25.01.1996

Brent left opening up

BRENT Socialist Forum got off to a good start last Wednesday night with about 50 people attending and an evening of lively debate and an unusual degree of openness from the leftwing organisations present. Speeches from the platform by myself and Wally Kennedy, Hillingdon Militant Labour councillor, argued for both affiliation to the SLP and the need to fight the bureaucratic methods presently being used by Scargill.

I emphasised the need for the left to take the opportunity to discuss what kind of party we need and begin work together in socialist forums.

The attitude of the Socialist Workers Party was interesting. Only the night before at the launch of Hackney Socialist Forum SWP members had put forward its line dismissing the SLP as doomed to failure. But now they were positively arguing its importance and for support of the SLP candidate in the Hemsworth by-election. It was clear that this sudden change of line had shot down rapidly from above. Apparently Party Notes had been issued to each member on Wednesday, telling them to get involved - and quickly!

It says a lot about the SWP’s own lack of democracy that the membership had no opportunity to discuss and decide themselves what attitude they should take. However it is good that they are opening up in this way and we perhaps at last get a chance to speak to them openly as fellow revolutionaries.

A couple of Socialist Outlook members argued that the Labour Party was still the place to be, but the consensus was that these comrades were not inhabiting the same world as the rest of us. After the meeting the discussions continued in the bar about involvement in the setting up of Camden, Hillingdon and Acton Socialist Forums. The feeling was that even if Scargill’s constitution could not be defeated, another momentum had been created through the setting up of the forums and the realisation by many on the left of the need for Partyism.

Ken Livingstone did not turn up, despite the personal invite. No surprise really, given his recent assertion that Stella Rimington could not do a better wrecking job for the state than Scargill has. Then, having pleaded with Scargill to stay in the Labour Party in Thursday’s Guardian, he orchestrated his expulsion from the Campaign Group on Friday! Members of his own constituency party who turned up on Wednesday night certainly did not agree with him on the need to stay in Labour. Clearly Ken is not the standard bearer of the Labour left that he would like to think.

Anne Murphy