WeeklyWorker

Letters

Dual membership

In her article in last week’s edition covering the Your Party central executive committee elections, Carla Roberts said: “Now every Tom, Dick and Harry has convinced themselves that their name must absolutely be on the ballot paper” (‘Off to a bumpy start’ January 15). And, speaking on behalf of the Weekly Worker, she called on “any socialists who are standing as ‘independents’ to withdraw their candidacy and to get behind the GL [Grassroots Left] slate”. As one of the aforementioned ‘Toms’, I’d like to reply.

I’m fairly sure that most of the people nominating themselves will indeed be men. And I’m sure that Carla’s use of the ‘TD&H’ idiom was just a readily available, if somewhat derogatory, way of saying ‘lots of people’. But the overlooking of the Henriettas, Thomasinas and Ricardas says something, I think, about the Weekly Worker mindset.

The essence of Carla’s article was that, despite the fact that the formation of the GL slate was a secretive affair - a behind-closed-doors stitch-up - and that, in its launch, it cynically and dishonestly tried to give the impression that Jeremy Corbyn and others were all in favour of it, we should nevertheless all vote for its candidates, because they are committed to allowing dual party membership.

The driving force behind GL seems to be the Democratic Socialists of Your Party, who have, among other things, produced a draft constitution for adoption by Your Party. It’s a very lawyerly collection of rules. It’s essential attraction for dual-party membership holders is that national conference shall be sovereign and that voting at this conference will be done solely by delegates elected by local branches.

Carla, very correctly, points out that Corbyn and those around him don’t want a collective leadership, nor dual party membership and they want the membership’s input to be restricted, as far as possible, to voting on proposals and alternatives emanating from the leader’s office. That’s a travesty of democracy and a transparent power play by those standing to gain by such an arrangement.

However, Carla and others seem oblivious to the dangers attendant in having conference decisions made by delegates from branches. The Weekly Worker frequently derides the notion of decisions being made by the ‘atomised membership’. I would remind the enthusiasts for elected delegates that the much derided ‘individuals at home’ voted for collective leadership and dual-party membership. But I don’t need to remind them - they know that already! It’s just that they want to say, ‘Thanks for that, you’ve done your bit - now leave the rest to us’.

I voted for dual-party membership and in my self-nomination I said that “the current leadership of Your Party are trying to subvert that by saying that members who are also members of other parties can pay subs and vote, but cannot stand for election”. But we mustn’t close our eyes to the dangers inherent in dual membership, when combined with decision-making by branch delegates. We all know what will happen: the various groups and sects will hold their pre-meetings; their members will then attend to present their group’s agreed line, motion or delegate list. They will all be trying to win a majority in the branch to their position and, over time, it will get easier and easier to obtain that majority - not because of their powers of persuasion, but because most people will stop going, having become sick and tired of listening to ‘activists’ bringing up ‘points of order’ and suchlike in an effort to get one over on the other factions and thereby obtain a thumbs-up, when back in the company of their comrades of the one true faith.

How many times does history have to repeat itself as farce? Dual membership, combined with ‘all power to branch delegates’ will inevitably hollow out the branches. Indeed the DSYP draft constitution seems to have already envisaged such an eventuality. Article IX, section 6 states that the number of delegates from each branch will be apportioned according to the branch’s paid-up membership, but, if the branch is unable to field its allotted quota, those that do go can card-vote the whole lot.

We must face up to things. The vast majority of dual membership holders are decent, well-meaning people, who will find themselves behaving like parasites. And, like parasites, they will kill the host. By all means, be members of two political parties, turn up at YP branch meetings, get elected as conference delegates and present your group’s point of view, but do not seek to substitute yourself for the ‘atomised membership’ (aka ‘the working class’). Conference should be sovereign, with the membership making the final decisions.

Tom Conwell
Email

Bolshevik Caucus

I am standing for the CEC (South-East region) on behalf of the Bolshevik Caucus of Your Party. Our full platform and other materials can be found at bolshevikcaucus.substack.com. I ask readers of the Weekly Worker who are members in the region to consider endorsing and voting for me.

We are a distinct tendency within the party, arguing that socialism can only be achieved with the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the British state that defends it. We must defend ourselves against the state repression that occurs whenever we make the slightest progress, and will intensify a thousandfold if we get anywhere near a revolutionary seizure of power by the working class. A genuinely socialist party must fight all forms of oppression, especially defending those such as immigrants and trans people, who are currently under heavy fire. We oppose imperialist and Zionist attacks and invasions and call for the defeat of British imperialism.

Above all, YP must be a workers’ party. This means a hard no to so-called ‘progressive’ alliances with the Greens or other capitalist parties. It means we start with what the working class needs, not with what is ‘realistic’ or politically expedient, and we fight for these demands, while making it clear that they will never be secure unless the working class takes state power.

Members must run YP. This means funds and data to the branches, and it means accepting all socialists into the party, whatever their other affiliations, to openly debate our differences on the way forward, while working together in practical campaigns. The CEC candidates who have been barred from standing must be immediately reinstated.

The Weekly Worker has endorsed the slate of the Grassroots Left, associated with Zarah Sultana and the Democratic Socialists, whose platform includes many supportable points missing from the material of other candidates. However, the GL programme is inadequate on some key political questions.

For instance, while it advocates “a clear programme of anti-imperialism”, the only substantive points on this are to reject “collusion with Israel” and the call for Britain’s withdrawal from Nato, which implies that Britain will somehow become less imperialist outside the bounds of that military alliance. Instead it is necessary to explicitly call for the defeat of British imperialism and oppose the presence of British troops overseas, including in the north of Ireland. We advocate fighting within the trade unions to block the manufacture and transportation of weapons, whether to Israel or Ukraine. We denounce the imperialists’ targeting of China, where we call for domestic political revolution - not to restore capitalism, but to put the working class in power.

The GL programme says that Your Party should not share governmental power except on the basis of a socialist programme, but the criteria for that is unclear. We would hope it excludes an electoral deal or power-sharing with the Greens, but, given that GL endorses Michael Lavelette, who is in a coalition with the Greens in the official opposition on Lancashire County Council, this is far from certain. And, while saying that the party should “participate in national government”, the platform does not explain that the capitalist state cannot be used to bring about socialism, which requires replacing parliament, the police and the military with democratic organs of working-class rule.

Democratic demands are important, but programme is crucial in the building of a party. In the south-east, where I am standing, there is only one candidate (Max Shanly) who has committed to the GL programme, while GL endorses a candidate from the Platform for a Democratic Party, whose programme the Weekly Worker recently described as “politically very conservative” and “unambitious” (‘Left gets itself organised’, January 8). I invite your readers in the south-east to read our platform on our substack and make their decisions on who to endorse and vote for.

Barbara Duke
Oxford

The Many

Like some 800 other interested parties, I had the opportunity to attend the online launch of ‘The Many’, the Your Party CEC election slate, though I am informed they are making a diligent effort to brand it as a ‘team’.

The slate, supposedly formed by several YP insiders who were thoroughly dissatisfied with the outcomes of the founding conference (which they themselves organised), approached Corbyn with their ideas of how to get the party ‘back on track’. The core aims being, above all else, fixing ‘structural issues’ and restoring the “original vision of Your Party”: that is, a solely Corbyn-led movement with dual membership banned (“loyalty directly to Your Party”), which will rerun the 2019 Labour campaign ad infinitum. The founding conference was apparently, despite their attempts at a managed ‘democracy’ with artificially restricted choices, a derailment, still falling short of results satisfactory to them. This group of HQ staffers, the Independent Alliance MPs and assorted courtiers, drawn from the Corbyn side-projects like the Peace and Justice and Collective, will tidy up the resulting mess and make every effort to reverse the outcomes of the founding conference that have so regrettably gotten us off track.

The presentation, introduced by Jenn Forbes (fresh off her awful chairing of the founding conference and now standing in the South-West), swiftly led to introducing the first of four candidates, who all spoke in turn about little else than their personal backgrounds, while making vague platitudes about the importance of trade unions, justice, speaking out about Palestine and ‘stopping the far right’. Your Party, the role of its CEC or really any policy positions at all were conspicuously absent.

The attendees in the Zoom chat, aside from one or two familiar faces diligently spamming the slate’s official line, repeatedly expressed bewilderment at its existence and purpose, questioned the exclusion of Zarah Sultana and boredom or frustration at the total absence of concrete politics or proposals from any of the speakers. It would not be an exaggeration to say that someone watching would walk away an hour later knowing just as little about what The Many was or had to offer than they did going in.

The closest thing to politics in the whole event was the brief Q&A at the end, in which three pre-screened questions, submitted by an opaque form, were read out and answered by the speakers. The first question asked: “How can we make sure YP doesn’t become Labour 2.0 and does politics differently?” Jenn Forbes gave a very telling answer by recounting her experience as a Labour candidate in 2019 and claiming that Corbynism effectively failed only because of the “enemy within”. Therefore the solution is a party totally loyal to and supportive of Corbyn. Besides the obvious futility of trying to rerun Corbynist ‘left populism’, when the Greens are already doing it, this completely refuses to engage with political shortcomings of left populism, as seen in cases where similar candidates did win or entered government. What would stop the Labour of 2019 or a YP in that mould from repeating the betrayals of Syriza and Podemos?

The implication of who the “enemy within” might be is also telling. In Labour 1.0 it was the Labour right who undermined Corbyn; in YP it will apparently be the YP left, who must be purged, lest they do the same. Corbyn, who during his section spoke at length about the importance of respect, doesn’t seem to think it should go both ways. The renewed expulsions and witch-hunt - cynically barring candidates under dual membership rules forced on a membership that firmly opposed anything of the sort - showcase remarkable contempt for ordinary members. Also a fear that in a fair contest the slate pitched by an interim leadership that is out of touch and out of step with the membership, and at conference was frequently booed, won’t do well enough to force through the sort of politics they view as the ‘horizon of possibility’.

The second question was one we’re all asking and concerned with: member data and when branches will get access to it. The thankless task of answering it was hoisted cruelly on the shoulders of Louise Regan, the well-liked trade unionist, Palestine Solidarity Campaign chair and probably the best and strongest candidate on the slate besides Corbyn himself. She read off a woeful and waffling script that avoided the question entirely, eliciting substantial displeasure and frustration from the chat. Much as with Jenn Forbes and Laura Smith at the founding conference, I have to imagine the Corbyn/Murphy tendency of designating otherwise popular and well-known figures in their camp as ‘sin-eaters’ to set down unpopular party lines that must be burning through a fair bit of goodwill on all sides.

The final question was a fairly insubstantial one, addressing how to win and engage the youth vote - possibly an issue, when having to compete with the more lively and youthful Greens under Polanski. The question was answered by Ismail Uddin, a young councillor and PSC activist, arguing that the key to reaching young people was in addressing the cost of living and taking a firm stance on global issues like Palestine or Sudan, as well as better social media comms.

As uninspiring, disappointing and dull as the event was to most attending, if the chat was anything to go by, I do think it carries valuable lessons for the Grassroots Left in how to conduct itself better, treat members with respect and address their real concerns - as opposed to endless platitudes intended to assuage concerns, treating members like naughty schoolchildren - and pave the way for overriding member democracy with fake smiles and the toxic positivity that The Many are inheriting from the Labour Party they’ve clearly not fully left themselves.

The left can show a real contrast to this and present a truly different way of doing politics than the establishment parties by treating members like the peers they are - as rational, reasoning adults, capable of concrete policy discussion, interested and invested in shaping the party they are a member of, rather than leaving it to a ‘team’ that will deliver a 2017 nostalgia trip.

Here are some mild suggestions for a similar launch event, but done right:

Rafał B
Plymouth

Members’ rights

On January 14, the ‘Republic Your Party’ platform agreed to seek support of YP members in the central executive committee elections. We agreed to stand five candidates - one each in the East Midlands, East of England and London, and two for the North West. Chris Williamson, the former Labour MP for Derby North, was endorsed as our candidate for the East Midlands.

On January 17, Chris received notification that he is “ineligible to stand for election to the CEC”. This is because “members of other national political parties shall not be permitted to stand for election”. Chris is a member of Your Party and the Workers Party of Britain.

Republic YP is appealing to all YP members, regardless of any platform or faction, to unite in defence of party democracy, equal rights for all members and our right to vote on candidates of our choice. The issue here is democracy, not whether comrades agree or disagree with Chris, support or oppose the Workers Party, or agree with Republic YP or not. It is that any YP member in the East Midlands must have the right to stand for office and all members must have the right to vote for or against that candidate.

Democracy relies on the good sense and judgment of the rank-and-file YP members. If they think that Chris’s membership of the Workers Party should exclude him from the CEC, they will vote accordingly. If they support the Republic YP Platform and have confidence in Chris’s political record, or some combination of both, they will vote for him.

This raises some fundamental democratic questions. First, it implies there are two categories of members - some with full rights and others with restricted rights. Second, it was the expressed will of conference not to bar membership to those presently members of other left socialist parties. Third, if there are exceptions to dual membership, it is for the elected CEC leadership to determine.

The fundamental democratic principle is that every member of YP should have to right to stand for election and only members voting in the election will decide which candidate is elected to the CEC. The outcome cannot be predetermined or influenced by unelected officials.

Republic YP is being denied the right to choose Chris to represent our platform in the CEC elections. An official is determining that we must choose somebody else or have no candidate in the East Midlands at all. This has echoes of the treatment of Jeremy Corbyn, when Labour Party members in Islington were told they could not choose him as their candidate because of some ruling ‘from above’. Republic YP is seeking assurances that this decision is being applied to all slates and candidates without discrimination.

The new democratically elected CEC should determine whether members of other left parties are barred from membership in line with the decision of the Liverpool conference. Until then, every member of YP must be allowed to stand for election. Members in each region must be free to vote for the candidate of their choice.

Conference decided that dual membership is accepted. It will be for the newly elected CEC to decide how this will be applied and if there are exceptions. They will be held accountable for their decisions. It is not for unelected leaders or officials to make decisions that change the possible outcome of the CEC election. The unelected provisional leadership has no mandate to alter the election and impact on the democratic will of the sovereign members. The outcome of the CEC election must be determined solely by member’s votes. This was the spirit and intention of the majority of members at the Liverpool conference. It is not for this to be interpreted by unelected officials through some formulations to exclude members from their democratic rights.

Once the CEC is elected, this committee alone - answerable to the membership and the next conference - should determine which left parties are eligible for dual membership in the future. Meanwhile every member of Your Party must have equal rights to stand for elected office.

Chris Williamson is a member and he must have the same democratic rights as any other member.

Republic Your Party
email

Hypocrisy

The foreign secretary’s statement on the protests in Iran is typical of ministerial reasoning: a mixture of half-truths, falsehood, omissions and hypocrisy of the most reckless and brazen sort.

That the people of Iran deserve the warmest support of the British people in the struggle for liberty and democratic rights is, of course, true. But it is evident that liberty and democracy are not the objects of the British governing class: liberty they assail and decry at home; democracy they are indifferent to abroad, unless some mischievous state refuses to bend to the will of our American masters, whose arrogant and drunken lead we infallibly follow.

The Iranian government is repressive, says Yvette Cooper: it has pursued “a brutal and relentless crackdown on its own people” and “the United Kingdom therefore condemns in the strongest terms the horrendous and brutal killing of Iranian protesters and we demand that the Iranian authorities respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of their citizens”. The repression, indeed, is odious and undeniable; but one cannot help doubting Mrs Cooper’s ‘love of freedom’. She is, after all, known for her own repression of Palestine activists as home secretary.

Next we have talk of “Iran’s destabilising actions towards its neighbours” and its “malign global impact”. Here, too, we cannot but notice that one of the government’s chief allies in the region, Israel, has wreaked more havoc and destruction in the last two years or so than Iran could ever hope to inflict. Israel stands accused of genocide: it has already been convicted by numerous rights organisations and experts in the field; and, through all this time, it never occurred to Cooper or her predecessors to condemn Israel’s ravage of Gaza - much less to end the military, economic and diplomatic ties which have made our rulers complicit in one of the most detestable crimes of our age.

The estimates of the number of dead in Iran, as appalling as they are, do not approach the tens of thousands who have been violently killed by Israeli forces. If our memory is capable of reaching as far back as the illegal invasion of Iraq, for which the right honourable Mrs Cooper voted, we will recall that at least hundreds of thousands were killed owing to the war and its aftermath. In the calculation of “malign global impact”, I venture to say that the United States and its servants will be found to have produced far more misery and death than Cooper attributes to Iran.

The foreign secretary then comes to sanctions: “this government”, we are told, has “imposed over 220 Iran sanctions designations since coming into office, and we back strong sanctions enforcement … the UK will bring forward legislation to implement full and further sanctions and sectoral measures”, which will target “finance, energy, transport, software and other significant industries”.

But at the beginning of her speech, Mrs Cooper herself observed that the protests were initiated “following a plunge in the value of the country’s currency”: the economic hardships to which ordinary Iranians have been exposed are not the sole result of western sanctions, but there is no doubt that sanctions have often caused or seriously aggravated their sufferings. Alena Douhan, the UN special rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, concluded in 2022 that sanctions on Iranian banks and numerous companies “have led to reduced state revenues and growing poverty and have exacerbated existing socioeconomic inequalities, resulting in insufficient resources to guarantee the basic needs of low-income people and other vulnerable groups”.

The foreign secretary, however, is incapable of perceiving the relation of the sanctions, which she strongly advocates, to the deprivation and want which afflict the Iranian people. Only two reasons are supplied in defence of further sanctions. The first is Iranian human rights violations. It is most curious that such an assertion is not immediately met by the laughter and mockery, or contempt and scorn, of the whole House of Commons. I have already pointed out that Israel’s genocide has killed tens of thousands: no wide-ranging British sanctions have been imposed.

But let us now consider those close British allies which are only separated from Iran by a journey across the Persian Gulf. Iran is a despotism - so are they. Iran represses protestors - so do they. Iranian prisons are filled with dissidents - so are theirs. But we do not sanction those Arab states; for our spirit of generosity and forgiveness is wonderfully increased, when the state in question submits to the same American supremacy that long ago became a religion among our parliamentary representatives.

Second, Mrs Cooper complains of Iran’s violations of its nuclear commitments. If such commitments have been violated, it is unclear to me what rule of justice says that nuclear-armed states have a moral warrant to punish other states for attempting to acquire the same arms that they already possess: our politicians never stop lauding our own nuclear weapons as a source of security, yet they will nonetheless profess support for punishing those states which try to emulate us!

Winding up her remarks, Mrs Cooper said that it is “clear that the Iranian regime is trying to paint the protests as the result of foreign influence and instigation … This is nothing but lies and propaganda”. Although it is true that the Iranian government has a clear interest in exaggerating the extent of foreign interference, it is utterly foolish to suppose that other powers - namely Israel and the United States - are not doing their best to exploit the protests for their own purposes. Anyone who has read a little history knows this. The Mossad itself has announced to Iranian demonstrators that “We are with you in the field.”

Iranians have a great many justified grievances, but the intervention of malicious ruling classes will be of no service in remedying them. Instead, let the socialist movement in this country and around the world grant its support to those elements of the Iranian opposition who share our ideals. This path is very hard - but, in the end, it will do more good.

Talal Hangari
London