Barely any coverage beyond the aforelinked on the Respect collapse. No word on the SWP website and only a brief mention for this major disaster on the Respect (SWP/Left List) website. That can be found here and I can’t help but find it more than a little folorn.

Respect/Left List supporters will continue to oppose New Labour and the other establishment parties.

They say, fully in the knowledge that such resistance will be futile.

We know that many in the working class movement look on the decline of the Labour government with mounting concern and desparately want a real left alternative.

They say, knowing that they are not it.

Respect may well be:

A party that struggles against war and the racism it breeds.

But given the ongoing (indeed, in Afghanistan escalating) war and the success of the BNP over the Labour Party in Henley and in the GLA elections earlier this year it looks like this is a struggle which they are increasingly failing.

Respect Renewal, meanwhile, took a chance to jab at the SWP/LL Respect, saying:

The defection of the three Left List councillors ought to sound the death knell of the Left List fiasco and finally lays to rest the lie that the split in Tower Hamlets Respect was between left and right.

Which was also the Left List Respect’s statement, except that they said that they were the ones on the left. Rather like the “No you’re the Neo-Nazi” exchange the BNP had going recently, only in reverse. It seems like either side is desperate to tar themselves as the extremists here.

RR also claim that one of the Respect (SWP, confused yet?) members joined the Tories, not something I have seen claimed anywhere else but certainly interesting and worthy of investigation.

As for Respect, Renewal says that:

They are determined to be more coherent and effective following what we are sure will be the last defection.

Also:

The split away from Respect by the SWP is now well and truly behind us. We look forward to playing our part in furthering the left as a whole, not simply our part of it.

So who knows, perhaps they might even be forced to try unity through sheer desperation? I wouldn’t count on it…

Both articles refer to the Labour Party as “New Labour” and neither seem to display much acceptance of culpability. Same old revolutionary politics, then.

Meanwhile, no word from Lenin’s Tomb. Presumably he’s still awaiting programming from Central Committee, or else they simply want this story buried. Democratic Centralism gets in the way of rapid reporting awfully…

Finally, if you want to see some socialists losing it completely then, as usual check out Socialist Unity, here and here. As ever, the deepest joys are to be found the murky depths of the site’s comment section. Consider this:

SWP members should now be asking themselves why after decades of political engagement, the party is still unable to build long-term and deep roots in communities that should be its natural constituencies.

I’m trying to create some witty addition to that, but “LOL, PWNED” is all that comes to mind, really.

That’s all from the far-left today. If you’re hoping for more I doubt you’ll be dissapointed but if you were under any delusions about them mattering even slightly then I would suggest now would be a good point to move on.