declined the opportunity of an interview with the BBC as firmly as I would."
Essentially, he is arguing that that Mark Fischer crossed class lines in speaking to Crick. Our response to this, to put it very politely, is bollocks.
Where do we start? Firstly the Respect item was a genuine story and not a figment of some hack's fevered imagination. Respect is in crisis and mainstream news organisations are bound to pick up on it.
What did Mark say that was so appalling? Did he claim that lurid sex and drugs parties were happening in the Respect office? Or that dodgy financial transactions were taking place? Of course not. In the short time allotted to him he simply told the truth. That is, in its desire to make the big time of British politics, the SWP has rushed to sell out what it has in the way of socialist principles.
It is interesting to contrast Mark's behaviour last Friday with the behaviour of some leftwingers around the Tommy Sheridan debacle in Scotland. When, for instance, George McNeilage of the Scottish Socialist Party handed over to the News of the World, in exchange for a five-figure sum, video tapes purporting to show that Tommy Sheridan had lied in court in his defamation action against the paper.
How did Socialist Resistance (a paper that Mac Uaid co-edits) respond? It stated: "There may be questions about how the tape was handed over to the NOTW (there are allegations of a payment being made), but that should not be allowed to obscure the wider picture - that the tape substantiates what the 11 [SSP leaders who gave evidence against Sheridan] have been saying all along and it should help protect them against perjury charges" (Socialist Resistance statement, October 2006).
There "may be questions"? Shouldn't it have been beyond contempt to assist the bourgeois press in trying to nail a leading figure in our movement for perjury? To stab a comrade in the back for cash? Any member of the CPGB who indulged in such skulduggery would have been expelled. Simple as that. No wonder Mac Uaid closed down the discussion on his blog when I pointed this out!
And what did the Socialist Unity blog have to say on the sordid McNeilage affair? "Of course, it is regrettable that this tape has ended up in the hands of the NOTW, and questions need to be asked about how this happened. But we must resist attempts to blow smoke around the political issues, as the questions of whether the tape is genuine, and how it ended up with the NOTW, are side shows" (http://socialistunity.blogspot.com/2006/10/sheridans-web-of-deceit.html).
"Regrettable"? "Side shows"? Not "appalling" and "self-serving"? Is this the same Andy Newman who sees fit to trash the reputation of Mark Fischer and the CPGB?
Our only regret is that Mark Fischer was not given more time to pour scorn on the betrayals of the SWP and the squalid, popular frontist Respect - a project which has brought nothing but discredit on what passes for the left in Britain.