John Rees on Respect

There is already enormous turmoil inside the labour movement and the Labour Party because of the election. It is normal for a party leader who has lost an election to be greeted by newspaper headlines demanding his resignation.

It is a sign of the degree to which Blair has suffered a defeat that a party leader who has won a third term in office faces speculation as to how swiftly he will resign.

Under these circumstances the vote for the left alternative — the Respect vote — is of pivotal significance. If George Galloway had not won Bethnal Green & Bow, the whole arc of the Stop the War movement would have suffered an enormous reverse...

More than this, George Galloway’s victory is a victory for Respect as the political project whose aims include and then run beyond the anti-war movement.

It is the beginnings of an organisational and political embodiment of a mood previously visible only in opinion polls. These show the majority of people against privatisation and racism, and in favour of trade unionism and the welfare state.

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