Respect as we have known it for the last four years - as an alliance principally between the SWP and Gerge Galloway - is over.
Following the decision of the SWP central committee last Wednesday that the Respect conference wouldl go ahead as planned and unchanged - in other words on a completely undemocrauc basis— mereen menders of the non-SWP part of the National Council and a number of Respect councillors have issued a call for an alternatıve conterence that same day, November 17,on the theme of Renew Respect.
Work is going ahead to build it on the broadest basis possible.
It is a remarkable situation. The SWP leadership have managed to alienate themselves from virtually all of the active non-SWP members of the national council, including Linda Smith National Chair, Salma Yaqoob National Vice-Chair, Victoria Brittain, George Galloway, Jerry Hicks, Ken Loach, Abjol Miah the leader of Respect on Tower Hamlets Council, Yvonne Ridley, and Nick Wrack -the first national chair of Respect and a member of the SWP when this debate started.
The way the crisis escalated is clear enough. It was the SWP's disastrous, and hysterical, reaction to George Galloway's letter to the national council at the end of August which determined the course of events.
This raised some home truths about the development of Respect, which some of us had been raising for a long time, and made some modest proposals towards greater plurality. The letter was supportable but did not go far enough.
The letter certainly did not represent a crisis: in fact it was an opportunity. It could have opened up an over-due and fruitful discussion about the development of Respect as a more inclusive organısa tion with a greater national presence. Compromise
If the SWP had been prepared to discuss the issues politically, make some compromises, even symbolic compromises, to show that they were prepared to take other pople's views into account and that Respect was not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the SWP, there could have been a positive oulconc
Instead they went in totally the opposite direction - confirming that they had no intention of relaxing control, and undermining everything they have done in recent years to build Galloway: vilified in SWP meetings and then in Respect
They took the letter as a frontal attack on the SWP, with all that implies, and launched a nation-wide tour of SWP districts vilifying George Galloway and scandalously calling him and Salma Yaqoob (amongst many other things) 'communalists' and characterising the letter as a part of a right wing attack on the lett in
If there was one point at which the SWP lost the support or tne bulk or tne lnae pendents on the National Council (NC) it was this. Salma Yaqoob's document "Challenges for Respect" ably refuted the allegations of communalism.
And the George Galloway they were vilifying was the same George Galloway that the SWP had repeatedly shielded from criticism from ourselves and others ever since Respect was founded.
They now denounced him for 'unaccountability when at the time of the Big Brother debacle they had fought might and main inside Respect to avoid a word of criticism of his unilateral decision to go on the programme being expressed by Respect.
At the NC meeting on September 22 the dispute focussed on the proposal in the letter for a new post of national organiser alongside the national secretary. SWP delegates, reflecting their paranoid internal discussions about George Galloway, came close to driving out of Respect under conditions which would have collapsed Respect ahead of an expected general
The meeting ran out of time and adjourned until
Continued on John Rees circulates through Respect office a factional "transcript " of Tower Hamlets committee meeting Tuesday October Socialist Worker appears with editorial attacking Galloway and supporters Wednesday October 24 'Respect at Crossroads' document sent by Linda Smith for circulation to membership Thursday 25 October Meting between SWP and supporters of 'Respect at Crossroads', adjourns till Sunday 28. Tower Hamlets members meting breaks up without agreeing conference delegates. Four Tower Hamlets councillors issue press release resigning Respect whip and issue attack on Abjol Miah. George Galloway appears on Question Time. Internal situation is not raised Friday 26 October Article appear in East London Advertiser on split in Tower Hamlets "Respect Appeal against the witch hunt" (SWP petition) is sent to all Respect members from the national office Saturday 27 October Jerry Hicks resigns from SWP Sunday 28