Fisher_Gate said:
Tell you what Udo ... Let's do a deal ... I'll tell you about the selection process for the Respect slate, if you ask and Mutley gives an answer as to what constitutional process the SWP used to remove the selected Respect candidate for City and East - Hanif Abdulmuhit?
Fisher, this smokescreen won't wash, presumably they used the same constitutional process that George Galloway used to remove the selected Respect Mayoral candidate and announce that he was standing a rival GLA slate to the one agreed at a properly constituted meeting of London Respect Meetings.
Incidentally, it has been very liberating to be in Respect after the exit of the celebrities. No longer will our political programme be driven by what will keep Galloway and Yvonne Ridley onboard. Instead we are developing a programme that is anti-capitalist, more confrontational, more socialist and class-based, and be based on appealing to the politicised layers of our class rather than what will keep the well-known, well-paid left celebrities onside. To be honest, I think the SWP leadership fucked up over Respect, and in a sense their own concessions to populism have blown up in their own face - this doesn't mean that we should now allign with populism! They gave too much ground to left liberals, by essentially orientating not to what would appeal to the most radical sections of the class who wanted to fightback but to trying to hold together a coalition with people of dubious politics and dubious income. To be frank, having campaigned for Respect, I have to be honest and say that most of it's elected representatives didn't make the weight. You had radical socialists enthusing people with grassroots politics getting mediocrities elected who would probably have fitted into a mainstream party.
If Respect Renewal represents a shift to the right from the original Respect, Respect post-Galloway represents a shift to the left. I couldn't stomach being part of a split led by a guy who earns more than my boss. And to be honest, I have some respect for Salma Yaqoob, but she comes across as a left-liberal - to be honest, I would be happy to work alongside her, but her politics don't do a great deal for me. The ideological collapse of RR is seen in their slobbering support for Ken Livingstone and blandess of politics. It's sad to see that the ISG/SR have become the left cover for a move to the right.
Let's be honest, Linda Smith will sign the nomination papers of Harry Landis, probably a decent guy, but one not elected as a Respect candidate at any legitimately constituted selection meeting (in accordance with Respect's constitution) while Respect candidates selected at constitutional meetings where ALL Respect members including those who have joined the Renewal 'Platform' will not be allowed to stand as Respect.
And your comment about Linda Smith is just a lie, as you well know. As soon as the SWP ask for candidates to be endorsed and agree to discuss in front of an independent third party, then there will be negotiations reconvened from last November about the use of the Respect name. To date, the SWP have yet to ask for any candidates to be endorsed, and that includes the recent by-elections in Preston and Leyton, and in the one dialogue they have with Linda Smith since she wrote to them in November, have refused point blank to discuss anything in front of a third party.
Fisher, I'm not a member of the SWP, I'm a member of Respect and have never left it. Our Respect branch has legitimately selected Respect candidates and we will be asking Linda Smith (as she claims to still be the nominating officer) to sign our forms. This isn't a matter of negotiations, we are just following standard procedure.
As to your talk of a 'third party' the only 'third party' who should be consulted is the membership of Respect, the membership whom your side heaped contempt on (not surprising when your side is led by the guy who showed contempt for Respect members by going on Big Brother) by deciding to split Respect without even consulting or engaging in a debate with the people in Respect. But why be surprised? Respect Renewal is all about 'the leaders'. Which is probably why the grassroots haven't swung to them.
But Fisher, Under what constitutional process is Linda Smith and Respect Renewal deselecting legitimately selected Respect candidates? This is the issue, by refusing to allow Respect branches to use the name 'Respect', Linda Smith has essentially EXPELLED the majority of Respect branches from Respect!
Unfortunately, Fisher, you also don't know the line of your own NC! Not surprising perhaps, as unlike Respect, Respect Renewal don't publish minutes or reports of their meetings to members, nor will they even state who is on their unelected NC! As you may know the breakaway NC members added another 20 odd people to their number - but they refuse to actually tell anyone - including members of Renewal - the names of these additional NC members.
Respect Renewal's NC have agreed a position that they will not allow any candidates from the majority of Respect branches to use the name Respect. Perhaps, as a sign of their elitism, they see Respect as being the George Galloway/Salma Yaqoob Party. The trouble is that while Galloway is a brilliant anti-imperialist orator, these figures have less support from the independents in Respect than Renewal thought. Renewal thought that they would take the majority of Respect members with them when they left Respect - the reality is that at the base of the organisation their was no split, and most people stuck with the grassroots activists who they have worked with since 2004 rather than jump onboard the well-paid celebrity ship of George Galloway et al.
Also, you keep on talking about 'negotiations' between the leaders, but what exactly should be the subject of these negotiations? Negotiations over what?
In the labour movement, things should be decided democratically by the rank and file. I would have loved to have seen George Galloway clash in debate at a Respect Conference with John Rees. Such a clash could have been quite useful in genuinely renewing Respect to see these differences thrashed out in public. But the truth is Renewal are only interested in backroom deals and chats behind the backs of the members, the truth is that in Renewal, George Galloway is no more accountable to the members than in Respect - ENOUGH!
The fact is they do not have a leg to stand on in claiming any legitimacy as Respect. The registration of the Left List is a public admission they have no interest in maintaining Respect.
The overwhelming majority of Respect branches have remained with Respect. Respect has branches across England and Wales. RR has only about 5 branches. They are a minority. They can't even form a national organisation and exist only in a handful of pockets. The "Left List" is a temporary solution until this is resolved.
To be honest, I lost any respect for Renewal when they split Respect. Many people within Respect had serious differences with what was the terrain of the party and were open to a debate. But Renewal was predicated on the idea that you can only be a member if you smash up Respect branches.
I'm not a member of the SWP, I have criticisms of the SWP in Respect, but within our local organisation (within which the SWP are a minority), we work constructively together and why should I smash up a local organisation that I have spent 4 years building because George Galloway, Ken Loach, Alan Thornett, Yvonne Ridley, Nick Wrack et al say so?
The problem is Udo, there's been a split ... and you have backed the wrong side.
There has been a split, and your side are a minority, and are political cowards who won't debate openly at a conference of all Respect members. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear that not-withstanding some decent socialists and leftists who have joined Renewal that it's politics are exactly the kind of fluffy, reformist, woolly left-liberal crap that I was getting sick off in the original Respect where the SWP (wrongly) bent-over backwards to keep the Galloways, Yaqoobs and middle class left-liberals onboard. The SWP need to be held to account, they made serious mistakes in Respect, but one thing they have grasped correctly is that Respect didn't make the weight, and what is needed is a broad, explicitly socialist, explicitly anti-capitalist party that
won't have one hand tied behind it's back in the class war because it has a highly paid MP onboard or an ex-LibDem Respect Councillor onboard or the Chair of it's biggest branch owns several restaurants.
The times we live in demand hard class-politics. I believe that having broken with the populism of the original Respect, Respect post-Galloway is moving towards a harder, anti-capitalist, direct action, mass struggle, workers party - Join us!
