Sunday, November 04, 2007

Saint George the Trotskyist Dragon slayer

The SWP accuse George of being a Trotskyite Dragon slayer. You just couldn’t really make this stuff up. It’s been only a week since I last updated my blog on the latest idioticracy of diss-respect. (Yep, it’s true that a week is a long time in politics but Harold Wilson at the time was talking about serious players, not these jokers. Check out also the post on why we should all hate Galloway). Since then lots of really childish and silly personal stuff dressed up as real politics has happened.

For example there was supposed to be a Respect National Conference at the University of Westminster on Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 November. However, George and his gang obviously worked out that they will lose any votes at this conference, since the SWP were packing selection meetings nationally with their members. Galloway’s power base (as such) is only in Tower Hamlets.

So George decides to call his own “New Respect” conference for the same weekend, calling it “Respect Renewal” at the Bishopgate Institute. He has also changed the locks for the Respect headquarters, locking out the SWP Respect “officers” (not that they will be that for long). Galloway claims that they had to this because his mate Rob “where has the money gone” Hoverman, had been threatened by SWP officials and (amazingly) because the Parliamentary commissioner had told him to do it (yeah).

The “Unity Coalition” Respect website is now claiming that Galloway and his mates have split from Respect. While the official Galloway website has only details about his paid radio talkshow gigs at Blackpool?

In Newham, George refused to turn up to a Respect meeting because SWP members were there and held his own meeting at a non-SWP members house. The 3 Newham Respect councillors also refused to sign a "call for unity" round robin letter sent by the Chair of Newham Respect Michael Gavan.

While it was excitedly announced that the rail union RMT had decided to back SWP Lindsey German as the Respect candidate for London Mayor next year. Only for RMT Secretary Bob Crow to then publicly repudiate this.

Ironically of course the 4 Tower Hamlets Councillors (2 SWP members) who resigned the official Respect whip, now call themselves “Respect Independents” and are apparently in talks with the Liberal Democrats in a new “unity coalition”.

I am looking at a copy of the SWP “Party Notes” 23 October on these issues. There is, I kid you not, a 20 page appendix on how the SWP central committee was absolutely right about everything and how any problems was all Galloway’s fault. As if in the real world this matters one fig.

I really enjoyed the supposedly unofficial SWP “Lenin Tomb” blog on his take on what’s “going on”. It is just unintentionally hilarious. Wot a load of utter rubbish. He claims that the SWP is such a perfect moral organization which would never do any underhand things; they are just sweetness and light. This bloke obviously doesn’t believe in the cause enough to do the dirty deeds. He is therefore a bad Trot (in their terms). There is not one single bit of reflection that the SWP had contributed to this crisis. He is telling porkies and should be ashamed of himself for writing such nonsense.

Actually, this is just rank hypocrisy of the worse kind. Compared to the SWP CC, give me Galloway every time; at least he doesn’t really believe his cant and posture. Nor of course, surely, after being lied to time and time again by their CC, does a majority of the real SWP rank and file believe theirs?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

He claims that the SWP is such a perfect moral organization which would never do any underhand things; they are just sweetness and light. This bloke obviously doesn’t believe in the cause enough to do the dirty deeds. He is therefore a bad Trot (in their terms). There is not one single bit of reflection that the SWP had contributed to this crisis. He is also a liar and should be ashamed of himself for writing such nonsense.

I'm sorry, but do you expect me to take this nonsense seriously? There isn't a single engagement with what I actually wrote. I did not discuss the SWP as "sweetness and light" - it is not in my nature to talk about politics in that way. I do not expect anyone in politics to be angelic, not even George Galloway. I discussed the underlying political arguments, which you are apparently incapable of parsing. You accuse me of being a "liar", but appear to lack the means to explain what you think you mean by this. You accuse me of being unwilling to do dirty deeds, but I assure you that I have the morals of a backbench Labour MP (with the added benefit of a spine).

I would add that your absurd claim that we could pack selection meetings to the extent of causing the other side to lose votes purely on that basis is patently unrealistic. George Galloway's supporters have proved themselves perfectly capable of packing meetings with freshly signed up members when they want to. There is no reason to believe they couldn't have stuffed the national conference to the rafters. That isn't the reason why they split.

Still, I suppose this is the best that can be expected from someone whose elevating invective includes such enlightening phrases as "Wot utter rubbish", and whose rhetorical repertoire appears to be restricted to non-sequitur followed by umbrage.

Tom Powdrill said...

Hi John

Now officially two Respects, each with their own website!

John Gray said...

Hi Lenin

Sorry you don’t like my post. As I type I can hear the near constant sounds of rockets and fireworks going off. Pretty apt I think.

However, you guys just don’t get it do you? Leaving aside the obvious fact that Galloway has never changed and why on earth you hocked up to him in the first place. You have no concept of self analysis or reflection, no such thing as doubt (in public anyway), just sheer haughty arrogance and self belief (public school bred no doubt?) How is it that you may call yourself a Leninist revolutionary but you don’t seem to like working class people that much? I suppose we are just too thick to know what is good for us. It’s a shame I suppose. BTW Do you have to be posh to get on in the SWP?

Anyway, I think that I was wrong to call you a liar, which was silly of me. So I have updated it to “telling porkies” which hopefully will annoy you even more.

Wot exactly is a “non-sequitur”? didn’t come across the term in Elfed High.

planetanarchy.net said...

This is what I posted in Lenin's blog on the document:

So the SWP is staying the course and will contine RESPECT minus Galloway and a lot of other people/forces. What are the lessons to be learned here? That the SWP was 100% right on the key issues, and its stray members (Wrack, Ovenden), Galloway, and the RESPECT leaders that sided with him were totally wrong?

I'm sorry but this statement is little more than self-righteous ex-post facto justification rather than a balance sheet of the SWP's intervention and a hard-headed analysis of what the way forward is.

It's sad but I predict both RESPECTS will go nowhere unless one of them manages to hook up with the unions who've voted to disaffiliate from Labour.


The SWP is their own worst enemy and their practice is giving a bad name to Leninism (I'm a Leninist). They've learned nothing from this experience and judging from LT's blog they aren't even asking questions or trying to honestly and accurately reflect and move forward.

It's very sad and pathetic that they are going to "stay the course" and continue RESPECT regardless of whether or not anyone is with them (sound familiar? Coalition of the Willing, anyone?). I pity the expelled members Ovenden and others who were kicked out before they could make their case to the party in the pre-conference discussion period because they retained some common sense and refused to jump off the bridge when the CC said "jump."

George is no saint and the SWP is no Trotskyist dragon. Their internal regime is undemocratic and the animal they resemble is neither grand nor powerful.

Anonymous said...

Can I just take this opportunity to congratulate everyone who has contributed (via their blogs, comments, faction fighting, and behind the scenes provocations) to the death of Respect - the Unity Coalition. It has been highly entertaining and I don't suppose I will see anything quite so much fun again in my lifetime. SWP - RIP.

John Gray said...

Binh thinks that there is no future for either respect unless they hook up with either the FBU or RMT? These are tiny unions. Many members of both still retain their Labour Party membership (my local Cllr is a member of the FBU Exec). I expect that they will eventually return as Labour Party affiliates.

So what is the future for the non respect left? Back to selling newspapers on street corners? I’ll have a think and do a post.