Workers' Liberty

The SWP's Respect coalition has taken an even deeper lurch into cross-class popular frontism with its participation in the "United Communities Protest March" against the Forest Gate shootings.

Their website reads

"Newham’s Muslim and non-Muslim communities, are united in our anger and frustration at the anti-terrorism raid in Lansdown Rd, Forest Gate...

Supported by: Newham Muslim Alliance, Newham Public Affairs Committee, Newham Monitoring Project, Islamic Forum Europe (Newham), Islamic Society of Britain (Newham), Newham Respect, Newham Conservatives, The 1990 Trust, Cage Prisoners, Hizb ut Tahrir (Newham), Islamic Human Rights Commission, Muslim Association of Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Stop Political Terror, YMO UK, Muslim Public Affairs Committee"

The alliance with cross-class organizations which claim to represent Muslims is hardly surprising given the SWP's past record. Many of these groups are well to the right of most Muslims - for example, Hizb-ut-Tahrir want a world-wide caliphate. The society which this group wants is far more reactionary than what we have now - it would destroy every democratic right which workers have won in struggle.

But it is particularly shocking that they are working together with Newham Conservatives. To think of the Tory Party as allies in a civil liberties campaign is proposterous - the Tories didn't show so much concern for civil liberties when they were smashing the miners' strike. For the SWP to demonstrate alongside the party of the high bourgeoisie is disgraceful - it shows just how far their "Marxist" analysis and working-class politics have withered away.

However much the local Tories might want to demonstrate their opposition to anti-Muslim racism, they are in no struggle allies of ours - racism is rooted in a class divide, and the Tories clearly stand on the wrong side. They opportunistically attack Labour over the Forest Gate shooting, but in reality propagate an even more overt nationalism - this stance is akin to Michael Ancram speaking out against the occupation of Iraq. Marxists work in every campaign and in every struggle to expose that the basis of oppression is in class society - working in a "broad coalition" with Tories and other reactionaries, this is impossible. Working together with Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the Tories, Respect serve as leftist apologists for reactionary groups who want to appear "compassionate".

It almost reminds us of the SWP's joy over Labour's "humiliation" in the May 4th local elections, despite the fact that this defeat was inflicted by the Tories, not by the Left. The way to attack New Labour is not to form a front against it which includes the Right!