This magic figure of 10,000 keeps turning up. Like the 10,000-strong membership the "comrades" repeatedly claimed throughout the 1990s. When actually trawled through in 1997/98, the numbers were closer to 2,000.
"We never lie to the class."
Yeah, right.
If it's true that Nick Wrack corrected the figure down to 2,000, which sounds absolutely plausible and is also still a healthy number, where does that leave all those Respect members who loyally defended the figure of 10,000 so robustly against those of us who said its patently untrue?
They wont apologise obviously, but will they look before they leap next time?
Indeed so. And any fule kno that numbers of student recruits in October can't be relied on. In my experience it was dead easy to get 60 names on a SWSS contact sheet at a freshers stall, only for five to turn up at the next week's meeting.
(BTW, my fave memory from Queens freshers day - Join the Alliance Party and we'll buy you a pint!)
What did Cliff used to say? If you have six, don't claim thirty - admit to six and see if you can't make it seven. Otherwise you're only fooling yourself.
What did Cliff used to say? If you have six, don't claim thirty - admit to six and see if you can't make it seven. Otherwise you're only fooling yourself.
Unfortunatly the rot started under Cliff's watch, while he was still alive.
It was the turn to the party wot dun it.
Is there any real difference between telling people that there are weapons of mass destruction when you know this to be untrue and telling people that your party is several times bigger than it really is? Well, there is probably a difference - certainly in terms of the consequences - but morally they are both the same.
It's wrong to lie and it's not a good basis for any form of progressive politics.
"morally they are both the same."
That's some extreme Kantianism you've got going on there, anonymous. Lying to justify a war is morally equivalent to massaging part membership figures? I think that is a little bit out of proportion.
If you think it's always wrong to lie - what about the usual thought experiment in which you imagine yourself to be hiding someone from the Gestapo. The Gestapo knock on the door and ask you if there a Jew living here? So you, thinking lying is always wrong, say 'Yes, officer, he's in the cellar. I cannot tell a lie'. And in this way you get to be morally pure, even though your friend is carted off to be shot because you wouldn't lie.
Not that this has got a lot to do with the subject in hand mind you. Sorry.
I've told you before and I'll tell you again, uniting left and centre parties as a Popular Front against right wing movements inevitably means diluting the revolutionary content of one's politics. Fighting for mutually exclusive goals, i.e. capitalism and socialism is a combination with about as much vitality, and about as much right to exist, as a pig with two heads or some other Barnum and Bailey monstrosity.
Hm. That would make Respect smaller than the USA's Industrial Workers of the World. Quite a feat! I wonder if that also makes them smaller than the SSP was, on a per capita basis. Must check.
It would be ironic if Respect, instead of helping the SWP into the big league of UK politics, leads to the SWP's demise.
Ed, you don't lie _to the class_. That's the important bit. D'oh.
It would be ironic if Respect, instead of helping the SWP into the big league of UK politics, leads to the SWP's demise.
They'd have to spend all the money first, and really demotivate the cadre. Or else split - if the SWP (or a major faction of the SWP) went the whole hog and dissolved into RESPECT I'd have more time for it and for them.
I remember when the London Socialist Alliance came into existence in 2000 the SWP hyped it up as an exciting new party. The same happened in 2001 with the Socialist Alliance, and 2004-5 with Respect. Surely they can't seriously expect to pull off this trick again if the Respect project comes off the rails from the SWP's point of view?
Also if George G isn't standing as an MP next General Election, who will be Respect's front men & women in 2009-10?
It's of some interest as to what's happening with the Respect councillors in Tower Hamlets. We hear very little about them, and what we dom, that is in the Weekly Worker, suggests that they are, as predicted, most self-important notables with little connection with the left.
Some, however, appear to be alligned with the Bangladeshi Jamaat-i-Islami, the 'East Pakistan' branch of the extreme-right wing Islamicist group. Information is scarce, though it is certain that Respect has strong links with the East London Mosque which definitely has a bond with the Jammati, as my Bengali mate calls them - I think it's their equivalent of calling a group 'Trotsky-ite'.
Now his family as historical parts of the Awami League (their name, Huq, means a lot there, as I found out when researching the issue)so he's not exactly unbiased. But then the Jamaat, while Bob Pitt of Islamaphobia Watch considers them ace youth organisers and all that stuff about the genocide in Bangladesh by the Pakistani army and their allies, such as the Jamaat, was so long ago (over thirty..), are still pretty virulently far-right. Calling Hindus 'excrement' to name but one recent case.
This is an important aspect to Respect's political project which has yet to get the coverage it deserves (probably because few people care to discuss in detail the mass murder and Islamicicist terror in Bangladesh, starting with the Islamicist racists themselves).
Andrew --
If it is true that TH Respect is aligned with Jamaat i Islami - and this is the first time I have heard it said - then the SWP is off my Christmas card list for keeps.
It's bad enough that this organisation played the role of oppressor with the ruling (West) Pakistani army and rulers during Bangladeshi’s war of independence but apart from this - the murders of liberation fighters, the mass rape of Hindu women, etc - they also took part in widespread killings of leftist, communists etc.
It should be noted that there were reasonably strong left organisations in Dhaka at this time and which Tariq Ai compared, on one of his visits, to be very far ahead of organisations in his native (West) Pakistan.
So, IF true then the SWP dally with those in party in which some murdered communists and similar 30 odd years ago.
But is it true?? I really think you should try to back up a serious allegation like this further before disseminating.
My source of information is an article by David Rosenberg (for whom I have great respect) in the latest issue of Jewish Socialist, and other material in the same issue. Plus some remarks in the Weekly Worker. The links of the East London Mosque and Jamaat-i-Islami are, by contrast extremely well-established, in fact it was them that invited the Bangledeshi Jammat MP who called Hindus 'excrement' to the UK, about which there were protests. The East London's Mosque's support and ties with Respect are also public.
"that is forced to bullshit its rank and file on these kinds of issues is heading for deep trouble."
Which includes Labour.
Indeed it includes Labour, Morbo.
However it also includes Respect.
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