Groucho said:
Salma has been one of Respect's greatest assets and remains so. There have been disagreements with Salma over selection of candidates. Helen Salmon would make a great councillor and it is a shame that she wasn't selected.
This is an absolutely ludicrous basis for an argument, typical of the SWP's current inability to distinguish between its own interests and the wider interests of Respect.
SWP member Helen Salmon stood for selection for Moseley and Kings Heath ward. In the 2006 local elections, Respect won 8% here!
There was
never any chance of any selected candidate winning the seat and becoming a councillor.
A group of muslim members of Respect "packed" into the meeting (the wording in Socialist Worker is of course deliberately ambiguous
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=10591 with more than a hint of unfair practices) and voted for a local muslim male candidate, Yasir Idris.
That is their right! The candidate was keen to stand even though he knew he couldn't win. In the event he increased the vote from 586 to 947, still a long way behind Lib Dems on 2,728 and Labour on 2,143.
In an interview in Weekly W*nker, the Respect candidate gave a naive but apparently honest interview that indicated his strong desire to stand only in that ward, because he was brought up there and knew it well. He said he was encouraged by Salma Yaqoob, who wanted him to get involved in Respect. He also indicate a low level of knowledge of politics but a desire to learn more.
Now, let's take a deep breath, and suggest that in terms of increasing the Respect vote from poor to reasonable in
that ward, he was the best candidate?
In the interview he also made the eminently sensible suggestion that maybe Helen Salmon should try her hand at Hall Green, a neighbouring and very similar seat demographically speaking to Moseley and Kings Heath.
The reason that this was eminently sensible was not pointed out in the interview, but I've made it clear in posts here, is that Hall Green was uncontested by Respect (and never has been). Yet it is one quarter of the new Birmingham Hall Green parliamentary seat, alongside Moseley and Kings Heath, Sparkbrook and Springfield. This seat represents Respect's best chance of getting Salma Yaqoob into parliament because it includes Sparkbrook, Yaqoob's ward, and Springfield, and where Respect polls very well. In fact Respect won a combined Sparkbrook/Springfield poll in May 2007. But Yaqoob's chance of winning the seat is going to be dependent on Respect polling respectable numbers of votes in both Moseley and King's Heath
and Hall Green Wards.
Helen Salmon is a student (or recent ex-student); in defending her SW made no claim of local connections with King's Heath (she may have been brought up or live there for all I know, but SW did not see that as important - her position on the NUS executive was more important).
Why could the SWP not have bit their tongues after losing the selection in Moseley and Kings Heath, seen the case for standing Helen Salmon in Hall Green and then done their bit to help win the parliamentary seat for Salma Yaqoob??
The answer, I suspect, is in two parts:
1) A Respect candidate in Hall Green would have got the lowest Respect vote in Birmingham, maybe even 5% or less, the SWP's vanity prevents them from being associated with that score which they see as representing "the past" ie the Socialist Alliance.
2) The SWP fail to see the wider picture, 5% in Hall Green ward could make all the difference between Yaqoob winning or losing the parliamentary seat. They could not put their internal differences to one side and do something for the wider good of Respect.
But now the sh*t has hit the fan - Galloway has accused the SWP of trying to sideline Yaqoob; and it appears to have more than a glimmer of truth, caused by the SWP's fit of pique at not having their annointed one selected for an unwinnable seat of their choosing.
Happy to be corrected on any of these points, Groucho?
Once a Stalinist...
... oh no, that would be pidgeons wouldn't it
