It would be a disaster for the left and the workers' movement if Respect fails, In the three short years since there is no other broad organisation of the left registering on the radar The Respect conference, held on October 15, brought out both the strengths and the weaknesses of the current Stage of development of Respect with some force. Unfortunately there were few decisions taken which will tackle the problems that emerged.
The strength of Respect was that it came out of a genune mass movement - the anti-war movement. It sought to bring together the best and most radicalised segments of that movencIl. This included the left, the socialists, radicalising young people, and Muslim anti-war activists who rightly felt that they were being demonised and vilified by the establishment. The catalyst was George Galloway's expulsion from the Labour Party over the war. since then the need for a broad pluralist left alternative to new Labour has become ever more urgent. The space to the left of Labour has widened, the crisis or working class has become more acute, and any change within the Labour Partv more remote
Nor is this about to change. The commitment of new Labour to the Bush agenda and the neo-liberal offensive is relentless. Blair will push it to the limit while he remains in office and Brown will continue it when he takes over. Respect has represented the best opportunitv yet, England, to address this situation.
A left alternative like Respect must be a class strugscreen in England. gle party based in the campaigns and in the unions. But it cannot be built without electoral success. It cannot tackle the crisis of working class leadership if it does not challenge in the electoral field and if it does not make some breakthroughs in that field. That is what built the SSP in Scotland, the Left Block in Portugal and the Red Green Alliance in Denmark into serious organisations.
rortunately Respect has notched up substantial achievements at the ballot box. The breakthrough into Westminster was an historic achievement (given the firstpast-the-post) system and the 16 local government seats won last May were a confirmation had galnca a resonance ln number of deprived working class inner-city migrant communities that no other left party had achieved for over half a century
These achievements were reflected in the conference by the impressive contingent of radical young Muslims from East London and by the role of the new councillors in the proceedings. No wonder the conference took a strong line against the current wave of Islamophobia.
These gains, however, were in sharp contrast to the development of Respect itself, which had declined over the past year both numerically (from just over 3,000 member HORLDS H
BMI Bring the Mwar criminals to Justice aeli ALL NIALISM,