Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

An important first step on the road to a new party

Socialist Resistance no17  |  page 3

This is scanned newsprint, not web text. The original PDFs carried no text layer at all, so every word here was read off the page by OCR. Expect dropped opening letters, run-together words and wrong characters. There was no contents page to cut the paper up by, so the articles were found from the size of their headlines: a headline may carry its kicker, and where an article ran beside a boxed panel a few lines of the neighbour can appear. The scanned issue is the authority; this text is here so the words can be found at all.

In this issue of Socialist Resistance we

look at the recent election results and

• what they mean. There is no doubt that before the elections too many unwarranted claims of certain victory were made. We have always said that creating a new party is the work of years, not weeks.

We also believe that a method which convinces supporters that they are sure to win and makes no attempt to explain the real meaning of the figures is unpolitical and demoralising.

So in this issue you will find reports from the South East where the results were disappointing and from Scotland where the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) didn't make the progress it had hoped for. We also examine in detail what the UKIP result means.

Just as importantly we look at the results in areas where Respect advanced from being merely an idea to beating Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Conservatives.

In some parts of Britain today Respect is on the threshold of being a significant force in local politics. These areas are some of the poorest in the country.

Their voters are working class, ethnic minorities and the oppressed. This is a real ... Disaffiliation achievement for those socialists who are working in Respect.

They are starting to build a working class, anti-imperialist party in areas that Labour has long considered to be its god-given property.

We discuss in detail what we feel needs to start happening to help Respect grow into a real party.

Contacts need to be followed up, local groups need to start having political discussions about what they will do in their areas.

Respect supporters have had lots of oppor tunities to distribute leaflets and do stalls. We need to hold on to them by giving them the politics to support their activity. That's why we are strongly in favour of a national conference in the early autumn to provide a national focus for this work.

There is a strong likelihood of a general election next year. Now we know where Respect is strong and can put up candidates who will fight to win.

These election results were an important first step on the road to giving the British working class a new party. The next step is to start putting down real roots in our areas and developing a full programme of policies for Respect as a new party. RESPECT is due ... to Oliur Rahman (left, with George Galloway), who topped the EU election poll in Tower Hamlets