Can the forward march of Labour be restarted?

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The situation that the left finds itself in after the defeat of the McDonnell bid for the Labour leadership is a complex one. A bit of a debate has broken out about this around a statement issued by Socialist Resistance (SR) This was published on Liam Mac Uaid’s blog :

The key passage is: “McDonnell’s defeat throws the Labour left into serious crisis. No spin can hide it. The project of reclaiming the Labour or the idea that the Labour Party is a fruitful arena for the left to work in have been dealt a devastating blow.

“All this has implication for Respect, which should be taking the initiative to open or re-open a dialogue with those on the left who are currently not in Respect as to how they see the way forward.

“The Morning Star and the CPB are a case in point. They are likley to find it increasingly difficult to cling to a policy of reclaiming Labour. Apparently a new discussion has already opened up on this internally in the CPB. The Morning Star had already called a conference in June on “Politics After Blair” at which the issue will now be unavoidable.

“But Respect needs to be open and flexible in this situation to any new forces from the Morning Star or the trade union left. It should do whatever is necessary to ensure that new forces have space to make their influence felt. If it can do this it could break it out of its current impasse and open up a new stage of development.
“Respect’s task in this process is to turn the tide of politics back towards the left. Rebuild ideological and practical opposition to the market. Work with the left in the unions to build an independent pluralist left alternative alongside the struggle to regenerate the unions and rebuild trade union strength and organisation.”

To which I posted a comment to the effect that SR are making two mistakes: i) in not understanding that Respect is not a vehicle around which left unity can be built; and less explicably ii) that SR seem to completely fail to understand the political perspective of the CP.

I concluded my initial remarks by saying that currently “the building blocks for any serious alternative to Labour are utterly absent, but where the situation isn't hopeless either.”

Given the undemocratic manoeuvrings in and around Respect, the media galavanting of George Galloway, and the dispersal of the layer of left social democrats who had aggregated around the Socialist Alliance in various parts of the country, then I would characterise Respect thus: “Who is Respect? Galloway or the SWP? Anyone else? Will either of those forces play the productive role you are calling on them to play? If there is no actually existing force within Respect who will steer the organisation to play the role you think it could play, then how could it happen?

“Even were the SWP or Galloway to have a damascene conversion, would anyone on the activist left trust them? No-one is going to join Respect, or particularly want to work with them. The whole project is basically an embarrassment now.

“If we are looking for a left unity project, then we have missed the boat. The wave of left activists who left the labour party after Clause IV and over the Iraq war could have been attracted to an organisation that respected labour movement norms of behaviour. But were never going to be attracted to respect.”

SR are utterly self delusioonal if they believe that the CP or any significant left from the unions would touch Respect with a barge. Even were the Political Committee of the CP so minded, and I have no reason to think they are, then the membership would probably not agree to it.

The failure of McDonnell’s campaign has produced unhelpful knee-jerk reactions from Respect and the Socialist Party that the Labour Left should join them in their equally unsuccessful campaigns outside the Labour party. They remind me of the mayor of Amity, swearing that the water is safe. For example Thornett writes: "It¹s right to say to the Labour left, and those like the CPB (and some of the trade union left) who have clung to a Reclaim Labour policy for so long that after the McDonnell collapse the only rational conclusion in the cold light of day is that the Labour left has no useful future in the Labour party. There is no point in saying anything else."

In fact this approach is completely misguided. Instead of looking at whether we can reconstitute the greatly diminished left around already flawed projects, we need to take stock of the current political situation.

The overwhelming features are i) that the right within the Labour Party are utterly triumphant, and their victory is structurally irreversible. ii) The Labour party has failed to make the same shift to the right with its electoral base – the enduring progressive and social democratic attitudes of labour voters was well described recently on the SWP blog, Lenin’s Tomb ; iii) that the far left have failed to break that progressive base away from electoral loyalty to the Labour party; iv) the unions – on the whole - maintain ideological and political opposition to New Labour values, as can be seen by the way the unions make the running in opposing PFI, Academies and private equity. v) the structural problems of the unravelling British state.

So how can we seek to harness the positive aspects of the current situation to strengthen the left?

Alan Thornett has replied to me and asked whether I think Respect’s genuine electoral successes are the “wrong type of voters”. In a sense they are, but not in the sense he implies. Respect has done well particularly with that minority of voters for whom the war is the overriding political issue, but for the majority of the working class that is not the case, and opposition to the war has been subsumed into the general cynicism about politics.

This is where SR’s misunderstanding of the CP’s position is clear, because the CP are talking some sense over this issue:

As Robert Griffiths, the CP General Secretary: recently wrote : “But what is needed now more than ever is for the trade union movement, once again, to take on its historic responsibility to ensure the existence of a mass party of labour. For all the assistance that socialists and communists can render, the unions alone have the human, financial and organisational resources, as well as the class interest, to take the necessary steps.

“Together with the non-sectarian left, they need to work out a political strategy which takes account of current realities. For example, most major unions remain affiliated to the Labour Party and are unlikely to leave it in the near future.
“The first steps in this direction might be for all the major unions to affiliate and participate fully in the Labour Representation Committee. Deals between union leaders in smoke-free rooms to win resolutions at Labour Party conference are not enough. The active involvement of unions and their members in the LRC would be the clearest declaration of political intent.

“The LRC could itself go the extra mile and allow full membership status to socialist organisations including the Communist Party, respecting their right to participate independently in elections in return for an agreement not to campaign for the dismantling of the Labour Party through further union disaffiliations.
“In their relations with the Labour Party, unions should stop all financial, logistical and political support for MPs who consistently vote against key union policies. “

SR are correct to highlight the Morning Star conference as important, not least because the CP still able to punch above their weight, and alongside John McDonnell, we also have Ken Livingstone and Jon Cruddas attending. At the deputy leadership hustings at GMB congress last week Cruddas came out in favour of starting to renationalise public utilities.

The Labour Left were crushingly defeated in the PLP, but the McDonnell campaign has gathered together a nucleus of activists, who are less isolated and more motivated than they were before the campaign. It is as fruitless for us to argue with then that they should leave the party as for them to argue we should join it – comrades need to come to their own conclusions.

The way forward is for all the left, inside and outside the Labour party, to promote the trade unions in exercising their own political voice. By and large, the unions will not abandon their stake in the labour party until they have exhausted its historical usefulness. But currently they are not making enough demands on the party, and so not testing the usefulness of the link.

The Labour Representation Committee could become a vehicle for the unions to exercise collective political voice and if a substantial section of organised labour is to draw the conclusion that a party of labour needs to be refounded, as they effectively did in 1931, then the LRC could be the body around which that debate tales place.

Of course there are serious obstacles, not least of which is the LRC’s requirement for Labour Party membership, which is a serious obstacle to many grassroots trade unions and community activists. But again the way forward is for local trade union bodies to affiliate and open a dialogue about being able to send delegates who are not individual LP members.

In the meantime, we have largely missed the boat in England of building an electoral alternative to New Labour. There may still be a case of standing against Labour, but this can only be done by building grassroots links first, not by building the roof before the walls like Respect and the CNWP have done.

There is serious work that can be done, but the vehicle for that work is not Respect nor the CNWP, the focus remains where it perhaps always should have been, with organised Labour in the mass organisations of our class.

More debate in SWP's international

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Back in March this year, I made a post on this blog asking where the SWP’s international group, the IST, was going, and pointing out that there had been a series of splits in most sections. This post caused a lot of debate, including contributions from Canada, France, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand from members of IST affiliates, and from the groups with similar politics but outside the IST.

The need for an open international debate about the IST is clear, given the fact that there seems to be little principled political difference between the groups within and without the IST, although there are differences of strategy and tactics, as you would expect in any living political tradition.

Earlier this month, the New Zealand affiliate of the IST, Socialist Worker(NZ), published a statement calling for the IST to have a more positive alignment towards the Venezuelan revolution, and querying some organisational changes proposed by the British SWP’s Alex Callinicos (pictured above reviewing the troops).

Today, the Socialist Worker(NZ) have issued the following call for a debate on their website, UNITYblog. They want “to start a debate among all serious socialists and revolutionaries, inside and outside the International Socialist Tendency, on how we should be responding to the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela. Please send your contributions to UNITYblog . All serious contributions to the debate will be published. Silly and/or sectarian stuff will be binned with a grin.”

This follows the reply by Alex Callinicos, which they have also published . In view of the fact that UNITYblog have issued this call for a debate about Venezuela, it seems much better that the debate is carried out there rather than here, so I will make no further comment about the specific issue of Venezuela.

However, one comment by Callinicos is especially illuminating:
“As we put it in our ‘International Perspectives 2005’ …the most important front in the struggle against US imperialism is in Iraq.’ It is the resistance in Iraq that is in the process of inflicting the most serious defeat American imperialism has suffered since the Vietnam War. By tying down the Pentagon’s military machine in Iraq, the resistance has made a decisive contribution to creating the space that has allowed the resistance in Latin America to develop and, in the cases of Venezuela and Bolivia, to develop a more explicitly anti-capitalist dynamic. Therefore we believe that the most important single internationalist task of revolutionaries today is to build the international movement against the ‘war on terrorism’. Defeating the Bush administration’s imperialist offensive is critical to the success of every struggle against neoliberalism and capitalism, including those in Venezuela and Bolivia. This is particularly important for revolutionaries in the advanced capitalist world since it gives a task that relates directly to the politics of our own societies rather than merely leave us to cheerlead for Latin American revolutions.” (My emphasis)

It is entirely characteristic of the SWP to overemphasise the significance of the Iraq war, and to overestimate the degree of political radicalism which opposition of the war engenders.

In fact, the war is not even the most important issue on domestic British politics, as housing and job insecurities are the biggest cause of friction between New Labour and its traditional electoral supporters; and pensions and privatisation are the biggest friction between the trade unions and New Labour. A correct strategic orientation in Britain on how to reverse the neo-liberal consensus would therefore be concentrating less on Iraq, and more on the issue of public ownership, and council housing. The victory of the right over these issues has largely been because of the idea, as Thatcher argued, that “there is no alternative”. The significance of Venezuelan solidarity work is of course that it demonstrates that there is an alternative. The Bolivarian revolution has started to turn the tide.

Callinicos’s comments about the IST itself are also illuminating.

He says: “The SWP in particular has argued that Seattle opened a new period of anti-capitalist struggle that has created major opportunities to renew the revolutionary and radical left. We have accordingly been pursuing dialogue with other currents and exploring the possibilities of regroupment on a very extensive scale.”

Seattle was a long time ago. What is more, the social forum movement is becoming increasingly attenuated. An Italian friend of mine who attends the European Social Forum meetings (ESF) observes that the SWP’s policy of opposing the Social Forums in Britain, while simultaneously attending the ESF meetings as the British delegates, has now given way to there being no participants from Britain.

Furthermore, within Britain the SWP wound down the regroupment exercise of the English Socialist Alliance, in favour of a creature that excluded the rest of the activist left, Respect. This process was described succinctly recently by Charlie Pottins : “As for the Left, having gathered some strength (including former Labour Party actvisists) around in the Socialist Alliance, the SWP was quick to liquidate it so they could form a local Respect, though so far it has been almost a non-runner, and at best an also-ran. The sad thing is that some of the local SWP actvists are old-campaigners, better known and respected in the area under their own flag, whereas people just scratch their heads or look away when they turn up as Respect.”

In contrast, Callinicos describes Respect thus: “Our domestic experience has demonstrated, positively with Respect and more negatively with the Socialist Alliance and the Scottish Socialist Party, this process involves opening out to more than the established revolutionary left.”

I was recently discussing Respect with anti-war activists from Bristol and Oxford, both non-members of the SWP, but positively inclined towards them. They told me that in Bristol, none of the former labour lefts who were active in the SA have joined Respect, and the comrade from Oxford resigned from Respect because all decisions for the local branch were taken in advance by the SWP caucus, and if the Respect branch reached a decision about something that the SWP had not previously worked out their position on, then it would be overturned by the SWP at the next meeting. This is not what we mean by regroupment!

Callinicos then says: “The IST has a very simple structure. It consists of organizations sharing a common tradition and approach to revolutionary politics. Its meetings are devoted largely to political discussions, with very few decisions being made. These decisions are normally taken by consensus: the only real exception was the exclusion of the ISO (US) in 2001, which followed the ISO intervening to help to engineer a split in our Greek sister organization, SEK.”

We are entitled to ask, why was the ISO allegedly trying to cause a split in the SEK an offence requiring expulsion. Whereas Tony Cliff boasts in his autobiography that he split the German and French groups? And Callinicos himself sought to engineer a split in the ISO(USA). why is there one rule for the goose, and another for the gander?

We are also entitled to wonder whether this consensual model is true, given that Callinicos also says that one of the tasks of his proposed committee is “addressing problems in specific groups”. That is interfering in the internal lives of other affiliates, as Cliff used to do, and Callinicos did with the American ISO.

Callinicos claims that hitherto, the leadership of the IST has been run from London because “the British SWP … has far greater resources and partly because of the political authority its leadership has enjoyed in the Tendency.”

But on what basis has the SWP greater political authority? Surely not on the basis of achievement, as they are a fraction of their former size, with a much reduced influence in the unions and workplaces, and their activities in the Socialist Alliance, Respect and SSP have earned them enormous distrust from other socialist activists.

Indeed, the reduced authority of the SWP is one of the reasons why so many organisations that share their basic politics, such as the American ISO, the Socialist Alternative group in Australia, or the Socialisme Internationale Group in France are outside the IST.

The debate that is being opened up is an entirely welcome one.

Crucial battle in Royal Mail

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The Communication Workers Union (CWU)’s executive is balloting all members for strike action. If it goes ahead this would be the first national postal strike in a decade.

Interesting questions are raised by the build up to this dispute relating to New Labour's economic neo-liberalism, the failure of the unions to oppose this ideologically, and a new direction in the SWP's industrial policy.

Deputy General Secretary Dave Ward has said “Royal Mail has abandoned our agreed approach in favour of a short sighted Business Plan that amounts to a cost cutting frenzy, reductions in pay and a defeatist attitude towards competition. This Business Plan is designed to fail and demonstrates a real lack of vision by the people running the company”.

The agreed approach that Dave Ward is referring to is “Shaping the Future” by which the CWU agreed a shared framework with Royal Mail for dealing with the impact of competition and automation.

According to the CWU’s account: “a centre piece of the agreement was Royal Mail’s commitment to negotiate change, whilst focusing on higher basic pay and permanently raising the value and status of jobs by April 2007.”

Yet now, according to the CWU: “Royal Mail’s business plan will result in 40,000 job losses, attacks on pension arrangements, closures of mail centres and delivery offices and a reduction in pay for postal workers to ‘the market rate’. It will also result in a reduction and decrease in quality of service for the public. Royal Mail claim that postal workers are overpaid by 30%.”

The union is absolutely right to stand up to management, and should be actively campaigning for a YES vote for a strike.

But there is a need for serious questioning of the CWU’s approach, and how they have ended up where they are.

So-called “liberalisation”, opening up the publicly owned Royal Mail to competition, was introduced in January 2006, as a result of EU legislation, but the free market zealots of New Labour decided to deregulate three years earlier than competitor countries. The response to this from the CWU was revealing. Billy Hayes complained “We all know that postal liberalisation is coming, but the CWU cannot understand why a British regulator [has placed] the nation’s postal service at a competitive disadvantage” (emphasis added)

All along the CWU has accepted that liberalisation and competition could not be opposed, and therefore even if Royal Mail does stay in the public sector, it will be subject to market pressure. So it will be run as a business not as a public service.

Despite “Shaping the Future” being hailed as a landmark agreement by the CWU, literally before the deal had even been approved by the membership, the Royal Mail management were imposing changes in work practices outwith the agreement, in pursuit of profitability. So why did the CWU recommend acceptance?

The Executive Committee of the union had instructed the union’s leadership to ballot the members for a national strike, and John Farnham, a Postal Exec member claims that the unions leadership failed to carry out the instructions of the EC. This was a very serious situation, but in fact there was no seriousness about a fight at the top and all but one member of the EC voted to accept “Shaping the Future”, including two members who are involved in the SWP’s Post Worker publication. The SWP’s Jane Loftus failed to attend the EC on the crucial day.

According to one of Post Worker’s supporters on the exec, Norman Candy, the EC were aware that the mood of postal workers was up for a fight, but they conceded the strategic arguments over competition and profitability, in exchange for some debatable tactical gains over pay. As a Socialist Worker leaflet correctly explained, management had retreated slightly on pay, but the other "gains" were simply to allow the CWU to continue to organise as before, and an efficiency agreement that might bring more take home pay, but at the expense of jobs.

It seems remarkable then that the CWU exec approved it, and there is some talk that Billy Hayes had shaken hands on a deal with a government minister even before the EC met, which was why the ballot never happened.

But the real issue here is that the CWU needed to take a political stance against liberalisation, and demand that Royal mail continues to run as a public service. This is a long haul argument, but is one that the RMT has effectively mounted over renationalisation of the railways. The advantage is the not only can we start to turn the tide over the political idea there is no alternative to the market, but it would make the workforce more confident and inspired to defend themselves. It is never a good way to fight, to first concede that your opponent is correct in principle!

The role of the left in the union also needs to be examined. The SWP led publication Post Worker (PDF) took no position on the vital vote over “Shaping the Future”. Instead of a clear recommendation for a NO vote, Post Worker published a “debate”, giving most space to NEC members Norman Candy and John Farnan arguing in favour of acceptance.

In the face of the EC recommending acceptance, and no clear opposition coming from anywhere, not a single Royal Mail office voted against the deal.

The rationale behind the SWP’s “Rank and File” papers is that they bring together militants who are prepared to organise independently from the official union machine if needs be. Of course there is always a tension in that any genuinely independent grassroots group may disagree with the position of the SWP – as it did here. The SWP did oppose “Shaping the Future”. But there were several grassroots activists who wanted Post Worker to come out with a clear NO recommendation, and it seems the SWP stepped back from this because it would have meant breaking from theie supporters on the EC.

Over questions of tactics there is room for compromise and manoeuvre. But Post Worker should not have compromised on a question of strategy and principle and no ground should have been given to the idea of profitability and opening up Royal Mail to competition. If they had to break with some of their non-SWP supporters, then so be it. In actual fact, this seems a decisive break with the historical industrial policy of the SWP – but according to the reports of the SWP’s last conference, the industrial section heard no debate about this, although Socialist Worker did report how a postal worker has set up an anti-war groups at his sorting office!!

So the current dispute is a consequence of management pursuing profitability, which the CWU has already conceded in principle. Last year the issue was a bit abstract, and many posties may not have realised how “Shaping the Future” was going to affect them. This time around the issue is not abstract, it is a concrete and immediate threat to jobs, pay and conditions.

The CWU needs to work for the biggest possible vote for a strike, and the left in the CWU needs to consider how to raise the issue of opposing in principle the operation of the market.

This is a chance for the CWU, and the left in the CWU, to recover ground they lost last year.

SWP's international divided over Venezuela

In a remarkable statement by the Central Committee of the SWP’s sister organisation in New Zealand, internal divisions between the SWP and its international affiliates over the nature of the Venezuelan revolution are laid bare, as well as concerns about the privaleged position of the SWP within the IST's decision making.

This statement is a response to a proposal by the SWP’s Alex Callinicos (27 September 2006) that the International Socialist Tendency (IST) adopt a new "Coordination" structure. The IST is the international grouping of the SWP. Socialist Worker-New Zealand has been an affiliate of the IST since 1995.

The full text of their statement is a welcome appraisal of the significance of the Bolivarian revolution, and is worth reading in full . (See the Red Squirrel's blog for more on this topic ).

Socialist Worker (NZ) make a very positive assessment about the significance of the formation of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) "While the initiative for the PSUV came from Chavez, it will be built "from below". Socialist militants, who played a key role in mobilising the Chavista vote during the 2006 presidential election, have become the "promoters" of the new mass socialist party. They are going out to the people to register members, who will be organised into "socialist battalions" of 200 people each. The aim is to organise 20,000 of these "battalions" across Venezuela, from which delegates will be elected to attend the PSUV's founding conference in August 2007. ”

Socialist Worker (NZ)'s appraisal is closer to that of the Australian DSP than the British SWP's. It was noticeable that Munyaradzi Gwisai , leader of the SWP's Zimbabwean affiliate and a former Member of Parliament in Harare, visited both Australia and New Zealand in the last two weeks, and his public meeting in Australian was built for by the DSP. Zimbabwe ISO is one of the most significant sections of the IST.


With regard to the SWP and the IST, the following section of the Socialist Woker (NZ) statement is very interesting:

"It is within the context of the deepening revolution in Venezuela that Socialist Worker-New Zealand responds to Alex Callinicos's proposal to create an IST "Coordination". Alex defines such a Coordination as consisting of "selected organisations" whose leaderships would consult and meet between annual IST gatherings "to deal with initiatives, problems, etc".

“Socialist Worker-New Zealand has two substantive concerns with this Coordination proposal. First, it is not intimately linked to the global political situation, and in particular to how the IST needs to engage with the mass revolutionary process in Venezuela. Instead, the proposal is couched in terms of the IST's own internal processes.

“Socialist Worker-New Zealand believes the unfolding Venezuelan revolution, if it continues to move in the direction it's currently going, will reshape the socialist and labour movements in every country on every continent, just as the unfolding Bolshevik revolution did from 1917-24. Therefore, rather than looking inwards, the IST needs to be focused outwards towards the most advanced revolutionary upsurge in 90 years and the global socialist regroupments it will inevitably set into motion.

“At present, there seem to be real differences between IST affiliates over the nature of what is happening in Venezuela. At one end of the IST spectrum, Socialist Worker-New Zealand see Chavez & Co as being at the centre of the most important "revolution in the revolution" since the Bolsheviks proclaimed "All power to the Soviets" in 1917 Russia. At the other end of the IST spectrum, the Venezuelan revolution was a "non-topic" in the official discussion bulletins of the British Socialist Workers Party in the lead-up to their national conference in January 2007.

“So how do we form an IST Coordination when the IST appears to lack real political coordination over the key strategic issue of Venezuela's revolution? If we were to do it just on the basis of IST tactical organisation, any such IST Coordination would be a sham from the outset.

“The deepening Venezuelan revolution has sparked intense discussions among the world's different Marxist organisations about what makes a revolution, how to move towards socialism, what is the dialectic between the leaders and the masses, how to establish workers' control and other strategic questions.

“We all have a lot to learn from the world historic events in Venezuela. We cannot assume that any one Marxist group has readymade answers to everything. Any IST Coordination, therefore, must be based on facilitating this global debate among all Marxist groups, most of them outside the IST, in tandem with fusing the IST into a strategic engagement with the PSUV's leaders.

“It's a global debate about the Venezuelan revolution that the IST needs to start coordinating, and that requires democratic input from all IST affiliates around the world.

“That brings us to our second substantive concern. The IST Coordination proposal calls for unspecified powers to be granted to "selected" organisations. Any such "selection" would leave non-selected IST groups on the margins of IST decision-making, given the tyranny of distance over a global coalition like the IST. It would fix the bureaucratic curse of the initiating "centre" and the non-initiating "periphery" onto the IST.

“Why can't every IST affiliate have one representative on the IST Coordination? With modern communications technology, face-to-face meetings in London can be replaced by extremely cheap "virtual" meetings that link all continents. The material basis already exists for an all-in IST Coordination that interacts on a global scale as frequently as needed. The real question is whether the IST has the political consensus and the political will to bring it about”

Socialist Worker (NZ) concludes: “In Venezuela, for the first time since Lenin's Bolsheviks, we are seeing a mass movement well on the way towards establishing socialism within the borders of a whole country. The front line of the epochal war between capitalism and socialism is now in Venezuela.

“Even where there has been resistance to the neo-liberal offensive over the last two decades, the international workers' movement has been floundering on the widespread assumption that "there is no alternative". The Venezuelan revolution is putting socialism back on the agenda in a practical and living way -- the way most people will come to socialism. The IST must be an organic part of this process.

“Any IST Coordination needs to be focused on relating to forces outside the IST. That's because the forward movement of the Venezuelan revolution and the wider Latin American uprisings look likely to provide the essential material foundations for a positive regroupment of the socialist and radical left on every continent, and the parallel emergence of a mass socialist international.

“Socialist Worker-New Zealand believes the political and organisational decisions made within the IST must reflect this historic opportunity to move towards a mass socialist international. This is the first time since the early days of the Comintern that such a possibility has existed.

“This requires the IST to directly engage with PSUV leaders in the building of a mass socialist international. The IST can play a positive role in this process if we make that turn now.”

Politics after Blair

Last night our local Stop the War group voted to send two delegates to the Morning Star’s conference on Politics after Blair. We decided that we should take part in as many forums as possible to discuss the changing political situation, and also agreed to send people to the SWP's marxism event.

There is an urgent need for the left to participate in a fraternal debate about the way forward after the damage that Blair has inflicted on the Labour Party.

On Monday, candidate for Deputy leader, Jon Cruddas MP, wrote how after ten years of a labour government: “people remain afraid and insecure. “They are frightened and uneasy that their jobs are not safe. They are concerned that they and their children can't afford to climb up or even get on to the housing ladder and they are fearful that, once they reach retirement, they will not be able to afford to enjoy their old age.

“People are insecure about their children's education. If they make it into higher education, they are worried that they will graduate with thousands of pounds worth of debt. They are concerned about long working hours, a lack of family time and the pressures on our health services.

“Sad to say, after 10 years of new Labour in power, Britain's working landscape is still wreaked by job insecurity, a lack of skilled work opportunities and diminishing pension returns.

“It is ironic that, at a time of record levels of employment, employment fears remain at the top of the list of concerns of working people in Britain.”

As Jon Cruddas says: “We are told that these situations are the inevitable, if unwanted and unwarranted, consequences of globalisation, the repercussions of the global forces of migration and global capital, but this is not so. We are tacitly colluding with these forces if we fail to intervene and take the necessary steps to give people the very basic protections and assurances which they so desperately need.”

And as leadership candidate John McDonnell says: “The worst thing about society at the moment is that people feel completely alienated and powerless. It results in people creating their own world through drugs or trying to satisfy themselves through consumerism or being left completely isolated. What we're saying is: 'Well, actually, you can become part of a movement that can tackle those issues and your contribution is as valuable as anyone's. Whether we win the leadership election campaign or not, whether we're on the ballot paper or not, what we've built is a movement for the next stage of our campaign.”

The occassion of Tony Blair stepping down is an opportunity for the left, whether inside or outside the Labour party, to discuss a strategy for renewal , and to assess how the small but significant progress that McDonnell has achieved in regrouping the Labour left can be built upon in the next more challenging phase of a Gordon Brown premiership, and how they can work with the left outsidie the Labour Party. The balance has changed to an unprecedented degree, so that many trade unons activists, community activists, peace campaigners, and others are deeply hostile to Labour.

The Morning Star conference has attracted support or sponsorship from a wide range of organisations, including trade unions the POA, T&G;, BECTU, CWU and FBU, the National Pensioners Convention, labour movement solicitors' firms OH Parsons and Thompsons and the Stop the War Coalition.

Panels of speakers will lead discussions on the themes of peace, public ownership, trade union freedom and social equality and multiculturalism.

Among the participants so far confirmed are Tony Benn, Institute of Employment Rights director Carolyn Jones, John McDonnell MP, CND chairwoman Kate Hudson, FBU general secretary Matt Wrack, Communist Party general secretary Robert Griffiths, labour lawyer John Hendy QC, POA general secretary Brian Caton and PPPS management committee chairwoman Liz Elkind.

POLITICS AFTER BLAIR: Takes place on Saturday June 16 at Mandar Hall, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1. Price £10 waged/£5 unwaged. Send cheques made payable to PPPS to William Rust House, 52 Beachy Road, London E3 2NS. Please include your name, telephone number and address.

The Red Planet in 1973

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Following the recent success of the BBC's “Life on Mars” it would be nice to think that a sequel could be made where by a leading member of today’s SWP is sent back to 1973.

Of course, due to the curious structure of the SWP, and its self perpetuating leadership, most of them were members of the International Socialists (IS) in 1973, or very shortly afterwards, so she may have the shock of meeting her younger self.

She would be able to explain to the IS, that the role of Rank and File papers is to develop a cosy relationship with members of the national executive of the union, and fudge clear positions of principle if that relationship is in danger. So last year (2006 not 1972!) Post Worker (PDF) took no position on the vital vote over “Shaping the Future”, which was an attack on working conditions and staffing levels as a prelude to privatisation. Instead of a clear recommendation for a NO vote, Post Worker published a “debate”, with NEC members Norman Candy and John Farnan in favour of acceptance. Our time traveller can explain to the IS that when faced with a make or break vote on a Union NEC, it is not mandatory for your delegate to actually turn up and vote. (SWP member Jane Loftus was absent from the crucial UCW NEC debate and vote on “Shaping the Future” – for reasons not explained.)

Some relationships may be a little strained of course. The time traveller would meet among the IS’s leadership, Roger Rosewell, who later scabbed by informing BL management of the identities of 13 IMG members in Cowley plant, and became a far right adviser to Dame Shirley Porter. Of course all left groups can suffer from former members moving to the right, but Rosewell's flakiness was commented upon at the time, but his factional loyalty to Cliff protected him.

She would also meet the genuine working class hero, Harry Wicks, who had been a founder member of the CPGB, and she would know that within two years the IS would expel Wicks, along with most of the group’s industrial militants.

She would of course have to keep to herself their future knowledge that Provisional Sinn Fein would grovel on their knees to join a coalition government with Ian Paisley, and be prepared to abandon all their political principles for the honour. Saying that in 1973 would probably have been enough to see her certified, but even more bizarre would be the idea that in the very Stormont election where Sinn Fein capitulated over every issue, that Eamonn McCann would write (PDF) that the story of the election was an SWP comrade getting a 2% vote: “Sean’s success in finishing ahead of long established parties like Alliance and the Workers’ Party was widely regarded as the performance of the election.”. Surely no-one in 1973 would believe that Socialist Worker would intervene in a Stormont election without mentioning the role of British imperialism in Ireland.

There may be some embarrassment for our time travelling comrade when she hears IS members criticising the IMG for looking for agencies of revolutionary change other than the working class. She will of course argue that the IS are wrong, and explain that Muslims are an inherently anti-imperialist force. Indeed in 1973 she could even start a platform within the IS to argue this.

(There is by the way no sub-text or inuendo behind the picture., except the Sweeney are so 1970s)

Back to the IST

A little while ago I posted a piece on where the the SWP’s international current the IST is going. Since then the discussion has continued to run and run and run, with debates between supporters of the SW’s sister organisations in Australia, New Zealand and Canada debating the situation of the left in their countries with socialists from other political traditions.

It is worth having another look at the comments, which continue to grow - for those interested in the politics of the SWP, the state of the left in these other countries, or the general issues of left regroupment.

Socialist Alliance's funds -national secretary responds

Following the earlier post about the remaining balance of £2500 of the former Socialist Alliance’s money that remains unaccounted for, I have now received a response from Rob Hoverman, former national secretary of the Socialist Alliance, and who seems to now work for Respect.

Rob responds: “the public will surely have been waiting with bated breath. Why Heather and I have been singled out for a response I do not know, and care less. You were a complete tosser the last time you flickered on to my radar and clearly nothing has changed. Now flicker off.”

I should point out that under the terms of the closing motion of the Socialist Alliance the former national executive elected in 2003 stays in office until the funds are dispersed and the bank account closed. This situation was not intended to last, but due to failure of the officers to close the account, we still have a moral responsibility to provide scrutiny. I wrote to Rob not only in my own capacity as a (former) national executive member, but after consultation with several other members of the (former) national executive

So the issue here is that the national secretary of an organisation, responsible for disposing of the funds in accordance with the democratically expressed wishes of a formal conference refuses to answer to members of the national executive of that organisation about why he has failed to do so, and where the money has gone.

This is not a question of simply crying over spilt milk, because the issues of trust and accountability go to the heart of building socialist organisations.

Despite the Iraq war and ten years of neo-liberalism from Blair’s government, we have signally failed to build a credible alternative to the left of Labour. Indeed the left is weaker now than we were when the Iraq war broke out in 2003.

Now that Respect has also failed to become any sort of broad and inclusive alternative, it is a relevant time to reassess some of the reasons that the Socialist Alliance failed. As I wrote previously:

Although the Socialist Alliance made good early progress, its character changed over the last few years because it suffered the loss of many of the original ex-Labour people who got the local SAs going from the early/mid 90s onwards and who piloted the discussions with the SWP, locally and nationally which led to the SWP joining the SA, and the SA extending into London. However a very important question is why the thousands of activists who used to promote a left social democratic agenda within the Labour party, did not gravitate towards the SA. To a certain extent the issue of distrust towards not only the SWP but also historically the Militant probably played a part. Certainly the SA project suffered over the last two years from the defection of the Socialist Party and a rupture with some of the most significant Labour Lefts in the national (and in some cases, local) leadership.
The most prominent example was the resignation of Liz Davies, a former Grassroots member of Labour’s NEC as national Chair the SA in October 2002. Slightly later Mike Marqusee, former editor of Labour Briefing left the SA. For the socialist, activist community around the country, Liz and Mike were more significant recruits to the SA and represented more than an individual maverick like George Galloway MP, so their loss was deeply felt. A collapse of trust was cited by both Liz and Mike as their reason for disengagement. There is a need to consider this matter with some sensitivity as not just political differences but also personalities are involved, and many who were politically sympathetic to Liz Davies’s position felt that she used a dispute over an organisational issue as a pretext for resolving a political problem

In light of this current dispute over what as happened to the SA’s funds, and Rob’s refusal to be held accountable, it is worth recalling his role in the events surrounding resignation, which was fully described by Liz and Mike themselves. “It was a sustained course of deception and financial impropriety engaged in by experienced individuals occupying major positions of trust and responsibility. It was an offence not only against the SA officers, but the SA as a whole, all those who had paid dues to it and all those who had offered it support. It betrayed a shockingly cynical contempt for essential democratic procedures and rudimentary principles of accountability. ”

The failure of the officers of the socialist alliance to carry out the terms of its closing up motion can only be explained by understanding the events of the year leading up to that final conference.

One might have thought with that the launch of Respect the SWP would have wished to ensure that the maximum number of SA members transferred over to the Respect organisation, and to wind up the SA in the most efficient way possible. In fact after the March 2004 SA conference that voted to support respect in the June European elections, the SWP generally disengaged with the SA structures. At a local level there were examples of SA branches being shut down by in such a manner that the SA members were simply dispersed, this being done by the SWP packing SA meetings.

At the national level the SA national executive could have played a constructive role that year in handling the transition between the Socialist Alliance and Respect, ensuring the best possible continuity of SA members bringing their experience to Respect, and ensuring that fraternal relations were maintained with those who decided not to join Respect. The independent members of the SA exec not in the SWP wanted to ensure that there was an early conference for the SA members to decide on whether to wind up the organisation.

However, throughout this period Rob Hoverman disrupted the SA exec from operating, and as national secretary failed to carry out democratically decided decisions of the exec. Meetings were cancelled at short notice on spurious pretexts, and the chair of the SA, Nick wrack, did not tell any of us that he had joined the SWP. For the December 2004 meeting Rob failed to book a room and we ended up meeting in a crowded bar in ULU. That December meeting decided that the January 2005 meeting would be the conference arrangements committee for the closing conference, but the SWP majority at the January meeting overturned that decision. If you want understand the casual contempt they had for the other SA exec members a good example is that my train was delayed 20 minutes for the January, and I texted the comrades to ask they delay the start by quarter of an hour, instead they rushed through the meeting so that it as already over when I arrived.
Strangely although the SA had sufficient funds to pay for a crèche for the closing conference, and that was the expressed wish by e-mail of several national executive members, Rob (acting as a one man conference arrangements committee0 did not organise a crèche.


The experience of SA exec meetings accords with the experience described by Mike Marqusee:“Many will have had the experience of attending a meeting ostensibly to discuss or organise an initiative or campaign only to find themselves faced with a block of SWP members who have arrived with a pre-determined line and set of priorities. The non-SWPers present may hold a variety of views or doubts, but these end up rotating around the axis established by the SWP. It's a lop-sided and ineffectual discussion because a key participant - the SWP - is playing by a different set of rules, and not engaging openly and fully with the debate as others see it”

If we understand how gruelling and awful the last year of the SA’s formal existence was, and in the absence of more than two or three branches still existing, then we can see why it was correct to close down the SA. (It is still not clear to me why the SWP attempted to block there being a formal closure of the SA through Rob’s war of attrition – their preferred resolution seems to have been that it simply withered away)

What is more the experience might explain why the treasurer, Heather Cox, failed to attend the final conference, and seemingly was never informed by the national secretary, Rob Hoverman, or the chair, Nick Wrack, what had been decided. The final conference decided to honour a debt of £3000 to Walsall Democratic Labour Party (DLP), yet this bill was not paid for months and months and months, and none of the officers would reply to correspondence from the DLP. It was only after non-aligned former members of the SA exec issued an open letter that this was paid.

Several members of the national executive expressed the view that the records of the SA should be bequeathed to a museum of labour movement history, and had found somewhere that would take them. Instead the records were destroyed – even though the destruction cost as much as the transport to the museum. Bear in mind that the SA had ben an organisation involving thousands of activist at one time or another, had stood nealry 100 candidates in the 2001 general election, and had for the first time brought nearly all the left of labour groups in England into a coopertive relationship - surely worth keeping a historical record?

Does any of this matter? Well, compared to the big events like the war in Iraq, or New Labour’s attacks on welfare, then obviously not much. But at another level, the failure of the left to build a viable alternative does matter, and the collapse of trust, and the abuse of position that caused the collapse of trust will make it harder to build such a project in the future, unless we root out these bad habits from the movement.

Socialist Alliance - where is the money?

...

The motion passed by the final conference of the Socialist Alliance on 5th February 2005 decided that all the funds would be disposed of and the bank account closed before 31st March 2005, and decided that the funds would be split equally before 28th February between the following organisations: Alliance for Workers Liberty, Communist Party of Great Britain, International Socialist Group, Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform, Socialist Solidarity Network, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Unity Network.

It may come as a surprise therefore that the bank account was still open in January 2007 and had around £2500 in it. What is more, rather than dispose of these funds according to the democratic decision of the members there has been apparent agreement between former officers of the SA to thwart the decision of the members and pay these funds instead to the low profile organisation, the Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers.

This is a difficult issue to deal with, but I feel it is in the interests of the left for there to be a public discussion of how the Socialist Allaince was administered and closed, as it has a bearing on the political practices of some of the left organisations involved, and we need to understand this context for future left regroupment projects to prosper. I will return to this history in later posts on this blog.

E-mail correspondence started in January this year between comrades Rob Hoverman, (the national Secretary), Heather Cox (the treasurer), another comrade who was not an office holder at the time the closure motion was passed, and Jim Jepps, a member of the national executive.

All the comrades except Jim Jepps agreed to pay the money to CDAS, at the suggestion of the comrade who was not an office holder, and not on the national executive. Jim pointed out that this decision was contrary to the legally binding decision of conference, and absolutely properly forwarded the correspondence to other members of the national executive. Both Rob and the non-office holding comrade responded to Jim’s argument (that there was a legal and moral obligation to respect the decision of the members) with terse one line e-mails saying they still thought the money should be paid to CDAS.

I then wrote to all the comrades involved in this exchange, in the following terms (these are extracts from a longer mail):

Constitutionally there is only one LAWFUL outcome, which is to dispense the remaining monies as decided by the Emergency General meeting which closed down the SA. Which is to split it between the left groups named in the closing motion.

There is no lawful basis for even 20p going to CDAS - however worthy that cause might be. This was not agreed at the EGM, and therefore any subsequent decision by exec members was and is ultra vires. I have no recollection of any decision being made to pay anything to CDAS -( indeed I have never heard of the organisation)

It is not at alll clear whether an e-mail consultation involving even the full exec may be considered a meeting of the exec competent to take decision within the constitution.

An ad hoc exchange between only a few members certainly has no constitutional standing within the SA.

…

Let us be clear, that we are only in this mess becasue the national chair and secretary of the SA failed to carry out the express mandate of the closing EGM, which decided specifically that there would be an immediate meeting of the exec convened (which Nick [the chair] never organised), and that the closing balances would be dispersed and the account colsed within one month of the final EGM. (responsibility for which lay with the national secretary)

Had the bank account been closed within weeks as originally intended then no substantial sum of monies would have accrued. Having failed to close the account (for over two years!) in knowledge that substantial standing orders would continue to be paid into it, then if a decision is made to pay those monies to anyone other than the lawful owners as decided by the EGM, [this would be wrong]

....

As such, I would recommend that of you want to pay the monies to CDAS, then you first seek independant professional legal opinion as to the standing of that decision, and share that opinion with alll the exec members, including those not on e-mail. As we would be collectively responsible.

...

I may of course be wrong about the legality of a decision to pay the money to CDAS - which is why i recommend we take legal advice before embarking on that course of action.

Alternatively, why not split the monies as we are legally obliged to, and issue a recommendation that monies could be paid to CDAS.

Although I sent this e-mail to the correct e-mail addresses, that Rob and Heather had been using, neither of them have had the courtesy to reply, and we currently have no idea whether the funds have been disposed of improperly.

It is because the office holders apparently consider themselves unaccountable to the national executive, and apparently not willing to honour the decision of the membership, that I feel I have no alternative other than to make this issue public. I have the support of several other former members of the SA national executive in taking this course of action.

I trust that the office holders will now respond to me and other members of the former national executive accounting for what has happened to the monies and confirming that the decision of the membership will be honoured.

The exact words of the motion passed by conference were (extract only):

The Socialist Alliance's remaining funds should be used to pay off debts and the bank account closed. Any remaining funds should be distributed between supporting organisations of the Socialist Alliance. This is a reflection that there is no consensus over which "organisation or organisations [have] aims consistent with those of the Socialist Alliance." Distributing the funds between the supporting organisations of the Socialist Alliance will allow the assets to be disposed of broadly proportionate to the views of the Socialist Alliance membership.The supporting organisations of the Socialist Alliance are: Alliance for Workers Liberty, Communist Party of Great Britain, International Socialist Group, Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform, Socialist Solidarity Network, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Unity Network. Any remaining funds should be distributed equally between these seven organisations. This conference notes that the share of the funds for any organisation who supports Respect the Unity Coalition may at the discretion of that organisation be paid directly to Respect instead.The Socialist Alliance national executive elected at annual conference in 2003 will continue in office until the debts are paid off and remaining funds distributed, which must take place no later that 28th February 2005, at which point the Socialist Alliance ceases to exist. The national executive should meet immediately after this conference closes to elect a sub-committee to carry out the winding up of the Socialist Alliance.A final treasurer's report will be prepared, audited and published on the web-site www.socialistalliance.org. This will be posted no later than 31st March 2005. A printed version will be available to any member or former member who requests one before that date by sending an e-mail to socialistalliance2000@yahoo.co.uk.

Where is the IST going?

...


One of the most significant differences between the old International Socialists (IS) and today’s SWP is the question of international organisation. The IS had the modest view that their authority was very limited as they were not a mass party, nor had they led any significant victories, and therefore they had no authority to advise other socialist organisations internationally. They believed that any future socialist international would evolve out of the concrete requirements of international solidarity between mass organisation that had grown in different ways in different countries. For example, much of the international discussions of the IS during the 1970s were with soft Maoists organisations abroad.

At some time in the 1980s this changed, and the International Socialist Tendency (IST) became a more formal organisation, and as Cliff documents in his autobiography he started meddling in the internal life of sister organisations in France and Germany. (They must have been so pleased he didn’t have a passport!)

In 2001 the SWP formally split with the International Socialist organisation (ISO) in the USA. An organisation of about the same size as the SWP, but in a country with 6 times the population. Since when the ISO have acrried out a "rectification" programme to rid themselves of some of what they regard as the more unfortunate traits they inherited from London, including the "Star system", and the hopefully self explanatory "ful-timer bullshit" syndrome. They have started to orient on the Greens an important develpoment due to Peter Camejo's leading involvement in the Green party

Interestingly the SWP’s own pretext for the split was the unfounded allegation that the ISO had precipitated a split in the Greek SEK. And indeed the SWP’s international affilates have seen split after split in recent years. As the ISO leadership astutely observed “In expelling the ISO, the SWP CC is applying a hypocritical double standard. The SWP leadership can, apparently, engage in factional intervention in the ISO, backing a tiny faction, and openly siding with that faction against the ISO, but our decision to send a comrade to Greece is considered grounds for expulsion from the Tendency.”

What is interesting is that although the argument was ostensibly about a difference of emphasis towards the protests in Seattle, these publicly expressed differences made no sense. They were not fundamental issues over which to split two sister organisations, as they revolved not over questions of principle but tactics. However as James P Cannon observed, people always have two reason for what they do, the good reason and the real reason.

The underlying tension seems to have had a financial basis. The leadership of the ISO had asked the seemingly innocent question of where all the money that had been raised for developing the IS Tendency internationally had gone to. To which Alex Callinicos rather grumpily replied that he was not accountable because the IST was not a formal international party. But it was a good question because a lot of money had been raised, especially for the development of the South African group, but nothing had come out of it.

There may have been a further underlying tension between the SWP and ISO, as I have heard rumours from two different sources of a dispute over a large financial legacy left to the SWP by an American comrade, who had been living in London when he made his will.

It is certainly reasonable to ask for some assessment about why, despite all the money and effort that has gone into building the SWP’s international links, the IST seems to be a shambles. Nowadays, almost every country where the SWP has an international affiliate also has a rival organisation with similar politics, and in many cases the unofficial group is bigger than the official one.

For example in Australia the Socialist Alternative is an IS derived organisation, resulting from the expulsion of the Melbourne branch including Tom o’Lincoln some years ago. Socialist Alternative are basically a propaganda group following a similar party building model to that adopted by the SWP in the 1980s. The expulsions seem to have been precipitated by an intervention from London, after a visit to Oz by Chris Bambury. Socialist Alternative can sustain themselves perhaps indefinitely on that isolationist, propaganda basis, but to what purpose?

In contrast the official SWP affiliate, the ISO, seems to be in terminal crisis. Within the last couple of weeks they finally formally resigned from the Australian Socialist Alliance (SA), however their participation had been problematic for a while, as they sought to apply perspectives from London which stressed the Coalition model that the SWP favoured for Respect. Their long term leading comrade David Glanz has now taken a backseat role, and I have heard rumours that some comrades may have resigned over the ISO leaving the SA.

In New Zealand, the propaganda version of the IS politics is called the International Socialists. It is significant that their web site links to the American ISO, and to the Australian Socialist Alternative, although I do not believe that the American ISO is fostering formal international links. For those familiar with the traditional British SWP of the 1980s and 1990s, the IS(NZ) web site has a comfortable feel to it.

The official IST affiliate in new Zealand, called Socialist Worker, have not updated their web-site for a couple of years, but are quite independent of the London line, and leading comrades like Grant Morgan have been regular attendees at events organised by the DSP in Australia. Socialist Worker’s orientation on left regroupment appears to be at odds with current London thinking.

Of course, the ISO of Zimbabwe also thinks independently, and has publicly disagreed with London over the issue of internal party democracy (they support the allowing of permanent factions) and over Alex Callinicos’s criticism of them for standing a candidate for parliament.

The French comrades of Socialisme Par en Bas (Speb) find themselves in the strange position of being a permanent tendency within the LCR. (they are no longer linked to from the SWP’s own web site) competing with the Socialisme Internationale group, comrades with almost identical politics to theirs, who were expelled by Cliff just for being too old and conservative. Yet even the British SWP have remarked that without experience the Speb comrades run round like head-bangers. Ostensibly the Speb are in the LCR to provide a revolutionary pole of attraction within an organisation that the British SWP regard as essentially a rightward leaning swamp. However entry into the LCR has its own problems, as the faction rights extended require that any meeting of the faction are open to all LCR members – including those that Speb have expelled!

The situation in Ireland is bizarre. For some reason the IST now advertise two organisations, one in the South and one in the North, although historically the SWP (Ireland) were a 32 counties organisation. The current elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly sees the SWP standing two candidates under two different banners. In Foyle Eamonn Mccann is standing under the Socialist Environmental Alliance banner, while in Belfast the SWP are standing a 19 year old student, Seán Mitchell, for the People Before Profit Alliance. Their electoral platform is against imperialism (in Iraq !!!) and for troops out (of Iraq !!!!). A few years back a group of SW members broke from Keiran Allen's SWP and joined the USFI affilate, Socialist Democracy.

To finish on a positive note, In Germany Linksruck seem to be playing a mature and constructive role in the formation of a new party, arising from the merger of the PDS and WASG. But they will need to think entirely for themselves as the situation they are finding themselves in is very different from anything that the British SWP have been involved with. Models of behaviour derived from the experience in Respect in England or Solidarity in Scotland will not serve them well in a much larger party, where for example the PDS alone have 68000 members.

Two Parts of a Whole. October 1977

Mike Pearn’s blog has recently been publishing historical documents from the history of the International Socialists, (precursor of today's SWP) - for example the important statement on Industrial Work from 1971, and Duncan Hallas’s article from 1977 on electoral work, that is very relevent to today’s debates.

It is a very good idea, and as a contribution to that process here is an article from “Womens Voice” #10, from October 1977.

(by the way, the picture credit for the front cover reads: ""The determination that has kept Grunwick pickets going for over a year. Are the powerful trade unions now ready to help them?" - Grunwick was a long running union recognition dispute, led by Asian women. )

Two Parts of a Whole.

On 1 October women members of the Socialist Workers Party held a conference in Birmingham. Margaret Renn, the womens organiser of the Party, opened the conference. The following is a summary of her speech.

Socialism without womens liberation is a contradiction in words. Socialism would simply not be socialism if women were still oppressed.

It is also true that women cannot be liberated outside of a socialist society. It is not possible to achieve any liberation in a society like ours which depends on the oppression and exploitation of men and women.

Socialism and womens liberation are two parts of a whole. We can’t separate them in the way we work.

Work amongst women is essential to our work as socialists, it’s not an optional extra, something we do when we have time left over from all the other things we do. On the contrary, it’s the most important work we can undertake, because we understand the issues and events that effect women in a way that our male comrades cannot.

Where do we begin? Women at work are ones with power to change society. Look around at all the disputes that women have been involved in the last few weeks: Beechams, Batchelors, Kilwinning, the school cleaners and dinner ladies, women in hospitals. They are the ones fighting to change society. They are the women we are talking to.

But whilst most women work and organise at work, it is also true that most women have families, and are interested in the things that affect them most as mothers. When the woman jumped out of her high rise block there must have been thousands of women living at the top of thousands of high rise tower blocks thinking – that’s me, that could happen here.

Neither group of women are exclusive, but in our party you can count the number of industrial women members we have on the fingers of two hands. That’s the problem we have to face. Our magazine “Womens Voice” brings together al the issues that interest women. Sales are goin very well, and this month we expect to be printing 10000 copies. But it’s not enough on its own. How we use it to organise is what matters.

Womens committees within our branches and districts are a good idea, but we can’t involve the women who read the magazine in them. We need “Womens Voice” groups. Groups that will meet regularly and be ready to respond when things need organising. We should produce “Womens Voice” supporters cards for al those women who want to get involved in our activities. Then we will have the numbers so that next time a woman jumps out of her high rise block we can be putting a local bulletin into all the tower blocks in the area.

We have to be quick off the mark. On abortion, rape, lack of nurseries, we have to be able to stir womens imagination. That’s why our “Womens Voice” organisation is so important. Without it we won’t do anything.

We need to have the same sort of imaginative approach to women who work in factories. Selling “Womens Voice outside factories that employ large number of women, producing special “Womens Voice” bulletins can be deadly – if we see it as a ritual.

But if we are going down to the factories knowing that there will be women there interested in what we have to say, whether its about abortion of £15; if we go prepared to talk, prepared to involve women as quickly as possible in the production of the bulletins then it won’t become a routine.

It’s really very exciting. Think of all the womens factories that have been on strike this year. Then imagine the numbers that weren’t able to strike because they simply didn’t know what to do and no one, certainly not the union officials, was prepared to help them. They’re the women we want to be organising with.

The majority of women at this conference work. How many of you sell “Womens Voice” in your workplace? Do you know how good your maternity leave agreement is? What about the other things that the women you work with are always complaining about?

We are preparing a pamphlet on maternity leave for women in NALGO. We are also writing a pamphlet about women in the TGWU. Using these, and “Womens Voice” will help us build the rank and file movement amongst women workers. They need it most. Womens strikes are always being sold down the river by trade union officials. Unions take least interest in issues that affect their women members the most.

There is a lot for us to do, because we are trying to build something new: a socialist womens organisation that fights at once for womens liberation and socialism.

Gilad Atzmon threatens libel

Thanks to Tony Greenstein who posted this on UKLN e-list:

"Many people will be aware of who Gilad Atzmon is. An ex-Israeli jazz player and anti-Semite who has become a Christian fundamentalist.

"Sue Blackwell is the Birmingham University lecturer who successfully moved a motion at the Association of University Teachers 2005 Conference supporting a boycott of Israel. She has a 'Nazi Alert' webpage which features Atzmon and it is this he has taken exception to.

"Although Sue has not called Atzmon a neo-nazi or a Holocaust Denier, there is no doubt that when not consorting with the SWP he enjoys the convivial company of a variety of anti-Semitic fruitcakes such as Israel Shamir and Paul Eisen. His own website is replete with Jewish conspiracy articles. Atzmon has hired lawyers who have sent a letter threatening Sue with defamation proceedings. "

In a gesture of solidarity the Socialist Unity Blog reproduce here the contents of Sue's Web-page.

Sue Blackwell's site says:

Some notorious far-right individuals and organisations are jumping onto the Palestinian bandwagon in an attempt to hijack the cause of the Palestinian people for their own anti-semitic ends. Other people, who should know better, are supporting them. Recent examples are:

Gilad Atzmon - Jewish (ex-Israeli) Jazz musician who unfortunately supports Shamir and has distributed Eisen's articles. He has spoken and played music at the SWP's annual Marxism event. In 2005 he was recently invited to promote his recent book, "My one and only love", at Bookmarks, the SWP's London bookshop. This event was picketed by Jews Against Zionism. Here are some links:
SWP statement about the Bookmarks picket - entirely predictable and doesn't answer the crucial questions.
How did the far Left manage to slip into bed with the Jew-hating Right? David Aaronovitch in the Times, 28th June 2005.
Bizarre article by Mary Rizzo in Counterpunch - defending Atzmon while attacking Jewish socialist Tony Greenstein.
Why Palestinian Solidarity Activists Must Reject Anti-Semitism: A Reply to Mary Rizzo's "Who's Afraid of Gilad Atzmon" - Tony Greenstein's reply (published here since Counterpunch refused him a right of reply!)
Open Letter to Counterpunch: Who's Afraid of Gilad Atzmon and the Holocaust Deniers?
On Gilad Atzmon Report by Greg Dropkin on Labournet, 28th July 2005. This was circulated as part of an impromptu and free-running debate with Gilad Atzmon during his talk before the performance at the Manchester Jazz Festival.
The Socialist Workers Party - Apologists for Racism? Statement from Jews against Zionism, on the Socialist Unity website.

SWP expels leading member

I have waited a couple of weeks before breaking this news, because I wanted to hear it from independent sources, so as not to compromise those SWP members who told me earlier in confidence.

Respect National Council member, Ger Francis, has been expelled by the SWP, over Ger’s role in swinging a selection of candidates in Birmingham contrary to the SWP’s wishes.

This isn’t just gossip, because the relationship between the SWP and broader left projects such as Respect, is a vital part of the left landscape in these islands. Indeed, the recent decision of ISG members, Alan Thornett and John Lister to withdraw from Respect’s national officers’ group leaves Respect without a fig leaf.

Ger’s expulsion raises some important issues.

Firstly, the constant argument used by Respect’s supporters, usually SWP members, is that it has achieved electoral success.

This is true, but there is need for some perspective, and I carried out the following analysis of the 2005 general election. (See also my psephological round up in 2004, and this analysis of the European elections.) “Respect's good votes predominantly came in about 10 constituencies, where there was no prospect of a Tory victory, and where there were large Moslem populations.”

The 2006 local elections reinforced this trend, and it was remarkable that most Respect councillors elected were Muslims. Jim Jepps analysed the 2006 election results , and demonstrated that there was nothing unique about the preference of Respect’s voters supporting Muslim candidates in wards with a large Asian population. Instead: “there is a strong tendency for the voters of all the parties to favour (sometimes only slightly) candidates with Asian names over those with non-Asian names”

However, Respect’s over-identification with the Muslim community did raise an obstacle towards Respect growing beyond that small proportion of voters for whom the Iraq war was the overriding issue. The SWP in Birmingham wanted the candidate for the 2007 local council elections to have a gender and political balance that better reflected the diversity of Birmingham’s population. However Ger Francis both argued against and voted against the SWP in favour of a slate of candidates with a preponderance of Muslim men. For this he was expelled.

This is a serious blow for Respect, as if the elections result in their base of elected councillors being even more predominately Muslim, then they have lost perhaps they last chance to break out of the bridgehead they have established. Ger seems to have pandered to a backwards and incorrect position that electoral success requires Asian candidates.

As I have argued before the electoral success of respect has simultaneously strengthened the existence of a space to the left of labour, while creating an obstacle to the left actually filling that space.

Of course the other problem for Respect is that is not only seen as an SWP front, it is an SWP front. As Liam Mac Uaid reports: “The problem was distilled to its essence by one comrade who put the question "How can I ask someone to join Respect? It's got a MP who does what he wants, no internal political life and is dominated by a semi-Stalinist organisation?"”

The rise and fall of Ger Francis exemplifies the unacknowledged “star system” that the SWP employs.

This was described by the now defunct International Socialism Group as follows: “Once a new perspective is declared, a new cadre is selected from the top down. The CC select the organisers, who select the district and branch committees - any elections that take place are carried out on the basis of `slates' so that it is virtually impossible for members to vote against the slate proposed by the leadership. Any members who have doubts or disagreements are written off as `burnt out' and, depending on their reaction to this, may be marginalised within the party and even expelled. These methods have been disastrous for the SWP in a number of ways: Each new perspective requires a new cadre (below the level of the CC), so the existing cadre are actively marginalised in the party. In this way, the SWP has failed to build a stable and experienced cadre capable of acting independently of the leadership.” (This ISG has no relation to the current USFI section, also called ISG)

Sadly, Ger was and is a political thug. He has played a disastrous role in both Birmingham Stop the war Coalition, and the Socialist Alliance, as has been fully documented by Sue Blackwell and Rumy Hassan. Ger polarised the left in Birmingham, using bureaucratic manoeuvres and allegedly even physical intimidation, to exclude those, like Steve Godward, who were regarded as “unhelpful” to the implementation of every wheeze that came from London. Instead of developing an empowering environment for independent minded activists, Birmingham SWP have sought to reduce the anti war movement to an army of automatons who will do what they are told. Ger was a star comrade because he got “results”. As recently as last September he was re-elected as an SWP member back onto Respect’s national Council. Even after being sacked as a full timer in 2002 he remained the SWP’s main figure in Birmingham Stop the War Coalition.

Because the SWP does not have any internal democratic mechanisms for the cadre to independently debate and resolve these sort of differences, the political gap between Ger and the London leadership has been conducted by the granting and then withdrawal of patronage. This political culture has allowed the SWP itself to operate for a number of years, relatively insulated from the harsh political climate, but it is a serious obstacle when it comes to working with other activists more used to the traditional democratic norms of the British labour movement.

Are all Jew-haters anti-Semites?

The row about the SWP providing a platform for the Jew hating, Gilad Atzmon runs and runs. In last week’s Socialist Worker, Lindsay German, makes an important contribution to the debate. (letters, 13th January). Lindsay argues that: “We also have to recognise that in Europe today the main form of racism, taken up and propagated by governments and media, is against Muslims. This scapegoating has direct parallels with the situation of the Jews in the 1930s.”
This is in response to Michael Rosen, writing the week before: “I’m mightily dismayed that you have saxophonist Gilad Atzmon on board [for the Cultures of Resistance musical programme] . He is someone who has frequently expressed racist ideas and surely we have always said that you can’t fight racism with racism? I fear that the racism he expresses is seen by some in the liberation movements as a racism that doesn’t matter as much.”

The conflicting claims of different oppressed groups have always created a potential problem for the left: in the 1970s, for example, there was a lot of controversy over Rastafarian acts appearing on Rock Against Racism (RAR) platforms. At that time the key task was to create a cultural consensus against the fascism of the NF, and bring black and white young people together (which was not usually the case back then). Those socialist feminists opposing the participation of, for example, Aswad, were making a mistake. Although the sexism and homophobia of various reggae acts was oppressive, it was a reflection of the views of the audience (particularly the young black youth) we were seeking to build bridges with. What is more, the overall context of RAR gigs always included political challenges to homophobia and sexism.

So Lindsay’s argument about concentrating on the main from of racism is not necessarily wrong. But we must judge it in the concrete circumstances. It is her thesis that anti-Moslem feeling is the main form of popular racism. (Actually this may not be entirely true, and a more generalised racism against asylum seekers and migrant workers (often white) is also widely prevalent.) therefore, according to her narrative, Atzmon, as a Jewish opponent of Zionism is a progressive, who challenges the dominant racism.

There are a number of problems with this. Not least of which is that hatred of Jews is still with us in the West, the huge success of Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ shows that the dark beast of pre-enlightenment Jew-hating still has a resonance among Christians (a hatred that pre-dates anti-semitism). But there is a greater problem, which is the very widespread hatred of Jews in the Middle East. The Zionist state has wrapped itself around the Jewish identity, and the opposition to Zionism within the Middle East often spills in ghastly symmetry into anti-Jewish hatred. What is more, European anti-Semitism has been widely accepted in Arab society - whereas historically the Islamic world provided a haven for Jews fleeing anti-Jewish pogroms on Europe.

To understand both th roots of Islamophobia, and anti-semitism, we need to understand the ideology of anti-semitism. The term "Semite" was invented by European linguists in the 18th century to distinguish languages from one another by grouping them into "families" descended from one "mother" tongue to which they are all related. In this context, languages came to be organised into "Aryan" and "Semitic", etc. The philologists claimed that Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, etc., were "Semitic" languages, even though philologists could never find a parent Semitic language from which they all derived.

In the 19th century and with the rise of European biological racism, those who hated Jews could no longer rely on religious difference to mark out post- Enlightenment Jews as objects of their hatred. A new basis for the hatred of Jews had to be found. Post- Enlightenment haters of Jews began to identify Jews as "Semites" on account of their alleged ancestors having spoken Hebrew
Modern anti-semitism therefore derives its caricature of the Jew, only partly from the Mediaeval money lenders of Europe, (whose faith allowed them to escape Christian proscription of unsury), or Mel Gibson’s Christ killers, but mainly from the alleged orientalism of the Jews. The caricature conflates historical religious prejudices with modern and ancient images of the Middle East. The hatred of Jews as orientals, glides easily into hatred of Arabs and Muslims. Edward Said pointed out that after the oil crisis of 1973, Arabs came to be represented in the West as having "clearly 'Semitic' features: sharply hooked noses, and evil moustachioed leers on their faces. Nowaays, they even have an international conspiracy all of their own!

The whole category of Jews as a “semitic” category, was therefore the invention of the European Christian surpremacists seeking a scientific rationale for hating the adherents of another religion. In a further horrific symmetry the Zionists accepted this racist definition and argued a flawed strategy of separatism as an escape from anti-Semitism. Zionists accepted and popularised the European Jew-hating identification of them as a separate race.
Modern Islamophobia, builds strongly upon 19th and 20th century traditions of anti-semitism. Not only using the same issues of complaining about failure to assimilate, etc. But even using the same images, and fear of orientalist culture.

Lindsay German may be correct that in Britain today, the most significant form of racism is Islalmophobia. But Jew hating (not always in the form of anti-semitism) is still a growing force. What is more in the wider context of the world today, and particularly in the Middle East, anti-Semitism has strong currency. Any progressive outcome to the Palestinian crisis must robustly oppose anti-Semitism, as a secular Palestine must also provide a safe home for the Jews.

On a technical, legalistic basis perhaps Gilad Aztmon may not be an anti-semite, as his Jew-Hating opposes the idea of the Jews having any specific identity, whether defined by language or otherwise. His defence against racism is simply to deny that Jews are a race. Obvioulsy the following views are deeply offensive, and I quote them from his web-site only to demonstrate the depths of Atzmon’s Jew-hating: “The ‘J’ people aren’t a race. Not only are they not a race, they aren’t a class, they aren’t a nation, they aren’t a tribe, they aren’t an ethnic group, they aren’t victims, they aren’t even the oppressors. They are none of these but they can easily become any of them whenever it is convenient. The J’s are the ultimate chameleons, they can be whatever they like as long as it serves as some expedient."”

It is a scandal that any left wing organisation gives a platform to Jew-baiters.

Could it have been different?

..
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Cast your mind back to the huge anti-war demonstration of 15th February 2003. Estimates of numbers are debatable, but 2 million is a credible estimate of attendance.

In the lead up to the march there was a discussion between some leading members of the Socialist Alliance (SA) and the SWP, represented by John Rees, about the SA presenting a united face for the demo. As it was the SWP decided to concentrate on boosting the profile of its own organisation, and all the other left groups followed their lead: leaving the Socialist Alliance with a very small profile. According to some comrades who were at the meeting there was a moment when it looked like Rees was going to agree, and then backed off.

Even though it would have been for the overall benefit of the left, it would have required a challenge to those parts of the SWP (for example the National Secretary of the time, Chris Bambury) who opposed participation in the SA.

On the day, there was of course a problem in relating the revolutionary politics of the SWP direct to the consciousness of those protesting against the war, the transitional form of the Socialist Alliance might have bridged that gap. What would have happened if the overwhelming majority of the English left had promoted a single organisation, the Socialist Alliance, with a single voice on the demo, and then stood in the May elections under that same banner?

That is what happened in Scotland. Here is an observation from leading SWP member Mike Gonzalez about the demonstration in Scotland, where the Scottish Socialist Party were very clearly identified with the organising of the protest:

“It was a historic moment—and it was a victory, in our view, that arose directly out of the public perception of the [SSP]’s leading role in the anti-war movement: 100,000 marched through Glasgow on 15 February that year. It is no coincidence that that figure so closely reflected the numbers in the election.”

Interestingly there were two million on the march in London, and the Lib Dems managed to present themselves as THE anti-war party in England, and their vote in May 2003 went up 2 million.