Respect 2005 National Conference Thread

[rebel warrior]

I think some people on here are just jealous of any organisation that is able to organise a national conference...
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=129528

 

[oisleep]

Oisleep, why do you care?

respect continually tell us that they are the main left of labour party and are the focus for change to the current status, they portray themselves as a credible organisation to do so

any credible organisation should be able to stand up to scrutiny from outside, if respect present themselve as an organisation with democratic structures in place on one hand, and then behave in a manner which totally contradicts that portrayal then i believe that that should be highlighted so that people may judge the organisation not only based on what they say, but what they do

 

[oisleep]

I think some people on here are just jealous of any organisation that is able to organise a national conference...
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=129528

as i'm not an anarchist myself, i don't see the relevance of your post, i seldom ever do though

 

[flimsier]

respect continually tell us that they are the main left of labour party and are the focus for change to the current status, they portray themselves as a credible organisation to do so

any credible organisation should be able to stand up to scrutiny from outside, if respect present themselve as an organisation with democratic structures in place on one hand, and then behave in a manner which totally contradicts that portrayal then i believe that that should be highlighted so that people may judge the organisation not only based on what they say, but what they do

I see.

I don't give a shit how they organise their decision making to be honest, and I probably won't until they're much bigger or I decide to think about rejoining.

 

[flimsier]

as i'm not an anarchist myself, i don't see the relevance of your post, i seldom ever do though

It's also different having one national organisation have a national conference, and several getting together - something the SWP and others have consistently failed to achieve with succesful outcomes amongst the trot left.

 

[R.I.C.O.]

respect continually tell us that they are the main left of labour party and are the focus for change to the current status, they portray themselves as a credible organisation to do so

any credible organisation should be able to stand up to scrutiny from outside, if respect present themselve as an organisation with democratic structures in place on one hand, and then behave in a manner which totally contradicts that portrayal then i believe that that should be highlighted so that people may judge the organisation not only based on what they say, but what they do

Well then get yourself down there then....and kick up a fuss. Ask challenging questions, and put the leadership on the spot. If they've got any political credibility, they'll give you a straight answer.

 

[LLETSA]

Ah, the irony!

Well then get yourself down there then....and kick up a fuss. Ask challenging questions, and put the leadership on the spot. If they've got any political credibility, they'll give you a straight answer.

Challenging questions!

Credibility!

Coming from Richard White/ R.I.C.O.

Any chance of salvaging some of that credibility for yourself?

 

[oisleep]

Well then get yourself down there then....and kick up a fuss. Ask challenging questions, and put the leadership on the spot. If they've got any political credibility, they'll give you a straight answer.

i would have to first be selected from my local branch as a delegate which is highly unlikely, even if that where to happen and i was allowed to attend, and on the even slimmer chance that i was allocated the generous 3 minutes to say something contrary to what the executive have already decided, the countless rebel & udo drones would boo & hiss me down on the orders of bamberry & co (much like the did last year when a resolution was put to allow 20 members to bring a resolution, and then without the slightest hint of hyprocisy then proceede to pass another resolution which provided for exactly the same thing)

 

[sevenstars]

To be honest the new Conference arrangements seem reasonable enough, and perfectly democratic.

You need to be aware that what passes for democracy within the Trotskyite left - like ditching the constition when you feel like it - is not generally considered to be democracy within the broader left. Pluralism and seeing different views being healthy are also important if you really want to build a broad left organisation.

I asked what motions people think will be debated at the conference - if there are no alternative policies raised, expressed and voted on and only lots of speeches which essentially say the same thing, will that be a good thing?

I'd like to see this view get a hearing http://www.socialistresistance.net/Respect newspaper.htm

 

[roger rosewall]

In some areas where Respect has really taken off, there are branches where SWP members are in a minority

In Udo's own town there are hardly any SWP or Respect members. A trend likely to be emulated in other areas I suspect.

 

[gurrier]

Just goes to show. The price of autocracy is having fucking sheep for members.

To be honest the new Conference arrangements seem reasonable enough... I'm not overly obsessed with bureaucratic procedure....

Baaaaaah

 

[sovietpop]

what are you doing up at this hour? leave the attic and go to sleep.

 

[james_walsh]

Firstly,

Is it really practical given limited time of a conference for every group to be able to submit unlimited numbers of resolutions, the idea that each branch can only submit 2 resolutions doesn't seem particularly undemocratic, it seems like quite normal practice in most organisations.

Secondly,

The group who are complaining are a tiny sect who are out of step with the views of 99% of the membership who want to waste time with endless splitting hairs and posturing, who don't actually really support the Respect project and have actively tried to sabotage it - indeed I quite seriously wonder if some of the people involved in the Weekly Wreckerr are on the payroll of the British state

The semi-stalinist CPGB didn't even support Respect during the general elections, calling for people not to vote for Salma Yaqoob and other Respect candidates, and should be expelled from Respect because with less than 30 members they represent nothing and are not interested in actually relating to the outside world or the class and have made no significant contribution to any struggle.

While sort off agreeing with your first point.
I very much dought that the weekly worker is on the pay roll of any state, Unlike a few members of your central commitee! It is well documented, that the state has run many assets though the swp and that includes at high levels within the organisation. Don`t make such slurrs that you can`t back up with any evidence.
`semi-stalinist`they ain`t or atleast no more than any leninist organistion is!Pot calling the kettle black , i think...

Repeat after me (in best darlek voice) secterian,secterian...

now fuck off, if you can`t offer up a proper defence.

 

[roger rosewall]

While sort off agreeing with your first point.
I very much dought that the weekly worker is on the pay roll of any state, Unlike a few members of your central commitee! It is well documented, that the state has run many assets though the swp and that includes at high levels within the organisation. Don`t make such slurrs that you can`t back up with any evidence.QUOTE]

Kindly take your own advice and do not make accusations you cannot back up. Given that you claim that the state has run assets through the SWP perhaps you could name the individuals concerned and provide us with your sources?

Btw why would the state waste time, effort and human resources on the SWP? Surely there is nothing to be gained in infiltrating a group whose weekly organisational bulletin is leaked on a regular basis?

 

[james_walsh]

While sort off agreeing with your first point.
I very much dought that the weekly worker is on the pay roll of any state, Unlike a few members of your central commitee! It is well documented, that the state has run many assets though the swp and that includes at high levels within the organisation. Don`t make such slurrs that you can`t back up with any evidence.QUOTE]

Kindly take your own advice and do not make accusations you cannot back up. Given that you claim that the state has run assets through the SWP perhaps you could name the individuals concerned and provide us with your sources?

Btw why would the state waste time, effort and human resources on the SWP? Surely there is nothing to be gained in infiltrating a group whose weekly organisational bulletin is leaked on a regular basis?

Well i would have thought the SWP`s buddy David Shayler would count as a good enough source!

Or the documentary True Spies .

 

[Paul Marsh]

Roger - The SWP's love in with David Shayler and Annie Machon has been going on for some years now.

Have the SWP asked them ANY searching questions about Mi5 infiltration of the SWP, and continuing MI5 assets in the SWP?

If not, why not?

 

[Pilgrim]

Kindly take your own advice and do not make accusations you cannot back up. Given that you claim that the state has run assets through the SWP perhaps you could name the individuals concerned and provide us with your sources?

Btw why would the state waste time, effort and human resources on the SWP? Surely there is nothing to be gained in infiltrating a group whose weekly organisational bulletin is leaked on a regular basis?

In all fairness, Shayler himself admitted that MI5 had run about 25 agents within the SWP.

And if memory serves, rank amateurs Diane Stoker and Joe Finnon managed to successfully infiltrate RESPECT, and did so well that they had to out themselves before the SWP knew they were there. If two rank amateurs can achieve that sort of penetration, then I doubt very much that the professionals of MI5 would have had too much trouble.

As far as touts being on the SWP Central Committee goes, why would the State go to the trouble of infiltrating 25 agents at grassroots level? The intelligence gained at low level, ordinary member gossip, wouldn't justify the effort made.

If, on the other hand, the infiltrators were on the SWP Central Committee, then they would have instant access to just about everything they wanted. The SWP is such a rigid and top down hierarchy that the CC decides everything. An informer on the SWP CC would be able to find out pretty much whatever they wanted to know, and would probably have passed it on to their paymasters before even the rank and file membership knew about the CC's latest plans.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

In all fairness, Shayler himself admitted that MI5 had run about 25 agents within the SWP.

And if memory serves, rank amateurs Diane Stoker and Joe Finnon managed to successfully infiltrate RESPECT, and did so well that they had to out themselves before the SWP knew they were there. If two rank amateurs can achieve that sort of penetration, then I doubt very much that the professionals of MI5 would have had too much trouble.

As far as touts being on the SWP Central Committee goes, why would the State go to the trouble of infiltrating 25 agents at grassroots level? The intelligence gained at low level, ordinary member gossip, wouldn't justify the effort made.

If, on the other hand, the infiltrators were on the SWP Central Committee, then they would have instant access to just about everything they wanted. The SWP is such a rigid and top down hierarchy that the CC decides everything. An informer on the SWP CC would be able to find out pretty much whatever they wanted to know, and would probably have passed it on to their paymasters before even the rank and file membership knew about the CC's latest plans.

Isn't inflitration possible in most of the political groupings?

 

[Pilgrim]

Isn't inflitration possible in most of the political groupings?

To be fair to the SWP, yes it is.

I'd be very surprised if Anarchist groups weren't infiltrated, as they seem to garner a fair amount of hostile attention from the State as it is.

My point is that the structure of the SWP, which is highly centralised and highly authoritarian, not to mention the fact that seemingly all decisions are made by one group (the CC) makes infiltration much easier, much more likely and much more damaging.

In Trident Ploughshares (I'm using the example I know best) the structure is as decentralised as possible, with the maximum amount of autonomy given to the local affinity groups dotted around the country. In order to have a full overview of all our activities, there would need to be an infiltrator in every affinity group. And even that wouldn't guarantee advance warnings of any pending action, as actions are dealt with on a 'need to know' basis. If you aren't directly involved in an action, you don't need to know. Simple. When I was police liaison for the Plymouth group, I never knew about actions in advance, because I didn't need or want to know.

The TP system isn't perfect, by any means. No system is. But it offers a lot more security than having everything dependent upon one small body of people. If you have an infiltrator at the top of a rigidly hierarchical organisation like the SWP, the results can be embarassing at best and downright disastrous at worst.

 

[Random]

If you have an infiltrator at the top of a rigidly hierarchical organisation like the SWP, the results can be embarassing at best and downright disastrous at worst.

Well indeed, the BNP now presumably have a list of everyone who attended Marxism 2004. A similar list of everyone at, say the Festival of Dissent!, the G8 eco-village, or the Anarchist Bookfair, would be impossible for a simple pair of infiltrators to gain, no matter how ell in with the organising group they were.

 

[Pilgrim]

There is also the question of the recruitment methods used by the SWP.

They seem to have a policy of signing up anyone and everyone. As long you are breathing and capable of free movement, you too can end up a party member, with papers to sell and so on. This is practically offering an open door to potential infiltrators.

And if you follow the SWP CC party line with enough blind, unquestioning enthusiasm and gusto, you can be elevated to a senior position in a matter of months, as the case of Stoker and Finnon amply demonstrates.

Certainly it isn't secure, and it isn't simply a case of it being an SWP internal matter when they purport to be in alliance with other groups and individuals. Within TP, members are recruited by word of mouth, they are known to thier recruiters and have a reasonably checkable track record in terms of who people know and what they have been involved in. Again, it isn't perfect, but no system is and I know better than to claim otherwise.

Unlike the SWP CC it seems.

 

[roger rosewall]

In all fairness, Shayler himself admitted that MI5 had run about 25 agents within the SWP.

And if memory serves, rank amateurs Diane Stoker and Joe Finnon managed to successfully infiltrate RESPECT, and did so well that they had to out themselves before the SWP knew they were there. If two rank amateurs can achieve that sort of penetration, then I doubt very much that the professionals of MI5 would have had too much trouble.

As far as touts being on the SWP Central Committee goes, why would the State go to the trouble of infiltrating 25 agents at grassroots level? The intelligence gained at low level, ordinary member gossip, wouldn't justify the effort made.

If, on the other hand, the infiltrators were on the SWP Central Committee, then they would have instant access to just about everything they wanted. The SWP is such a rigid and top down hierarchy that the CC decides everything. An informer on the SWP CC would be able to find out pretty much whatever they wanted to know, and would probably have passed it on to their paymasters before even the rank and file membership knew about the CC's latest plans.

None of the above makes much sense. For a start Shayler is not a reliable source. He might be if he gave names and details but he does not. I conclude either he doesn't have such information, he is still working for the state or he is eking out what little hard ation he had in order to continue making money from gullible conspiracy theorists.

As for the idea that the state could decide to run 25 agents at the branch level or 1 agent on the CC this is fantasy. In order to get one person on the CC you need to allow for a number of agents trying to obtain that position in the first place. So which ever way you look at the question it is one of multiple agents.

Wy bother with someone on the CC anyhow? Given the structure and culture of the leading circles of the SWP all one would need to do is infiltrate someone into those circles. Not that theres any point in my opinion.

There almost certainly were agents in IS in the early seventies, my near namesake is much fancied in the role for example, and it is possible that a presence was maintained up to and after the Miners Strike. But for what reason could anyone imagine infiltrating the SWP today? An impotent dying sect dedicated to touting for a third rate demagogue and communalist creeps.

 

[james_walsh]

But for what reason could anyone imagine infiltrating the SWP today? An impotent dying sect dedicated to touting for a third rate demagogue and communalist creeps.

I think you may have, answered your own question!

 

[Larry O'Hara]

Please provide evidence that some Weekly Worker people are on the payroll of the British state. If you cant I suggest you withdraw your allegation.

BarryB

Barry, as an avid Notes From the Borderland reader, you will know that in issue 4 (p.51) we quoted Phoenix magazine (Dublin) issue for 22/6/01, which claimed that Bettaney decided not to spill the beans on anti-IRA operations of MI5, in order to receive a gratuity in lieu of his pension. In the over four years that have passed, neither the CPGB/Weekly Worker or Bettaney himself (even using a pseudonym) have even referred to, much less denied, this allegation. Until they do, it has to be fair comment to say that at the very least the political jury is out concerning the CPGB/WW, who have dishonestly continued to print articles by Bettaney affecting 'inside knowledge' of the spook world without telling readers how he came by such knowledge, and that the contours of his disclosure may still be confined by the Official Secrets Act.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

for what reason could anyone imagine infiltrating the SWP today? An impotent dying sect dedicated to touting for a third rate demagogue and communalist creeps.

It is the desire to 'get close' to the Muslim Community, via Respect, that could provide an important possible motive, even before the recent bombings.

In a vaguely analogous way, it could be argued the British state tried to use some fascists to penetrate UDA circles historically for example.

 

[TeeJay]

But for what reason could anyone imagine infiltrating the SWP today? An impotent dying sect dedicated to touting for a third rate demagogue and communalist creeps.

To guide it - via RUC - towards hoovering up disaffected Muslim youth and make contacts with radical Islamists? To use it to hijack and/or sabotage almost any other radical campaign or organisation in the UK? Very good (theoretical - of course ) reasons for having assets running it (not merely reporting back) surely?

 

[Larry O'Hara]

To guide it - via RUC - towards hoovering up disaffected Muslim youth and make contacts with radical Islamists? To use it to hijack and/or sabotage almost any other radical campaign or organisation in the UK? Very good (theoretical - of course ) reasons for having assets running it (not merely reporting back) surely?

1) I agree with the first point.

2) the second, re hijack/sabotage is slightly unfair, inasmuch as
--the Last Century Left doesn't need state direction to engage in their habitual parachute politics
--many (most) in the SWP probably have sincere motives, and inasmuch as traditional Left strategy had run into a dead end, then to an extent RUC is an attempt to move beyond that, even if flawed.

To argue against myself to an extent here, the highly suspicious circumstances whereby independent Leftists like Liz Davies were compelled to resign from the Socialist Alliance (the forged cheque signature affair) could on one reading be seen as necessary preparation (by sabotage) of the SWP for the RUC turn.

3) I do agree with the last point that the role of assets in organisations is (contra Peter Taylor/Shayler et al) very rarely merely that of 'reporting back', rather that of seeking to 'influence'. There is the chilling possibility that at one time various sections of the Brit secret state were running both the UDA targeting dept (via Brian Nelson) & the IRA counter-intelligence depts (via StakeKnife), with obvious areas of overlap. And while I do not see the former Combat 18 as having been 'created' by the British secret state, they certainly sought to influence it, via Darren Wells/Mackenzie for example.

 

[TeeJay]

2) the second, re hijack/sabotage is slightly unfair, inasmuch as
--the Last Century Left doesn't need state direction to engage in their habitual parachute politics
--many (most) in the SWP probably have sincere motives, and inasmuch as traditional Left strategy had run into a dead end, then to an extent RUC is an attempt to move beyond that, even if flawed.

What about things like Globalise Resistance, STWC, ANL, ID card stuff, CND & ESF etc? Surely getting the SWP to jump on every single bandwagon allows it to either infiltrate and even steer the direction that things are going. I would have thought that trying to turn everything into the same predictable placard-waving march followed by endless boring speeches is the preferred way of sucking the energy out of widespread protests and minimising any spontaneous, grassroots, uncontrollable, unpredictable or more direct-action stuff.

 

[Pilgrim]

What about things like Globalise Resistance, STWC, ANL, ID card stuff, CND & ESF etc? Surely getting the SWP to jump on every single bandwagon allows it to either infiltrate and even steer the direction that things are going. I would have thought that trying to turn everything into the same predictable placard-waving march followed by endless boring speeches is the preferred way of sucking the energy out of widespread protests and minimising any spontaneous, grassroots, uncontrollable, unpredictable or more direct-action stuff.

Good point, Teejay.

I must confess that I'm inclined to agree with this theory.

 

[articul8]

I'd like to see this view get a hearing http://www.socialistresistance.net/Respect newspaper.htm

Interesting article, that. Of course, ALan Thornett's initial claim that "Rarely has there been a better opportunity to build a left alternative in England" is complete nonsense (not the CP then? )

But seeing as the ISG are generally pliant lapdogs of the SWP CC, it is refreshing to observe some honesty for a change:

Respect has failed to win any new sections of the existing left and the trade unions to its banner

they see Respect as a rather narrow coalition – which is what it is

The elected bodies of Respect have not functioned effectively since the conference last October – particularly the officers committee. In fact they have played no more than a token role in the running and direction of Respect, and Respect has yet to develop a democratic structure which works effectively on a day-to-day basis

a framework of minimalist and localist politics

Well, yes, Alan. Which is why you pipe-dream of Respect becoming a "mass-membership" party remains exactly that.