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"Galloway goes on the rampage"

From the latest edition of the SWP's internal bulletin Party Notes (Monday October 22)

Respect - but not for the SWP

Last week George Galloway led a concerted series of attacks on the SWP and attempted to weaken or smash up SWP delegations going to the Respect Conference. Below are short reports of the meetings. The facts speak for themselves.

Tower Hamlets - Galloway goes on the rampage

Two extremely unpleasant meetings have laid bare the attack on the left at the heart of the present disputes. At the first (a Respect members' meeting) there was an attempt to derail the only constitutionally supplied list of delegates for the Respect conference. During the meeting a handwritten list with partial names was suddenly produced, and an attempt made to get it endorsed. A group of people who support George Galloway walked out. The meeting continued and the original list was passed (see enclosed report).

At the second meeting (a committee meeting) after an initially calm beginning, George Galloway launched a vicious assault on the SWP and on "Leninists". This is a disgraceful attack on the party which defended him during the Big Brother episode, played a crucial role in getting him elected and is the backbone of Respect in most parts of the country.The meeting ended with Galloway telling members of the SWP to "off you go" - "fuck off, fuck off the lot of you".

Newham - when only some Respect members will do!

At short notice George Galloway announced that he wanted to address members of Newham Respect. A meeting was set for last Friday at the Newham Respect Office. At the time the meeting was due to start, a spokesperson for George entered the room and said that George was not prepared to speak to a meeting with SWP members present and would hold the meeting - for non-SWP members - at a Respect member's house. This was further evidence of a declaration of war against us.

Birmingham - What a carve up!

Several week's ago myself and John Rees held a meeting with Salma and Ger from Birmingham Respect. The meeting agreed that we needed to try and rebuild trust between the SWP and Salma. We also agreed that Helen one of our full time organisers would become a ward captain for Salma.

Last week Birmingham Respect was due to hold a meeting to select its candidates for Respects annual conference. Ger contacted our organisers saying that he did not want to have a big row like Tower Hamlets Respect, and could we come to an agreement on the number of delegates the SWP would put forward.

We were told that there were 12 delegates. After some discussion we agreed that we would nominate 3 comrades and withdraw two others. At the start of the meeting it was announced that 34 new membership forms existed, and that Salma planned to claim a delegate entitlement of 17 for the branch .This was done without informing the SWP, and obviously if we had known that the claimed delegation size had grown by over a quarter we would have argued for a proportional increase in the number of SWP members going.

Student Respect groups - are they going to be banned?

It was decided at the Respect officers' meeting of Monday 3 September that for the purposes of this year's Respect conference, members of Student Respect would be treated as members in terms of constituting branches in each college and university, and sending delegates and motions to conference. No opposition was voiced to this proposal.

Furthermore, it follows the precedent from last year's conference where the arrangements were identical. All of a sudden Student Respect groups have had two deadlines imposed on them. One for Friday 19th for all groups to send in their numbers by midnight for the number of delegates to be calculated. While this was being acted on by groups around the country, the debate between the officers was ongoing about whether students were going to be allowed to attend the conference.

On Friday evening we were told that all Student Respect groups must send the names, addresses and emails of ALL members declared for the group by today (Monday).

Student Respect have sent a statement, expressing concern over the potential exclusion of Student members from the democratic structures of Respect which is being signed and sent to the office by student groups across the country. This is an attack not only on a radical layer of Respect but on the genuine democracy of the organisation as a whole. Make no mistake - Galloway is trying to drive the SWP out of Respect and is using witch-hunting methods to do so. Sadly Kevin and Rob, who we expelled last week, are going along with Galloway.

The SWP is not going to be driven out of Respect. We played an important part in creating Respect and have done as much as anyone to make the project work. We are also going stand up for the ideals of Respect - a party that defends all working class people.We are urging all SWP members to try and get elected to the Respect conference. We will be calling on the Respect leadership to allow student groups to go to the conference on the same terms as previous years and we are also going to demand that it puts a stop to the outrageous attempts to stifle democracy in Tower Hamlets and Birmingham and finally we are going to demand that if Galloway is going to call members meetings, all members should be entitled to go.

Scottish Aggregate

Some 55 comrades attended a Scottish SWP aggregate on Saturday in Glasgow. The main session, introduced by Mike Gonzalez, was on the specific tasks facing comrades in Scotland. Chris Bambery introduced a report on the crisis within Respect. After discussion, a dozen comrades spoke, a motion to endorse the decisions made by the Central Committee over the Respect crisis was passed unanimously as was a motion to hold a festival of resistance type event, modelled on this year's Marxism, in Scotland in the coming spring.

Petition - is this what democracy looks like?

Some comrades are circulating a petition calling on the CC not to expel Kevin Ovenden, Rob Hoveman and Nick Wrack.

These comrades did not raise the petition in their branches, but instead approached a select group of comrades to sign. Neither did they inform the CC they were launching a petition.This is an undemocratic method of winning a position inside the party and alien to our method of operating. Comrades in the SWP have always aired their disagreements at district meetings, aggregates or branch meetings.

If they feel they need to launch a petition, it should be raised and debated at any of the above meetings and that gives all comrades the right to debate the issues in an open manner. It gives all comrades the right to sign or not sign as the case may be. I have enclosed a letter sent to me from two comrades explaining why they are not prepared to sign it.

SWP Members meeting

We will be holding an emergency SWP National meeting to discuss the latest developments in Respect.

Every SWP branch and student group can send two delegates to the meeting. Branches need to hold elections and send delegates names into the National Office ASAP. NC members attend by right. Details of the meeting are: Saturday 3 November 2007 11.30am - 4pm Room 101 ULU, Malet Street, London (nearest tube Euston Sq /Goodge Street). There will be a pooled fare of £15 per delegate.

SWP Conference and IB

IB1 is now out, they can be ordered from the National Office and they cost 50 pence each and branches must pay for their IBs in advance. Deadlines for submissions to the pre-conference bulletin are:

Pre-conference bulletin No 2 - Monday 29 October.

Pre-conference bulletin No 3 - Monday 19 November.

Submissions should either be sent by post to the National Office or to martins@swp.org.uk. Please keep articles as short as possible.

The SWP's annual conference is on Friday 4 January 2008 - Sunday 6 January 2008. The conference will be held in central London and every SWP branch and student group is entitled to send 1 delegate for every 10 registered members.

That means if there are 1-9 registered members in your branch you are entitled to send one delegate, If there are 10 - 19 registered members you are entitled to send 2 delegates, 20 -29 members three delegates and so on and so forth.

Delegates should be elected at SWP district aggregates which will be organised by the National Office and held sometime in November / December.

Read on: Respect Socialist Workers Party Weekly Worker archive

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