The Strange Case of George Galloway

Firstly, I am not sure how many readers I still have left as I have so neglected this blog of late, but for those who still remain apologies - I feel I owe you something.  Obviously, there is much one could talk about - the world crisis - the ongoing processes of revolution and counter-revolution in the Middle East and North Africa, and the current anger of millions of people against the Tories means it looks as though we are in for a distinctly hot autumn" in Britain, and there are many upcoming conferences and demonstrations in Britain I really should remind people about - not least the demonstration on October 20 in London that could just possibly turn out to be the biggest demonstration in British trade union history and if so could then give enough confidence to people to lead to, just possibly, the first General Strike in British history since 1926.   But I am instead sadly going to briefly blog about George Galloway, the MP of the small left-wing party - Respect - that seems to be in the process of imploding so soon after its recent dramatic success in Bradford West earlier this year - and for reasons oddly directly related to Galloway himself.  I say sadly, as what looks like it could be the beginning of the end for Respect is not something to be welcomed by anyone who wants to see a credible democratic socialist alternative to the austerity politics of cuts and privatisation of the mainstream political parties in Britain.

It is too soon to really pass any kind of judgment on Galloway himself - the future is unknown and perhaps in the future this current moment will come to be seen as one of the many downs in a careers that has been full of ups and downs - or perhaps when political historians of the British left come to look back at this particular moment, it will register merely a footnote.  Lets hope so.  But at the moment, it seems to me that Galloway is currently bearing some eerily strange resemblances to another independent socialist MP 100 years ago - Victor Grayson, who was elected against all the odds to parliament to represent a seat in Yorkshire - Colne Valley in 1907.  

Lenin described Grayson as 'a very fiery socialist but one not strong in principles [esp on imperialism] and given to phrasemongering,' but as Brian Pearce noted, Grayson's 'name became for a few years an inspiring symbol to advanced workers... His election threw the official leaders of Labour into consternation. But in a comparatively short time, he eliminated himself from the political scene owing to personal weaknesses.'  His biography - entitled The Strange Case of Victor Grayson - was written by Reg Groves, a pioneering British Trotskyist.

There are important differences between Grayson and Galloway (Grayson was politically weak on imperialism and his personal weaknesses included alcoholism -whereas Galloway is generally strong on imperialism and famously a teetotaler), but it seems here that a personal weakness of Galloway - in this case his sexism which recently manifested itself with respect to the Assange case (forcing Respect leader Salma Yaqoob to resign from the organisation and Respect's parliamentary candidate in Manchester, Kate Hudson, to resign as candidate for Respect) looks like it has been the undoing of his party and may well ultimately come to cost him his own political career - particularly because he seems so unapologetic and unrepentant about what he has said on the matter of Assange.  Of course sexism is not just a 'personal weakness' as such but rather also reflective of the limitations of Galloway's political make up (famously an odd, heady mix whose main ingredients include Third Worldism with a strong strain of Pan-Arabism combined with Old Labourism with a dash of Stalinism, where 'working class' tends to be identified with masculine, 'macho' connotations).  Anyway, the apparent current implosion of Respect is a sad moment for socialists in Britain - but the coming looming struggles ahead mean that the potentialities and possibilities for forging a new left and a genuine socialist alternative from below remain.  Hopefully the great majority of Respect members and former Respect members will still feel able to be part of that broader political project - a project which has to be against not only racism and imperialism, but also sexism and other forms of oppression.     

The Arab Spring Hits Bradford

Histomat salutes George Galloway and Respect for their triumphant and historic win in the Bradford West by-election yesterday - very many congratulations to the people of Bradford West for showing such exquisite political taste and judgement. As Galloway put it, "We have won the most sensational victory in British political history … Labour has been hit by a tidal wave in a seat they have held for many decades and dominated for 100 years. I have won a big victory in every part of the constituency, including in areas many people said I should not even compete..."

Earlier this year I was doing a bit of a spring clean and came across a box of Respect badges under my bed - dating back a few years to when as an SWP member I was part of building Respect*. The box looked kind of sad, and basically redundant. Respect had seemedly all but collapsed as a party itself - and while I did think about posting it off to their national office I gave it to my local SWP organiser in Leeds instead in case he had time to do something with it. Yesterday that very same organiser phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to go over to Bradford to help on the last day of Galloway's election campaign - it was by then clear that he had a good outside chance of winning - or at least polling very respectably. It was a glorious sunny day, I had the time and so for a few hours yesterday I went over to campaign. On the way we popped into a local bookies and put down a cheeky bet on Galloway winning ('a flutter on the GG') - the odds then were 5/1. We thought briefly about betting the whole SWP district finances on Galloway, but decided a) it would be undemocratic to do so and b) the other comrades might not be too happy to hear about this decision afterwards if it went wrong...

Anyway, we got allocated to covering a polling station on Thornton Road in what must have been by the presence of the Tory poll counters at the station one of the supposed 'Tory areas' of the constituency - though this being part of Bradford West it was a largely working class, multi-racial and multicultural area. What was clear was the amount of support for Galloway among voters going in - and from all sections of the community. Every Asian woman - young and old - that passed said they either had voted for Galloway or were voting for Galloway - for some he was their 'hero' - and they mentioned issues like the war (Galloway expressesly declared on his publicity that he was for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and pledged to oppose any new imperialist war on Iran). I did not take them all at face value at first - from past experience campaigning in Bradford for Respect years ago - people might say they were voting for the candidate you were campaigning for to your face but it didn't necessarily mean they would. There was much in the campaign earlier about the strength of 'Bradree' - communal or family loyalties which were apparently rock solid for Labour after years of this kind of paternalist networking - and so I didn't want to get my hopes up. However, by the end of my shift I thought that if indeed every Asian woman at least did vote for Galloway he would at least poll very well.

But it wasn't just Asian women who told me they were voting Galloway - a young Asian bus driver stopped his bus on the road I was on just to collect a flier from me. There was supposed to be an issue about the fact that Galloway was not 'local' - compared to the other candidates - but as Galloway himself declared being a Bradford outsider is an advantage, given the "utter failure" of 38 years of representation by Labour MPs.

"It's no electoral benefit at all to be the local candidate here," he said last week in his campaign headquarters at a Bradford solicitors' office. "People look around them and see a city that's sinking into the big black hole down there in town," he said, referring to an abandoned building site where a Westfield shopping centre was supposed to be built – an eyesore Labour blames on a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in the city council in the first decade of the new millennium. "The city centre is filled with pound shops, pawn shops and payday loan shops. There is mass unemployment. I think somebody coming from outside and offering a new start is an electoral plus." Galloway said that support for him had "flowered like daffodils in spring".

One elderly white woman told me that all the other candidates were local councillors who had done nothing - and she had read what Galloway had written and listened to what he had said and that she agreed with him. I was reminded of the old saying 'sometimes you gotta shake the tree to see what falls out' - well, the tree of Labour-controlled politics in Bradford was given one hell of a shaking by Galloway's campaign and was found very wanting indeed. Galloway's campaign literature spoke of 'a new start in Bradford', 'an industrial policy which will bring jobs back to Bradford', an end to 'tuition fees' and stopping 'the break up of the NHS' - as he put it 'you know that, while standing for Respect, I am the real Labour man in this election. I will be a strong voice for all in Bradford'.

The only other evidence that other parties were even running in the area I was campaigning in was four young Labour-supporting student canvassers who walked past, looked dejected when they saw I was campaigning for Galloway - and a car that passed - also full of Labour activists who booed when they saw my Galloway literature. I think many in Labour secretly knew they were beaten even by that point. But no-one could have predicted the late surge of support - particularly among the young - which gave Galloway to describe the victory as an 'uprising' against the mainstream parties - and to dub this the 'Bradford Spring'. The reality is that support for Galloway came from across the constituency - and from all sections of society - and that is what is so uncomfortable for the mainstream parties about this result - it reveals just how weak the bases of all the mainsteam parties have become - even in their most 'safe seats'.

In many ways the result is a reflection of how volatile politics is in Britain just now - and across Europe as a result of the economic crisis. We see the slow polarisation of politics away from the 'centre' towards the socialist Left (as Galloway here - or look at Greece where the left of Labour parties together are now polling about 40 percent in opinion polls) and far right (eg Marine Le Pen in France). The basic fact is that Galloway won because he promised real opposition to the Tory cuts and attacks on the working class - something New Labour under Ed Miliband can't deliver at all. As one comrade put it to me in a text this morning, 'the Tories have a real opposition now and Moribund et al are in the shit'.

Finally, Galloway's win raises the question about possible future left re-alignment in Britain. Ideally it would I think be great to see a unification of Respect and the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition - 'Respect: The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition' anyone? - but this may not happen that quickly. Nonetheless, the echoes of history are here for all to see - the Independent Labour Party had its beginnings in Bradford in the 1890s - lets hope that Galloway's victory in Bradford means that 2012 sees the resurgence of 'independent Labour' - independent working class - politics in Britain again. You can almost feel what the early ILP socialists liked to call 'the rising sun of socialism' again...

Yes, spring is in the air, politics in Britain has just got interesting again after the earthquake that has just hit Bradford - and I am off to Greggs to celebrate my winnings - there are not many times when it feels like you are with the majority of opinion as a socialist - but today is one of those rare moments - and it should be savoured...

*George Galloway in a public meeting once kindly described me as a 'smart cookie', because I was apparently the only person in a room of hundreds of people who knew anything about the political career of one-time Labour Defence Minister Geoff Hoon (a.k.a. 'Geoff Who?')

Edited to add: The comments here seem to be not working so well, so in response to the challenge that this post is too optimistic about the result and its implications, I would say yes, I probably got carried away a bit here by the sunny weather - Galloway is not a revolutionary socialist, and his campaign team was noticeably very male-dominated - though also very well organised it has to be said. Nonetheless, as I think Kevin Maguire has noted, all the other political parties' votes put together couldn't have stopped Galloway here, and I think he will have learnt some lessons from his past experience as a Respect MP that mean he will be more of an asset for the socialist left this time around...

Edited to also add: see Lenin's Tomb for more analysis. The final thing I would say while I am here - and without wishing to stroke the ego of Galloway too much - is that the speed of the campaign and its unexpected victory is a little bit reminiscent of the Cuban Revolution - stealing a march on the American Empire and the British Establishment under their very noses as it were... I'll leave you with that thought...

Edited again to add: Comment from
Tariq Ali, Charlie Kimber for the SWP, and the man himself.

Castro and the ''professional dangers'' of power

There is a useful article in this week's Socialist Worker on the political legacy left by Fidel Castro. Whenever I think of Castro, I am always reminded by the Manics Street Preachers comment on him, a lyric from the song 'Baby Elian': 'You don't just sit in a rocking chair, When you've built a revolution'. The notion of revolutionary leaders sitting around in rocking chairs once in power is of course hardly a new story. Historically speaking, a quick read through Christian Rakovsky's 1928 article 'The "professional dangers" of power' reminds us of that. Rather than deploying the moralism of the Manic Street Preachers, as a Marxist Rakovsky was trying to come to terms with the material roots behind the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy after the Russian Revolution, in part drawing instructive parallels with the Great French Revolution.

More than once Robespierre warned his partisans against the consequences which the intoxication of power would bring. He warned them that, holding power, they should not become too presumptuous, "big-headed", as he said, or as we would say now, infected with "Jacobin vanity". However as we shall see later, Robespierre himself contributed largely to the loss of power from the hands of the petty bourgeoisie which leaned on the Parisian workers.

Rakovsky identified with Babeuf's critique of how the militancy and revolutionary creativity of the Parisien masses died away once the Jacobins were in power:

Babeuf, after his emergence from the prison at Abbaye, looking about him, began by asking himself what had happened to the people of Paris, the workers of the faubourgs St Antoine and St Marceau, those who on 14 July 1789 had taken the Bastille, on 10 August 1792 the Tuileries, who had laid seige to the Convention on 30 May 1793, not to speak of numerous other armed interventions. In one single phrase, in which can be felt the bitterness of the revolutionary, he gave his observation: "It is more difficult to re-educate the people in the love of liberty than to conquer it".

We have seen why the people of Paris forgot the attraction of liberty. Famine, unemployment, the liquidation of revolutionary cadres (numbers of these had been guillotined), the elimination of the masses from the leadership of the country, all this brought about such an overwhelming moral and physical weariness of the masses that the people of Paris and the rest of France needed thirty-seven years’ rest before starting a new revolution.

Babeuf formulated his programme in two phases (I speak here of his programme of 1794): "Liberty and an elected Commune".

Of course there are differences between the French, Russian and Cuban Revolutions. Each revolution has to be studied, explained and understood on their own terms, but generalisations from the experience of revolutions are also possible and necessary.

There is also a more general lesson about class struggle that has to be remembered and if necessary relearnt anew. That is, understanding that there is a temptation for every popular leader of a progressive or radical movement to just sit around once even a small victory has been won, particularly if that victory is won on the field of electoral politics. In America today for example, while I am pleased to see that Ralph Nader has decided to run for President again, it is not surprising that his campaign seems to be finding it harder to really take off this time round. After his triumphant and inspiring securing of almost 3 million votes in the 2000 elections, he seemed to have sat in a rocking chair rather than doing the kind of campaigning work necessary to keep the momentum up, appearing only at election times to do what he does best - highlighting the way in which both the Democratic and Republican Parties only serve the American Empire and the interests of multinational capital. The long fight for political representation for working people in America requires surely something more than this.

And while I certainly do not want to turn this blog into the 'George Galloway Ate My Hamster' blog, the 'professional dangers' of power also apply in Britain as well. 'You don't just sit around as a radio talk show host when you become the first left of Labour MP to be elected for sixty years' might not be the most beautiful lyric ever crafted in the world - indeed it would almost certainly be in the running for the most ugly lyric ever written - but for all its moralism it would perhaps contain an important truth about politics within it nonetheless.

Electioneering

I am afraid I haven't really got time for a long blog at the moment - to be honest I haven't really got time to blog at all - but I would just like to comment briefly on a couple of forthcoming elections, the American elections and the London GLA/Mayoral elections. Both of them are quite similar in a way, and what seems to apparently matter in each is the personality of the candidate rather than any politics - about which we hear little.

Firstly, regarding this years American elections - about which I finding it hard to get that excited about given the choice between the main frontrunners ain't much of a choice at all, there was a mildly diverting article in last week's New Statesman by a Tory called Tara Hamilton-Miller who writes about how many Conservative MPs are falling over themselves to court the US Democrat Party.

'It is difficult to generalise as to whom Conservative MPs and voters would support. Some of the most right-wing have been seduced by Barack Obama. [David] Cameron himself seems rather smitten, commenting: "I must say, I think he's compelling. I think we need the same sense of possibility here." The old-fashioned view that the right would always side with the Republicans no longer stands.

Although McCain would appear to be the natural choice for Conservatives, many Tory MPs are either "out" Democrats or at least considering it for the first time. A shadow minister sums it up: "I was going to say it was because I know so little about Romney and Huckabee, but that's not the reason. I'm bored by the Republican candidates and fascinated by the Hillary/Obama show. Who wouldn't be?"'

I think socialists and those on the left who are falling over themselves in uncritical adulation of Obama and the Democratic Party in general might want to take a bit of a reality check when they see who else is 'facinated' and 'compelled' by the Democratic Party frontrunners.

Meanwhile back in LabourPartyCapitalistBritain.com, the left blogosphere is in a mild turmoil about the London Mayoral Elections coming up on May 1. In brief, Ken Livingstone, the current Labour Party's London Mayor, was criticised in some witch-hunting TV documentary made by embittered former lefties for being - shock horror - a bit of a lefty in the past, still a bit of a lefty on some issues in the present, and appointing lefties as advisors to him. Nick Cohen began the McCarthyitesque campaign with a lazy crude 'cut and paste' job from his book - an article which did not tell you very much about why Ken Livingstone was apparently 'unfit to be Mayor' but did tell you everything you need to know about why Nick Cohen was unfit for journalism. Cohen was unable to even get the most basic facts straight. To take just one minor example from the very first paragraph:

'To understand why Ken Livingstone is unfit to be the Labour candidate for mayor of London, you have to grasp that he has never moved away from the grimy conspirators of the totalitarian left...Ken Livingstone began by travelling with the sickest sect of them all: the Workers' Revolutionary party.'

In fact, Ken Livingstone in fact did not begin political life by 'travelling' with the now defunct WRP, but remarkably the first group he identified with was the now defunct decidedly 'libertarian socialist' group Solidarity, as recorded in Who's Afraid of Margaret Thatcher?: In Praise of Socialism; by Ken Livingstone and Tariq Ali, (Verso Books, 1984,) before making the odd choice, in 1968 of all years, of joining the Labour Party.

Anyway, the real problem with Livingstone, as Respect mayoral candidate Lindsey German points out, is not that he is too left wing, but he is nowhere near left wing enough.

'The claim that Ken Livingstone's advisers believed they could create a socialist city state will come as a surprise to his friends and enemies alike. They certainly haven't succeeded...any socialist who enters government at local or national level has to judge his or her impact by one criterion: is their holding of office making life better for working people?

Any serious attempt to do so means challenging some of the vested interests: the property developers who are doing so much to despoil London for the benefit of their shareholders; the City of London whose recent reverses come after years of huge salaries and bonuses; the employers who are making people work longer and harder for low wages.

Livingstone and his advisers have not done that. Instead they have taken the view that development and a booming city had to be encouraged in order for that wealth to trickle down and for jobs to be created. Far from challenging these unelected interests it has often meant encouraging them, no doubt in the interests of the long term project of socialism in one city.

The idea that this theory has something to do with Leon Trotsky is bizarre. Before the Russian revolution Trotsky was exiled in London, Paris, New York and Vienna. He made history in St Petersburg in 1917. But he famously rejected the view that socialism could be built in one country, let alone in a single city. The idea of flourishing city states has more to do with the Medicis than with Marxism.'

Thank goodness that someone like Lindsey German is standing for London Mayor and offering a clear socialist alternative to New Labour - just as it is good that there are at least some on the American left who understand the importance of trying breaking the political monopoly of the two main big-business parties. Such candidates can never stand in such elections because they can win - though there is a possibility Lindsey German could get elected onto the GLA - but in order that, come election time, people can see that there is resistance to the neoliberal agenda even at that most unlikely of places - the ballot box. If socialists can find an echo there for the arguments of people over profit, for the millions rather than the millionaires, that can only give confidence to the real living movements against capitalism and war outside.

Respect: Going Back to the Future

The founder of the British Socialist Workers Party, Tony Cliff, when asked about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the U.S.S.R), used to make the point that it was 'Four words - Four lies'*. In other words, it was not a 'Union' since Stalinist Russia controlled the satallite states around it in the manner of Imperial Russia, it was not 'Soviet' as there were no longer any Soviets (Workers' Councils) there, it was not 'Socialist' since the working class no longer had any democratic control over industry or society but instead bureaucratic state capitalist, and it was not a 'Republic' since the nominal leader (from Stalin onwards) had all the autocratic power of old Tsars (Emperors). Recently, it might seem that the 'Respect: the Unity Coalition' is in fact 'Three Words: Three lies' since its recent split - George Galloway's recent remarks about the SWP (describing us as 'Russian Dolls' and 'juvenile dwarves' while telling members in Tower Hamlets - including his former election agent to 'fuck off') certainly show a certain lack of 'Respect' and there sadly seems to be little possibility now of 'Unity' or 'Coalition' between the Gallowayites and the rest of Respect. Yet I would argue that what is left of the Respect Coalition - despite the departure of the Gallowayites - shows that, for all its weaknesses, it still remains the single best vehicle for uniting the left to build a socialist alternative to New Labour.

People can read reports of the recent Respect conference in Socialist Worker and on Lenin's Tomb, and since I was not at the conference I can add little to those very positive and excellent reports. What I want to do here is try to explain a little about why the split has taken place for readers of Histomat who are outside either Britain or Respect itself and are wondering what on earth is going on. My previous brief post on the issue may have made it seem all there was to it was George Galloway's ego, which is a superficial explanation and rather unsatisfactory from a Marxist point of view - which places the role of the individual within wider politics and society and places emphasis on social production and the collective power of social movements rather than the psychoanalysis of the personalities of politicians in order to explain social change. Only time will tell whether George Galloway is the new Robert Kilroy-Silk.

Indeed, and this is where my argument kind of starts, I think it is perhaps interesting to compare and contrast Galloway's 'Respect Renewal' project to Neil Kinnock's project of 'renewing Labour', a project which ultimately gave birth to 'New Labour'. Only in this case, obviously Galloway is trying to 'renew Respect' so that it becomes something like 'Old Labour' or what he would call 'real Labour'. This was, to be fair to him and others within Respect who also had/have this vision for Respect, a legitimate political project and one that could arguably have been worked for within the initial Respect Coalition as formulated - which brought together both old Labourites like Galloway alongside revolutionaries like the SWP to work to build a left alternative. And indeed, there are no doubt still people within the Respect coalition who have this vision for Respect who I hope still feel able and happy to work for it within Respect. But the point was, that the Respect Coalition was precisely that - a coalition with people with different visions for what Respect should become. For Galloway, the hope was to build up another Labour Party to replace the hideous rotting putrid fungoid bureaucratic lump which bears the indelible stain of dead children from Iraq and Afghanistan and which still goes under the name of the Labour Party despite its open support for neo-liberalism and imperialism.

There were also of course those of us within Respect like the SWP which had a different vision for Respect - for us 'Labourism' (and to be frank 'Parliamentary Socialism' in general) as a political tradition was bankrupt and indeed an historic obstacle to the development of a militant working class culture within Britain - and we hoped that the development of Respect could help to undermine the power of Labourism over the British working class movement by giving militants and socialists an alternative political home to the rather unsatisfactory 'home' offered by the powerless Labour Left since the demise of Bennism. But the important thing to remember was that Respect did succeed in bringing together people despite their alternative strategic visions for the future on the key issues - opposition to the 'war on terror', opposition to the rise in racism and Islamophobia that war set in motion, and opposition to the corporate takeover of Britain and the world that neo-liberalism represents. That unity was of course forged through struggle in building the anti-war movement in Britain around the Stop the War Coalition, a unity which remains as important as ever as Brown eyes up war on Iran (or failing that perhaps war in somewhere like Sudan) to try and restore the prestige and glory of British imperial power (sorry of 'Western humanitarian intervention') after the catastrophic disaster of Iraq.

What went wrong?

Historians of the future will no doubt argue long and hard about exactly why this unity within Respect broke down, and I don't want to attempt a full analysis of this - which will bore many readers of Histomat - even if such a full analysis is even possible at this stage. However, as Dave Renton pointed out to me, the split essentially took happened in three places - Tower Hamlets, Birmingham, and on the National Council of Respect itself. One might want to add a fourth place where the split took place - the blogosphere - where there was also a split among the blogs which supported Respect - and now noisy pro-Galloway blogs continue to pump out their propaganda like there is no tomorrow.

Perhaps the decision of Gordon Brown to move towards calling an early General Election in August this year prompted Galloway, fearful of losing his Parliamentary seat, to attack the SWP so that should he lose he would be able to have a scapegoat to blame - if he had not made some sort of criticism against the SWP before he lost then any attack post election would seem rather weak. We can only speculate about Galloway's 'thinking'. Nevertheless, once he made his attack on the SWP he decided to use it as part of a wider attempt to shift Respect decisively onto the road of 'renewal' - ie to turn Respect from a Coalition of reformists and revolutionaries into an openly reformist Party on the Labour Party mould. Just as Neil Kinnock when 'renewing Labour' decided to purge the Labour Party of the Militant Tendency so Galloway decided to try and do the same - at least in the few areas of the country where this might be possible thanks to recent electoral success - Tower Hamlets and Birmingham and there was a significant block of 'others' who might be his allies. This witch-hunt was necessary as the apparent problem with Respect for Galloway was that SWP support was seen as an electoral liability and apparently Respect was seen as too 'socialist' - exactly the same kind of arguments used by Kinnock of course when purging Labour of Militant.

Galloway's problem of course was that the SWP in Respect was rather more significant in both size and influence than the Militant Tendency was in the Labour Party in the 1980s. This is why Galloway's 'witch-hunt' never really got off the ground - there was very little material base for it within Respect. For example, where I am in Leeds, the number of potential supporters for a witch-hunt of the SWP is well, pretty close to zero. I doubt whether anyone seriously thinks Respect in Leeds would be viable or possible without the SWP - to put it bluntly. This is why the Gallowayite blogs continually scream that they are not involved in 'witch-hunting' the SWP - yet just because the witch-hunt has very little support within Respect doesn't mean that essentially it is still that - a witch-hunt.

When Galloway realised that his witch-hunt had failed - and that he would not be able to win a vote for expelling or removing SWP members from leading positions within Respect democratically at national conference - he had one option left - which he has taken. To split his supporters off into a separate organisation where they can try and relate to the desire for a left of Labour political organisation in Britain without the SWP. Instead of the need for sizeable numbers of rank and file activists and the labour movement norms of democracy, Galloway's 'Respect Renewal' project will be built as 'New Labour' was built - from above - using the mass media, spin doctors, celebrity supporters, rich backers, etc etc. If the development of New Labour was tragedy - then the development of 'Respect Renewal' truly is farce - this is indeed the Eighteenth Brumaire of George Galloway!

The future

Fortunately - what is now 'Old Respect' or 'real Respect' does have not only a future - but more of a future than 'Old Labour' seems to be having at the moment. People are tired of Brown's 'Labour Party Capitalist Britain', they desperately want an alternative which fights for the things that Respect stands for - Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environment, Community and Trade Unionism. The potential to build a grassroots democratic socialist alternative to Labourism in Britain from the bottom-up, which bases itself on the mass movement and whose elected representatives never try to rise above that movement for the purposes of making a political or media 'career', is greater than ever. Respect to Respect!

*A pedantic point I know, but an anarchist once told me that the phrase originated not with Cliff but with Cornelius Castoriadis. This is highly possible, but I do not know one way or another - if any readers know more about this then please clear up this matter of undoubtedly burning relevance for the contemporary international working class movement.

**Ever since the days of norse mythology, dwarves have had a place in in the literary imagination of some, and is it now possible that the term 'juvenile dwarf' might replace the [quasi-racist] term 'political pygmy' as a derogatory term for one's opponent in political discourse? Quite why first pygmies and now young dwarves deserve being invoked in this manner is however another question...

Edited to add: Witches and Russian Dolls: The Crisis in Respect

Galloway: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

A Matroyshka from Semyonovo - Russian dolls are highly controversial things apparently

I will write a longer post about George Galloway's decision to 'do a Kilroy' and abandon a democratically structured organisation to form a new party around his own ego and media profile later, but for now the best perspective for how Respect can move forward can be found here...

Edited to add: The Record: The SWP and Respect

British and French elections: A tale of two countries

People in both Britain and France have gone to the polls over the last week or so, and it is perhaps worth briefly comparing and contrasting the outcomes of both elections, as there are interesting parallels between them both.

Winners

On the face of it, the winners seem to be the mainstream Right, with Tory toff David Cameron winning hundreds of council seats and control of plenty of new councils in England and Sarkozy's triumph in France. Both Cameron and Sarkozy often try to come across as populists who stand for the poor and oppressed of each country, especially when garnering votes, but both of them also played the race card against migrant workers during these elections - one factor in the marginalisation of the fascist Right. Local Conservative election leaflets for example in Britain led with the liberal caring 'compassionate Conservatism' on the front pages, before discussing immigration and population numbers on page three.

Aside from the Scottish National Party, whose anti-war credentials and credibility of their leader Alex Salmond helped them to hammer New Labour in Scotland, the only other real noticeable group who saw their votes in general rise beyond expectations were the far Left, for reasons which hopefully regular readers of this blog will understand (widespread anger with neo-liberal economic policies and neo-colonial wars). In Britain, the results for Respect and Solidarity are online here, and were highly impressive given the media blackout of their campaign - for Respect bloggers reactions see here and here though the sad loss of Tommy Sheridan remains a body blow for all Scottish socialists. In France, the results for the LCR's Olivier Besancenot in the first round of the Presidential elections show the potential for the far Left to continue to advance electorally in the coming period in both Britain and France.

Losers

The main losers were mainstream parties of the centre - Blair's New Labour (if that can be classed as 'centre' still) and Ming Campbell's Liberal Democrats in Britain and the French Socialist Party. 'The centre cannot hold', as Yeats I think put it. Polarisation towards Left and Right are the order of the day. Though here again it is interesting. The far Right - the Nazis - had a bit of a nightmare to be honest in both countries. Le Pen seemed to be a threat at one point early on - well enough of a threat to pull lots of socialists into voting for Royal in the first round of the Presidential elections - but he is so old now that many racists looked to Sarkozy instead of him. The British Nazi Party have a more youthful leadership but really failed to advance at all in these elections - I think a high turnout and useful work carried out by anti-fascists in groups like Unite and Love Music were important here. However, their votes remained worringly high in several areas and there is no room for complacency.

Conclusion

The Guardian reported that small parties like Respect had 'little, if anything, to cheer' after the election results. Yet what was most encouraging to me as a socialist about the British elections was the fact that where the far Right were confronted with a radical left alternative like Respect, nine times out of ten it was the people who talked about peace, equality and putting people before profit who appeared most attractive to those working class voters who have been betrayed by 'their' Party and were looking to try and punish Blair. Those worried about the rise of the BNP - and no doubt they are still on the rise - should take comfort from these elections and draw the lesson: Respect can fill the political vacuum in British politics, we can offer hope where there is currently only hatred and despair, - we just need more socialists to put aside infighting and introspection and get involved in the task of building a serious, united socialist alternative. If neither McDonnell or Meacher succeeds in getting onto the ballot paper in the battle inside Labour to challenge Brown, then doubtless many of those few remaining socialists worthy of the name still inside New Labour will look around elsewhere. In those areas where Respect is strong - in places like East London, Birmingham and Preston - the natural home for such people already exists. Reports of Respect's looming death on the pro-war "Left" blogosphere have once again been found to be exaggerations. Respect no longer has to prove to anyone that is the best weapon English socialists have got come elections - it now has to grow nationally and build on these electoral successes at a council level in order to be able to fight for places in the European Parliament, in the GLA in London and in the Westminster Parliament over the coming years. Yet as the results, particularly the glorious result in Bolsover showed, we now know that it can be done!

Preston Respect: George Galloway Speech 24th April 2007

Orwell and the blogosphere

Given this weeks Socialist Worker has an article which suggests George Orwell might well have approved of blogging, I thought I would just put up two great little Orwell quotes, dating from 1939 and typical of his writing in the period just after he had returned to Britain from fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and which I think might illuminate some of the current fraternal debates between those socialists who remain inside the Labour Party in Britain and those of us trying to build Respect as an alternative.

'a Left-wing party, which, within a capitalist society, becomes a war party, has already thrown up the sponge, because it is demanding a policy which can only be carried out by its opponents' (1939).

'Nothing is likely to save us except the emergence within the next two years of a real mass party whose first pledges are to refuse war and to right imperial injustice.'(1939).

Galloway champions the Bolivarian Revolution

'These orchestrated attacks on Chávez are a travesty' declares Galloway in today's Guardian, hammering the British neo-cons around Blair who claim to support 'democratic Socialism' in theory but hate the sight of it in practice.

'The atmosphere in Caracas is fervid. The vast shanty towns draping the hillside around the cosmopolitan centre bustle with workers' cooperatives, trade union meetings, marches and debates. The $18bn fund for social welfare set up by Chávez is already bearing fruit. Education, food distribution and primary healthcare programmes now cover the majority for the first time. Queues form outside medical centres filled with thousands of Cuban doctors dispensing care to a population whose health was of no value to those who sat atop Venezuela's immense wealth in the past.'

The Spectre of Respect

Tony Benn famously declared on retiring from Parliament that he had left in order 'to spend more time on politics'. I suppose I feel a little that way about my early 'retirement' from the blogosphere, but just as Tony Benn still pops back into the House of Commons tea room on occasion, so I have written a short guest post for Dave Osler's blog on The spectre of Respect, about, er, the Respect Coalition.

John McDonnell and 'socialism in the 21st century'

A month ago I declared the Labour Left dead, but I now have to report that against all odds, it is actually still alive, but only just. On Saturday, I went to see John McDonnell MP, who is campaigning to become the new Labour leader after Blair, speak in Leeds. McDonnell spoke well enough, though the picture he painted of the current state of the Labour Party on the ground (about 20,000 activists nationally, apparently) thanks to Blair and New Labour's criminal betrayals was shocking to an outsider like me. He warned of the consequences if his campaign was not successful - and predicted defeat for Labour at the next election as voters simply would not vote for more Tory policies from Brown. The audience was about 80 strong, mostly elderly left Labourites, with a smattering of old Communists and orthodox Trotskyists. Anyone under the age of 30 (there were not many) seemed to be a member of some Trotskyist group or another (I suppose I also fall into this category), and in the discussion John was asked several times by these young people about how he would 'attack' and 'defend himself' from 'international capital' once he was elected.

The 'elephant in the room' which was somewhat ignored by such comrades concerns McDonnell's chances of getting elected. Indeed, to even get onto the ballot paper he needs 44 MPs to agree to nominate him - and the problem is that finding 44 Labour MPs with socialist principles is not the easiest task in the world. It was telling that not one Leeds Labour MP was present at this - just as no Leeds Labour MP voted for an inquiry over the Iraq war. Indeed, with his fervent hope that he can 'get his Party back' to the politics of peace, social justice and equality, McDonnell is akin to the blind man in the dark room looking for black cat...which isn't there. There is no 'golden age' of building socialism in the Labour Party's history - and one hundred years after the Party was formed, Labour is now further away from its goal of 'democratic socialism' than ever before. If the Party cannot even hold its leader, the war criminal Blair, to account after committing mass murder, what chance of the same Party ever electing a socialist leader?

Nevertheless, McDonnell's campaign does deserve support from those socialists like myself in Respect - and if he does get onto the ballot paper then he has a chance to put his ideas about 'socialism in the 21st century' out there to a wider audience. This will strengthen the whole of the Left in Britain - not just the Labour Left. Yet the consequences for the Labour Left if McDonnell does not make it onto the ballot paper are pretty dire it must be said. Labourism's roots in the British working class movement are still there, but, thanks to New Labour's neo-liberalism at home and neo-conservatism abroad, every day become less and less. In 1981 Tony Benn got 3.2 million votes to be deputy leader of the Labour Party and must have had 250,000 active supporters (he still lost). Twenty five years on, the fact that the leader of the Labour Left in Parliament is scrabbling around to even get onto the ballot paper tells a sad tale in itself. There is a desperate need for a 'labour' Party in British politics - a party which will champion labour against capital, and peace against war - and Blair has all but destroyed the Labour Party's chances of being such a Party. Unfortunately for Blair, just as he thinks he has chopped off the head of the working class movement, another head slowly begins to appear...

R.I.P. The Labour Left (1906-2006)

I suppose I should start this piece by admitting that I am not now a member of the British Labour Party, and I never have been a member of the Labour Party. But I now know something else - I never am going to be a member of the Labour Party. Let me explain why.

Once upon a time, back in 1906 when the Labour Party was formed it stood against 'wars fought to make the rich richer,' while 'underfed schoolchildren are still neglected'

Last night, there was a vote in Parliament to set up a committee of inquiry made up of seven members of the privy council to examine what went so wrong with British foreign policy with respect to Iraq. This in itself was newsworthy - as it was about the first time in two years that the war had been debated and members of Parliament had had the chance to vote on it. This is how the BBC reported the outcome:

'An attempt to force the government to hold an inquiry into the Iraq war has failed in the House of Commons. A Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru motion for an immediate probe was opposed by a majority of 25 despite support from 12 rebel Labour MPs...Plaid Cymru's Adam Price said of the motion: "The issue at its heart is far bigger than party politics - it's about accountability, it's about the monumental catastrophe of the Iraq war - the worst foreign policy disaster certainly since Suez, possibly since Munich and it's about the morass in which we regrettably still find ourselves." The government was supported by 298 MPs and opposed by 273. Twelve Labour MPs rebelled.'

The key figures to note are these:

Firstly, 298 MPs (almost all Labour) voted against the idea that there should be any sort of inquiry into the Iraq war. These 298 MPs are utter utter utter scum - careerists of the lowest order. As Respect MP George Galloway noted, 'The House of Commons today had the chance to begin to redeem itself after the vote for this disastrous war three years ago. The fact that so many armchair generals on the labour benches voted with the Government in refusing even to hold an enquiry into the decision to go to war, shows how far removed this place has become from being a genuine parliament. The conclusions we must draw are profound. We need to redouble our efforts outside of parliament and at the ballot box against these "misrepresentatives"'. Hear, hear.

Yet more shockingly, only 12 Labour MPs rebelled. Twelve! Only twelve Labour MPs put their principles before their careers and voted to hold Blair - a war criminal - to account for his crimes. I am dumbfounded. Why so few? Why did even less than those who voted against military action in 2003 now support the government?

One of these former rebels, Ian Lucas told the house: 'I cannot support this opportunistic, cynical motion ... We see the nationalists in a constant campaign to assail the integrity of the prime minister, attack the Labour government and make political capital for cheap political ends.'

But Blair - the Prime Minister - doesn't have any integrity left to assail! One wonders if Lucas isn't making some cheap political capital with the likes of Gordon Brown by voting against the idea of an inquiry which can only damage the Glorious leader in waiting.

David Blunkett, the former home secretary, said the Tories were hypocrites for turning on the government after backing the war. 'There are those who haven't changed their minds but can't miss an opportunity to have a go at this government and our prime minister, whatever the consequences in terms of demoralisation and the difficulty it causes for our troops.' But as Galloway pointed out, 'To those who claim that holding an inquiry will "demoralise" the armed forces: we got a pretty good estimation of the morale of the armed forces after the head of the British army spoke a truth that has so rarely been heard in this chamber, that the presence of British forces in Iraq is exacerbating the dangers this country faces. That was before the US suffered over 100 dead this month; before the report in the Lancet that the most likely number of people to have been killed in Iraq since the war is 655,000.'

Denis MacShane, the rabidly pro-imperialist former Foreign Office minister, admitted that 'we have not got it strategically or tactically right' in Iraq - an understatement - but described calls for an inquiry as 'part of a cheap anti-American crusade'. Clearly a cheap anti-American crusade that holds a liar and a warmonger to account for his crimes is something everyone should oppose. An expensive pro-American crusade that costs the lives of thousands of people in Iraq on the other hand - yeah, I'll buy that for a dollar!

Only 12 MPs. This surely signals the end of the road for the Labour Left. Had just 25 more Labour MPs dug deep enough and discovered their consciences then Blair would have lost the vote - and possibly be on his way out of office. The Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs are supposed to be 25 strong - less than half of them voted for an inquiry! As for the hopes some on the Left still have that John McDonnell -chair of the Socialist Campaign Group - can even make it onto the ballot sheet to stand against Brown for Labour Leader - forget it. Surely any hopes of any Labour Left challenger to Blair and Brown getting onto the ballot paper must have been snuffed out now.

John McDonnell himself tries to put a brave face on the vote last night - arguing 'rather than despair it is critical that the campaign for withdrawal goes on and the campaigning to restore the Labour Party as a party of peace continues with increased commitment and vigour' but he must know its over now. What matters now is campaigning on the streets against the war - and drawing into the anti-war movement more disillusioned Labour Party members who must know now that the idea that the Labour Party can be restored to being 'a party of peace' is over now - if indeed it ever was a 'party of peace'.

It is the Stop the War Coalition in Britain that remains central to any rebirth of the Left in Britain at the moment. The Iranian socialist Ardeshir Mehrdad recently asked Alex Callinicos about this:

Q: 'How do you see the anti war movement? By its powerful appearance in the prelude to the Iraq war it raised hopes in a huge way. You reflected those hopes in your excellent book The New Mandarins and American Power, which came out that same year. Yet a few years later, not only did this movement not grow and spread, but we have indeed witnessed its downturn. Why? In your view can we be optimistic for a resurgence of this movement? How and in what direction?'

Alex Callinicos: 'It is a common error to use the gigantic protests of early 2003 to proclaim the death of the anti-war movement. One of our greatest achievements is used to hang us! The 2003 protests were on such a scale that they could only go forward by bringing down governments - which did in fact happen in Spain in March 2004, albeit in an indirect and complex way. The failure to achieve such an outcome on a broader scale - and therefore prevent or end the Iraq war - did lead to a certain ebbing of the anti-war movement relative to the high point of 15 February 2003, but the extent varied enormously depending on national conditions. Thus in the US the mainstream of the anti-war movement (including figures as principled as Chomsky) made the fatal error of putting their efforts in defeating Bush in 2004 by backing the pro-war Democrats under John Kerry, a mistake from which they are only beginning to recover.

By contrast, I think it is completely wrong to describe the condition of the anti-war movement in Britain as one of ‘downturn’. The Stop the War Coalition has been able to sustain an astonishingly high level of mass mobilization for the past five years - a succession of big demonstrations, usually twice a year, all very big by historic standards, if not on the scale of 15 February 2003 - and to gain very deep roots in British society. This is reflected in its ability to mount two large marches against the Lebanon War at very short notice and at the height of the summer holidays. More generally, his central role in engineering the Iraq War fatally damaged Tony Blair’s government and his complicity in the destruction of Lebanon is helping to end his premiership.

This contrast suggests that the fate of the anti-war movement has varied according to the state of the left in different countries. In the US the left has been crippled by its dependence on the Democrats. The British anti-war movement has been led by forces of the radical left that have been able to sustain it in a way that has combined consistent opposition to imperialism with an emphasis on building on a broad and inclusive basis. Elsewhere the pattern is confirmed by, for example, the decline of the Italian anti-war movement, which in 2001-4 mobilized on even a bigger scale than in Britain, but which has been very negatively affected by the entry of Rifondazione Comunista into a centre-left coalition government that is sending troops to Afghanistan and Lebanon.

The international anti-war movement in any case faces a very big challenge. The Lebanon War confirms that the Bush administration is telling the truth when it says that it is waging a global war. Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon are all fronts in this war. Iran may be the next one. The involvement of European troops in both Afghanistan and Lebanon requires a response for the left throughout the EU. Let us hope that this very threatening situation will produce an upsurge of anti-war activity, not just in Europe but globally.'

It is this movement that has to built - and from that movement new parties of the Left - like Respect in Britain - that challenge neo-liberalism and imperialism can emerge.

Skyscraper

The full transcript of George Galloway hammering a Sky News presenter a few days back is available here, but I will put up the end of it:

'Sky News presenter: I want to ask you one final question. Do you think that the the four weeks as we've seen that you've mention, the 28 days of this crisis, has set back Hezbollah's ambitions, not only on Israeli soldiers on the border...

Galloway: Hezbollah is winning the war you've just reported...

Sky: Let me finish! Let me finish! Would you mind let me finish, please! Not only on Israeli soldiers over the borders in sizable numbers but also there claims to be a good political organization to help a democratic Lebanese government with the Syrians who've also now left, an independent state. That's also come to blows as well!

Galloway: What a silly question! What a silly person you are! Hezbolah is winning the war, you could see on the other half of the screen. Hezbollah is more popular today...

Sky: (interrupting) That does not answer my question!

Galloway: Hezbollah is more popular today in Lebanon amongst Christians, amongst Sunnis, amongst Shiite, amongst all Arabs, amongst all Muslims that it has ever been! It's Israel who's lost the war, and Bush and Blair for politically organizing the war who've lost politically. This is a defeat of Bush and Blair and Israel. Everybody but you can see it!

Sky: Let me separate out that question then. Is it a setback given that Hezbollah was set up in order to get Israeli soldiers off Lebanese soil, but there are now more [Israeli] soldiers on Lebanese soil than there were 26 days ago?

Galloway: Well, they seem to be getting a bloody good hiding on the other side of the screen I am watching. Maybe you can't see it, but I'm watching them getting a bloody good hiding! So, if that's a success, I'm not sure what failure would look like! The reality is that this conflict would go on. The United Nations resolutions solve nothing! Gives Lebanon nothing! Gives prisoners in Israeli dungeons nothing! And as [Anne Clywd MP] my erstwhile colleague was just saying, Israel has just kidnapped even more Palestinian politicians, Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament, and thousands of others held in Israeli dungeons. This war will continue until the overall settlement is reached. That settlement must mean Israel withdrawal from all occupied territories that it currently hold since the war in 1967, the release of all political prisoners, and a state for the Palestinians with East Jerusalem as its Capital. No justice, no peace! You're not going out as a newscaster in Jerusalem anytime soon, believe me.

Sky: Well, as usual it prompted a huge email response for and against you Mr Galloway, so we'll leave it there. I have to say that some people might find it offensive when more families are mourning their dead to hear you say that it was a bloody good fight and so!

Galloway: You don't give a damn! You don't even know about the Palestinian families! You don't even know that they exist! Tell me the name of one member of the seven members of the same family swatted on the beach in Gaza by an Israeli warship! You don't even know their name, but you know the name of every Israeli soldier who've been taken prisoner in this conflict because you believe whether you know it or not that Israeli blood is more valuable than that the blood of Lebanese or Palestinian! That's the truth! And the discerning of your viewers already know it!'

Salma Yaqoob on the new 'unholy alliance'

Just noticed this - an excellent rebuttal of the lies spread by Islamophobic 'left-liberals'. See also here for the hidden history of Hizbollah.

Respect breakthrough in the East End

From the BBC:

'George Galloway's anti-war Respect has succeeded in toppling Labour in its East London heartland of Tower Hamlets. It has increased its councillors from one to 11 [er, 12 actually] and unseated Labour council leader Michael Keith [Good!].

As a result Labour has lost overall control of the borough [er, unfortunately not quite], but they remain the party with the most support. Counting is still going on in Newham, where Respect also mounted a strong challenge [Respect won 3 seats there] and it won a ward in Birmingham with 55% of the vote.

Respect are now the second biggest group on Tower Hamlets council, with the Conservatives in third place - in a council where they had no members just two years ago. With 15 wards declaring, and two others going to a recount later on Friday, Labour has dropped 6 seats to come out with 23.

Respect have gained ten to 11 [12] and the Conservatives have risen by six to seven. The Liberal Democrats, predicted by many to be the main challengers, had a disastrous night compared to their expectations, ending up with four councillors.'

I'll write more about the election results, and Blair's reshuffle, including the decision to axe Jack Straw from Foreign Secretary (so it is easier for Blair to join Bush in bombing Iran) later. Blair looks like he is going to try and hang onto power as long as possible, however. The powerful never give up their power without a fight.

Triple trouble

Firstly a brief but necessary apology to readers of Histomat outside the UK - I did promise at one point to try to discuss more international history and politics but now, after discussing the English Local Council elections and King Ethelred the Unready I am now going to do an even more localised post about the city of Leeds. At one point to attempt to correct the anomoly I did employ a 'Latin American correspondent', Paddington, but he has gone and got his own blog now which currently has a nice story about er, the coastlines of Suffolk. However, there is perhaps a general message of warning about Green politics in general in the upcoming post which may be of some wider interest. I know what you are thinking - stop burbling and just get on with it, man - so ok, here goes.

Monday's Guardian had a little story about Leeds City Council, currently run by a 'triple alliance' of Conservatives, Liberals and er, Greens. 'The Lib Dem leader, Mark Harris (26 seats), and his Tory counterpart, Andrew Carter (24), take it in turns to be council leader, swapping every six months. David Blackburn of the Greens (three) chairs the all-party cabinet. Forty Labour and six independents oppose. Luck and political geography will also affect the polls on May 4, when almost all the main battles in local wards are between the three coalition parties and Labour. Only four of the 33 see serious clashes between Tories and LibDems. "There is no electoral pact," said Mr Harris. " But we're agreed that it's senseless having a go at one another. We share the same record in power. There's no point in us saying the Tories have made a mess of things, or vice-versa."'

To its defenders, this is a beautiful 'rainbow coalition' - but it does raise rather some interesting questions about where the Green Party in Britain is going. While the Green Party in Germany famously lost pretty much all of its radical credentials by going into Government and then joining NATO's war on Serbia in 1999, the British Green Party has by contrast continued to make much of its roots in pacifism and radical environmentalism, and is an important part of the British anti-war movement. However, in Leeds they are now in alliance with Tories, whom the Welsh socialist Nye Bevan memorably described as 'lower than vermin', and yet presumably also feel it is 'senseless having a go' at them as they 'share the same record in power'. Surely some mistake?

New Labour in Leeds are not alone in thinking so - and in their local election literature point out the cuts imposed and wasted money spent by the Tories, Liberals and Greens while in power. These include:

- Cutting wardens and home care visits for older people.
- Cutting hostels for the homeless.
- Shutting day centres for older people at weekends.
- Introduce charges for charities to use Council buildings.
- Increased charges for burials, cremations and memorial trees.
- Cutting the Night Rider Bus service for women.
- Cutting services for refuge women suffering from domestic violence.

What have they spent the money saved on?
- Spending £2 million on a new Council newspaper, redoing the Councillors Civic Hall Lounge, rebranding the city with 'Leeds, Live it, Love it', and giving bonuses of £10,000 each to senior Council managers. Brilliant.

Moreover, Leeds City Council are now wanting to privatise the local refuse service and cut refuse collection down to once a fortnight rather than once a week, so they can improve the 'Green bin collection' service. This will lead to rubbish being left uncollected in the streets.

As Labour leaflets say 'Is this what you voted for in 2004? At least with Labour, what you vote for is what you get! Vote Labour - Get a Labour Council.'

Ahem. If only. The problem is we have a Labour Government running Britain, which is closing and privatising schools and hospitals - and the last time Labour were in power in Leeds Council they also imposed cuts of this sort and wasted money on managers and bureaucracy. In Leeds, ordinary working people are being attacked by neoliberal policies being pushed by all parties - New Labour, the Tories, Liberals and even the Greens.

So what is the alternative? It is time for a genuine 'Rainbow Alliance' in Leeds - of the poor, the powerless, and those who are being left behind by Parties which only cater for yuppies and big business. It is time for Respect.

Electioneering...

Exclusive - Histomat's Print Out and Keep Guide to Voting in the English Local Council Elections 2006!

So the local council election campaign has begun, and many regular 'Histomat' readers have contacted me over the last few days, asking for my advice about how they should vote on May 4th. While it is impossible to really give too many general guidelines, and much will depend on local circumstances and candidates, a few rules can, I think, be drawn up.

1. Don't Vote Nazi. If you have the British Nazi Party standing in your area, then you really have to go and vote against them. Vote for who you like to register a vote against them, but really lots of people voting against them really is the only language these fuckers understand. Fascists tend to be as thick as shit, you see, and can't really do rational arguments. However, fortunately for them, the national media and Barking MPs like Margeret Hodge are usually on hand to make the BNP sound somewhat intellectually coherent - and as if there is a point to their existence in Britain in 2006. The media tend to get all excited when there is a poll showing one in five people in Britain might consider voting BNP and express their utter amazement at the fact. This gives the BNP - which is by European fascist standards a fucking miniscule outfit (21 councillors out of a possible 22,000 councillors) - the sort of publicity that is thoroughly unjustified. If there was a poll asking people say, 'Would you consider voting Green?' then I expect far more than 1/5 people would say 'Yes'. But the media is not interested in even mentioning the existence of decent alternatives to the BNP which poll far more votes than the BNP and have not only more councillors but MEPs, etc. As a result, decent alternatives to the mainstream parties do well to get any mention at all while the corporate media after spending the year routinely demonising Muslims and asylum seekers asks us to think about why people might consider voting for the BNP. Like, doh! Actually, really you have to do more than simply turn out and vote against the BNP if they are standing in your area - join the Unite Against Fascism campaign against them.

2. Vote Respect. If you are lucky enough to have a Respect candidate in your constituency, then Histomat calls for an unconditional vote for them. This is not just because Respect are internationalists and committed to the anti-war and anti-capitalist movement, out of which they emerged out of. A vote for Respect will send the clearest message to Blair that he cannot treat ordinary people in this country with contempt and get away with it. Labour's support is in meltdown because of lies and sleaze and their relentless committment to the corporate takeover of Britain at the expense of ordinary working people - but it has to be the Left and not the BNP who benefit from this. In fact, if Respect make a victorious breakthrough in this election - as looks likely in East London - then Blair will be in real trouble and could be forced to go. Labour's shift to the Right under Blair has only been possible because they assumed 'Old Labour' voters had nowhere else to go - if Respect are successful then New Labour is as good as finished as a political project. See Respect for more.

3. Vote Anti-War. If there is no Respect candidate, but there is perhaps a good anti-war local Labour councillor, or a Green candidate or some other sort of independent socialist type then Histomat urges a vote for this candidate. We need to keep strengthening the anti-war movement in this country, not only because Bush and Blair are still in power and troops are in Iraq, but also because the US wants to use nuclear weapons on Iran. See the Stop the War Coalition for more.

4. Got The Blues?. If you are stuck with just the three main parties standing and none of the local candidates is particularly inspiring then I guess you are a bit screwed. It is not surprising that Tory Boy Cameron announced the slogan 'Vote Blue, Go Green' - he couldn't exactly say 'Vote Blue, Go Blue' could he? After all, adopting Tory policies is what Labour and the Lib Dems are doing at the moment. 'Vote Red, Go Blue' would be the honest Labour slogan - and 'Vote Yellow, Go Blue' is what Sir Ming is offering. Democracy under Capitalism is essentially only ever going to be democratic if you are a Tory - and the sooner people who are not rich and powerful realise that 'bourgeois democracy' is always going to be shit the better. I am not going to say 'Vote Labour' if your local candidate is a careerist fuckwit and while Labour are betraying the values of the labour movement. And I am not going to pretend the Lib Dems are some sort of 'ethical anti-war alternative' who deserve the support of socialists.

5. Small mercies. There is next to no chance of coming across Robert Kilroy-Sick (sic) or the Veritas Party of which he is a member out campaigning in this election. However, if you do spot him, Histomat in no way condones the following sort of action which you may instinctively feel compelled to undertake:

The Labour Party centenary

Labour leader Keir Hardie - airbrushed out of New Labour's official history

'Drawing on this week's Labour party centenary, Mr Blair said the party's goal of liberating people's potential "never changes".

"In 1906, those 29 [Labour MPs] entered parliament saying that parliament was supposed to represent the people and it didn't, and they were there to change it. They made a radical assault on the status quo ... Today our task is the same. To change what needs to be changed, to lift people up and break down what holds them back."'

The 1906 Labour Party General Election Manifesto makes interesting reading:

'This election is to decide whether or not Labour is to be fairly represented in Parliament.

The House of Commons is supposed to be the people's House, and yet the people are not there.

Landlords, employers, lawyers, brewers, and financiers are there in force. Why not Labour?

The Trade Unions ask the same liberty as capital enjoys. They are refused.

The aged poor are neglected.

The slums remain; overcrowding continues, whilst the land goes to waste.

Shopkeepers and traders are overburdened with rates and taxation, whilst the increasing land values, which should relieve the ratepayers, go to people who have not earned them.

Wars are fought to make the rich richer, and underfed schoolchildren are still neglected.

Chinese Labour [in British colonial controlled South Africa] is defended because it enriches the mine owners.

The unemployed ask for work, the Government gave them a worthless Act, and now, when you are beginning to understand the causes of your poverty, the red herring of Protection is drawn across your path.

Protection, as experience shows, is no remedy for poverty and unemployment. It serves to keep you from dealing with the land, housing, old age, and other social problems!

You have it in your power to see that Parliament carries out your wishes. The Labour Representation-Executive appeals to you in the name of a million Trade Unionists to forget all the political differences which have kept you apart in the past, and vote for [candidate name].'

Blair argues that 'today our task is the same' - but one only has to look at what he thinks of those who argue against 'wars fought to make the rich richer' and for 'Trade Union liberty' to see how far the Labour Party has departed from representing 'Labour'. Indeed, over one hundred years, the Labour Party has proved itself utterly useless as an organisation for advancing that struggle. Those in Britain today who want to see a serious electoral fight for the interests of 'Labour' as opposed to 'Capital', for the 'neglected aged' and 'underfed schoolchildren' as opposed to 'landlords, lawyers, employers, brewers and financiers', should support either Respect or the SSP. That would allow a really 'radical assault on the status quo' worthy of the memory of the pioneers of independent working class representation.

New Labour and the English Peasants Revolt

The Death of Wat Tyler at the hands of one of the King's men, 1381

'The Queen could decide to punish George Galloway under an ancient law, according to reports.

The 1382 Summons to Parliament Act allows the Queen to "amerce" - arbitrarily punish - the politician if she believes he has not "reasonably and honestly" excused himself from parliament to appear on Big Brother.

"Every one to whom it belongeth, shall upon Summons come to the Parliament," the law states. "If any Person of the same Realm ... do absent himself, and come not at the said Summons (except he may reasonably and honestly excuse him to our Lord the King) he shall be amerced, and otherwise punished."

Martin Salter, Labour MP for Reading West, was among those urging the Queen to enforce the law.'

Might this ancient law of 1382 giving the monarch such powers have had something to do with the English Peasants Revolt, a year earlier? Is Galloway perhaps the new Wat Tyler?

But aren't Labour supposed to the party of the 'people'? Given they are so obsessed with 'progress' and building a 'new Britain', isn't it a bit desperate to try and get the Queen to deal with their political opponents?