The internal discussion in the SWP
This is an extract from a longer document
by Chris Harman
Galloway and his supporters have portrayed the SWP as a closed “Leninist” group in which a small number of people at the centre dictate to the members, who then are frogmarched into manipulating wider meetings. The picture does not correspond to the way the SWP really works. This was shown by the way we reacted to the attacks on us from late August onwards.
Once it became clear just how serious Galloway’s attacks were we circulated his first document and our reply to our members, and called a meeting for all London members. The meeting was chaired by an experienced member, who had argued for an alternative slate for the central committee to the one proposed by the outgoing leadership at the 2006 party conference. There was open debate, with alternate speeches from those who supported and those who opposed the central committee’s interpretation of events. And there was not the slightest hint of intimidation, with a strict ban on heckling. A series of members’ meetings in each locality followed and then a national delegate meeting. Again, those who disagreed with the leadership’s position were able to speak without hindrance—including three non-delegates who were invited as the only observers so they could make their points. At the end of the meeting a vote was taken in support of the leadership’s reply to Galloway’s arguments and it was carried overwhelmingly in a room containing more than 200 people; there were only two “noes” and four abstentions. Arguments on both sides in the debate within the party were then printed in an internal bulletin; all the arguments within Respect were circulated to party members; further local aggregate meetings took place and then another national meeting, attended by about 250 people, which voted with two against and a handful of abstentions to endorse a central committee document.
One particularly sad thing in this whole sorry saga was the behaviour of three SWP members, who had every right to put their arguments to the party, and had done so at the meeting of London members, in the party’s internal bulletin and at the first national delegate meeting. Two of these members, who had both been in the party for a number of years, had taken employment as Galloway’s assistants. They chose to ignore the overwhelming feeling at the SWP’s national meeting and not only lined up with him, but also helped orchestrate the attacks on the SWP and the left councillors in Tower Hamlets. The third, a former member of the Militant -organisation, was asked by the central committee not to stand for the position of national organiser of Respect, but insisted on putting himself forwards for this job. We had no choice but to part company with the three and terminate their membership of the SWP. The vote at the second national meeting held by the SWP endorsed this decision.
No one reading the account of the succession of meetings and discussions we organised should be able to conclude that our “Leninism” or “Trotskyism” is undemocratic. Thousands of people with a record of activity in the working class, anti-war and anti-racist movements had access to all the different arguments and followed them attentively before coming to a conclusion. They decided overwhelmingly that they would not be “Russian dolls” for Galloway as he tried to turn Respect into a vehicle for furthering the political careers of people who shared few of its original values.
The conclusion of our discussions was that it was necessary to try to continue to build Respect according to the original conception as a left focus reflecting the diversity of the forces involved in the anti‑war movement. This could only be done by opposing the attempts by Galloway and his allies to stifle accountability of elected representatives, to prevent Respect members from challenging moves towards opportunism and to drive the biggest group of organised socialists from positions of influence in Respect. To this end, every effort had to be made to ensure that the Respect annual conference took place with delegates elected on a democratic basis. It was while we were deciding on this approach that news came through that Galloway’s supporters were trying to sabotage the conference by calling their own rally on the same day. Galloway’s rally consisted to a very large extent of speeches denouncing the SWP.
