Weekly Worker 645 Thursday October 19 2006 Subscribe to the Weekly Worker

Loyal opposition

Phil Kent reports on the fringe meeting organised by the International Socialist Group

On Saturday evening the fringe meeting put on by the International Socialist Group-dominated Party Platform attracted a good turnout. Some 40 delegates and observers filed into one of the upstairs rooms at Friends House, including five CPGB comrades and a lone SWP spy.

The ISG’s Alan Thornett argued the need to move Respect in the direction of a fully-fledged party and away from the SWP’s formula that the thing is a united front between “secular socialists” and “radical muslims” or some kind of loose rainbow coalition - therefore no need for a paper or elementary accountability. Comrade Thornett blamed the loss of a thousand members since last year’s conference on the lack of any real say in party affairs by the rank and file.

Yet, when it comes down to it, his proposed remedies are purely technical. From the floor, this point was forcefully made by our comrade, Peter Manson. It simply does not occur to the ISG and comrade Thornett that the problem with Respect is its politics. It is a rotten popular front based on the ‘principle’ of consistently conceding to the most conservative elements on a whole range of issues: republicanism, abortion, gay rights, open borders, an average skilled worker’s wage for publicly elected members, proletarian socialism, secularism, etc.

There is the demand for a regular Respect paper. The ISG would perhaps get a seat on the editorial board. The comrades introduced the idea again this year, though not as a motion, but in the form of an amendment … to the section on trade unions (there was apparently some sort of organisational cock-up by the ISG and they only managed to get one motion in on time). Trying to make a virtue out of necessity, John Lister - Oxford ISG and the only other top-table speaker - said he feels naked in trade union and other gatherings. All other political groups apart from Respect have their own paper. This will be particularly noticeable at the November 11 ‘Organising for fighting unions’ conference, he concluded.

There is, of course, Socialist Worker, or his own paper, Resistance, or even the Weekly Worker - all Respect papers in there very different ways. In practice comrade Lister wants a dull, uncontroversial advertising sheet along the lines of the North West region’s quarterly effort (run mainly by non-SWPers). He desperately joked: “How does Oxford affiliate to the North West?” Yet, surely, the type of paper any serious working class organisation needs is one that not only honestly reflects its internal life, but acts as a political educator through serious, open debate. This is beyond the crimped imagination of the ISG. When it comes to operative politics, there is hardly a cigarette paper separating the comrades from the SWP.

Seeing the SWP-led Respect majority cheering and whooping when they soundly defeated the Party Platform’s motion to introduce STV and set up a two-tier structure (a delegate-based national council and an annually elected executive) was slightly scary and must have been very disheartening for the ISG and its allies. The motion, in the form of a constitutional amendment, was portrayed by its movers as providing Respect with a democratic structure that would help transform it into a vibrant, energetic force. But in reality it would do no more than tinker.

You can’t beat the ISG for craven moderation and being a loyal opposition. Though, laughably, they were actually criticised by Respect ultra-loyalist Ian Donovan for being too negative. The whole strategy of the ISG relies on Respect growing and drawing in ever more non-SWPers. That being the case, it is in big trouble. Respect is programmatically holed below the waterline and  is haemorrhaging members. No wonder there are mutterings in the ISG that they should prepare to abandon the listing hulk before it is too late.

Read on: Respect Socialist Workers Party Weekly Worker archive

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