25.01.1996

Intervening in the SLP

OVER seventy people - including many representing political organisations - attended the meeting hosted jointly by Hackney CPGB and Hackney and Islington Militant Labour to debate the Socialist Labour Party and the broader issues it raises.

The meeting was lively and positive, though at some points it generated more heat than light. Debate revealed the key division. This is between those who regard the outcome of the SLP as a fait accompli and others who believe that the impetus to working class and revolutionary unity provided by the initiative is a positive and open-ended one.

Does the SLP have to be a social democratic monolith, or - with the intervention of revolutionaries - can it be something very different?

Mark Fischer