For the Respect coalition to command the support of genuine socialists and anti-imperialists in the European and London elections on 10 June it must pose a real challenge to Labour racism and imperialism. The reality however is that those behind the formation of Respect, George Galloway and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), are not interested in a real challenge to Labour, only in opposing Blair and ‘New Labour’. In fact, they want to be able to reclaim the mantle of ‘Old Labour’. Bob Shepherd reports..
The SWP is attempting to have its cake and eat it by allying with both Galloway in Respect and Livingstone in the Labour Party (see FRFI 177, New left coalition for the Respectable). It is allying with factions of ‘Old Labour’ both inside and outside the Labour Party, facing two ways at once to give the impression that it is both pro-Labour and against it. This is classic opportunism; its purpose is to make sure there is no development of an independent anti-imperialist force in opposition to the Labour Party and to drag all political opposition back into the Labour fold.
In its lead article ‘Your vote can punish Blair’ on 3 April 2004, Socialist Worker announced that one of its leading figures, Lindsey German, also a national leader of the Stop The War Coalition (STWC), would stand as Respect candidate for the Mayor of London. The article explained that in the mayoral elections everyone has two votes, and that this ‘means voters in the capital have the marvellous opportunity of voting for Lindsey…as first choice and Ken Livingstone as second choice. That ensures Respect gets the maximum vote, while also ensuring there is no way for a Tory or Liberal to sneak in’.
Lindsey German herself went further in Socialist Worker on 1 May: ‘There are lots of things that I agree with Ken Livingstone about. He was very good about opposing the war and the Bush visit… I voted for him last time when he stood as an independent and wouldn’t have had a problem voting for him again…But people felt that going back into Labour meant he was not identified by his own anti-war and other good policies but with much more Blairite policies’. She is at pains to make sure the readers are clear she has no principled opposition to voting Labour: ‘it was partly his identification with Labour that made us decide to stand…That on its own wouldn’t be enough. I wouldn’t be in favour of standing against someone like Jeremy Corbyn who has a very good record even though they’re Labour’.
In standing for Mayor, German makes very clear that it will have no adverse consequences for Livingstone. ‘We will say, “Vote for Respect in protest at Labour’s policies”, but you can still vote to transfer to Ken Livingstone. I don’t think that any other party, including the Greens, are arguing that’.
German is absolutely right about the Green Party. The position of its candidate is far more principled than hers – he has refused to call for a second vote for Livingstone and has said ‘there is no way that I am campaigning for a Labour Party that took us into the war in Iraq and has downgraded our public services’.
The SWP has put all its eggs in the Respect basket and has demobilised the STWC. When the US launched its murderous attack on Falluja in early April, it soon became clear that indiscriminate bombing and shelling was killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians. In the US the ‘Answer’ anti-war coalition organised nation-wide protests on the Easter Saturday, 10 April, in 20 cities. In Britain the STWC was silent, and only organised a few small protests on Saturday 17 April, with only a couple of hundred outside Downing Street and a few street events in various other cities.
For socialists there is a difference between establishing unity within a single-issue campaign (such as supporting the Intifada) and creating an electoral bloc. In a single-issue campaign, it is not necessary for socialists to defend the positions of their allies on questions outside of the campaign. In an electoral bloc they cannot challenge the reactionary positions that their allies might have because that will break up the bloc and defeat its purpose. This the SWP has now discovered in its tortuous defence of Galloway and his support for the oppression of women (see below).
The outcome of the SWP’s shabby, political opportunism is likely to be a fiasco. Even in London with George Galloway heading their list, a recent Evening Standard poll gave Respect less than 0.5%. This is the consequence of demobilising the opposition to the war and trying to court opportunist Labour politicians whether they are inside or outside the Party.
Genuine socialists cannot but agree with the position we put forward in FRFI 178, and we repeat it for those who need reminding, ‘Millions of people in Britain know that the Labour Party has lied to them time and time again. Their political interests will not be met through some electoral charade, but through the forging of a real alliance with millions more who are fighting back against imperialism in the rest of the world: in Nepal, Iraq, Palestine, Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba. That is why the RCG calls for the building of a real anti-imperialist movement, one that champions the interests of the oppressed…one which is open and democratic, and one which above all demands an irrevocable break from Labour imperialism.’
The SWP, Respect and Palestine
What is the position that socialists must adopt in respect of the struggles in Iraq and Palestine? It is not just enough to call for the end of occupation; socialists must explicitly support the resistance and the right of that resistance to wage armed struggle against occupation.
The SWP never supported the armed struggle of the Irish people nor the armed struggle against apartheid. Even today it does not explicitly support the Iraqi resistance, nor the Palestinian Intifada. SWP theoretician John Molyneux explains why in an article in Socialist Review (April 2004): it is because they are ‘nationalist terrorists’ and not socialists. According to Molyneux, socialists build movements by ‘issuing leaflets, collecting petitions, organising trade unions and parties through to mass demonstrations, election campaigns and mass strikes.’ As against this, terrorists use violence, and so Molyneux writes dismissively of ‘nationalist terrorist formations attempting to represent oppressed nationalities – the IRA, ETA, the different Palestinian organisations’. He then goes on to echo imperialism’s attempts to demonise the Intifada by saying that ‘Sometimes, and the Palestinian Intifada is the best example of this, terrorist tactics do more or less merge with the mass resistance of the people’.
All this is just cowardice. The SWP just wants to distance itself from the legitimate violence of the oppressed because its Labour allies don’t like it. And so the violence of the oppressed is ‘terrorist’. In the past, the SWP attacked working class youth fighting the police in 1981. It condemned miners’ hit squads that fought scabs in the 1984-85 miners’ strike. It is very happy however to keep an alliance with the violent, war-mongering imperialist Labour Party.
FRFI 179 June / July 2004
