19.09.1996

On leaving Socialist Outlook

The reason the decision was taken to leave Socialist Outlook now is that it has become impossible to continue to fight for a clear political line with the formation of the bloc between Tendency A (TA) and Tendency D (TD) (see below) at the last conference of the organisation.

Amongst those left inside, there is certainly a mood to fight. There is what remains of TA and there is a healthy group of trade union-orientated comrades - at the base of the old ‘Tendency C’, the former leadership tendency - around Alan Thornett and Dave Packer, etc. There are undoubtedly still fighting elements to be won there and in TD as well. Our decision to leave the organisation does not mean that we regard all tendencies within SO to be beyond redemption.

The battle for clarity must be pursued outside the organisation, however. For example, the debate on the Socialist Labour Party has been particularly confused, I believe. The basis of the bloc that was the SO leadership was leading the group away from a ‘labour movement orientation’. But there was no specification of what that ‘orientation’ really was.

Some of the old leadership grouping around Thornett said some quite sensible things about the SLP - that we should pay it close attention, etc. Yet the tendency of the bloc was to dismiss it entirely as it was a ‘non-labour movement orientation body’ as such. There was not sufficient sensitivity to what militants might want to do and the directions in which they might be drawn during the current period. That is not to endorse the formation of the SLP, of course.

Internationally, the split is unlikely to have any major ramifications within the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (Usec) - it is too small for that. It may have some importance for other left groupings that have emerged over the recent period from Trotskyism - for instance the Liaison Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International around José Villa. We see our group as transitional. We will be taking part in debates and discussions both within the parameters of Trotskyism internationally, but also wider than that. Our organisation is called the Committee for Revolutionary Regroupment.

Our analysis suggests that many of what we call the ‘right Trotskyist’ tendencies are in a process of regroupment - Usec and ML, ML and the LIT in Argentina, LIT and the Workers Revolutionary Party in this country. So, there is a right Trotskyist regroupment process. We hope to provide a left pole for people like the LCMRCI, elements like the Workers International League and various other smaller currents both internationally and in this country.

Gerry Downing

Tendency A, which was formed after the 1984 SO conference, unified the majority of the left for the first time. It fought around three issues: The united front, the (Trotskyist) transitional method and for a regroupment orientation to left Trotskyist forces, particularly to the WIL.

Tendency D tended to be on the right of the group (more ‘deep entryists’ in the Labour Party) but also contained some leftists who wrongly thought the entire problems of the group were down to the leadership and wanted to remove it at all costs.