17.10.1996

Rebuilding in Manchester

SLP branch reports

Since the right wing’s disbandment of the Greater Manchester branch of the SLP (see Weekly Worker July 11), slow but steady progress is being made in rebuilding through forming local branches. Whilst little to speak of exists yet in the city, firmly based and sizeable branches are beginning to grow in Trafford, Wythenshawe, and Bolton.

Thirty people attended a very lively and positive meeting in Bolton last week to discuss distribution of Socialist News. This turned into a discussion around the role of the paper itself when Manchester Fiscites (responsible for liquidating the Greater Manchester SLP branch), including Trevor Wongsam (alias DeJesus of Fisc), Rachel Newton and Phil Griffin, told the meeting that they were against having a paper at all. They were hostile to it being sold on the streets (“We don’t want to become a party of paper sellers”) and criticised other left groups for the fact that they sold papers.

Other SLP members in the meeting, slightly taken aback, rose to defend the paper, saying it was vital for organising members and non-members alike. The papers of the other left groups were actually their strength: their problem lay somewhere else - ie, in the case of the Socialist Workers Party its lack of internal democracy and opportunistic politics, which cause members to leave.

Socialist News should be open in printing all divergent views of members in the paper and carrying political discussion as well as news items if the SLP was not to go down the sect road of the SWP. Members should send articles into the paper and there should be no censorship. Hence the Fisc arguments were totally dismissed by the majority of the meeting.

Paul Hardman, SLP treasurer, continued with the business of the meeting, emphasising the need to raise finance for the paper and to arrange how it could be quickly and easily distributed. A train driver at Manchester Picadilly offered to pick up the papers and distribute them to collection points in the North West, which was an excellent solution ... except of course for those diehard, bureaucratic Fiscites.

Trevor Wongsam - put out by his organisation’s defeat in attempting to liquidate Socialist News in Manchester, along with the branch - mumbled under his breath that this driver could not be trusted (though he did not elaborate, this is presumably because he attends Revolutionary Caucus meetings in Manchester, and as such is an active SLP member in the area).

Unfortunately for Trevor his mumblings were overheard and when he was challenged from the floor the meeting was outraged by his sectarian and cowardly behaviour. He was challenged to ‘put up or shut up’ and to apologise for the remark, upon which he simply denied the comment. Fortunately he was made to look a complete fool, and so hopefully such uncomradely behaviour will not be repeated.

Despite this blip the discussion at the meeting had been very worthwhile. There are now plans to set up a branch in Blakeley.

The latest branch to be formed is in Stockport, where comrades from the Manchester SLP Revolutionary Caucus are taking a leading role. The branch is meeting fortnightly and has established a culture of openness and discussion. Meetings are wholly open to contacts or potential recruits to the party.

This is in marked contrast to the embarrassing procedure adopted in some other branches, where invited contacts are left waiting in adjoining pub rooms for the summons to come in to the ‘open’ part of the branch meeting.

In Stockport the first hour of each branch meeting is dedicated to political discussion, with business items being allocated the second hour. The thorough discussion of world events, and of the politics of party building, is felt to be essential in order to develop working class consciousness. After all, the ideas of the dominant class are the ruling ideas in society, and SLP comrades are not immune from a fortnight’s bombardment with bourgeois ideology.

The branch’s first public meeting, in October, will be on the theme of ‘Smash the Jobseekers Allowance’. Dole office leafleting for the meeting has produced an encouraging response from the working class of Stockport. The branch has discussed, and unanimously passed, the Revolutionary Platform resolutions on the SLP and Europe, and on MPs’ pay. Stockport is lobbying for support for these resolutions in other SLP branches.

The branch will be discussing a motion opposing the membership bans and proscriptions in the draft SLP constitution as well as the politics of electoral work, and deciding whether to make a bid for a Stockport candidacy in the general election.

A branch delegation visited Leicester to assist with canvassing work for the SLP candidate in the council by-elections.