Last Thursday the Shadwell Ward of Tower Hamlets (in London), with a margin of almost a hundred votes over Labour (1512 vs 1415 votes respectively). That’s good news, as it shows that at least in Tower Hamlets Respect is more than just a protest party and can win succesive elections. The by-election was brought on by the resignation of one of the Respect councillors, amidst rumours that this was organised by Labour, whom certainyl seemed to do their best to win this election, to no avail.
Respect was set up to build an alternative to the Labour Party, one that embodies the social democratic ideals Labour has left behind in its quest for power. It’s nowhere near a true socialist, let alone revolutionary party, but then it’s not meant to be. In the current political climate it’s a great leap forward to even have a proper social democrat party again. Politics have moved to the right and the old social democrat parties have moved with it; having a proper alternative therefore is a must, one that doesn’t scare away people, yet doesn’t abandon its own ideals either.
Here in the Netherlands we’ve seen the same process at work. For most of a century the PvdA and its predecessor, the SDAP, were the main social democratic party, while there was a variety of more leftwing, socialist and communist parties operating in their shadow. In the Eighties however the PvdA was largely sidelined from government, while the smaller parties lost votes and membership, which ultimately led them to fuse into GroenLinks, less doctrinate, less socialist and more of a challenge to the PvdA, or so the hope was.
In reality, what happened was that as the PvdA moved towards the right in the eighties and nineties, GroenLinks moved along with them, until there was little difference between them apart from a vague sense of smugness… In the process hardcore social democrat –let alone socialist– values had been thrown overboard.
Enter the SP, or Socialistische Partij. Founded in 1970 as a Maoist party, the SP had never managed to get even one seat in parliament, until 1994. Since then the party’s share of the vote steadily increased election on election, until today when they’re the third biggest party, with 25 seats.
How did they do that? By starting small, in local neighbourhouds and unions, by relentlessly campaigning, not for some distant socialist utopia, but on practical issues of direct importance: “sewer socialism” at its best. Through their evolution the SP shed a lot of baggage, became less socialist perhaps, but the end result is that there’s still a party in Dutch politics that talks about realising a socialist world and it’s a party that cannot be ignored.
That should be the future of Respect. It did well in the 2005 general elections, getting Galloway elected and they hope to get him elected again, but for the moment they should concentrate on building up their strength locally, around issues that directly influences the lives of the people they hope to be their voters.