The downfall of Respect and any real alternative.
As seems to happen every few years on the remnants of the far left, the latest attempt at creating a common front seems to breaking apart. Respect, itself built in part on the ruins of the Socialist Alliance, seems to be on the brink of complete meltdown. Rather than the infighting being about the fragile coalition between some of the Islamist groups within the structure and the left-wingers, as long expected and predicted, its downfall seems to be down to the breakdown of relations between the Socialist Workers' Party and George Galloway himself, with Galloway complaining of the "Leninist" tendency of those in the higher reaches of the SWP. As the editorial in this week's Socialist Worker points out, this more than anything tends to suggests that Galloway's vanity and ego are once again getting the better of him: the SWP and the SW were among the few that didn't call Galloway on his intellectually bankrupt decision to go on Celebrity Big Brother, or his continuing preference to go on sojourns to Cuba and on tour while his constituents in Bethnal Green lack a representative in parliament. TWFY shows he's turned up in a mere 12% of votes in the current parliament, speaking a grand total of six times.Lenin, Socalist Unity and Dave's Part all have more on the machinations going on. More than anything though, it shows that the current crisis in politics is affecting not just the main parties, but nearly all of them, perhaps with the exception of the Greens, who have of late being debating whether they should have an established leader or not, something they have previously looked askance upon. With the differences between the three main parties becoming fewer and less discernible, the left especially ought to be able to capitalise on the lack of genuine choice; instead, like all the rest it's turning on itself rather than taking the fight to its opponents.
It's more than apparent that any attempts to "reclaim" the Labour party are both naive and also doomed to failure. The need for a party to the left of New Labour has never been more vital, as Brown's unopposed ascent to the leadership of the party showed, yet the left is currently either cowed and impotent, as the party conference demonstrated, or more interested in tearing chunks off those within its own ranks. As Dave Osler writes, it's quite true that the far left has always had more than its fair share of arrogant control freaks, more concerned with their own cults of personality than in the interests of those who so desperately need representation, but this is no excuse for the miserable failure to even come close to something that could pick up more than a dozen votes at the ballot box. Respect was an admirable attempt, yet with Galloway at the helm, one of those rabid "anti-imperialists" who finds it easier to find common cause with oppressors, dictators and murderous "resistance" fighters (as his continued defenses of Hizbullah and the Iraqi "resistance"* have shown) than broad-based freedom movements it was always doomed to eventual failure, especially when it also has within it those who hold as some of their foremost beliefs ideas that are anathema to any real social liberal.
Is there an easy answer to any of the above? Probably not. Even by the standards of the far left, the sectarianism inherent amongst the various Trotskyist groupings is especially virulent in this country. Yet building a left alternative to New Labour without them is almost certainly impossible. As much as the Euston manifesto was rightly mocked and sneered at for its apologia for liberal interventionism with their real intentions masked under that banner, such a statement of belief might be the best hope for the left to come together. While the Euston manifesto was unashamedly internationalist, hardly mentioning anything about economics, for instance, such a statement would have to deal with both the former and with positioning on social issues which would instantly flush out the intolerant Islamists that Harry's Place is so intent on tackling. It might well be the only hope left to kick start the alternative that so many are waiting for.
*Talking about the Iraqi "resistance" in such broad strokes as Galloway does is to invite the valid accusation that you are therefore supporting the activities of al-Qaida in Iraq and the Salafist, takfirist jihadis of the kind that have massacred the Shias and others in the thousands through suicide bombings. There are some sections of the Iraqi insurgency, such as Hamas in Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, based more on the Islamist thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood than on that of bin Laden et al, that are non-sectarian and completely opposed to the slaughter perpetuated by AQI that are almost honourable, but that's as far as it goes.
Labels: George Galloway, left alternative, Respect, Socialist Workers' Party, the far left
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