the RESPECT party

Everyone in the Respect Party can be proud of the great campaign we ran in the Birmingham Sparkbrook by-election and of our outstanding candidate, Mohammed Ishtiaq.

The national officers want to thank everyone who fought so hard and achieved such a creditable result. We got 2,301 votes, coming second to Labour's 3,932.

Everyone in Respect will share the disappointment of our supporters in Sparkbrook that we were not able to hold our second seat in the three-member ward.

At the general election last year, we suffered from a squeeze between the two major parties as working class voters, especially in the impoverished inner city areas where Respect enjoys most support, understandably clung to Labour out of fear of the return of a Tory government.

Now, with the Cameron-led coalition ripping into public services, living standards and people's hopes, Labour is able to present itself to voters as the only electoral alternative, despite its own record in government. So the combined Tory and Lib Dem vote fell to just 574 votes, with much of the difference going straight over to Labour.

Labour in opposition to a coalition of the Tories and Lib Dems can draw on deep-rooted traditions. That impacts even in those areas where Respect is established.

The vote in Sparkbrook is not a vote for the mealy-mouthed policies of the Labour front bench, which offer no serious alternative to the Tory austerity drive. It is a vote against the real suffering the Tories and Lib Dems are inflicting right now.

In these circumstances, Respect has done well to preserve very significant support and, remarkably, to poll four times the votes of the two governing parties. Such a result is unique for a force to the left of Labour. There's no one else who is getting anything like the support Respect got at Thursday's election and in doing so we are making an important contribution to building a wider progressive force in Britain.

We can expect the pressure on the electoral space to continue. At the same time, we know from the campaign in Birmingham that people are not enthusiastic about Labour and want to see policies that really do oppose the Tory assault, rather than agreeing with the logic of savage cuts.

That feeling is likely to grow among many people as we face a further deep recession and the awful crisis in Europe spreads to here.

The national council on Saturday will be discussing how Respect plays its part in resisting the austerity, the increase in racism and scapegoating, and the continuing drive towards war.

During the campaign in Birmingham, our supporters were already discussing how to do that whatever the outcome of the election, planning, among other things, to push the latest Viva Palestina initiative over Palestine and how we (with one sitting councillor, Shokat Ali in the ward) can take up the issues and arguments that the establishment parties will not, and delivers the kind of 24/7 community support that distinguishes our elected representatives.

The campaign and result in Sparkbrook are a strong basis for doing that.

Full results:

Labour 3,932
Respect, 2,301
Lib Dem, 395
Green, 179
Tory 133

Turnout 33 percent