Anas Altikriti to speak at Renew Respect conference
Another prominent and influential individual, Anas Altikriti, will be speaking at the Respect Renewal conference on 17th November.
Anas Altikriti played an important role in building the movement opposing an attack on Iraq.
The conference will take place on Saturday 17 November, at the Bishopsgate Institute in London, from 11am to 5pm.
Make cheques payable to ‘Respect Renewal Conference’ and return the form to: Respect Renewal Conference, PO BOX 1109, London N4 2UU.
For more details telephone: Ghada 07958 450 867; Rob 07507 600 561; Kevin 07930 532 952
For more details contact… you guessed it.
Comment by JB — 8 November, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
Well that isn’t goint to win you the Pullitzer Prize JB, I cut and paste the contect details from each post.
Comment by Andy — 8 November, 2007 @ 3:24 pm
Hang on: here - http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=978 - you state that Andrew Murray from the CPB/STWC will also be speaking at “Respect Renewal”, along with Sami Ramadani.
Now “Respect” is claiming at http://respectcoalition.org/?ite=1625 the following speakers:
- Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan
- Jane Loftus, President, Communication Workers Union (personal capacity)
- Sami Ramadani, Iraqi Democrats Against the Occupation
- Andrew Murray, Chair, Stop the War Coalition
Will they pop over from one rally to another, or what?
Comment by Karl-Marx-Straße — 8 November, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
The agenda for the “conference” is also online at http://www.respectcoalition.org/doc/f691.doc
Respect – The Unity Coalition
4th Annual Conference
Saturday 17th November 2007
Agenda
0900-1030 Registration
1030-1100 Procedure for NC election
(including resolution 53)
1130-1300 Our Vision for Respect
(including resolutions 31-37)
1300-1400 Lunch
1400-1530 Campaigning Priorities
1530-1700 Emergency resolutions and elections
Following the conference, there will be a social in the Horse and Groom, 128 Great Portland Street, London W1W 6PX from 5pm – 8pm. Non-alcohol area available.
Respect Annual Conference
Saturday, 17th November 2007
University of Westminster
309 Regent Street
London W1B 2UW
Respect’s annual conference remains the place where delegates elected from groups around the country can come together and set the priorities for their party for the coming year. It is the foremost decision-making body of Respect.
This year, due to extraordinary circumstances, the conference will be a one-day conference concentrating on how we move forward from the recent disputes within Respect. It will be an important opportunity for members to discuss their vision for Respect, set campaigning priorities and take democratic decisions on the future of our organisation.
The conference will take the resolutions submitted on the internal structure of Respect and emergency resolutions (see below). Other resolutions, unless withdrawn, will be remitted to a further conference to be held in the first six months of next year.
The conference will also elect the National Council and, if it so decides, the Chair, National Organiser and National Secretary for the coming year (see below for nomination procedures).
We urge all members who have been delegated to conference to attend, and those who have not been delegated to attend as observers. Over 300 delegates and observers have so far been registered and we are arranging overflow space so that everyone can participate.
Respect belongs to its members, and it is only the members, delegated to conference, who can decide on Respect’s future. Come and be part of it.
The closing date for delegate entitlement and sending in names for delegates is now closed. But we are still taking names for observers, so please send those in as soon as possible to resolutions@respectcoalition.org or call the numbers below.
For the agenda, click here. Following the conference, there will be a social in the Horse and Groom, 128 Great Portland Street, London W1W 6PX from 5pm – 8pm. Non-alcohol area available.
Nominations for Election to NC and Chair, National Organiser and National Secretary
It is proposed the election of the National Council should be carried out by single transferable vote (STV). Any two fully-renewed national members of Respect can propose and second any fully-renewed national Respect member for the NC, such nominations to be sent to resolutions@respectcoalition.org to be received by midday on Wednesday 14th November 2007.
Nominations are also invited for the posts of Chair, National Organiser and National Secretary, as resolution 53 proposes that these should be directly elected by this year’s conference. Nominations for fully-renewed national Respect members should be from two fully-renewed national members of Respect and should be sent to resolutions@respectcoalition.org to be received by midday on Wednesday 14th November 2007.
Emergency Resolutions
Emergency resolutions from Respect branches or 20 members will be accepted until midday on Wednesday 14th November 2007 and should be sent to resolutions@respectcoalition.org.
Accommodation
If you are coming from outside London and require accommodation for the Friday night before conference, or if you live in London and can provide accommodation, please contact Mehdi on 07949 091 475 or mehdi@respectcoalition.org.
Comment by Karl-Marx-Straße — 8 November, 2007 @ 3:32 pm
What happened to Anas Al-Tikriti over the last couple of years? Not criticising him, but he was President of MAB, resigned to stand for Respect and then not heard anything about him, except him visiting Iraq during the Norman Kember hostage crisis.
One of the problems with Respect in my opinion was it was built around these individuals who seemed to then just vanish from the organisation
Comment by Adam J — 8 November, 2007 @ 3:34 pm
And who out there is surprised to learn that this individual sides with Galloway? What we have here is yet more proof that the SWP perspective of the previous four years, of creating an electoral coalition betweeen “socialists” and “Muslims” (which BY DEFINITION had to mean non-socialist Muslims), was a road to nowhere. With each passing second, the communalist wing of Respect will attract more and more such forces until they establish sufficient critical mass to burst into life. At that point, Thornett and his “socialist” figleaf will be jettisoned. The flotsam and jetsam of the traditional left will be spat out into the orbit of Derek Wall’s Greens. Respect Renewal is destined to have a remarkably short lifespan. It will serve as nothing more than an incubator for two non-socialist organisations: one new communalist party, which may or may not be prepared to tollerate Galloway as some kind of honorary Muslim as their figurehead, and one long-established pro-market environmentalist party. The post-Galloway Respect has nothing to fear from this quarter.
Comment by Tom — 8 November, 2007 @ 3:45 pm
“Will they pop over from one rally to another, or what?”
Yep, lots of sharing of taxis will be taking place that day I guess - Sami Ramadani is speaking at the Media Workers Against the War conference that day too (3 in one day!)
Comment by MA — 8 November, 2007 @ 3:47 pm
Interview with Anas which gives a picture of where he’s coming from:
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=537
Comment by Adam J — 8 November, 2007 @ 3:48 pm
1130-1300 Our Vision for Respect
Sounds a bit like Gordon Brown
Comment by CHAB — 8 November, 2007 @ 3:54 pm
17 November is now beginning to approach the farcial. How can the SWP sustain the idea that this is their glorious Left against the wicked Galloway right when not only does Michael Lavalette publicly declare his pride in sharing a platform with George Galloway but now both conferences are sharing speakers. Pretty funny Left vs Right.
The best way forward now would be for the SWP to accept that for all this bluster about a witchunt instead of suffering expulsions all they have achieved is the self-inflicted would of losing almost all their former allies in the unity coalition (aka ‘unitred front of a special type’). Either both conferences proceed in order to formalise that loss or a deep breath is taken and an acceptance that packing conference delegations will at best offend allies and at worst - and this is certainly the case in Respecty -lose them. Either loosen the control culture or face losing those allies. Is that kind of compromise really too much to ask? And if you do proceed with this insanity at the very least have the good grace to admit that this fall out is nothing to do with a witchunt or right vs left, neither add up to sharting platforms and speakers!
Comment by Mark P — 8 November, 2007 @ 4:01 pm
Anas Altikriti was a great candidate for the Euro elections for Yorks & Humberside Respect: hats off to the SWP for getting him involved and working with him. Interesting to see if they have criticisms of him since then. I think he’s been involved in (maybe even a founder of)the British Muslim Initiative since then.
Meanwhile the SWP Respect conference is looking more like a rally all the time with great guest speakers and an appeal to all members of Respect to go as observers.
Any news on the bank account - who’s doing what with the money I gave them?
Comment by Matthew — 8 November, 2007 @ 4:15 pm
Guardian (online) - 1.30 pm GMT
“Speaking on Mr Galloway’s behalf, John McKay told Guardian Unlimited: “It’s not true [that Galloway has left the party]. The truth is that John Rees [Respect’s national secretary] and crew, the SWP faction, are the ones that have split.”
But Mr McKay confirmed that Mr Galloway was organising a rival party conference called Respect Renewal on the same day as the “official” Respect conference in London on November 17.
The MP’s conference will take place in the City of London, while Respect’s conference will be held at the University of Westminster.
Mr Rees said today that Mr Galloway’s decision to set up a rival conference meant that he had left the party.
“I think under most people’s definition that would be leaving an organisation,” he said. “I think if the official Labour conference were taking place, and, for some reason, say Jack Straw decided to call his own conference on the same day, set up his own website, with a different name and his own email, people would assume that he had left the party.”
Asked if Respect could continue without Mr Galloway, Mr Rees said: “There was always going to have to be a time when we would … No matter how much of a contribution any individual makes to a political party, there is always a time when it has to continue without particular individuals and carry on.”"
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/otherparties/story/0,,2207479,00.html
Comment by Karl-Marx-Straße — 8 November, 2007 @ 4:26 pm
The fact that reasonably clued up speakers are speaking at both conferences can only be a positive thing for those of us who would like to see some kind of amicable resolution to all this. It also shows that there are many people who are still unsure of what the split is all about. In general as a SWP member I have been broadly onside with the CC, but along with other comrades I have been supprised by people who I have had a lot of respect for siding with the ‘Galloway faction’
Comment by Martin — 8 November, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
Any speakers at Galloway’s rally cannot substitute for organisation on the ground. And here Respect Renewal prospects have to be rated poor, beyond a few core areas.
It looks as if there will need to be a pretty fundamental change of culture in the way key figures in RR in Tower Hamlets and South Birmingham run their show too, if there is to be any kind of accountable leadership. It is interesting to compare the West Midlands Respect branches -which we might ask is the only part of Birmingham and the Black Country that has not had regular membership meetings over recent months?
Some socialists who should know better are, I suspect, also going to find out very quickly that GG has not added middle names ‘democratic accountability’ when running the national Respect Renewal either.
Comment by Martin Lynch — 8 November, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
I agree Martin. Having posted my carefully crafted note on a seemingly dead thread, let me try it here (apologies, moderator, if this is a breach of prototol) …
As a Respect supporter/SWP member (I have no intention of leaving either organization), I have been viewing this debacle from a distance, not being particularly active in recent years.
It seems obvious to me that squabbling over what is the ‘real’ Respect is bonkers. The left as a whole is tiny, even if significant sections of the population have some sympathy with socialist politics and might be won to a Marxist perspective in the right conditions. Respect as a whole is smaller still. Regardless of who is formally correct, the vast majority of the left-leaning population will remain utterly indifferent as to which is the authentic bit of the split - either that or be contemptuous of both sides. The whole left loses massively from this. Even outsiders are tainted by association. All of us look pathetic.
The political lesson from the heart-warming Manchester meeting with Lavelette etc is that discussions should re-open/continue. There are good socialists in both factions. Once this all calms down and massive political hangovers kick in, there surely must be a basis for future cooperation, perhaps in the form of a looser, ad hoc ‘Respect’ coalition around specific issues: Stop the War, the postal workers’ dispute, standing in elections etc. But whatever form a future coalition might take, it must not try to behave like a political party, which Respect clearly is not. The error, in hindsight, was not in surfing the wave of the STW movement, but trying to stitch diverse traditions together in a fashion that could not survive the demotion of Iraq from the top of the political agenda. People like Galloway are part asset, part liability. We can argue the toss about the proportions and whether he is now less an asset and more a liability. But at the end of the day, if he can still inspire and mobilize tens of thousands of people into opposing an attack on Iran, then socialists must work with him to ensure that it happens and hold our noses (but not our tongues) when he behaves like an imbecile.
Comment by Jonathan — 8 November, 2007 @ 10:20 pm
Jonathan,
The issue at the heart of this is about whether Respect is run in an inclusive manner, or whether Respect is run as an adjunct of the SWP. While there are plenty of examples of SWP members on the ground operating in a sensitive and inclusive manner, that was not the experience nationally. Tensions built, and expressed themselves in George Galloway’s letter which contained a pretty mild critique and rebuke. The reaction of the SWP leadership was to ‘go nuclear’, to use their own words, to refuse to make any real concessions to the concerns raised, and to issue lies about George and Salma leading a right-wing, communalistic pandering political trend inside Respect that has lead Respect away from its founding principles. The SWP’s actions have confirmed a view that they would rather drive George and Salma out of Respect rather than lessen their grip on it. They would rather a smaller and weaker Respect than one they don’t control. In view of the SWP fermenting a split in Tower Hamlets and more besides, a split has emerged nationally and I think it is too late to reverse it. The electorate will ultimately be the judge and jury which Respect they feel most comfortable with. One with George, Salma, Ken and others, or one that will essentially be an SWP front. If you think it is possible to reverse this, start with confronting your leadership about their behaviour. Don’t hold your breath for any contrition or compromise however.
Comment by Ger Francis — 8 November, 2007 @ 10:59 pm
Matthew wrote “Any news on the bank account - who’s doing what with the money I gave them?”
A fool and his money….
Comment by Mike — 8 November, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
Grr Francis wrote “The issue at the heart of this is about whether Respect is run in an inclusive manner, or whether Respect is run as an adjunct of the SWP.”
Which is entirely true but the real question ought to be how do we build a socialist not a populist movement? Not that I expect a cur bought and paid for by Galloway and his petty bourgeois chums to understand the difference.
Comment by Mike — 8 November, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
Post 19. Well, that’s one view. Another is whether Respect is to be built as a left of Labour organisation, or as a far left of Labour organisation. There are plenty of the latter. We really need the former. But nobody will touch Respect if it is perceived that the real decision making power in it resides with the SWP Central Committee. This was not exactly the kind of coalition most people signed up for.
I see agent provocateurs have made an appearance…
Comment by Ger Francis — 8 November, 2007 @ 11:18 pm
I wouldn’t argue with Ger, if if I were you: he can be a very big, tough guy when his comrades are present. When they’re not, it’s a different matter. I’m presently attempting to contact SWP’er Lynn Hubbard who was a witness to his physical assault upon myself a couple of years ago. She kept quiet at the time, but I reckon she might speak up now. That would be a good start for the Galloway/Yaqoob “peace” movemnent, wouldn’t it?
Comment by Jim Denham — 8 November, 2007 @ 11:19 pm
And Father Jack…
Comment by Ger Francis — 8 November, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
Ger
I don’t want to argue the toss about events that I was not party to. I am actually quite grateful that I haven’t been involved. I don’t know how long you were an SWP member; but it seems counter-intuitive to me that an organisation I have been a member of for 23 years, and which despite having no stalinist inclinations I have felt at home in, should deliberately seek to destroy a coalition into which it invested all its political credibility, if not all its effort. One of the reasons I have felt at home in it is because it has worked quite effectively within the wider movement over the years (STW being the most recent) while maintaining a clear and principled perspective. The CC is not stupid and it will know how disastrous this is for us and the left as a whole. It is certainly the worst thing that has happened since I’ve been a member and everyone I know thinks so. I can’t say whether we over-reacted to the original Galloway letter, because I don’t know what the undercurrents were. But it doesn’t look to me like anyone was much concerned with stopping a split from that point on.
As to where we go from here, I don’t believe Respect can be revived; certainly not in the old form. So, by all means, let’s see which group, if any, can build a big, broad and credible left wing organisation. But at a minumum, the factions should agree to operate as one on issues where there is no meaningful political difference, including sharing platforms. They should not stand against each other at elections under any circumstances. Nor should future conferences be held on the same day, which makes us all a laughing stock. In my view, if these basic rules cannot be agreed, in fact implemented without having to be agreed, then we all deserve to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Comment by Jonathan — 8 November, 2007 @ 11:48 pm
“She kept quiet at the time, but I reckon she might speak up now.”
You do like your witchhunts, dont you jim.
Comment by point — 8 November, 2007 @ 11:51 pm
Jonathan,
As somebody who has been centrally involved I genuinely believe we would not be in the present situation if SWP leaders had responded to the criticisms made of them in a different way. All of this was avoidable. Nobody that I am aware of wanted or thought things would escalate in the way they have. But then nobody predicted SWP leaders would react in the way they have done.
I was a member for around the same period of time as you but for a long time felt less and less at home, mainly because I started to despise an internal culture which I felt encouraged deference, self censorship and dishonesty, and also because I became increasingly unhappy at the party’s behaviour inside Respect. I appreciate your experience, and that of many others, are obviously much more positive.
Your comments on the future, pending a split, are the most sensible posted so far, and would be a necessary prerequisite for any chance of a rapprochement at some other time.
Comment by Ger Francis — 9 November, 2007 @ 12:27 am
Ger
I have been uneasy about the party’s approach over the past few years and see events in Respect as one element in a wider set of strategic issues. I do not want to discuss specifics here for the usual reasons, but I suspect I come at it from a different standpoint than you. Anyway, I hope we can all work together on the basis discussed above in the short term and look again at the whole issue of what the left should do now, when the dust has settled.
Comment by Jonathan — 9 November, 2007 @ 8:55 am
Message 14
But “official” Respect on the other has gone from strength to strength and is now a strong presence in every large English town and city, ready to run hundreds of candidates whenever Brown names the date???????
Maybe what we ought to be doing is analysing why Respect actually never did grow “beyond a few core areas”
Comment by Andy BH — 9 November, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
The problem with the SWP CC is they are largely liability and barely an asset.Sure their resources if used intelligently would be an asset.However,the question remains to be properly answered:
Why do so many people find the SWP alienating and oppressive in whatever they do and touch?
Comment by Gramsci's breakfast — 9 November, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Ger #16
The electorate will ultimately be the judge and jury
I honestly can’t remember (and even I’m not sad enough to trawl back through all the comments on every post on the subject) if it’s that you have said something similar to that a few times, or if I’ve seen others saying something similar to that.
Either way, it’s in my mind now as something which has been repeated a few times. And it does strike me as backing up the SWP’s position on this whole crisis. Does that seem unreasonable to you?
Comment by KrisS — 9 November, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
Jim Denham wrote “I wouldn’t argue with Ger, if if I were you: he can be a very big, tough guy when his comrades are present.”
Don’t worry Jim he hasn’t got any ‘comrades’ any longer.
Comment by Mike — 9 November, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
KriS,
I don’t know how anything I’ve posted could be construed as backing the SWP line! I only see three possible outcomes. 1. A change of line from the SWP. No evidence of that. All their actions suggest the opposite. It appears they cannot conceive of Respect without their heavy hand in control, and they would rather a broken Respect under their control than one outside of it. Why? For fear it might act as an alternative and stronger pole of attraction on the left to the SWP. 2. Amicable divorce, which the SWP had accepted when in negotiations, non-aggression pack and, who knows, maybe some kind of rapprochement at some stage in the future. 3. Forcible divorce. Court action and depths of bitterness that make what’s happened up to know seem like a tea party. I would be happy to be wrong on all three. However, in terms of which version will have greater electoral appeal, I have absolutely no doubt it will be the non-SWP one. Already Lindsey Germans GLA campaign is dead. A SWP electoral front has no future. Even the most gung-ho SWP loyalist knows that deep down.
Comment by Ger Francis — 9 November, 2007 @ 2:38 pm
“Post 19. Well, that’s one view. Another is whether Respect is to be built as a left of Labour organisation, or as a far left of Labour organisation. There are plenty of the latter. We really need the former. But nobody will touch Respect if it is perceived that the real decision making power in it resides with the SWP Central Committee. This was not exactly the kind of coalition most people signed up for”.
I strongly suspect this is the crux of the matter from the point of view of those leading Respect Renewal. It is of course phrased in such a way as to suggest that the SWP want to exclude left of Labour people which couldn’t be further from the truth. But its the first serious political point I’ve seen Ger make in this argument. And I suspect it is THE political point. The SWP are a barrier to an electoral breakthrough because too prominant a role for revolutionary socialists alienates important sections of the trade union bureacracy and other left of centre and broadly progressive politicians and organisations. Ger’s argument has the great merit of explaining why this is indeed a ‘left’ ‘right’ dispute (though he would no doubt prefer to see the SWP position as ‘ultra left’). It would be useful if these differences were bought into the open and discussed.
Comment by johng — 9 November, 2007 @ 2:58 pm
“Backing-up”, rather than “backing”, sorry if that wasn’t clear. That is, judging the crisis purely in terms of “the electorate”.
I’m afraid I think you’re probably right on how things will turn out. Equally there’s no sign of a change of line from your side. I am strongly against a back-room stitch-up whereby some of my membership fee goes to a group splitting from Respect. I could probably cope with giving that up, though - that and a few old PCs and a stapler. But you seem to want a lot more than that, and I can’t see any way that would be acceptable. Going to court is a really shit idea.
Comment by KrisS — 9 November, 2007 @ 3:04 pm
It is of course phrased in such a way as to suggest that the SWP want to exclude left of Labour people which couldn’t be further from the truth.
Whatever you think Ger’s suggesting, the argument you actually quote him making is completely different:
“nobody will touch Respect if it is perceived that the real decision making power in it resides with the SWP Central Committee. This was not exactly the kind of coalition most people signed up for”
The argument is not that the SWP CC wants to exclude non-aligned left-of-Labour types, but that it wants to dominate them. Any closer to the truth?
Comment by Phil — 9 November, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
Continuity Respect has a new speaker:
Francois Duval, Revolutionary Communist League (LCR)
It’s not exactly a secret that the LCR don’t like their English comrades that much, but is she a ‘real’ LCR member, or ‘also’ part of the SWP grouping within the LCR (”SPEB”)?
Comment by Karl-Marx-Straße — 9 November, 2007 @ 5:39 pm
Part of the LCR leadership and has spoken at SR day schools.
Comment by RedRaph — 9 November, 2007 @ 5:50 pm
# 30 “….Court action and depths of bitterness that make what’s happened up to know seem like a tea party.”
a.k.a. the option the ruling class would like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwc5YSAc-7g
Comment by Alex Nichols — 9 November, 2007 @ 5:50 pm
Well I think Ger has summed up the political meaning of all this very well. The CC does not ‘dominate’ Respect, but it is true that the SWP is a large component of it. I believe there is a sense that many have that without the encumbarance of the SWP it would be possible to attract to the organisation individuals and organisations which will remain otherwise hostile. I suspect that politically this would mean something much more like an attempt to build a new Labour Party then a broad coalition around more radical forms of politics. Making allowences for the different way that I would put it (because obviously I don’t agree with the politics behind it) I suspect that my hunch about this is not entirely unfair.
Comment by johng — 9 November, 2007 @ 5:52 pm
The future does not lie a with a Respect Coalition controlled by the SWP who appear to have at most 2000 members.
The future lies with the 100,000’s who left the Labour Party, the two million who marched with us on the historic STWC march, and the 100,000’s who distrust politics of all kinds (a strong trend with young people these days)which any Respect Coalition needs to reach out to and work with both inside and outside the coalition and in larger ‘coalitions’ itself.
To revolutionaries this will always be seen as a betrayal to reformism (tell that to the people of Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez). In fact any progressive change however radical or socialist within an elected parliamentry system (whatever progressive changes are made to that system) will be seen as a betrayal to reformism unless led and controlled by them ofcourse.
The control model now presented by the SWP CC based on ‘their version’ of the Marxist Leninist Party is a dead end for any coalition and will never attract a large group of the people above to join or work with it - it is the ‘kiss of death’ and ‘freezes’ the development of the Coalition to perhaps 2000 to 6000 people at best - is this really going to challange the neo-liberal system or further the interests of one very small party who see themselves as some sort of revolutionary vanguard (how arrogant, and how far from the real world they are, while claiming to understand the working class and their needs)?
Perhaps the SWP have done us all a favour. Many of their best individual members will join us in building a new pluralistic, progressive, socialist and democratic Coalition that will be a magnet of attraction to all who hate the Tories, the Lib Dems, Blair, Brown and the ‘New Labour ‘Party and their neo-liberal agenda.
At last, if we are successful and the work is put in day in, and day out there will be a mass Coalition/Party to the left of ‘New Labour’ not controlled by the SWP.
As one door shuts many will open as one opportunity ends so many new ones will begin. And the SWP will not be part of this but many, very many of their memebers will join us in this exciting journey given time.
Comment by RR — 9 November, 2007 @ 11:02 pm
I note that the LCR speaker has disappeared from the “official” Respect website conference/rally info….
Comment by KMS — 11 November, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
KMS (#39), on very reliable information that I received yesterday, the intention of the LCR was to send a speaker to both conferences. It seems unlikely they would have changed their minds on this during the last 24 hours, so at most I would imagine they’ve had to change the speaker and a new name will be posted.
Alan Thornett has had the opportunity to set out his analysis of the Respect crisis and the way ahead in Rouge and Inprecor (neither available on-line yet), but it’s highly doubtful LCR would want to break off all relations with the SWP, whatever the disagreements.
Comment by babeuf — 11 November, 2007 @ 6:03 pm
Thornett’s articles are in the online English version of Inprecor, International Viewpoint
http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1335
and http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1337
Comment by KMS — 12 November, 2007 @ 3:22 pm