Hopeless SWP lackey moves leftwards to join Tories

The important issue here is not only that Cllr Hussain has defected, but Clly rahman has been humiliated by the fool who sent out a press release in Rahman’s name saying that the story was untrue.

But there is another group who have also been manipulated: ordinary SWP members. Those like Richard Seymour and others on this site who have doggedly defended their party’s position, should use this opportunity to take a step back, reflect, and stop trying to sweep the mess they find themselves in under the carpet.

Many of us who have been in the party will have argued positions on issues in which trust in the SWP’s political leadership will have played a critical role in deciding our eventual views. That trust will have been based on a track record, and will have been especially pertinent in situations where we did not have a direct engagement. For me, the debates with the ISO were a case in point.

The significance of Hussain’s defection is not simply that he has been exposed as an opportunist. It is in the nature of electoral politics that it attracts opportunists, and while it is possible to minimise the dangers they pose, it is impossible to completely inoculate against them. Rather, the real significance lies more in the way his defection has exposed John Rees.

SWP members should reflect that just as Rees’s arguments about a ‘left/right’ divide in Tower Hamlets have been exposed as nonsense, maybe allegations about a ‘witch-hunt’, the dangers of ‘community leaders i.e. small businessmen’, the hidden influence of ‘Jamaati Respect’ and all the rest of it, are not quite what they seem.

Rees has betrayed the trust of SWP members. Increasingly it has been his hubris that has shaped tactics, determined as he is that he emerges out of all of this with his prestige and position inside the party intact. Unfortunately for him, and the SWP, when it was time to try and climb out of a hole of his own making, he just could not help himself and kept digging.

The SWP/Respect adventure is now living out its last acts. Rees will emerge from this discredited. Of that, I have no doubt. But why should he be allowed to discredit the entire SWP as well? His game is nearly up. Act accordingly.

The 3 remaining SWP-Respect councillors in Tower Hamlets could now very easily end this political madness. Respect Renewal should issue an immediate and public appeal to them to rejoin with no recriminations. Its been a short break, lets end it and leave the hapless Rees to his own devices. What an insult he has delivered to those working hard for him in the Preston and Waltham Forest by-elections today. Why put up with him any longer. No recriminations, you’d all be welcome back, just leave Rees and his methods behind, today has proved definitively the dead end he’s leading you towards