the RESPECT party

Viva Palestina is finalising plans for the Kick Off for Palestine campaign to construct and maintain links with sporting venues in the besieged Gaza Strip.

It is five years since the imposition of the siege on 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and nearly three years since Israel's Operation Cast Lead, which killed 1,417 and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. The UN reports that conditions within Gaza remain appalling. And now a decision by the UN's cultural and sporting organisation to admit Palestine has been greeted with the immediate suspension of £60 million contributions to the body by the US and the decision by Israel to accelerate illegal settlement building in occupied East Jerusalem.

Yet in the face of all that, the Palestinian people are determined to rebuild. Pressure to finally end the siege is increasing and they are looking to the future of Gaza, which has a large youth population.

The Occupy movement is a beacon in the political wilderness. It began with the Occupy Wall Street camp in September following the model of the Tahrir square camp in Cairo, the most potent symbol of the Egyptian revolution. The idea has spread globally with the Occupy movement establishing itself in over 90 countries. They are the revival and growth of the anti-capitalist movement that erupted after the Seattle protests of 1999.

This movement has succeeded in pushing a challenge to the neo-liberal, free market policies gripping much of the global economy. These policies have driven society over a cliff with unregulated gambling that has saddled the banking system and governments with unprecedented debt while property and food price speculation devour the poorest. We lose jobs, services and get wage cuts while the 1% reaps the profits. The 99% of society getting poorer is finding a voice against the 1% that grows richer each day. The world cries out for change.

George Galloway looks at the unfolding drama of the Euro crisis and argues it time for the left to be 'realistic' and demand an economy run for the 99% rather than the 1% of the super-rich. 

Shakespeare would have had little difficulty in scripting the drama unfolding on the European and global stage.

The troupe of players from the political class have their "entrances and exits" until they reach this latest scene: a "second childishness and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

Toothless, wilfully blind, gaudy and impotent sums up the Cannes summit meeting of the richest 20 countries last week and the ongoing response of political leaders to the crisis engulfing the Eurozone and global economy.

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

Recent reports that the MoD are drawing up plans for military action against Iran are deeply worrying. Any attack on Iran would risk a wave of destruction across the Middle East. The West is justifying tightened sanctions and an increasingly aggressive posture with a series of vague claims that Iran is trying to protect its nuclear reactors and defying sanctions.

These claims are about as convincing as those used to justify the attack on Iraq. Meanwhile the US is sending more troops, warships and arms to the region. All this as they remain silent about the well documented  strengthening of the Israeli nuclear arsenal, the only one in the Middle East.

Stop the War has produced a statement calling on the British government to scrap any plans for intervention and to pledge to take no part in any military action against Iran. Go to http://bit.ly/uFpHHL

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has recognised Palestine in an historic and overwhelming vote of the member countries. In response, the United States has cut off tens of millions of dollars of funding and Israel has announced the speeding up of the building of more illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

Viva Palestina is announcing a major new initiative, Kick Off for Palestine, in the wake of the UNESCO vote to bring aid and support to Gaza. We intend to raise £250,000 over the next few months to build three sports stadia and playing fields to enable young Palestinians, where unemployment is worst, to play football and other sports. This is an initiative strongly supported by Gazan civil society. We hope to see the first stadium open as early as Spring 2012.