The “John Street” gossip column in Tribune launches an attack on Respect for its alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain. Given that MAB members also worked energetically on Labour candidate Yasmin Qureshi’s campaign during the general election, perhaps we can look forward to Tribune attacking Brent East Labour Party for “getting into bed with homophobic religious fundamentalists”?

This contributor to Islamophobia Watch is not a fan of Respect, but when this sort of ignorant crap appears in a mainstream Labour publication you can hardly blame Muslims for questioning whether the Labour Party represents their interests.

This total lack of Respect

By “John Street”

Tribune, 23 December 2005

“Respect – the unity coalition, George Galloway founding member.” It just rolls off the tongue like, well, nothing really. It’s a silly name and it ought to be changed. What exactly does Respect respect? It doesn’t seem to include gay and lesbian rights. The leadership excluded these from the party’s general election manifesto – an action for which an apology is still awaited. There are allegations that Disrespect’s Islamist backers demanded this as a price for their electoral support.

Respect’s website insists that it supports gay equality, but not very loudly since it comes under the heading of “other policies” so it is hardly a flagship one. For good measure, the website has no section on women’s rights.

Respect luminary Lindsay [sic] German, who is also a leading light in the Socialist Workers’ Party, is notorious for saying that gay rights are not a “shibboleth”. Presumably, that means gay rights shouldn’t stand in the way of Disrespect getting into bed with homophobic religious fundamentalists if there are more votes in doing that. It has formed an alliance with the Muslim Association of Great [sic] Britain.

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell says: “The MAB endorses the recreation of an Islamic Caliphate where Muslims would be subjected to the barbarism of Sharia law, which includes the execution of unchaste women, apostates and gay people. Respect has failed to defend gay Muslims against fundamentalist Islamists and it attacks gay rights groups that support Muslim queers.”

Quite how any of this squares with Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution is not clear. Perhaps, for the SWP, the revolution is no longer a “shibboleth”.