[lbo-talk] Re: GEORGE GALLOWAY PANDERS TO THE HOMOPHOBES

[www.leninology. blogspot.com]

>Doug H and Travis are right. Peter Tatchell is a Labour Party loyalist
>first, last and always; any stick to beat the extra-Labour left is fair
>play. And if Doug Ireland has a fault--and I like him a lot--it's his
>knee-jerk contempt for third party and hard left efforts here at home. I
>tend to line up with Ireland on the issues these days, too, but I don't
>share his biliousness toward those to my left or his need to Trot bait. The
>Socialist Workers Party in Britain may be playing with fire by aligning 
>with
>the Muslim Arab Brotherhood--and that is no given-- but we're not going to
>know that by the sort of sideshow exercise that Tatchell orchestrated.
>
>Mike Hirsch

A few corrections needed here:

1) Tatchell was once a Labour Party member, but is now a Green Party member. 

  The Greens have always hated Respect for accruing left-of-Labour votes 
that they feel should naturally be theirs - they call this "splitting the 
vote".  Initially it was hoped that the Greens would join the Respect 
coalition and present the biggest possible challenge to Blairism from the 
left in the elections: they declined, indicating that they had a long and 
venerable ideological and electoral tradition.  One of their leaders, Dr 
Spencer-Fitzgibbon, went on a ruthless red-baiting spree.  On May 5th, they 
got their answer.  Tatchell, it has to be said, is a controversial figure 
within the Green Party himself - not all Green leaders agreed with his witch 
hunt against Yusuf al-Qaradawi, for instance.  Yet, two points follow from 
this - one, Tatchell has a sectarian party reason for retailing these 
fabrications about Respect; two, the whole reason Tatchell joined the Greens 
and argued against Respect was because of his hostility to Muslims, 
reflected in this latest charade.

2) The MAB is not 'the Muslim Arab Brotherhood' but the Muslim Association 
of Britain.  Associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, their politics vary 
depending on the issue, but they are basically an integralist outfit.

3) Respect, contrary to Direland's claims, is not 'allied' with the MAB.  
The latter organisation did support Respect in some elections and, but it 
also supported the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and Ken Livingstone.

Of course, you're right about Direland's Trot-baiting.  It's never been so 
aggressively displayed as during this episode, but it has certainly been 
present as long as I have known him.  It's a real shame, but not an 
unpredictable one.

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