Pressure grows on RESPECT to come clean on abortion

Nice one Sally !

Yes, and I want the right to choose euthanasia for my elderly parents.

I mean at 80 and 82 they simply can not look after themselves anymore. If they were pets they would have been put down years ago.

Will Galloway and his anti-war cronies come clean on this issue as well.

'The Founding Declaration of Respect - the Unity Coalition
01/02/2004

The greatest mass movement of our age has brought us together.

We have marched in unprecedented numbers against war, against racism, and in defence of democracy and civil liberties. Our views are shared by millions, often a majority of the people in this country. Yet no establishment politician, and very few elected representatives of any kind, will lend their voice to this movement.

The two most important statistics in contemporary politics highlight the growing chasm between ordinary working people and the political establishment—on the one hand we have participated in the greatest political demonstrations in modern history, and on the other hand the last general election saw the lowest turnout since universal suffrage was introduced.

This chasm is at its widest on the question of war and peace. Tony Blair’s New Labour has taken us to war five times in the last six years, each time with calamitous consequences. The bloodshed, the waste of precious economic resources, the lying and hypocrisy that have accompanied the attack on Iraq have
brought many to the conclusion that they must rethink their traditional political allegiance.

But the yearning for a political alternative is even wider than the anti-war movement. Pensioners, students, trade unionists, Muslims and other faith groups, socialists, ethnic minorities and many others have been deeply disappointed by the authoritarian social policies and profit-centred, neo-liberal economic strategy of the government.

There is a crisis of representation, a democratic deficit, at the heart of politics in Britain. We aim to offer a solution to this crisis.

We stand for:

An end to the war and occupation in Iraq. We will not join any further imperialist wars.
An end to all privatisation and the bringing back into democratic public ownership of the railways and other public services.
An education system that is not dependent on the ability to pay, that is comprehensive and gives an equal chance in life to every child no matter how wealthy or poor their parents, from nursery to university.
A publicly owned and funded, democratically controlled NHS, free to all users.
Pensions that are linked to average earnings.
Raising the minimum wage to the European Union Decency threshold of £7.40 an hour.
Tax the rich to fund welfare and to close the growing gap between the poor and the wealthy few.
The repeal of the Tory anti-union laws.
Opposition to all forms of discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs (or lack of them), sexual orientation, disabilities, national origin or citizenship.
The right to self-determination of every individual in relation to their religious (or non-religious) beliefs, as well as sexual choices.
The defence of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. Opposition to the European Union’s ‘Fortress Europe’ policies.
We will strongly oppose the anti-European xenophobic right wing in any Euro referendum. But we oppose the ‘stability pact’ that the European Union seeks to impose on all those who join the euro. This pact would outlaw government deficit spending and reinforce the drive to privatise and deregulate the economy
and we will therefore vote ‘No’ in any referendum on this issue.
Support for the people of Palestine and opposition to the apartheid system that oppresses them.
An end to the destruction of the environment by states and corporations for whom profit is more important than sustaining the natural world on which all life depends.
We want a world in which the democratic demands of the people are carried out; a world based on need not profit; a world where solidarity rather than self-interest is the spirit of the age.

Let this be the rebirth of hope for those who have become disillusioned.

Join us!'

Galloway! and all his ilk, have NOTHING to offer the UK parliamentary system.
When will they realise that their rhetoric is as outdated as his moustache.

I salute your indefatigability.

Those were Galloways words to Saddam Hussein.



These people are simply the same old Party Political Cronies that have ruined what is left of British Democracy- rebranded in a desperate attempt to get power.

As the saying goes- if you want power, you are not worhty of holding it!

Firstly, George Galloway is not RESPECT. RESPECT is not like Indymedia--a shambolically organised pseudo-"collective" dominated by informal, unelected, male-dominated, leadership cliques. See, for example, the split in the San Francisco Indyemdia collective and the subsequent flame wars going on between the two new San Francisco Indymedia collectives which emerged from it.

 http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2004-January/001629.html

Here is a key part of an account of the split by a UK Indymedia honcho, Yossarian, who investigated the split:

"The split appears to have arisen not from political differences, but from
people finding themselves not able to work together; although there are
no substantiated details and this is total rumour, I heard a few months
ago that accusations of sexism have entered into the equation, and other
rumours or accusations that some people have a lack of appreciation for
what the Americans call "security culture", that is, keeping one's mouth
shut and staying out of the way of the lawful authorities."

People who live in glass houses should not throw bricks.

What Galloway says on abortion cannot be attributed to RESPECT unless you subscribe to the view that an organisation is guilty until proven innocent. This seems to be Indymedia's general methodology in relation even to its own supporters by the way. Freelance journalist, and NUJ branch secretary, Tony Gosling, was kicked out of the Bristol Indymedia collective, in his absence, without even a hearing! So much for opposition to "hierarchical" structures.

See this post about the Tony Gosling affair.

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289317.html

Or, it could be that the motive for the above attack on RESPECT is an attempt to divert attention away from its vital task of presenting an anti-racist, anti-war electoral alternative to the BNP--about which Indymedia appears to be doing sweet F.A. itself, by the way.

Someone obviously desperately wants to smear RESPECT.

RESPECT is only a few months old--it has not had time to have a national policy-making conference yet. It has only just had its 1500 strong founding convention where it could only agree a brief founding statement which includes only a rough outline of policy. It can hardly be expected to have established detailed policy on every issue in that space of time. When it has only been going a few months and it is confronted by an election in a couple of month's time.

But don't let a few reality checks like that get in the way of people throwing mud.

In fact, RESPECT has already "come clean" on abortion and indeed all sexual choices. The RESPECT founding statement says:

"Opposition to all forms of discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs (or lack of them), sexual orientation, disabilities, national origin or citizenship.

The right to self-determination of every individual in relation to their religious (or non-religious) beliefs, as well as sexual choices."

 http://www.respectcoalition.com/?ite=3

Note the last bit: "as well as sexual choices"--this quite clearly includes a woman's choice to have an abortion. THAT is RESPECT's policy and it is on this platform that every RESPECT candidate--including George Galloway--will be standing in the coming European and GLA elections.

Galloway is entitled to his own personal view on abortion (and I disagree strongly with him on this), but RESPECT's policy is clear and unambiguous.

The other thing to remember is that RESPECT is trying to draw together a wide coalition of people opposed to Blairism and the BNP: the Asian muslim community, trades unions, the anti-war movement, environmentalists and others. Many Asian muslims (like some pacifist Christians) have an advanced understanding of war and imperialism, but still have conservative attitudes on many questions including sexual attitudes and orientation. It is a going to require a process of dialogue and discussion to change that situation.

I hardly think that disngenuous, scurrilous attacks and smears like this will help.

"RESPECT is not like Indymedia--a shambolically organised pseudo-"collective" dominated by informal, unelected, male-dominated, leadership cliques. "

Just like the old days in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Splits, Factions, Ideology Arguments and Slagging each other off - where did it get us - Nowhere.

An organisation that could have helped the Soviet Union to spread world communism to Britain destroyed by infighting. Looks like RESPECT is already going the same way - will we never learn ?

do you think by making a few incoherent assertions concerning the competence of indymedia, (which is a decentralised network of individuals connected by computers alone...) that you can convince us that, actually, respect stands up to scrutiny?

so are you trying to say that because indymedia is wrong then its ok for respect to be a bunch of arse grapes too?

this corner-of-the-playground rubbish is the sort of thing that keeps you and your ilk absolutely meaningless to the man in the street, and a complete fucking farce..

'RESPECT is only a few months old--it has not had time to have a national policy-making conference yet'

But it has had time to elect candidates who are standing on a platform of - precisely what? some vague social democratic, populist stuff that half the remaining old Labourites and Lib-Dems wouldn't be uncomfortable with. Don't fudge the issue - there is NOTHING about a woman's right to choose. Any more than there is anything about freedom form Ireland, or wholesale opposition to immigration laws. Whatever.

The fact that this Newswire post has not been hidden proves the point I made last week on the UK-Features-list: positive news about RESPECT is instantly hidden (pulled) on the grounds that it promotes a supposedly "hierarchical" political party; while negative news about RESPECT, like this post, is more almost always left up.

Utter hyporcrisy, UK Indymedia.

A case in point: last week I posted this newswire post about RMT support for RESPECT.

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289042.html

It was quickly hidden, then after my protests on the Features list, unhiddden by someone--for a while.

Then, a day or so later, the post disappeared from both the Manchester and the UK Newswire even though its status remained as "showing" in the Newswire in the complete Newswire list (i.e. hidden and unhidden).

The complete list is accessed from the Editorial Guidelines page--see the link at the top of the UK Indymedia front page, or click here:

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/viewallposts.html

We have a very dangerous fascist movement, the BNP, on our doorstep which has a good chance of being elected to Europe under the proportional representation system (it would be much harder under the normal first past the post system used in General Elections).

Yet, it seems for some sad people, left infighting is more important than struggling to prevent a fascist being elected!

HAVEN'T YOU READ THE NEWS ON INDYMEDIA? RESPECT IS WORSE THAN BLAIR AND THE TORIES, DON'T YOU KNOW! Oink, Oink.

No wonder the British left is regarded as a joke in other parts of the world.

neither is it about indymedia. If people are asked to vote for a candidate they can ask that candidate to answer their questions about important electoral issues or those issues that they feel or may become important. In America, the right to choose is a huge issue with the recent attacks on the Roe v Wade decision. In this country, there has been an onslaught on the right to choose and, throughout a lot of it, I was there fighting physically when they attacked me, trying to help people, having "holy" water thrown at me, being threatened, having my kids threatened etc etc. (probably my political "baptism" of a sort)....
If George Galloway is anti-choice, and states it clearly in the media (as he has done in the Independent, and politicians once elected, can make choices based on conviction, then it is dangerous in terms of the right to choose to elect George Galloway. Don't think these rights are automatic, or uncontested. They are not. It is not a smear campaign against respect. it is an important issue. and I'm sorry if me and others like me don't just shut up and go away because the BNP might get in. He openly supports the anti-choice people and as a politican, lends them credibility. Take it from someone who has been woken in the middle of the night to be told there is a bomb at the side of the house when she was alone with little kids. Who was beaten up in front of the clinic by a crazy man just because I was trying to get the door open at the place where I worked to let a woman in. Take it from someone who has been followed home bumper to bumper by a landrover with headlights on full and had to drive like fuck and hide (with your kids in the back but hey..what do they matter???)
How will George vote if this issue comes up, and it might well do soon?
Oh, keep out the BNP by all means, but be careful about what ground you give up and to who.

I had thought of hiding this one, but then held back: the wording of the guidelines says: "Hierarchy : The newswire is designed to generate a news resource, not a notice-board for political parties or any other hierarchically structured organizations."
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/editorial.html

Well they're just guidelines, not laws etched in stone. And this isn't exactly a party notice promoting a party. But thinking about it, it is advocating picketing to influence a political party, and by implication is advocating support for RESPECT/SWP if they change this particular policy.

So you're right Chris, this one should be hidden too. Thanks for the heads-up.

I read Indymedia occasionally, and I'm shocked to learn that the collective regularly pulls news items about political parties that they don't like.

I read Indymedia to catch up on the news censored by the mainstream press.

Surely Indymedia is meant to be open to all 'non-mainstream' opinion - apart from right-wing hate mongers like the BNP.

How can you claim to be 'non-hierarchical' and then use your power to censor others?

I want to hear about things the Respect coalition are doing to challenge the status quo.

Indymedia should not follow the mainstream media in deciding what people want to read and then preventing us from reading it.

by censoring reports about respect i believe indymedia is taking a secterian stance.

why are they taking down articals down from the news wire. my guess is that they do not like the respect coalition and rather than having a decent debate about forwarding progressive change, they have taken a truely sectrian stand.

believe it or not indymedia, people want to debate about respect,it is probably the fastest growing political movement the left has seen for ages, i dont know who these people who run indymedia are but they got alot to answer for.

how dare you censor debate.

p.s george galloway position on abortions is appalling, but i dont support the pickets as people have suggested. if he were to spout on about abortions then, yes i would join you, but he's not. he's taliking about building a challenge to the pro-capitalist parties in britain.

respect is a broad church and will have people in it with all kind of odd ideas.

I find it very surreal to see the Indymedia network being criticised for lack of democracy by someone close to Leninist/Democratic centralist views. Even more strange is to talk about censorship.

All the fronts set up in the past by the SWP (GR,WtCW,Soc.Al.) were a travesty of democracy and representation. National conferences were not directly deciding policy, but simply listening to talks and voting a pre-prepared list of candidates for central comitees. At no point there has been any serous attempt to channel policy back up from the grassroots, except through the pre-existing channels of the SWP/SWSS hierarchies (that btw were not formally explained to anyone). There is no reason what so ever to think that respect will be any different. In comparison the IMC network's process (with weekly meetings in collectives around the country, well understood processes for moderation and feature posting, and continual work on mailing lists that are publicaly archived) should be an example of transparancy and democracy.

The most shocking critisism though is about censorship: the SWP has a number of publications (Socialist worker, review, IS) that for years have been closed to any outside contribution and serve only to pump the party line, and a distorted view of social strugles to justify a Leninist line. Many other (less successful) parties have them too. The day that SW and IS will be an open publishing forum, that the front organisation's websites (GR,ANL,StWC,...) have open forums for all to participate in their running, and the planning and policy of these organisations will be taking place in frequent open meetings and mailing lists, then their news should be relayed on Indymedia.

Pigs will be flying well before that happens.

interesting debate, and thanks Manos for pointing out the closedness of party news outlets. Indymedia UK is not a noticeboard for political parties, and according to its mission statement "clearly states its bias". Indymedia has the power to decide what appears on its own website, but can't interfere with any other website. Censorship??? Bullshit.

Respect have to be anti abortion as they are too close to the islamist movement to be anyting else. Muslims are anti abortion so are they. Of course many respect members may think differently but Galloway has dragged them too far in with the Islamist movement, so they must play along with the usual Islamic dogma, anti gay, anti women, Israel, USA, democracy etc.

Respect have become tied to the islamist movement in the UK so of course they have to be anti-abortion, along with anti Israel, Women, democracy, USA etc. Galloway has got them tied in with Islamic movements that go along with the usual Islamic dogma.