Selling Solidarity outside the annual conference, this weekend, of the George Galloway/ SWP coalition "Respect", I thought the crowd looked thinner, older, and more dispirited than at the "Respect" conference last year.
"Respect" insiders confirm this, saying that the conference is smaller despite last-minute efforts by the SWP to drum up people to attend as observers and fill the hall.
Meanwhile, the Socialist Party's annual weekend event (last weekend, 12-13 November) was bigger than previous years. About 500 there, and a lot of them young, according to AWLers who attended.
I attended one of these SP annual events a few years back - in 2001, maybe - and then the main session had just 90 people in the hall at its start (though it filled up a bit more as it went on).
Since then the SP has increased its numbers steadily, and this year perhaps a bit more than steadily.
Why? My guess would be that it's as simple as this: with the SWP's self-conversion into a fan club for George Galloway and Moqtada al-Sadr, the SP is now the most visible organisation in England and Wales promoting basic socialist ideas. If socialists plug away at the basics - paper sales, an organised presence on demonstrations, and so on - then they can recruit. And the more visible you are, the more you recruit.
Martin Thomas
there is plenty of stuff about the conference
in the new "weekly worker"