'Respect' and George Galloway

Barred from Student Respect conference

07 Dec 2007 |

Sacha Ismail

Galloway and his fanclub having departed, I recently joined Respect, in order to see what was going on and make the arguments to as many people as possible for a turn towards independent working-class politics. I haven't had time to go to a branch meeting yet; my first foray was an attempt to attend the Student Respect conference on 2 December. Since £26 had disappeared from my debit card (no concessionary rate!) I assumed that I was now a member of Respect. To be sure, however, I emailed Student Respect in order to explain why I joined and ask about attending the conference (on 2 December)...

A toxic mix

22 Nov 2007 |

Sacha Ismail

About an hour and a half into the "Respect Renewal" conference held by George Galloway and his allies on 17 September (at which point I left), there were about 200 people present. So the widely cited figure of 250 is probably about right. “The hall was packed out with a genuinely diverse crowd - young and old, men and women, black and white, Asian, Muslim, Christian and those of no faith, plus trade unionists and socialists from different traditions,” enthused the next day's Morning Star. There were certainly a variety of people there. However, my impression of the mix was rather different. In...

SWP-Respect:Turn to the left!

22 Nov 2007

The SWP-Respect conference at Westminster University on 17 November was essentially an SWP event — extra observers were turned away “for lack of space”. One observer from the CPGB who did get in told us that around 400 people attended and practically no direct discussion actually about the split in Respect took place! The leadership essentially put on a show of business as usual, with bland motions amounting to a rally. The following text is from the leaflet we distributed to the conference. The SWP and those close to it have now broken with George Galloway. The recent SWP national meeting...

Debate: support SWP side in the Respect split?

22 Nov 2007

As against George Galloway and his close friends, our sympathies in the split now taking place in Respect cannot but be with the SWP. We protested when the SWP trashed its alliance with other socialists, in 2003, rallying its members behind the demagogue Galloway... We can't be other than glad that the SWP is now breaking that alliance, so discreditable for the whole socialist left. To do the job properly the SWP CC would have to tell the truth about Galloway... But to do that the SWP CC would have to condemn itself. Instead it has conducted the struggle against Galloway by appeals to SWP...

Mr Galloway: Mixing business and politics

21 Nov 2007 |

David Broder

Gorgeous George by David Morley Given his colossal ego, z-list celebrity status and continuing admiration of Stalinist politics, it is hard to imagine a better candidate for biography than George Galloway. However, those who deduce from David Morley’s chosen title, “Gorgeous George”, that the book is irreverent or cutting will be greatly disappointed. Much of the biography is a narrative of Gorgeous George’s alleged financial improprieties. It reports the legal wranglings but draws no conclusions. It does not ask why a supposed “workers’ representative” would refuse to draw only a workers’...

Respect in Tower Hamlets

21 Nov 2007 |

John Bloxam

The first act of the four SWP-allied councillors who have split away from the main Respect opposition group in Tower Hamlets was not to launch a high-profile campaign aimed on any of the many issues which affecting workers in the borough — for instance the threatened transfer of council housing to an ALMO. After the SWP’s noises about breaking from the “ineffectiveness” and “communalism” of Respect in Tower Hamlets, surely this would have been an appropriate course. Instead it has been widely reported that the new group of Respect (Independent) councillors — Ahmed Hussain, Lutfa Begun, Oli...

Loosing Respect

20 Nov 2007 | Blog post

This is my contribution as to why we shouldnt consider joining Respect (in the form of a motion, its not in the royal 'we')

Respect was founded as a political grouping out of the Stop the War
movement. It was from the very beginning a cross-class alliance based on
anti-war and anti-racist...

A tale of two... "Respect" conferences

19 Nov 2007 |

Robin Sivapalan

17 November was a faintly farcical day for the labour and socialist movement in the UK. There were four different events of sections of the left that each seek to hegemonise, if not unify, the rest of the left. I went to the Labour Representation Committee annual conference as a member, and to the Respect, Respect Renewal and Socialism 2007 conferences to sell Solidarity and to distribute leaflets. There is already a good report by Chris Ford on the LRC conference here . At the “Respect” conference at Westminster University, two AWL members handed out copies of our leaflet , ‘Turn to the Left’...

Socialists in "Respect-Renewal": why are you with Galloway?

19 Nov 2007

Leaflet for Respect-Renewal conference, 17 November 2007 . "The SWP are bureaucratic, mendacious, and politically untrustworthy. But they are socialists. You don't like the SWP? There are other socialist groups and coalitions. But to split away from all the socialist groups - in order to rally to Galloway?" To read the rest, download the attachment (below).

What now for the left?

19 Nov 2007

Former Socialist Alliance activists give their views: Pete McLaren was the secretary of the Socialist Alliance before the heavy involvement of the SWP in 2001-3, and is now secretary of the continuing Socialist Alliance group: Respect was never going to succeed. In the original Socialist Alliance, back in 2002-3, when it was first mooted that the SWP was in discussion with people from the mosques, George Galloway and so on, we said that it was such an unlikely alliance that it would never succeed - too many divergent interests. Personally I agree with getting as broad an alliance as possible...