The Socialist Resistance national committee on January 9 adopted this document by Alan Thornett to respond to Salma Yaqoob’s ideas about Respect’s strategy for the upcoming General Election.
The statement issued by Salma Yaqoob at the end of November, on the approach of Respect and of the left to the upcoming general election, is very useful. She stresses several important factors.
She is right on the importance of the election. It is clearly the most important for a generation and there is a real danger that the big winner will be the right — not just the Tory Party but the fascist BNP and the racist UKIP. It would certainly be a serious mistake, as she argues, for the left to stand in Barking and Dagenham where there will be a straight fight between Labour and Nick Griffin. It is necessary to vote even for the likes of Margaret Hodge in these circumstances. And there may well be other such constituencies.
She is also right to stress that the most important contribution Respect can make to the election — as the only left party, other than the Greens, with a chance of winning a seat in Westminster — is to maximise its vote in its key constituencies and its chance of winning. This includes her own seat in Sparkbrook where she is clearly a very strong contender and has the possibility of a breakthrough result. The presence in Parliament of Respect MPs after the election would be a gain for the whole left and a bright spot in what could well be a depressing result.
She is also right to point to the need to give maximum support to Caroline Lucas in Brighton and other Green candidates who have a real chance of winning — particularly candidates of the Green left. The decision of the Greens not to contest Salma’s Sparkbrook constituency is a very positive development. Nor should Respect stand against Labour Left candidates such Jeremy Corbyn or John McDonnell.
What is more problematic is the relationship she implies that Respect should have to New Labour in the election. We cannot be indifferent between a Labour and a Tory victory. A Tory victory would be more damaging to the workers’ movement than the re-election of New Labour. But the idea that we should stand shoulder to shoulder with new Labour in ‘maximum unity’ is another matter. This would imply that our principal objective in the election is to get new Labour elected, which could call into question why Respect is standing at all, particularly given the volatility of the election and with the Tories lead in the polls.
In constituencies where there is no supportable left or green/left candidate it would certainly be right to vote New Labour. To abstain in today’s conditions would be nonsense. But to argue that Respect should avoid marginal seats is also problematic, and implies a conservative approach to Respect’s general election intervention. There might be particular contests which we would want to avoid but in general we cannot take responsibility for New Labour’s marginal seats which in most cases are politically self-inflicted and could be difficult to predict anyway in the current volatile situation.
In fact Poplar and Canning Town, where George Galloway is standing is likely to be a three-way fight between the Tories and Liberal Democrats and Respect, with at least the possibility that the Respect vote could let the Tory in. Quite rightly Respect is seeing the real chance of a left victory in the constituency as the overriding factor in this contest.
The strategic task for the left in this election is not to get New Labour elected. It is to respond to the march to the right of social democracy in general, and New Labour in particular, and the crisis of working class representation it has created, one which gets more acute all the time.
This should guide Respect’s approach to the election. It is therefore not just a matter of Respect standing where there is a real chance of winning. Respect should have two objectives in this election. The first must be to maximise the left of Labour vote and overall intervention, working with other left alliances where possible, and seek to ensure that the left is stronger after the election than it was before. The second and parallel objective must be to build Respect itself and ensure that it is also stronger after the election than before and that ongoing branches are built where campaigns have been fought.
And there is an active debate on this inside Respect on these issues as the election approaches. Socialist Action, in particular, appears to be arguing for a very small number of candidates beyond the three target seats in Birmingham and East London. Others, including Socialist Resistance have argued for standing the maximum number of candidates that resources will allow, though we accept that this is a severe restriction.
The September National Council appealed for a wide range of Respect candidates and figures of up to thirty candidates have been mentioned in discussions, though clearly resource limitations would make that figure very difficult to achieve.
But where there is a credible candidate available and a group of members prepared to campaign to raise the resources Respect should aim to contest the seat. There may also be constituencies where it would be right to stand a paper candidate in order to raise the name and gather supporters together. In areas where it is simply not possible to have a candidate then Respect branches should organise as strongly as possible behind the main candidates in Birmingham and East London.
2 Comments
Excellent article.
Minor factual correction – the name of the constituency George Galloway will contest at the next election is Poplar and Limehouse; Canning Town is no longer part of this constituency due to boundary changes and it has been retitled accordingly.
“The strategic task for the left in this election is not to get New Labour elected. It is to respond to the march to the right of social democracy in general, and New Labour in particular, and the crisis of working class representation it has created, one which gets more acute all the time.”
Dead wrong.
The strategic task of the Left is the provide the best possible political terrain from which to launch a resistance to the inevitable post-election onslaught on living standards, the social wage and on women, black people, Muslims, gays and others.
If a handful of genuine Leftists outwith and inside the Labour Party are elected, great. But they will only be a handful. Respect standing 30 candidates would be infantile gesture politics, simply reinforcing the Left’s isolation. Respect should only stand where there is a local mass base.
Whatever the party outcome, there will be a government in favour of those attacks. However, the Tories have openly declared their intention in favour of that onslaught. Darling is a ‘reluctant’ axeman and Brown provides verbal (and sometimes physical) contortions to avoid an open declaration of their reactionary policy, so as to maintain some credibility with their own base.
A victory for the Tories will be interpreted, both by them and large sections of our class as a mandate for that policy. A New Labour victory, however unlikely, could not be, given Brown’s stance. To take a concrete example, privatisation of the Mail, it is certain that the Tories would attempt that in short order, whereas New Labour has some difficulty, having already stumbled over a number of hurdles and unlikely to put it in its manifesto as a result.
The best possible outcome from the next election would be a handful of genuine Left MPs and a victory for New Labour.