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Weekly Worker 542 Thursday September 2 2004
Familiar arguments and getting rooted
Members of the Socialist Workers Party dominated the 30-strong audience
at the August 24 organising meeting of Hackney Respect. Apparently there
are around 220 members of the local coalition - far more than were in
Hackney Socialist Alliance, we were assured by SWPer Charlie Hoare - but
the holiday period had thinned the ranks considerably.
So a high percentage of familiar faces in the room … and some depressingly
familiar arguments.
The two speakers opening proceedings gave good, upbeat openings, stressing
the possibilities for Respect - although our newly elected councillor,
Oli Rahman, speaking after Dean Ryan, our GLA candidate for North East
London in June, sensibly cautioned the audience that building something
substantial “will take time”, citing the slow progress made
by the early Labour Party. Dean had told us that “Respect is on the
up” and that the task was twofold: to “keep up the momentum”
and “sink some roots”.
This theme - of Respect attempting to develop some organic roots in sections
of the Hackney population - cropped up repeatedly in contributions from
the floor. For instance, local SWPer Seth Harman suggested that Respect
must be “the party [this label also came up over and over again]
that not only issues a broadsheet in elections, but also issues a broadsheet
when there are no elections”. His SWP comrade, Sean Doherty, told
us that the only way to counter criticism, including that coming from
“so-called leftwingers” is to get “rooted”. He left
the rather obvious question of how tantalisingly unanswered.
A few other SWP comrades did help him out with suggestions. Charlie Hoare
said that we have to be in contact with “the people who are fighting”.
Sue Jones correctly observed that “people need to trust us as activists”,
before underlining the importance of attending all events in a community
- she mentioned church and school fetes - to get your face and politics
known by local activists.
Despite the transparent sincerity of the comrades making such proposals,
without integration into a more serious political project they are dead
ends. And there’s the problem, of course. For all the talk on the
night of Respect being a political “party” of some sort, the
sect project of Respect’s core constituent organisation, the SWP,
simply precludes the organisation developing in this way. Take the question
of a political paper - an indispensable tool for a national organisation
attempting to dig local roots.
Rather than the steady stream of broadsheets envisaged by comrade Harman,
the task of engaging working class voters with Respect would be hugely
facilitated by the coalition having a political paper of its own. But
then this argument was had in the Socialist Alliance, of course, but the
sect-integrity of the SWP came first and its compact majority voted down
the proposal for an SA political paper - pushed most energetically by
the CPGB. While our organisation does not invest the same hopes in Respect,
there can be no doubt that the whole project would be qualitatively lifted
with the publication of something like a Respect weekly. On the other
hand the SWP appears intent on mindlessly repeating the tragic history
of the SA. Respect is to be nothing but a ‘party’ front.
Similarly, the two interventions of CPGB comrades on the evening stressed
the need for Respect to have functioning, accountable and democratic structures
going from the top to the bottom of the organisation. In particular, comrade
Tina Becker stressed the need for political meetings to draw working class
people into the orbit of the coalition - the emphasis coming from some
in Respect on social events rather than “boring meetings” was
a worrying one, she said, to the obvious annoyance of some.
Comrade Dean Ryan briefly took up these questions during his reply to
the debate. He had the notion that the key to involving local people was
to galvanise them, a process of “decision-making around activity”.
Presented like that, who could argue? But again, with the experience of
the SA under our belt, the suspicion must be that this could (at best)
simply translate into genuinely boring, deeply alienating meetings, where
people turn up to be told where they will be handing out leaflets that
week for the latest initiative of some SWP front. If this is to be the
format of the promised “regular monthly meetings”, then building
genuine, political roots locally will be impossible in practice.
The chair of the meeting had attempted to steer the debate following the
two lead speakers towards contributions “around activities”.
By and large, she failed (meetings stuffed with politicos tend to discuss
politics), but halfway through the debate she seized upon a contribution
on housing by a comrade, suggesting he put together a local Respect petition,
as “you seem to know what you’re talking about”.
This sort of approach smacks of floundering. It is essential that the
coalition’s conference over the weekend of October 30-31 in London
clearly sets down key political priorities for Respect and gives the impetus
to the creation of democratically accountable local structures that can
draw wider forces into a political dialogue upon which campaigning must
be based.
If it does not, then a huge question mark hangs over the future of the
whole project.
Mark Fischer
