[Debate] FW: Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor, Shakes Up Britain"

Sun Apr 1 20:57:43 BST 2012

The SWP offered their support to the campaign and to my knowledge three members in the Bradford area did some activity. I personally didn't see anyone from Leeds SWP. On election day a Socialist Worker journalist and a central committee member turned up around noon for a few hours. There may have been one or two other members involved marginally but I can't, in all honesty, say that the SWP made much contribution to the election. In a subsequent article they have suggested the Bradford result should help build TUSC (the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition).

On 31 Mar 2012, at 13:04, Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:

> Interesting that SWP members were involved in the Galloway campaign.
> Regroupment already underway before it becomes public?
> 
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 7:53 AM, LFC Scally <lfcscally at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: lfcscally at hotmail.com
>> To: m_redmond at btinternet.com
>> 
>> Subject: RE: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor,
>> Shakes Up Britain"
>> Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:53:17 +0000
>> 
>> The two reports from SW below seem very celebratory to me and, Rob H, will
>> be able to confirm, I heard that SWP comrades from Bradford and Leeds did
>> help out during the election?
>> http://www.socialistworker.org.uk/art.php?id=28019
>> http://www.socialistworker.org.uk/art.php?id=28021
>> 
>> 
>> Peter
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:39:05 +0100
>> From: m_redmond at btinternet.com
>> To: debate-list at fahamu.org
>> 
>> Subject: Re: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor,
>> Shakes Up Britain"
>> 
>> I don't think the SWP specifically are celebrating. I think they lost a lot
>> of money and assets through the whole Respect business and a large section
>> of the SWP did not want anything to do with Respect from the word go. It was
>> quite divisive. Just what I've heard over the years. No real evidence and I
>> might be wrong.
>> Megan.
>> 
>> ===============================================================
>> I Support Hackney Community Law Centre. Legal Action for the Community!
>> http://www.hclc.org.uk/
>> 
>> Become a Friend of Hackney Community Law Centre on Facebook
>> Follow on Twitter: @FriendsofHCLC
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com>
>> To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and analyses
>> of interest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
>> <debate-list at fahamu.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, 31 March 2012, 12:23
>> Subject: Re: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor,
>> Shakes Up Britain"
>> 
>> I just think it's rather humorous that George Galloway is now
>> apparently a hero of (former and current) Trotskyists again.  Winning
>> does make a lot of difference.  If they are all angling to get on the
>> Galloway bandwagon, though, their foreign policy will likely improve,
>> so I'm not complaining.
>> 
>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 7:06 AM, m_redmond at btinternet.com
>> <m_redmond at btinternet.com> wrote:
>>> George Galloway doesn't cynically try to woo white voters like the leaders
>>> of Lab/Lib/Con do by saying racist things or promising to be tough on
>>> immigration and pull up the drawbridge of little britain and that is also
>>> a
>>> hopeful sign, for the economic times we are in are perfectly suited to
>>> doing
>>> just that.
>>> 
>>> I do watch and read Press TV, just as I watch and read various US
>>> broadcasts. I don't support the death penalty in either country.
>>> Megan.
>>> 
>>> ===============================================================
>>> I Support Hackney Community Law Centre. Legal Action for the Community!
>>> http://www.hclc.org.uk/
>>> 
>>> Become a Friend of Hackney Community Law Centre on Facebook
>>> Follow on Twitter: @FriendsofHCLC
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com>
>>> To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and
>>> analyses
>>> of interest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
>>> <debate-list at fahamu.org>
>>> Sent: Saturday, 31 March 2012, 11:32
>>> 
>>> Subject: Re: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor,
>>> Shakes Up Britain"
>>> 
>>> It sure will be.  George Galloway is the first MP in the UK who had a
>>> regular show on Iran's public TV Press TV:
>>> <http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510524.html>.
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 6:04 AM, m_redmond at btinternet.com
>>> <m_redmond at btinternet.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ===============================================================
>>>> I Support Hackney Community Law Centre. Legal Action for the Community!
>>>> http://www.hclc.org.uk/
>>>> 
>>>> Become a Friend of Hackney Community Law Centre on Facebook
>>>> Follow on Twitter: @FriendsofHCLC
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> From: "grinker at mweb.co.za" <grinker at mweb.co.za>
>>>> To: "critical.montages at gmail.com" <critical.montages at gmail.com>;
>>>> "debate-list at fahamu.org" <debate-list at fahamu.org>
>>>> Sent: Saturday, 31 March 2012, 10:28
>>>> Subject: Re: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns
>>>> Labor,
>>>> Shakes Up Britain"
>>>> 
>>>> What makes me optimistic about this result is that it seems Galloway won
>>>> both white working class and Muslim votes. It wasn't just an anti-war
>>>> thing.
>>>> Listening to (not enough) interviews on the radio, he  connected with
>>>> white
>>>> working-class people in a way that no other party, mainstream or
>>>> otherwise,
>>>> did. It was heartening that people united in their vote and did not
>>>> splinter
>>>> into Galloway - BNP/UKIP.
>>>> 
>>>> I admit some ignorance. Living in the South-East, the media treat
>>>> anywhere
>>>> north of Watford as far-flung and the news of regions in the UK is scarce
>>>> and as full of stereotypes as any other, doesn't delve into the
>>>> complexities.
>>>> 
>>>> Anyway, it will be interesting having him in the house in the run up to
>>>> bombing Iran.
>>>> Megan.
>>>> 
>>>> Very alternative view from Brendan O'Neill. No doubt this will drive some
>>>> to
>>>> the usual frothing his views provoke but I reckon this is an important
>>>> issue
>>>> for further debate.
>>>> 
>>>> ***
>>>> 
>>>> George Galloway's victory confirms the demise of the radical Left, not
>>>> its
>>>> resurgence
>>>> 
>>>> By Brendan O'Neill Politics Last updated: March 30th, 2012
>>>> Comment on this Comment on this article
>>>> George Galloway has described his victory in Bradford West as
>>>> "sensational"
>>>> and even as a "Bradford Spring". It was certainly sensational, but not
>>>> for
>>>> the reasons Galloway and his Left-wing cheerleaders believe. This
>>>> stunning
>>>> by-election turnaround was less a revolutionary-style "spring" and more
>>>> an
>>>> expression of the rot at the heart of mainstream British politics.
>>>> Traditional politics is now so bereft of meaning and substance, so
>>>> lacking
>>>> in moral purchase, that voters are willing to vote for a helicoptered-in,
>>>> ideas-lite maverick rather than any of the parties that have been around
>>>> for
>>>> eons. This was less a vote for Galloway than it was a two-fingered salute
>>>> to
>>>> the political class.
>>>> Galloway and his dwindling online fanclub would have us believe that this
>>>> was a vote for a clear, Left-wing, anti-war agenda. It wasn't. It was not
>>>> any political virtues on the part of Galloway that won him the election
>>>> but
>>>> rather the absence of virtue, and of vision, amongst today's mainstream
>>>> parties, particularly Labour. Galloway is merely a beneficiary of the
>>>> decay
>>>> of politics as we knew it, which means that, far from representing a
>>>> surge
>>>> in radical Left-wing sentiment, his victory isn't that different to when
>>>> a
>>>> member of the BNP wins a seat on a local council or some UKIP suit gets
>>>> sent
>>>> to Brussels. In all these cases, the vote tends to be less a positive
>>>> endorsement of any clear-eyed political agenda than simply a "screw you"
>>>> to
>>>> the three big parties which once claimed to represent the political
>>>> spectrum.
>>>> Indeed, Galloway's victory points to the further denigration of radical
>>>> Left-wing politics rather than its meaningful revival. It shows how far
>>>> the
>>>> radical Left has been "Islamicised", where, having utterly abandoned the
>>>> allegedly feckless and thick working classes, the radical Left has become
>>>> increasingly reliant upon alienated Muslim communities for support. From
>>>> the
>>>> anti-war movement to Ken Livingstone to Galloway, as all the big players
>>>> on
>>>> the modern Left have drifted away from their traditional constituency –
>>>> the
>>>> working class – so they have ended up "speaking for" Muslims. It is a
>>>> rather
>>>> sad, somewhat unholy marriage of convenience, where Muslims who are not
>>>> represented by the political mainstream feel flattered by the attentions
>>>> of
>>>> old Leftists, while old leftists who feel (and are) unloved by the masses
>>>> exploit the alienation of Muslim communities in order to cultivate new
>>>> constituencies for themselves.
>>>> Galloway's victory also shows how unsubstantial and apolitical anti-war
>>>> sentiment is these days. Galloway sought support, and seems to have won
>>>> it,
>>>> largely on the basis of his opposition to "illegal, bloody, costly
>>>> foreign
>>>> wars". Yet this was not any old-fashioned, positive anti-war sentiment,
>>>> driven by firm convictions about the rights of foreign peoples, so much
>>>> as
>>>> it was yet another expression of suspicion of "Them" who rule over us.
>>>> Today, being anti-war is really just another way of being anti-politics,
>>>> another way of expressing your belief that all politicians are liars,
>>>> that
>>>> they never listen to us, and that they're rotten, oil-grabbing bastards.
>>>> Galloway's surge to victory on a tidal wave of anti-party feeling and
>>>> anti-war sentiment shows how far the anti-war outlook has been emptied of
>>>> principle and meaning, and is now just another mechanism for say "meh" to
>>>> the political class.
>>>> But probably the most worrying thing about Galloway's victory is that it
>>>> confirms the further splintering of Britain into "identities", where
>>>> people
>>>> no longer conceive of themselves as belonging to a class or a political
>>>> set
>>>> but rather to a fixed, culturally determined "identity". Muslims vote one
>>>> way, the white working classes vote another, and so on. What is remotely
>>>> positive about the demise of an old politics that was at least based on
>>>> the
>>>> idea of shared interests and its replacement by a new politics based on
>>>> shared cultural characteristics? In going for "the Muslim vote", just as
>>>> Livingstone recently did in a speech at North London Central Mosque,
>>>> Galloway actually further exposed the dearth of principle on the modern
>>>> Left.
>>>> Where once the Left saw it as its mission to unite people who had more in
>>>> common than they thought they did (remember "workers of the world
>>>> unite"?),
>>>> now it happily feeds off community disintegration and even segregation
>>>> for
>>>> short-term political gain. If it helps to get them into power, it seems
>>>> radical Leftists don't have a problem with the political ghettoisation of
>>>> certain communities in Britain, or with the further tearing-apart of man
>>>> from fellow man that is at the heart of identity politics.
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> From: critical.montages at gmail.com
>>>> Sent: 2012/03/31 01:36:54 AM
>>>> To: debate-list at fahamu.org
>>>> Cc:
>>>> Subject: RE: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns
>>>> Labor,Shakes Up Britain"
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> It's good that George Galloway won, which shows that there is
>>>> aconstituency
>>>> for a pro-labor, pro-immigrant, & anti-war party, butdoesn't Tariq Ali
>>>> sound
>>>> too excited? After all, few on the Left areas good public speakers as
>>>> Galloway. . . .WEEKEND EDITION MAR 30-APR 01, 2012Galloway: “The most
>>>> sensational victory in British political history.”Anti-war pro-jobs
>>>> message
>>>> wins sensational 36% swing from Labour toRespect in Bradford
>>>> by-electionBorn
>>>> Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor, Shakes Up Britainby TARIQ
>>>> ALILondonGeorge Galloway’s stunning electoral triumph in the
>>>> Bradfordby-election on Thursday 29th March has shaken the petrified world
>>>> ofEnglish politics. It was unexpected and for that reason the
>>>> Respectcampaign was treated by much of the media (Helen Pidd of The
>>>> Guardianan honorable exception) as a loony fringe show. The BBC toady,
>>>> ashamelessly partisan compeer on a local TV election show, who tried
>>>> tomock
>>>> and insult Galloway should be made to eat his excremental words.The
>>>> Bradford
>>>> seat, a Labour fiefdom since 1973, was considered safeand the Labour
>>>> Leader,
>>>> Ed Miliband, had been planning a celebratoryvisit to the city till the
>>>> news
>>>> seeped through at 2 am. He is now onceagain focused on his own future.
>>>> Labour has paid the price for itsfailure to act as an Opposition,
>>>> imagining
>>>> that all they had to do waswait and the prize would come their way.
>>>> Scottish
>>>> politics should haveforced a rethink. Perhaps the latest development in
>>>> English politicsnow will, though I doubt it. Galloway has effectively
>>>> urinated on allthree parties. The Lib-Dems and Tories explaining their
>>>> decline by thefact that too many people voted!Thousands of young people
>>>> infected with apathy, contempt, despair anda disgust with mainstream
>>>> politics were dynamised by the Respectcampaign. Galloway is tireless on
>>>> these occasions. Nobody else in thepolitical fields comes even close to
>>>> competing with him. Not simplybecause he is an effective orator though
>>>> this
>>>> skill should not beunderestimated. It comes almost as a shock these days
>>>> to
>>>> a generationused to the bland untruths that are mouthed every day by
>>>> governmentand opposition politicians. It was the political content of
>>>> thecampaign that galvanized the youth: Respect campaigners and
>>>> theircandidate stressed the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan.Galloway
>>>> demanded that Blair be tried as a war criminal, that Britishtroops be
>>>> withdrawn from Afghanistan without further delay. Helambasted the
>>>> Government
>>>> and the Labour Party for the ‘austeritymeasures’ targeting the less well
>>>> off, the poor, the infirm and thenew privatizations of education, health
>>>> and
>>>> the post office. It wasall this that gave him a majority of 10,000.How
>>>> did
>>>> we get here? Following the collapse of communism in 1991,Edmund Burke’s
>>>> notion that “in all societies, consisting of differentclasses, certain
>>>> classes must necessarily be uppermost” and that “theapostles of equality
>>>> only change and pervert the natural order ofthings”, became the
>>>> common-sense
>>>> wisdom of the age. Money corruptedpolitics, big money corrupted
>>>> absolutely.
>>>> Throughout the heartlands ofcapital we witnessed the emergence of
>>>> effective
>>>> coalitions: as ever,the Republicans and Democrats in the United States;
>>>> New
>>>> Labour andTories in the vassal state of Britain; Socialists and
>>>> Conservatives inFrance; the German coalitions of one variety or another
>>>> with
>>>> theGreen’s differentiating themselves largely as ultra-Atlanticists,
>>>> theScandinavian centre-right and centre-left with few
>>>> differences,competing
>>>> in cravenness before the Empire.In virtually each case the
>>>> two/three-party
>>>> system morphed into aneffective national government. A new market
>>>> extremism
>>>> came into play.The entry of capital in the most hallowed domains of
>>>> social
>>>> provisionwas regarded as a necessary “reform”. Private finance
>>>> initiatives
>>>> thatpunished the public sector became the norm and countries (such
>>>> asFrance
>>>> and Germany) that were seen as not proceeding fast enough inthe direction
>>>> of
>>>> the neo-liberal paradise were regularly denounced inthe Economist and the
>>>> Financial Times.To question this turn, to defend the public sector, to
>>>> argue
>>>> in favourof state ownership of utilities, to challenge the fire sale of
>>>> publichousing, was to be regarded as a dinosaur.British politics has been
>>>> governed by the consensus established byMrs. Thatcher during the locust
>>>> decades of the 80’s and 90’s. Once NewLabour accepted the basic tenets of
>>>> Thatcherism (their model was theNew Democrats embrace of Reaganism).
>>>> These
>>>> were the roots of theextreme centre that encompasses both centre-left and
>>>> centre-rightexercises power, promoting austerity measures that privilege
>>>> thewealthy and backing wars and occupations abroad. President Obama isfar
>>>> from isolated within the euro-American political sphere. Newmovements are
>>>> now springing up at home, challenging politicalorthodoxies without
>>>> offering
>>>> one of their own. Little more than ascream for help.Respect is different.
>>>> It
>>>> puts forward a left social-democraticprogramme that challenges the status
>>>> quo and is loud in itscondemnation of imperial misdeeds. In other words
>>>> it
>>>> is not frightenedby politics. Its triumph in Bradford should force some
>>>> to
>>>> rethinktheir passivity and others to realise that there are ways in which
>>>> theOccupiers of yesteryear can help break the political impasse.TARIQ
>>>> ALI’s
>>>> latest book “The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, WarAbroad’ was
>>>> published
>>>> by Verso.-- Yoshie
>>>> Furuhashi_______________________________________________Debate-list
>>>> mailing
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Yoshie Furuhashi
>>> <http://mrzine.org/>
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>> 
>> --
>> Yoshie Furuhashi
>> <http://mrzine.org/>
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> <http://mrzine.org/>
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