SWP Rees-pect apologises for PFI Tory donation

“Incredible”, “amazing”, “unbelievable”..... These are some of the astonished comments of SWPers following the unprecedented apology by John Rees, Respect (non-Jammaat) National Secretary and member of SWP central committee.

This apology was published in SWP notes and it is almost unheard of for any senior member of the central committee to admit to making a mistake and to say sorry. This apology was published in this weeks secret (ish) internal “SWP notes”.

Earlier this month, Ted Jeory, at the “East London Advertiser” had broken the news that Rees had solicited money for the SWP/Respect “Organising for fighting Unions”, and then accepted, a $10,000 donation drawn on a company cheque from the Dubai construction company, Khansahed Civil Engineering. This is owned by in the UK by Interserve, who is a leading Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contractor, chaired by Tory Peer and former Head of the John Major’s policy unit, Lord Norman Blackwell.

See the letter from Rees

12 December 2007

To the secretary, Organising for Fighting Unions

Dear.......

We spoke recently about the article in the East London Advertiser
regarding George Galloway’s accusations about the source of the donation made to OFFU by a Dubai businessman last June.

As you know the donation was originally sent to Respect last January but was returned to the donor because it is illegal for a political party to accept foreign donations. I did, however, in returning the donation suggest it might instead be made to OFFU as a campaigning organisation which has supporters from a number of different political parties within it and which is separate from Respect.

At the time that the donation was eventually made to OFFU last June neither I nor George Galloway knew of any link between the donor and a company involved in PFI schemes in Britain. It remains the case that the donation is an individual and not a corporate donation even though it is drawn on a company account.

I do however regret not having researched the link, tenuous though it is, between this individual, his company and the company to which it is connected in Britain. I hope this oversight on my part has not caused OFFU any embarrassment and I apologise if this is the case.

Yours fraternally,

John Rees,
Respect national secretary.

Is this his “swan song”, will he be the SWP fall guy and forced to confess and accept the blame for the "respect" disaster? I suspect that Lands End will soon have a new “Socialist Worker” newsvendor.