If the SWP are involved you can forget anyone turning up ever. Their diversionary tactics seek to null all effective actions, just look at STWC's record.

what happens when an MP who is also a member of Respect/Manchester Against Racism (eg Tony Lloyd - but there are others?) defends his seat in the election. Do Respect not stand against him because he is part of Respect? In these circumstances, are people being encouraged to vote New Labour to keep out the BNP? That'd be the same New Labour as makes life hell for asylum seekers would it?

and isn’t it reformism rather than revolution?

Just a passing thought......

Cant help noticing that the SA seem to have disappeared,I looked at their website earlier today because I wanted to find out about the Respect (party?)
It has not been updated since last summer.
Then I tried their supporters sites and guess what most of those havent been updated for months either,except for SWP and Communist Party and Workers liberty.
Read what they say about Respect

Shelving socialism the launch of Respect Alliance for Workers' Liberty
 http://www.workersliberty.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1718

Weekly Worker 513 Thursday January 29 2004
 http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/513/respect.html

Socialist Worker pageNew left opposition launched
 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/1886/sw188601.htm

There is nothing on Stop the War website yet I thought they were involved in it
As a voter and peace campaigner I would like to know more but it all seems somewhat sparse.Who set up Respect?

There was also a lack of people at the Campsfield demo, and later in Oxford even less. However, this was almost certainly cos we didn't make shedloads of publicity, and it tipped down with rain, and a lot of people seem to be on low energy. Not such interesting reasons as yours, but same effect! :)

I went looking for who is on the Executive National Committee of Respect and couldn't find names/organisations clearly listed, although maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Anyway, this link shows something about who is behind Respect. Basically it appears to be STWC/SWP at the centre plus George Galloway. The Socialist Alliance is now subsumed into the belly of Respect, it seems.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,1129625,00.html

Could someone who is involved in Respect answer some of the questions that people are asking?
I would like to know more.
If Respect are hoping to win election votes or support from anti war campaigners then the least they could do is to be honest and show us some respect otherwise they are no better than the present lot in power.

One comment says "If the SWP is involved you can forget anyone turning up, just looks at the record of the Stop the War Coalition and their diversionary tactics"

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

The STWC organised the biggest demonstration in British history (2 million on Feb 15), the biggest demonstration on a weekday (300,000 on the Bush visit(, the bigest demonstration during a war (500,000) and the biggest demonstration against an occupation.

It seems if the SWP are involved you can guarantee mass participation!

Comments seem confused, Manchester Against Racism, I think is a broad anti-racist coalition affiliated to UNITE AGAINST FASCISM a new organisation launched recently with groups like the ANL and NAAR involved.

UNITE AGAINST FASCISM has the support of over 40 General secretaries of trade unions, Ken Livingstone, numerous MPs, Pop Stars and celebrities and groups are being formed up and down Britain.

RESPECT is a totally different organisation.

It's national committee includes Ken Loach, film director, Mark Serwotka, Leader of the PCS (Civil servants Union), Dr. Siddiqui (Leader, Muslim Parliament), Clive Protheroe FBU South Wales Brigade Rep, Lyndsey German and John Rees (SWP also leading members of the Stop the War Coalition), George Galloway MP, someone from JustPeace and a representative from the Birmingham Mosque and several others I can't remember.

RESPECT were hoping to unite with the Greens, but unfortunately this hasn't happened.
Respect has superseded the Socialist Alliance (most of the forces in it are now in RESPECT).

By the way the ALLIANCE FOR WORKERS LIBERTY is a disgrace - its leader calls himself a zionist.

Dear LEILA MANTOURA

not all of 2 million people at the February demo, the Bush visit etc were there cos the STWC organised it!!! Most of them were there cos of the injustice of bombing people - not because of the STWC involvement!

There were lots of different organisations, political parties and individuals organising things!

love from NCM2003
zzzzzzzzzzzzz

PR2

A New Communist Party press release
30 January 2004



George Galloway's wrong turn


George Galloway, the campaigning Scottish MP, was unjustly expelled from the Labour Party last summer for opposing Anglo-American imperialism's invasion of Iraq.

Originally he had intended to fight, like Ken Livingstone, for re-admission. But last autumn he decided to launch a new electoral platform to challenge Labour in the European and London regional elections this spring.

Supported by the Trotskyite Socialist Workers' Party (SWP), a handful of trade unionists and some prominent individuals in the British Muslim community, Galloway has established the "Respect-Unity Coalition" that was formally launched last weekend.

Essentially Respect seeks to build a left social democratic party to challenge Labour I the elections. Previous attempts have always failed. Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party is moribund. The Socialist Alliance - the SWP's earlier throw - never got off the ground.

And the British Road to Socialism, the revisionist doctrine that ultimately provides the ideological basis for these platforms, has been repeatedly spurned by the working class since its inception in the 1950s.

This doctrine fails to recognise that Parliament is a part of the bourgeois state machinery and can never be used to overthrow that machinery or create a working class state. It is subject to global financial imperialist forces and can never stand against them.

Respect is calling on the millions mobilised by the anti-war movement, which involves all strata, including those sections of the bourgeoisie opposed to the Iraq war into backing one small section of the anti-war movement led by a charismatic former Labour MP and the SWP.

Respect ignores the fight-back that is taking place within the Labour Party and the unions - and that is where Blair and Company can and must be defeated.

Respect projects a left social democratic agenda in opposition to Labour, deliberately cutting itself off from the labour movement and refuses to acknowledge the absence of any demand for such a movement within left social democracy today. Nor is there any support for this "alternative" amongst the working class itself.

It will undoubtedly fail.


From the New Communist Party of Britain
For peace and socialism!

Read our newspaper the New Worker

Visit our Websites: Http://www.geocities.com/ncp.geo or  http://www.londoncommunists.org.uk

Write to us at PO Box 73, London SW11 2PQ. phone 0207 223 4050/4052

Could it be that no-one in this fairly pro-immigrant, anti racist city knew about it as no-one, perhaps, actually bothered to publicise it?

Where were the posters, flyers and press statements?

When and where was it announced?

sortitout

Same old shit, same old shit, (repeat many times). What are RESPECT (aka BOLLOKS) telling us to do? The same thing as labour/libdem/conies are telling us to do. They want us to vote labour to keep out the BNP. It is a bullshit tactic and it will not work, simply pulling out the same slogans is boring and useless - we havce heard them before.

Whenever any political parties get too involved in supposedly grass roots activism I get turned off. When the SWP are involved I normally won't go.

Like many others I went to the London demo because it was important, and was not happy with the SWP being in on STWC and was dismayed that they were there.

Just to repeat an earlier factual point, there are two things getting mixed up here:

Respect is a new electoral coalition aiming to challenge New Labour from the left, launched by George Galloway, the Socialist Alliance (leadership + majority), the SWP, a couple of union leaders and quite a few union activists (esp. from the FBU) and various prominent figures from Stop the War and the Muslim community.

Self-evidently they won't say 'Vote Labour', they want the votes themselves!

Whereas Unite! aka Unite Against Fascism is a new anti-fascist coalition, bringing together the National Assembly Against Racism, the Anti Nazi League, the TUC and most national trade unions, MPs, MEPs and Councillors from all (non-fascist) parties, various celebs and faith and community groups from across the country.

Unite won't be asking people to vote any particular way, just to vote AGAINST the BNP.

Unite Against Fascism:
 http://www.uaf.org.uk

God. You can tell a story or a report that may have been added by a socialist because they are they only ones that get comments. Winging and wining and backstabbing. And always with that "oh the swp are so divisive and hierarchical" nonsense. Think about it. You are being divisive and hierarchical. It's YOU who are trying to drive out people who you don’t agree with. The StWC was a great success. Anyone (yes even you) could organise a local meeting or rally or coach to a demo, and call it STWC. No permission needed. But as far as I can tell anarchists ONLY organise amongst themselves. God forbid they organise a meeting where ordinary people come. Maybe this is why nobody (and I mean nobody) comments anymore on Indymedia. You have turned it into a nasty little playground where bullying kids take the piss. I am not in the SWP. I am just a humble trade unionist on the railways. but I have been active since the Miners strike. And if you are the best the anarchists can come up with I say ner ner ner ner ner my dad is bigger than yours.
so shut up

i agree that anarchists in general need to work harder at getting more people involved than those within their social circles but to say that anarchists only organize amongst themselves just isnt true. i spent a lot of time living in an anarchist social center where our main purpose among other things was to radicalize our community. its not as easy as you might think for people with such extreme politics as anarchists to gain as much support as a fairly non-threatening group might be able to do even when the issue organized around is the same. i have to say that this is the first time ive posted anything and i dont really pay much attention to the comments but the few arguments ive seen are petty. and i dont think the majority of anarchists waste their time getting into silly arguments with the SWP over the internet.

Respect now have a website address :  http://www.respectcoalition.com

I have posted a report on labournet of the Respect founding convention :
 http://www.labournet.net/other/0401/respect1.html

Questions are asked as to who are involved in Respect. Below is a list of the national executive, which proves it is not just an SWP front:

The founding declaration was approved by over 1,000 people at a national convention on 25 January which also elected a national executive.

George Galloway MP
Mark Serwotka PCS general secretary
Ken Loach film director
Lindsey German Stop the War Coalition convenor
Nick Wrack Socialist Alliance chair
Salma Yaqoob Birmingham Stop the War Coalition chair
Linda Smith London Region Fire Brigades Union treasurer
John Rees SWP and co-founder of the Stop the War Coalition
Dr Siddiqui leader of the Muslim Parliament
Cllr Michael Lavalette Preston Socialist Alliance
John Nicholson former deputy leader Manchester City Council
Shaheedah Vawda Just Peace
Chris Bambery SWP national secretary
Dr Mohammed Naseem Birmingham Central Mosque
Clive Protheroe South Wales Fire Brigades Union brigade secretary
Shelley Margetson Socialist Alliance treasurer
Sait Akgul Kurdish activist
Alan Thornett Socialist Alliance trade union officer
Organisations are mentioned for identification only—executive members were elected in a personal capacity.