Kitten Pinder was a SAD DESPERATE MEDIA WHORE.
I can see what you're trying to do though. Maybe you should tell your Special Branch paymasters the training's not working - or maybe you're so used to hounding the Respect* lame-os that you're shocked to come across a militant able to out-fox you?
Yes, nice try, sir. But you'll have to try harder to get information on our growing and dynamic membership.
Ian Town
www.workerspower.com
(*Respect does not identify itself as a working class party, despite the fact that George Galloway was a long-time Labour MP and the organisational core of Respect is the membership of the Socialist Workers Party. In fact Respect it is an alliance between the SWP and a series of religiously based organisations - local mosques and sections of the Muslim Association of Britain. The constituencies where it has made its breakthrough are all strongly Muslim areas.
Of course revolutionaries should not turn their back on Muslim areas. The Muslim population, the majority of whom are working class, is one of the most discriminated against and racially abused in Britain. Revolutionaries always side with the most oppressed and seek to draw them into the workers movement and into its vanguard.
The error that the SWP made was to seek out an alliance with Muslim people not on the basis of class politics but on a less than working class, less than socialist platform. In Lindsey German's words at its foundation conference, Respect set out to be "less socialist" than the left reformist Socialist Alliance had been.
Respect's political programme was trimmed to win middle class support within the Muslim community. When it comes to the question of the alternative society Respect is fighting for, it dodges the fundamental question: private property or socialised property? The expropriation of the capitalist class as a whole is not and cannot be raised.
Respect's manifesto does have a single paragraph aimed at attracting Old Labour supporters. It talks about the "organisation of society in the most open, democratic, participative, and accountable way practicable based on common ownership and democratic control" But ownership of and control over what? This is evasive. At least the famous Labour Party Clause Four called for "common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange".
Mosques, just like churches and synagogues, contain a mixture of working class and middle class people. The SWP talks of how many worshipers in the mosque are workers. This is beside the point. In all religious communities, business people (small or large scale), doctors and lawyers call the shots.
For many decades Jewish and Irish immigrants were overwhelmingly working class too. But no revolutionaries ever thought that they could form an electoral alliance, a proto-party with the synagogues or the catholic churches.
Socialists must be for secular education and women's liberation. All religions embody undemocratic teachings on these issues. Respect was downplaying women's rights from the outset. When it used the slogan "a woman's right to choose" it meant to choose to wear the hijab but not to choose to have an abortion. The Respect election manifesto had "Respect for..." sections for every sector of the population. But no "Respect for women"!
Galloway stressed whenever he could his profound religious faith and his opposition to abortion. Respect supporters in the mosques advertised these positions as reasons to vote for him. The SWP never uttered a single word of criticism of their allies' socially reactionary views. The best they could be made to do was to claim they were only his personal views. However, Lindsey German hastened to clarify that, when issues like that came up in the House of Commons, Respect was in favour of a free vote, allowing George to follow his conscience.
The fall in support for Labour in key sections of the working class presents massive opportunities for socialists to rally the most progressive sections to a new working class party. Respect's high vote is clear evidence of this. But by channelling this discontent into a cross-class populist vehicle, the SWP and Galloway are frittering away the chance to build a mass working class alternative to Blair.
That's why Workers Power is absolutely right to oppose Respect, and to refuse to advocate a vote for Respect candidates. We will continue instead to fight for the foundation of a new working class party, and for a revolutionary socialist programme)