Respect’s performance in the local government elections has been impressive. These were the first elections of this type the organisation has contested on such a scale. Sixteen candidates were elected as councillors. In many wards Respect came second or third, locating it as a credible electoral choice for thousands of working class voters.

The election of twelve councillors in Tower Hamlets only tells part of the story. There is evidence indicating large-scale electoral fraud which deprived some other Respect candidates of victory. There will be a legal challenge against this and we are likely to see the final tally rise. Newham mayoral candidate Abdurahman Akhtar Jafar won second place with 15,881 votes, this includes 12,898 first preferences. Not only did the party win three councillors in that borough, it came second in thirteen wards. LIAM MAC UAID looks at Respect’s performance in the local elections.

Across the country Respect candidates have broken through the barrier that usually prevents small parties from gaining more than handfuls of votes. In Bristol Jerry Hicks won 679 votes. This represented 25% of the vote in a ward that is 86% white British. Respect candidates came second in ten wards and third in eight others nationally.

In Birmingham Salma Yaqoob polled a magnificent 4,339 votes. This was 49% of the poll. The 28 Respect candidates outside London achieved 16,019 votes, representing an average vote of 16.4%.

The first past the post system used in British elections has always made it difficult for smaller parties to win votes and these results are much better than anything achieved by the non-Labour left for many years, both in terms of their consistency and their geographical spread.

It has taken years of work for the Greens to have an instantly recognisable political identity and a relatively small number of councillors. Respect’s success has barely been mentioned in the mainstream press.

There is a contradictory element to some of the results. The twelve councillors in Tower Hamlets are all Bangladeshi. This means that the council group is not fully representative of the ethnic and political diversity of either the borough or Respect in Tower Hamlets.

Many of the councillors are politically untested and few of them have experience of socialist organisations other then Respect.

Sections of Respect’s leadership have been very reluctant to adopt rudimentary Labour Movement procedures for the accountability of elected officials. The councillors will be able to cite the precedent that George Galloway has set whenever they are asked to report to the local organisation. The leadership’s assertion is that Galloway’s moral authority and the support of the national office will make sure that the new councillors stick to the policy commitments that were made during the election campaign.

On the other hand, Respect has now begun to accumulate a mass base of support. This has to be consolidated by building vibrant, functioning local organisations using the networks and contacts that were made during the election campaign.

In addition to having a large membership that can be used in large, spectacular events the organisation needs to put down roots in working class areas and offer its members the routine and structure that help create a stable, democratic organisation.

Labour’s neo-liberalism led many of its former voters in Barking and Dagenham to help elect eleven fascist councillors.

In many wards in Tower Hamlets Respect won over large numbers of white working class voters because it campaigned against privatisation and the housing shortage. A result of this is that in the borough the fascist vote was only 9.4% in an area that is more deprived than Barking.

In many parts of the country Respect has proved that it is now capable of giving the other parties a real electoral challenge. In the months that follow its councillors can make the organisation even stronger by leading struggles both inside and outside the town halls.

It will be the politics of class struggle and a fighting Respect that will give working people an alternative to new Labour.


SR Editorial: Respect Must Raise Its Profile to Move Forward

Respect’s showing in the local election results was indeed impressive.

Given a rotten first past the post electoral system, to get sixteen councillors elected is something to celebrate.

Salma Yacoob’s stunning victory in Birmingham, twelve seats in Tower Hamlets and three in Newham need to be viewed in the context of strong showings elsewhere in those areas – and across the country.

The results certainly show that Respect has come a long way in the short time since it was launched. They are qualitatively better than what was achieved by the Socialist Alliance and outstrip the traditional scores of the far left in this country.

The election overall confirms what Socialist Resistance has always argued – the need for an alternative party to the left of new Labour.

The results also remind us of the real dangers where that does not exist on a national basis – that the far right will benefit from the crisis of Labourism.

The BNP have grown in strength in areas where industry has been decimated and where the welfare state is under attack. It has also gained support from real frustration with the lack of quality of existing services – most obviously on the question of housing. In this context it is all too easy to whip up a racist backlash.

While the experience of building broad campaigns against the BNP in the North West has reaped important successes and prevented them gaining further seats in areas where they made some breakthrough last time, in the end only strong socialist policies can provide a genuine alternative vision.

It is not enough to say “defend council housing” for example in situations where there is a massive shortage of affordable homes and where many families are living in dwellings unfit for human habitation.

Respect has many of the answers – at least on paper. By and large the material produced to support Respect candidates across the country was more hard hitting than in previous campaigns. This is to be welcomed.

On the other hand it is unfortunate that Respect’s comprehensive policy paper “Another world is possible”, agreed by the National Com-mittee in the run up to these elections, has been hidden away on the web site.

It should already have been printed and distributed to all local groups – whether or not they were standing candidates this time round.

In any event it should now be produced as an aid to the work that now needs to take place in every locality to build on our successes and overcome our weaknesses.

One of the factors limiting the very positive achievements of many Respect campaigns around the country has been the lack of adequate national profile for the organisation, and the common perception even among many on or around its periphery that it is little more than an anti-war party or a support group for George Galloway.

Intensive work in some localised wards has shown that Respect can make a limited but significant impact, often lifting off with 10 percent or more of the vote: but this is generally not enough to win seats and is only the start of a much more systematic challenge that has to be built if we are to develop a left alternative to Labour.

The organisation needs to find ways to raise its profile and establish a reputation for campaigning on a wide range of social issues, offering a focal point for those turning in disgust from New Labour.

And Respect also needs to ensure that it quickly develops a strategy to support those voted into office.

Having councillors elected is important if it builds the profile of the organisation locally and nationally and if they can work with activists outside the council chamber to give more prominence to key issues.

With so much power stripped from town halls, the opportunities for decisive victories through the council chamber itself are more limited – but that means that it is even more crucial that we seize those chances that do come our way and make the most of them.


Preston: 7 Votes Short!
By Fisher Gate

So near, yet so far! That was the reaction to Respect candidate Mukhtar Master coming within seven votes of a sensational victory in Preston’s Town Centre ward.

Mukhtar, a local trade unionist and anti-war activist, scored 647 votes – 37% of the votes cast, and 3% up on his vote in 2004 – but was narrowly defeated by Labour’s Ron Atkins with 654 votes.

Respect knew it was always going to be an uphill task. Ron Atkins is a well respected and long established councillor – he served as a Preston MP for nearly 10 years in the 1960s and 1970s and had been a councillor for the area for over two decades.

He is on the soft left Tribune wing of the Party, rather than an ardent Blairite. For Respect to come so close with a relatively unknown candidate was a tremendous achievement.

Much blame was put on the presence of a Green candidate on the ballot paper. Despite the impressive work of Town Centre ward Respect councillor Michael Lavalette on environmental issues like the Ribble barrage, recycling and transport, the previously inactive Green Party locally appeared to deliberately target Respect’s areas of strength with ‘paper’ candidates who did no work, issued no leaflets and failed to attend the count.

They won only a small vote of 82, but it could have been sufficient to deny Respect a victory.

Elsewhere in Preston, Respect’s Elaine Abbot put up a strong challenge in the Riversway ward she once held as a Labour councillor, increasing her vote by 2% to 26%. Across the five wards of the City that Respect contested, Labour won all five, but the Respect vote was maintained at a staggering 27%, despite the presence of more candidates from the Greens and Lib Dems.

Respect has now moved into second place to challenge Labour in four of the five wards. These results were a tremendous testament to the energy of Respect in Labour’s heartland with extensive canvassing, street work and the distribution of over 40,000 leaflets by dozens of supporters.

While being ultimately disappointed at not winning at least one seat, the results show that Respect is here to stay and will fight on in central Preston.

The focus will now move to the May 2007 elections where Michael Lavalette’s seat will be up for election.

All the signs are that despite Labour’s attempt to win the seat back, Respect will be in a strong position to hold the seat and extend its influence elsewhere.

Preston Respect will improve its organisation and continue to agitate and be active on the key issues facing local people from the war in Iraq to the choking of local streets by traffic and the fight for decent services for all the community.


Haringey: Good.. but Not Good Enough
By Doug Thorpe

In Haringey Respect stood two candidates in each of two Tottenham wards; West Green and St Anne’s. There was a vigorous campaign with each ward being canvassed at least once, and three leaflets and a postcard delivered to each household.

About 80 members and supporters were active in campaigning. Canvass returns indicated support at about 22%.

On the day, polling stations were covered for most of the day and indications were that our vote was up on previous campaigns (GLA and General Elections).

But the anticipated breakthrough did not materialise. Respect candidates polled a respectable 500-600 votes, in second place ahead of the Tories and Liberal Democrats but still 400-500 less than Labour in each case. This was a consolidation of our support rather than a major step forward. Elsewhere in the Borough the Liberal Democrats made gains but fell short of their targets and the Borough remains under New Labour control.

There were positives to take from the campaign – not least that the turnout on Broadwater Farm Estate rose from 25% at the General Election to about 45% showing that the Respect campaign was engaging parts of the community that had not previously voted.

It is early to analyse the result but my view is that we held our support in sections of the community; Turkish, Somali, Muslim, where it was already strong – but have failed to attract other sections of the traditional Labour vote despite widespread disenchantment (even among its own members) with the New Labour government.

There is now nearly two years until further elections (barring by-elections) time which must be used to establish Respect as a campaigning force in Haringey outside of elections; and which go beyond the (still essential) opposition to the occupation of Iraq.

The membership base still remains largely composed of the SWP and Day-mer and increasing this must be a focus – both in the estates and areas where our existing votes lie, and beyond that in the local labour movement and trade unions.


Bristol: Jerry Hicks Tops Labour
By Penny Russell

After an extremely hard fought and well organised campaign Respect’s Jerry Hicks came second in the only seat we contested in Bristol – Lockleaze ward in the north of the city.

Polling 679 votes we pushed Labour into third place (554) and even on a higher turn out than last time round the Liberal vote was slightly down. We managed six mass leafletings including a four page colour tabloid which received a very positive reaction on the doorstep.

And finally we completed 3 canvases of the ward, including a final mass canvas on the Sunday before the election, with over 50 people taking part.

Lockleaze is a big ward which has at its heart a large council estate.

The estate has in recent years had its secondary school closed down: its day centre threatened with closure and only saved by a very vocal campaign; and the funding to one of the few facilities for young people threatened with withdrawal.

The Lib Dem council in Bristol gave us plenty of ammunition for discussions on the doorstep.

The Respect campaign kicked off with a public meeting held in the local community association building with both Jerry Hicks and George Galloway on the platform, chaired by a local resident who had become involved in Respect after a conversation with Jerry in the street.

A number of other local residents became actively involved in the campaign, and far from the voter apathy constantly sited in relationship to largely white working class areas, we found that people were eager to discuss the issues and were pleased that Respect were bothering to fight for Lockleaze. We will build on this support and interest.

This is the first time that Respect has stood in local elections in Bristol. We decided to fight only in one ward and to concentrate all of our resources there – this has proven to be a very successful strategy.

We were lucky to have had such an excellent candidate in Jerry Hicks – already well known and respected in the area as a result of his involvement in the Rolls Royce dispute the previous summer.

Respect are now the official opposition in Lockleaze, we gained a lot of very positive publicity from this election as well as some new members both in the area and from ‘old lefties’ in Bristol who were drawn into the excitement of the campaign.

Bristol has just elected its first Green councillor; next time round we will have Respect in the Council House too!


Sparkbrook: Respect Triggers A Landslide
By Bob Whitehead

The front page the Birmingham Evening Mail featured a large picture of a smiling Salma Yaqoob after her landslide win in Sparkbrook, as well as a headline that the city was BNP-free (after a flawed count in one area).

Salma displayed a large Respect rosette and so the possibility of a left alternative to New Labour was there for all to see. With good votes in several of the other wards that Respect fought, a platform exists for Respect to start spreading its wings in future elections.

The importance of this is shown by the substantial votes for the fascists in many places. They stood in every ward in Birmingham with essentially paper candidates. Yet despite limiting their campaigning to a few areas they still did well.

In nearby Sandwell and Redditch, they added four more councillors to their national tally. In Sandwell they won three wards and lost one by very small margins, so that a bit of extra anti-fascist work might have stopped them, although of course it is the lack of an alternative to New Labour that is key.

The Greens also stood in every Birmingham ward bar one, compared to the five targeted by Respect and got decent votes in many of them, typically of several hundred. This was also done with a near total absence of campaigning.

By contrast, there was an intensive campaign for Respect, particularly for Salma Yaqoob. But you wouldn’t know about it from the local media, we were lucky to get the odd mention.

It was only with the growing and then actual success in Sparkbrook that they had to take notice. In the end, Salma got 49 per cent of the vote. The other Birmingham Respect votes were 22 per cent, 19 per cent, 8 per cent and 3.5 per cent.

Like in Tower Hamlets, postal ballot rigging was an issue in Birmingham. Respect stayed clear of postal ballots, but the police intervened against a LibDem candidate and there have been allegations in Handsworth.

Overall, the Tory/LibDem alliance will continue to run the Council, with Labour not surprisingly failing to dent their dominance.

Yet even if Labour had achieved a miracle and managed to claw its way back the neo-liberal agenda would have been little different from what the Tories are planning (seven academies and privatising street cleaning services for example), given its local leadership.

The Respect literature was generally good, focussed on local and Council issues and was well distributed. On the doorstep, the Big Brother issue did not come up, but it is tempting to think how things would have been different without that mistake.

For the future however, the momentum of the election victory must not be broken, and serious thought will have to be given on how to clearly differentiate Respect from the Greens, as it is unlikely that they will be interested in electoral pacts.

In addition, solid branches of Respect need to be built, that combine a dialogue with Salma with campaigning on local, industrial and international issues within the framework of its conference policies.

Given the high vote for the far right in too many areas, anti-racism, defence of asylum seekers and countering Islamophobia are likely to be prominent in the campaigning work when Respect starts moving out of the inner ring.


Tower Hamlets: Big Gains For Respect

New Labour’s strategists in Tower Hamlets will be worried by the election of twelve Respect councillors. The Respect group is the official opposition to Labour’s twenty-six members, seven Tories and six Liberal Democrats.

Ward results varied from 46.4% to 11.8% and averaged 22.8% across the borough. To achieve such consistently high results reveals both the extent of support for Respect and the roots it has put down in this part of east London.

There were times when it looked like Labour’s vote would collapse. The days preceding the election brought scandal after scandal for the party. Canvassers reported very little support even in its former heartland areas.

At public meetings and hustings Labour candidates repeatedly faced public humiliation as they lost arguments and were jeered by the audience.

At residents’ association meetings and a large meeting of the London Leaseholders’ Association largely white audiences ridiculed Labour candidates and cheered their Respect opponents. Here was visible evidence of Respect’s emergence as a real local political force.

When the results came in several Labour cabinet members including the mayor and lead member for housing were not re-elected. Nevertheless the Labour vote held up surprisingly well.

Two factors prevented the election of more Respect candidates. One was large-scale theft of votes. This is being investigated. The other was a pattern of non-Bangladeshi candidates receiving fewer votes than Bangladeshi Respect candidates.

Branch chair Glyn Robbins received three hundred fewer votes than Medhi Hassan. In Bromley by Bow Rebecca Townsend got 923 votes while Rania Khan was elected with 1308 votes. This suggests, among other things, that Respect does not quite have the automatic claim on its voters’ loyalty that Labour has achieved over decades.

Respect has been given a new lease of life both nationally and in Tower Hamlets by these results. Clarifying the relationship between the new councillors and taking the lead in local struggles will put it on the path to consolidating its success and making a bid to control the council in the 2010 elections.