Workers' Liberty

Alex Callinicos claims in today's Socialist Worker that, despite the fact that all 15 Respect councillors elected in London on May 4th were from the so-called "Muslim community" - indeed, always beating the non-Muslim SWP candidates for the party - Respect is not communalist.

Click to read article

This is largely justified on the basis that Respect is responding to an anger against New Labour which is particularly common among "Muslim Asians", more so indeed than among the general population.

Furthermore, we are told that "The Bengali families of Tower Hamlets tend to be large and extended, binding together significant numbers of people clustered close by in the same neighbourhood. White working class families, who lived this way a generation ago, have been scattered across wide areas of east London and Essex thanks to the decline of local industry and public housing." - surprisingly, this is apparently intended as an explanation for why there would be a bias in favour of "Asian" candidates in Newham and Tower Hamlets. Given that the party is allegedly socialist - and therefore of a working class and cross-community ethos - surely its working-class Muslim supporters should want to vote for non-Muslim candidates just as readily as their own "community leaders"?

Callinicos' defense of Respect neatly sidesteps any of the points which are levelled against Respect by its critics - he does not attempt at all to deal with the 'communalist' charge, nor does he address the criticism that the party programme has capitulated to Islamic dogma. For example, he doesn't mention the debates over cultural relativism, secular education, women's rights, gay rights or the way in which self-appointed "community leaders", many of them former Lib Dem and Labour councillors, have become the Respect vanguard - although he does attack Labour for relying on such "client politics"...

However, Callinicos appears a little despondent in his article - it is clear that he really can see that the party has no base outside of Muslim communities - "uneveness [between Muslim and secular candidates' results]" is a "limitation we will have to overcome". This is no real cause for optimism - a re-orientation of the party towards secular, working-class politics seems impossible.