Red Pepper on the Respect / SWP rupture.

The SWP will carry on in the original organisation. But without the strongholds of Tower Hamlets and Birmingham and national figures like Galloway and Yaqoob, not to mention a distinct lack of coalition partners, it is difficult to see it going far. Meanwhile, the other side hopes to attract sections of the left that were initially put off by the SWP – trade unions, greens, communists – to their pluralist vision. But the fact remains that with the SWP gone they will have lost at least half the membership and a good number of key activists.

Plus, the well has been poisoned. It’s difficult to see how the two groups could work together in coalitions like Stop The War, and the British antiwar movement may suffer because of it. My guess: Respect Renewal, the pluralist group, will gain strength and members over time as they appeal to a wide range of people. SWP, meanwhile, will become smaller and perhaps have a bracing good time in the future arguing about maddeningly trivial points of Marxist theology to a full meeting of seven members (four of whom will soon fracture off and form their own group.)

Ultimately there were two visions at the heart of Respect. The SWP saw it as a ‘united front of a special kind’, a catchy term for an electoral alliance that came second to the party’s interests, while the others regarded it as something more permanent and the primary focus of their activity.

That will always be a problem when a Marxist vanguard party works within a coalition. The goals of the party will sometimes conflict with and come before the interests of the coalition at large.

But on one point they are agreed – there is still a yawning gap to the left of Labour. With the split in Respect, the British left has once again shown a particular skill in failing to fill it.

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It’s time for the fractured Left to join together in a new coalition, says Socialist Unity, following the conferences over the past weekend in Britain by Respect and Respect Renewal. They call for an organization simply called ‘The Left,” a fresh start, free from the current heavy baggage. That way there won’t be infighting and trench warfare that would deflect from the real aims of stopping the war and opposing imperialism.

Sounds good, I hope it happens.

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Derek Wall of the Green Party of England and Wales spoke at both conferences, Respect and Respect Renewal.

I don’t think either RESPECT is going to fly, although I would like to see Greens work with socialists, the socialists outside the Green Party are painfully divided.

I think I was invited to talk about ecosocialism and I did, at least both greens and socialists are thinking more about ecosocialism, so we are winning on this!

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Excellent overview of the choices now facing the Respect Party, sans any SWP influence. Choices: Form a real Left party or get subsumed by monied interests and lose relevance.

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Respect, the primary Left party in Britain has fractured. Socialist Workers Party organized a coup and jacked the party apparatus. So, the non-SWP members of Respect, including Member of Parliament George Galloway, will be holding a Respect Renewal conference on Nov 17 to form a new party. SWP will also have a conference, no doubt to determine how to repair their now-damaged reputation and what to do with the husk of a party apparatus they now control.

My sympathies are with Respect Renewal. But former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, who will speak at the Respect conference, absolutely nails it.

Shambles on the Left

The far left in this country seems wonderfully self-destructive. Watching the Scottish Socialist Party, which had actually been electorally successful, tear itself apart over accusations that Tommy Sheridan had indulged in some of my hobbies, was morbidly fascinating. Why Respect think they have enough mass to split is beyond me. It’s the People’s Front of Judea all over again.

Peculiarly, the tensions between socialist politics and some of the more conservative views of Islam, which made Respect a strange alliance, do not seem to be what split it. I don’t really know what did cause the trouble. Power struggles between individuals are all I can discern.

It’s almost comical. Those who fancy themselves hardcore Marxist revolutionaries can’t even hold together and unite a party of a few thousand members yet they make bold claims about wanting to smash capitalism.

The reason I care is that this all impacts on the Stop the War movement. I have moaned before that it is very unfortunate that a movement whose aims are supported by a majority of the British population, is organisationally dominated by those from a tiny minority perspective. The reason is, of course, that they are prepared to put in the work and know how to do the organising - the process is not sinister, but the failure of the Stop the War Coalition to turn mass support into a mass movement may yet prove to be a historical disaster.

A major problem here is conflicting interests. Does the Marxist vanguard party (SWP) want to stop the war by building a broad coalition or does it use the mass organization (STW) to recruit and gain influence? If the latter, then they will drive out groups with differing views and only allow into leadership those who follow their party line - and that is not a mass movement at all. Nor will it end the war.

STW itself seems to be splintering over Iran. There is apparently a division over whether it is legitimate to criticise the Iranian government, while opposing any attack on Iran… The tendency to whitewash anyone who opposes Bush - be it Ahmadinejad, Putin, Chavez or whoever - is one of the specimes of flabby thinking which prevents the anti-war case from being put with the force it deserves.

This is the same problem. Ideological purity. We must support anyone who stands against the imperialists. But solidarity shouldn’t be unquestioning, and I doubt Marxist theory, which is where the idea came from, meant it that way. More to the point, being so lunkheaded can drive away those you want to attract. Assuming you want them, and aren’t just trying to be Lefter-Than-Thou, that is.

But we must not give up on the anti-war movement - as time ticks on with the Republicans still on the back foot approaching the Presidential election, an attack on Iran becomes every day more likely. American electoral politics, not Iran’s nuclear power programme or international relations, will be the key factor.

What we need is a truly broad-based and inclusive coalition for those opposed to the wars. And we need it now.

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The rupture seems complete. SWP, the Marxist vanguard party that burrowed itself into Respect, has apparently succeeded in mangling, maybe even destroying it, as well as hurting themselves too. And here I thought solidarity was a bedrock principle of Marxism, silly me.

Whether the rupture was precipitated by Trotskyite design or simple blundering is unclear. Are their other causes for this? Sure. But SWP has played a central role.

Respect was co-founded in Britain by George Galloway, now a member of parliament. It is (was?) the major Left party in the country. But the sectarianism of SWP, convinced of their own inerrancy, managed to alienate and disrupt to point that Galloway himself has now left Respect. No doubt SWP saw Respect as a big juicy mass organization to recruit out of and control except for all those pesky non-SWP members who didn’t see things their way.

I guess SWP forgot the vanguard party led by Lenin allowed and encouraged dissent including opposing views and newspapers and didn’t force the wearing of ideological blinders. In a lot of ways, zealot Marxists are quite like zealot Christians except they bludgeon you with their beliefs by quoting from Marx and Lenin rather than the Bible. Dave Barry once said, “ever notice how people who want to tell you about their religion never want to hear about yours?” Indeed. But if you want to build a mass anti-war, anti-imperialist coalition then by definition it will include groups with differing views. How could it be otherwise?

Whether this turns into yet another Left circular firing squad or somehow everyone can just go their separate ways remains to be seen. Sigh.

Update:

From the Respect supporters blog

Just got back from a meeting with George Galloway and friends. Lots of very exciting news which will be posted on this site and the Respect (Renewal) Web site over the next few days.One thing I can promise you is that ‘Respect lives on’

See the comments for more.

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There’s an interesting discussion on Marxmail on the Respect / SWP donnybrook, discussing how the party-building doctrine of a Marxist vanguard sometimes means they use mass organizations as recruiting and propaganda tools rather than as a way to work with other factions in a coalition and focus on the issues at hand.

Lest this seems esoteric, Respect is the British party founded by Member of Parliament George Galloway, while SWP is a vanguard party within it. But maybe not for long.

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The Socialist Workers Party (UK) has purged three high visibility members in a fight ostensibly about whether they should be allowed to hold posts within Respect, the left wing party co-founded by member of parliament George Galloway.

But the fight seems more about the Central Committee of SWP wanting to maintain control than anything else. From the outside, it looks like one of “let’s shoot ourselves in the foot” tragicomedies the Left sometimes inflicts upon itself. From the inside, it may well look different. But bruised feelings, ruptured friendships, and smashed alliances will certainly follow, and the damage will take years to heal, if it does at all.

All a friend can say is, ain’t it a shame. (And yeah, I have been there…)

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