Following the successful Euro election and Hodge Hill by-election campaigns in 2004, in December an all-Birmingham meeting unanimously agreed to adopt two candidates for the General election - Salma Yaqoob for Small Heath and Dr. Naseem, of the Central Mosque, for Perry Barr.
A 15-member committee was also elected to run the local affairs. of Respect. And a successful meeting on Palestine has since been held.
Minds will be focussed on ensuring a good vote in the elections, where a victory cannot be ruled out. And it is certain that the campaigns will draw a large number of supporters into a vibrant campaign.
This is important, as it will be the only serious left challenge to New Labour from the left in this area. (It is possible that Moazzam Baig will be stood as a "Peace and Progress" party candidate in Hodge Hill.
However, problems remain. The meeting that adopted the two candidates ended in extreme acrimony.
The controversial issues concerned members not being informed of meetings; the decision of the interim committee about when to hold the selection meeting had been overruled and changed by persons unspecified; and a request for minutes of the committee to be available.
These issues, raised mainly by Socialist Resistance SR) supporters, were met with intolerance and abuse, we were caricatured as doing it for sectarian reasons.
The bad atmosphere carried on to the first meeting of the new committee, where the one SR supporter had to sit through two lectures about our naughty behaviour.
One SWP member said that if this carried on we will do to
Respect what we did to the Birmingham Stop the War campaign. (This was shut down for 10 months in the period leading up to the war and led to a split in the local anti-war movement). The December committee meeting was poorly attended and the January meeting was cancelled only 24 hours in advance and the re-scheduled meeting was announced with less than 24 hours notice, with the effect that the one SR member could not attend. For anyone coming to Respect from the Labour Party, after suffering at the hands of the right wing, this will not go down at all well. Neither would it be a good political education for inexperienced people. Women with children would effectively be excluded. It has to be challenged. Respect is not only diverse in terms of its social composition (which is very good) it Respect has a is also diverse politically. That should also lot of potential, be a good thing, but it but it has to seems to be a big
problem.
have a There will always democratic, be minorities, and
these have rights to be
vibrant,
properly represented internal life if on leading bodies of it is to attract Respect. In the case
of Birmingham, the people and minority is essentially retain them composed of SR supporters, who worked hard for Respect during the election campaigns. The political differences that we have expressed have been on self-organisation within Respect and on abortion, for example When voting, we have usually made up about one fifth of the votes. Yet at the meeting where the committee was elected we were grudgingly given one place out of fifteen. Respect has a lot of potential, but it has to have a democratic, vibrant, internal life if it is to attract people and retain them. There is some way to go on this in Birmingham.
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first year remarkable genuinely worried about us