Respect lose Sparkbrook to Labour
Comments (below) from the semi-Stalinist Socialist Unity blog about the welcome demise of a corrupt, communalist obstacle to workers’ unity:
It appears that what remained has only now finally collapsed. There is supposed to be a Respect Natonal Council (NC) meeting tomorrow, which I suspect will wind up the organisation; (Respect having just lost the by-election to fill Salma Yacoob’s old Sparkbrook seat by a wide margin to Labour).
It’s rather telling that you refer to the SWP as seeing Respect as ‘THEIR’ organisation, as it was the SWP’s leaderships control freakery that made them pull the plug on Respect; by denying it the right to have it’s own internal democracy.
Comment by Halshall — 11 November, 2011 @ 2:58 pm
- There is indeed a Respect National Council meeting tomorrow, and a full report will go out afterwards. A report on the Sparkbrook election result is going out to members today and then onto the website after they’ve received it.Far be it for me to pre-judge the National Council meeting, but there has been no indication that I’ve detected of a desire to wind up the organisation. What there is is a serious and honest discussion about how we can contribute to resisting austerity, racism and war, and to building a stronger left in Britain in the predictable context of a highly squeezed electoral terrain which, however, goes hand in hand with the failure of the Labour Party to articulate left policies, which have considerable support.That’s a discussion we will continue to have in Respect and with others who are serious on the left, while supporting our three councillors and seeking out those areas where we can make a particular contribution.That is a sober and open process of the kind that in my experience others on the thinking left in Britain and elsewhere are also engaged in.The full result in Sparkbrook was:
- Labour 3,932
Respect, 2,301
Lib Dem, 395
Green, 179
Tory 133 - Turnout 33 percent
- .
- Comment by Kevin Ovenden — 11 November, 2011 @ 4:13 pm
Birmingham Post report here.
“Re-Stirred” (Brum website) discussion here
representingthemambo said,
November 13, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Thanks for posting this. Although I don’t see the demise of Respect as any great loss, by the same token I’m not sure it is anything to gloat at either. It is hardly as if the rest of the left has come up with any brilliant strategies to gain the ear of the working class in recent years, and those that have remained inside the laour party haven’t exactly been setting the world alight either.
I’m sure that labour will win control of the council again at some point, but does anyone expect them to be fundamentally different to the current administration in Birmingham? Albert Bore, who my dad tells me is a former left-wing radical, had plenty of time in power and did precisely fuck all. They will be managing cuts just as much as the Con/Lib Dem coalition did. I’ve been out delivering leaflets for Labour in my ward recently and they have been shit, localist parochial dross.
Many of the people in Respect will have been members as they sincerely, however misguidely thought it was a vehicle for bringing about the change we want. Another layer of activists being driven into inactivity and defeatist cynicism is nothing to be happy about. It is a tragedy.
I’m also intrigued at Salma Yaqoob’s unspecified ‘health issues’ that prompted her to resign. She has been the subject of some vile vitriol of late from the local right-wing that even someone as unconnected as me has been aware of. I don’t particularly like the woman and I never really understood why she was a leftwing pin-up but what she has had to endure has been repulsive.
Jim Denham said,
November 13, 2011 at 9:17 pm
…”what she has had to endure has been repulsive”:
I’m not aware of any particularly “repulsive” attacks on her. Some of the usual bigots made anti-Asian/ Muslim remarks, which plainly had to be condemned (and this blog is on record as having done so). But I’m not aware of any exceptionally vicious attacks on Salma. If there were, please tell me.
As a matter of fact, one of the more annoying features of her standard speil at public meetings, was to claim that the treatment she and other Muslims had received after 9/11 was ‘just like’ what the Irish (and people of Irish extraction) in Brum had gone through after the pub bombings – which was nonsense. The Irish in Brum were in fear of their lives after the pub bombings; there may well have been some nasty, racist comments directed towards Muslims/Asians in Brum after 9/11, but nothing like the murderous hostility directed at the Irish after the pub bombings. There was no comparison.
Obviously, any racism is unacceptable, but I have to confess, as someone who lives in Brum and worked in her local area (Sparkhill/ Sparkbrook) at the time of 9/11 and for many years afterwards, that I wondered what exactly Ms Yaqoob was on about.
The end of Respect? « Representing the Mambo said,
November 13, 2011 at 9:40 pm
[...] has all culminated with Respect losing one of its few remaining councillors in Sparkbrook in a by-election last week to Labour. Yaqoob resigned due to unspecified ‘health issues’ [...]
representingthemambo said,
November 13, 2011 at 10:06 pm
http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2011/02/05/birmingham-councillors-warned-over-hero-snub-97319-28116722/
Would be one example. Maybe when I said vile vitriol I was being a little hyperbolic, but she does seem to have generated a huge amount of controversy considering that she is all intents and purposes a political irrelevance. Such attempts at intimidation of and implied threats to someone who happens not to share your views is to my mind pretty shit. It also says something about how crap Birmingham City councillors are, that they choose to get angry over something like that but do nothing to stop the cuts being implemented.
I agree with the disingeuousness of the Irish comparison by the way. But her ridiculous attempts to conflate the two periods doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be complacent. The EDL have gained a fair amount of traction in the region with their exclusively muslim-focussed campaigning.
Jim Denham said,
November 13, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Yes, maybe she was intimidated from time to time. So are most professional politicians. She, and her supporters, completely overdid it, wallowing in victimhood.