(Respect National Council, writing in a personal capacity) The most recent estimates suggest that Respect has something around 4,000 members across England and Wales: every big rally or conference fringe meeting at which George Galloway or other leading figures from
CULICS speak recruits more members.
On one level this indicates the potential size of the only credible organisation to offer a left wing political alternative to Bomber Blair's privatising New Labour: but the apparent size of the membership masks two serious problems.
The first is that we have so far only scratched the surface of potential support.
At this stage in the crisis of Blairism, with New Labour visibly wilting, and tens of thousands of angry members having left in fury over the war and the relentless agenda of privatisation and Blair's reactionary and xenophobic social policy, the potential membership for Respect has to be much higher than 4,000.
National Secretary John Rees has correctly set the organisation's sights developing a mass membership base: yet there does not seem to be any clear vision on how the next 10,000 or 20,000 members will be recruited.
The present methods have got us to this point: what new methods can take us onwards and upwards?
There is no doubting Rees's energy and commitment. But while his efforts and those of other top names in Respect who have been trekking around the country recruiting more individuals through rallies can nudge the membership figures upwards, the danger is that an equal or even larger number of individuals - who have joined over the last 18 months, but never been really integrated into Respect as an organisation - could begin to drift back out again, leaving the organisation no bigger or stronger.
The real issue to be confronted is how Respect can begin to organise and work with the members who have already joined, to construct viable local branches in every major city, which can then open up and sustain ongoing recruitment.
The second major concern is that while there is a continuing trickle of local level defections to Respect among Labour councillors and former councillors, it has not made the substantial qualitative gains that might have been expected within the trade unions, where again a large anti-Blairite constituency can be identified.
Many of those who have joined - in response to Respect's strong anti-war stance, its intervention into last year's Euro elections or this year's General Election campaigns, or after attending meetings in local towns or at union conferences - are isolated individuals, who have yet to be incorporated into any form of branch structure or activity.
For many members their only regular means of contact with Respect is through logging on to its national website.
The network of branches has emerged in ad-hoc fashion, with big gaps including a number of large cities - and many of the branches that do exist are weakly organised, with little independent political life.
To some extent this is an inevitable by-product of an organisation which has vigorously (and successfully) targeted its electoral interventions in a relatively restricted number of areas, leaving the rest of the country to work out ways to support from outside and Since there is no "party", there can by definition be no "party line" - and no organisation that can hold its elected representatives to account resource their own local campaigning.
But it is also a result of the limited horizons that have been set for the political development of Respect.
George Galloway and other leading figures at national level have stressed their wish that it should NOT become a "party", but should remain at the level of a 'coalition' of political forces united on a fairly limited platform of policies.
Since there is no "party", there can by definition be no "party line" - and no organisation that can hold its elected representatives to account: Therefore George can say what he likes, while those who disagree may find it hard to find a forum in which they can raise their concerns.
But this same looseness also creates a credibility problem in building Respect among trade union activists, who are suspicious that Respect may not develop as a political