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Behind the headlines: The strange tale of the SWP and Preston's council housing
 international |
politics / elections |
opinion/analysis
 Thursday May 06, 2004 23:49 by Maurice Mogadon
Corporate media reports often hide as much as they reveal. (Just what were those pesky protestors so angry about anyway?)
We might expect better from the independent or left media. Sometimes we get better and sometimes we don't. Indymedia itself contains some of the best and worst elements of non-corporate news sources. In this report I decided to look at what lies behind a story contained in the latest issue of a left paper. The latest issue of “Socialist Worker”, the paper of the Irish SWP, contains a very curious article entitled “Britain: Support for Respect”. It details what it calls the “sensational” resignation of a Labour councilor in Preston, Elaine Abbot. Abbot has joined Respect, the Unity Coalition, a bizarre political formation consisting of George Galloway, the British SWP and a small number of Muslim community leaders.
The Muslims involved come from a strange mix of political backgrounds including the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), with a few actual clergymen involved. The MAB does not officially support Respect but its President is standing as a Respect candidate as are some other leading figures. MAB is a relatively marginal political player amongst British Muslims but it is the British affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Islamic fundamentalist organisation in the world.
The idea is that Galloway will provide the public profile, while the SWP will provide an organisation on the ground. They hope that the Mosque officials and other prominent Muslims will be able to provide a block vote from their religious community. The actual politics of Respect therefore have to be kept suitably vague. There can be no adherence to socialist ideas or working class politics and no policy on such issues as abortion. A short statement of aims, inoffensive to anyone left of Margaret Thatcher is all that can be managed.
To give birth to this strange coalition, the SWP have wound up the Socialist Alliance, a broad alliance of socialists that they first took over and then ran into the ground. Despite their best efforts, Respect has actually attracted fewer prominent trade unionists than the early Socialist Labour Party or the Socialist Alliance did in its heyday and fewer defectors from the Labour Party.
You can imagine the excitement therefore when a solitary Labour councilor should decide to join the Coalition. Irish “Socialist Worker” positively gushes over the recruitment of Abbot. Their article tells us that “a senior member of Preston Council has sensationally resigned from the Labour Party to join Michael Lavalette as the second Respect councilor in the Lancashire town”. They don’t of course mention that she is only the second Respect councilor in the whole of Britain and that neither of them were elected as Respect candidates.
Lavalette is a member of the SWP who was elected as a Socialist Alliance councilor with the support of the local Mosque. His success in mobilizing a religious block-vote appears to one of the main factors leading to the Respect turn.
“Socialist Worker” goes on to give us Abbot’s explanation for her defection:
“This was a very difficult decision as I have
been a member of the Labour Party for 15 years, a Labour supporter all my life and a Labour councillor for Riversway Ward in
Preston for the last ten years. However, I have been very unhappy with both the Labour government and the local Labour
council for some time and decided that I must follow my conscience and resign. My views opposing the war in Iraq and the
continuing killing and maiming of innocent Iraqi people are well known. I am opposed to student top-up fees and increasing
backdoor privatisation of public services to totally unaccountable bodies.”
All very laudable. But unfortunately the article is being somewhat economical with the truth. For starters, we aren’t told that Abbot had just been deselected by the Labour Party and so found herself casting about for a political home.
More importantly we aren’t told about Abbot’s actual political record. She was no plucky left winger struggling against the Blairite agenda. Instead she had been in charge of the biggest privatization scheme ever to hit the town of Preston. She was the mastermind behind the privatization of the entire of Preston’s council housing, trying to hand it over to a private housing association.
While she was the holder of the housing portfolio, the Council was busy running down council home maintenance. That’s the standard tactic of Blairite councils trying to get rid of council homes. Let the estates get run down, then tell people that only if they accept privatization will they get the needed repairs.
Abbot didn’t just vote for the privatization scheme, she was its main mover as recently as two months ago. Rather puts her claim that she is opposed to “increasing backdoor privatisation of public services to totally unaccountable bodies” into perspective doesn’t it?
Abbot has not distanced herself from her previous role, yet the SWP hail the defection of this character as some kind of victory. Such opportunism presumably marks her out as a kindred spirit.
So next time you find yourself reading “Socialist Worker”, remember to keep a healthy skepticism about its attachment to such nebulous concepts as accurate reporting.
Abbot preparing the privatization proposals:
http://www.preston.gov.uk/News.asp?id=SXFB1B-A77FE099
Abbot welcoming privatization of 7,000 homes coming a step closer:
http://www.preston.gov.uk/News.asp?id=SX170E-A77FE2B0
Respect Coalition boasting about Abbot’s role as Council “Cabinet member for Housing”, without mentioning what that actually entailed:
http://www.respectcoalition.com/index.php?ite=149
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Comments (10 of 10)
Jump To Comment: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1Let's be a bit more accurate about this. "Community Gateway" is a glossed up form of stock transfer. That is transfer from public ownership to private ownership. Despite the fripperies involved, the housing stock is transferred from Council ownership to a housing association. It fits squarely into the New Labour policy of destroying council housing.
This absolves the Council from responsibility for the homes. It also attacks the idea that housing is a right replacing it with the idea of private charitable housing provision. It makes sure that no new housing will ever be built as council housing by that local authority.
As if that wasn't enough, tenants find their tenancy agreements replaced by less secure arrangements. With the change in tenancy agreement it becomes much easier to be evicted for such crimes as falling behind in your rent payments.
Tenants activists have been campaigning against the stock transfer in Preston. Respect have been recruiting its architect. I know which side I'm on.
Comment on Indymedia UK
'Preston Housing & Elaine Abbot
10.05.2004 18:53
I think you'll find if you dig a little further that Elaine Abbot wasn't involved in privatisation.
The stock transfer scheme that Preston Council are investigating - Community Gateway - is sponsored by the Cooperative Union and the Confederation of Cooperative Housing organisations. My understanding is that it would replace council ownership with a cooperative form of organisation in which tenant control and participation was guaranteed.
Now personally I would always prefer Municipal/State ownership over co-operatives, but there are many on the left who would disagree and see co-ops as a better and more radical alternatives to council ownership that involves the tenants very little.
On the left we should be able to debate the issues sensibly, but it is rabid sectarianism of the worst kind to denounce looking at it locally. Especially when it is clear that the status quo will result in crappy housing conditions so long as the present parties are in government. The key issue is that the tenants of Preston will have the final say on whether they want to move into a co-operative organisation or stay as council tenants. In any case, inevitably, the New Labour government are dragging their feet on this alternative and it may be some time before it gets off the ground.
Certainly Elaine Abbot is well known in Preston for sticking up for the side of the tenant and opposing any kind of privatisation. So let's consider both sides of the argument.
Mike from Preston'
Galloway is a charlatan and a chancer. Any socialist grouping should be secular, but I guess the swp see this as a way of recruiting disaffected Muslim kids.
I suppose they justify it to themselves as just that, but then what do we expect from (particularly the British) swp?
Recruit
Sell the paper
Build the movement.
The movement is happening over the heads of the swp. It’s a pity, because there are some genuinely good people in there.
Thank you all for your kind and not so kind remarks.
Let me assure Mike from the SWP (or Respect) that I did indeed read the reports in British "Socialist Worker". The Nablus incident is all very interesting, although a little reminiscent of the kind of tokenism that Councilors of all stripes engage in.
But British "Socialist Worker", like Irish "Socialist Worker" and the Respect website still fails to mention two vital things. It doesn't tell us of Councilor Abbots deselection from the Labour Party before she began her road to Damascus conversion to opposing Blairism.
Most importantly it doesn't tell us that her only contribution to politics in Preston has been to mastermind the town's biggest ever privatization scheme, a job she was in right up until Respect recruited her.
Can Mike enlighten us as to why Respect and both the British and Irish editions of the "Socialist Worker" fail to mention what are after all very important facts? Can Mike tell us if such economy with uncomfortable truths is considered an asset in a "Socialist Worker" journalist?
i think if maurice had bothered to carry out a cursory search in SW uk he would find a proper background to the story.
She quit labour over a cynical attempt by labour to twin preston with nablus. lavellette suggested the twinning last year. labour rounded on him.
This year labour proposed to twin the two towns.
what changed labours mind?
I would suggest the local elections on the 10th of june are a major factor. lavellette does have the support of the muslim population mainly because they have been let down by labour over its support for the war and the no soloution of muslim only action will not get them far. The swp and the StWC organised and have won some confidence. hence labour trying to catch up and win some support back.
The SWP not overly scrupulous when it comes to grabbing hold of what looks like a chance! Never!
"Why would Respect or the SWP want to recruit someone whose only contribution to political life has been to try and introduce privatisation? Are they really that desperate?"
Yes they are!
Are you surprised?
It took me a minute to get my head round all the stuff in the story but when I did I found it a bit fucked up. Why would Respect or the SWP want to recruit someone whose only contribution to political life has been to try and introduce privatisation? Are they really that desperate? I followed the links and it looks like it's all true, unless there are two councillor Elaine Abbots in charge of Prestons council houses. Or unless Preston Councils website is lying about it all, and neither of those options seem very likely. So whats going on?
Re accurate reporting; not at all like the "Socialist Voice"...eh Maurice?....do better next time please!!
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An end to all privatisation and the bringing back into democratic public ownership of the railways and other public services.
An education system that is not dependent on the ability to pay, that is comprehensive and gives an equal chance in life to every child no matter how wealthy or poor their parents, from nursery to university.
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