Weekly Worker 644 Thursday October 12 2006 Subscribe to the Weekly Worker

No fudge on accountability

The only motion focusing on the lack of democracy and accountability in Respect is motion No1 from the CPGB, which is also supported by Calderdale

Interestingly, rather than just sweeping our motion aside, the national council is proposing an amendment that is designed to gut it of worthwhile content. We strongly oppose the amendment for that reason.

Our motion demands that “all elected Respect representatives should publish to the Respect members in their area … monthly reports of their votes and activities”; that they should be “accountable to their appropriate bodies”; that “Respect will fight for the creation of the right of voters to recall their MPs and councillors” and that “the minutes of the national committee and the executive should be made available to the membership” (the most recent NC report on the Respect website is from April 2006).

The amendment from the NC basically just leaves one of the three introductory paragraphs in place and removes our four concrete demands. According to the amendment, elected representatives “are expected to carry out the collectively agreed policies and decisions of Respect”. However, “In the event of an elected representative not feeling able or not being prepared to carry out a decision or a policy properly agreed, urgent discussions should be sought with the national secretary and the responsible body of Respect involved. In the event of no agreement being reached there should be an agreed arrangement to deal with the situation, including where necessary insuring that the policy of Respect is made clear.”

In other words, the representative, not the organisation, will have the last word. There will be no obligation to vote in accordance with agreed policy. However, it is very interesting indeed that the leadership feels the need to adopt a position on the relationship between Respect and its representatives: it shows that there are real tensions brewing between those who run the party (the SWP) and, for example, George Galloway and its councillors in Tower Hamlets.

Examples of such tensions have been highlighted by the Weekly Worker - undoubtedly, there are many more that have been kept under wraps.

l Galloway has remain unchallenged by the Respect leadership over his public opposition to a woman’s right to choose an abortion (his name is amongst the list of MPs supporting a new early day motion that calls for legislation clearly aimed at reducing the period following conception when a termination may be permitted) and his support for a ‘points system’ to control immigration into Britain. Those issues have been declared “matters of conscience” by the SWP. When he went on Celebrity big brother, he never thought to ask anybody on the Respect leadership and only informed John Rees a few hours before he entered the house.

l In February, SWP leader John Rees was only adopted as a Respect candidate in Tower Hamlets after strong objections from a sizeable bloc of Bengali members. He had to be moved by the Respect selection panel from the Whitechapel ward to Bethnal Green South. This was after Dr Shamsuddin Ahmed was turned down as a Respect candidate in Whitechapel and subsequently jumped ship to join the Liberal Democrats (see Weekly Worker February 9).

l Birmingham city councillor for Sparkbrook, Talib Hussain, resigned from Respect only a week after joining. He admitted to the Weekly Worker that he joined without knowing that the ‘S’ and ‘T’ in Respect stood for ‘socialism’ and ‘trade unions’ (see Weekly Worker March 30).

l Most seriously though was an attempt by the majority of the 13 elected Respect councillors in Tower Hamlets to oust SWP members from leading positions in the local Respect branch (see Weekly Worker July 6).

John Rees’s attempt to get himself elected as a councillor in the May local elections were a reflection of that emerging problem. Undoubtedly, the SWP thought it could propel him into the position of leader of the Respect group. But, like other SWPers, Rees was not elected, leaving Abjol Miah as Respect group leader. Sitting councillor Oliur Rahman was obviously considered too close to the SWP by his newly elected colleagues.

Those councillors have their own caucus meetings, their own decision-making structures, their own Respect organisation. Why should they feel accountable to a small bunch of SWPers in their local branch? A branch that has shrunk dramatically from 400 to 170 members, with only a fraction of that figure active. Respect branches are not real to them. What is real to those councillors is that they have been elected by the ‘local community’. They will not feel the slightest obligation to do what John Rees or even George Galloway tells them - but will instead concentrate on local problems and issues, as viewed from their own class perspectives, interests and instincts.

The SWP has not only allowed this situation to develop - but has actively worked to create it. By refusing to establish democratic decision-making structures and repeatedly voting down motions on accountability and principles such as a worker’s wage for workers’ representatives, it has pandered to George Galloway and petty bourgeois ‘community leaders’.

The decline of Respect nationally - which will be very obvious at conference this weekend - can only but encourage its most conservative forces to continue going their own way and pursue their own narrow sectional and career interests. The proposed amendment of the CPGB motion from the national council is really an attempt to close the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Read on: Respect Socialist Workers Party Weekly Worker archive

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