Alan Thornett

An important test, for a broad organisation of the radical left like Respect, is that its elected bodies have credibility in the eyes of the members and genuine political independence from its component organisations - even when there is a component organisation as large as the SWP inside Respect.

Today Respect - only partially meets this test. The elected committees at national level play very little role at the life of the majority of branches and the wider membership. Many branches are unaware that the committees are meeting or of the decisions they take, other than when they are told that something needs to be done.

This is shown by the lack of feedback from branches or interaction between the branches and the committees. It is not possible to build a viable national organisation without a healthy relationship and interaction between the leadership bodies, the branches and the members.

The electoral tactics Respect is forced into by the first-past-the-post system - means putting huge national resources into the most promising constituencies. -This inevitably means that the level of resources going into branches is extremely uneven. Only active leadership bodies that relate to all the branches and give them ongoing support can compensate for this.

Currently Respect has a National Council (NC) of 48, which meets about 6 times a year, and an Executive (EC) of 18, which tries to meet every two weeks. The NC is attended by between 20 and 35 attend depending on events. The EC is very poorly attended, often no more than 5 or 6 people. There is rarely anyone there from outside of London.

Respect Party Platform is promoting constitutional amendments for the Respect conference in October which would establish a delegate based National Council and introduce a Single Transferable Vote system (STV) for the election of the executive from conference.

A delegate body would be far more open to the branches and the members of Respect and is likely to play a far greater role in its internal life. It would require branches to be aware of the meetings, discuss the agenda, elect delegates who would report back as a matter of course.

The other problem with the existing structures is the continuing controversy over the slate system of election at conference. I have not had a problem with the slate system myself but it is widely perceived, by independent activists within Respect as the outgoing leadership reproducing itself. It doesn_t have to work that way in my opinion. But the fact is that independents feel helpless in the face of it and unable to properly participate in the election process.

A new system of election by STV would send out the message that Respect is prepared to listen to the concerns of the independent activists in the organisation and create the best conditions for recruiting new members and ensuring that they feel that they can influence the development of Respect. That is why the Respect conference should support these amendments.

To see the proposed amendments go to http://www.respectpartyforum.org/ Draft Conference Resolutions

If you get this resolution or a similar one through your Respect branch please let info@respectpartyplatform.org know.