What now for the left?
Former Socialist Alliance activists give their views: Pete McLaren was the secretary of the Socialist Alliance before the heavy involvement of the SWP in 2001-3, and is now secretary of the continuing Socialist Alliance group: Respect was never going to succeed. In the original Socialist Alliance, back in 2002-3, when it was first mooted that the SWP was in discussion with people from the mosques, George Galloway and so on, we said that it was such an unlikely alliance that it would never succeed - too many divergent interests. Personally I agree with getting as broad an alliance as possible...