Galloway could rebuild his damaged reputation ...
What was developing was precisely the wrong relationship between a party and its only MP and only nationally known tigure
When accountability - and there can be no democracy WiThOUT accountability Callc up at the
conference last November, Galloway's approach was defended by the main component in Respect, the SWP: "Don't worry George it's only a coalition" was the message!
Whether serious attempts to develop democratic and accountable inside Respect would Only time will have prevented George Galloway decision to go on Big Brother we will never know.
What we do know is that the failure to establish accountability made it far easier for him to do it, and therefore more likely. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
Huge damage has been done to Kespect as a result of his decision; only time will tell the full scale of this. But the lessons have not been learned even now.
When the Respect National
Council first met to try to deal with the situation there was opposition to a proposal to issue a clear statement to the membership on the issue of accountability. It was argued that this could result in George Galloway resigning from Respect. We are very much Huge against a split with George Galloway damage has over this, if it can be been done to avoided. His reputation can be rebuilt if Respect as a he goes about it the
right way.
result of Publicly this
Galloway's means accepting
that Big Brother
decision;
was a serious error of judgement In Respect it means tell the full accepting that he taking his disastrous scale of this. that decision unilat- was wrong to take
But the erally - and that he
will do things diflessons have ferently in the
future.
not been
"I here has to be a any learned even principled basis for
La continuing relanow. tionship. Otherwise Respect is providing foot soldiers for an unaccountable MP. Respect was to be a different kind of organisation: more demo. cratic, more accountable, less media spin and more rooted in the movement. To ensure it has a future, it must live up to this.