21.11.1996

One united party

SLP member Derek Paul welcomes Dennis MacDonald’s call for unity

I was heartened by, and wholly endorse the call by Dennis MacDonald for one united party of the working class (Weekly Worker October 31)

In this Dennis echoed the call made by Jimmy Nolan in the latter’s interview (Weekly Worker September 26), but I detected a significant difference in approach to the task of building that party.

Whilst Jimmy suggests that “common objectives and common work could be the basis for us coming together into one party and breaking down the old sectarianism”, Dennis states, “I have given up my Labour Party card and socialists should do the same, if we are to build one united party.”

Dennis continues,

“This may seem arrogant, but it is not intended as such. It is merely a reflection of the weaknesses of the left and the potential strength of the SLP.”

Jimmy proposes that all socialist organisations, including the SLP, should be working together and debating in the Socialist Alliances. Dennis states, “Political discussions are of course crucial in the formation of a new party, but this must not hamper disciplined action.”

Dennis does not elaborate on where those political discussions are to take place. Is he referring just to inner party discussions within the SLP? Is he implicitly endorsing Jimmy Nolan’s position on the role of the Socialist Alliances? Or is he foreseeing discussions on party building between the SLP and those working class organisations who are debarred from affiliating to the SLP, and whose members and supporters are not permitted to be SLP members by the SLP draft constitution?

My own view on the correct way forward is that the constitutional debarment on affiliation to the SLP should be replaced by a clause stating that all working class organisations should be eligible to affiliate to the SLP, and that the clause preventing members and supporters of such organisations - including the Socialist Alliances - from being SLP members should be deleted. In such an SLP, Dennis MacDonald’s proposition - that political discussions are crucial, but must not hamper disciplined action - would take on a qualitatively higher meaning.

The SLP has attracted many workers from diverse political backgrounds. For a lot of these - like myself - this attraction arose from a belief that the SLP presented an opportunity to unite socialist forces that had previously been kept apart, either by Labour Party proscriptions, or by sectarian attitudes.

At an SLP meeting, comrade Paul Hardman, in giving a report on the Hemsworth by-election campaign, praised CPGB and Militant Labour supporters for the valuable contribution they had made to the campaign work. In a Leicester by-election we were pleased to learn that Militant Labour supporters were working for our candidate.

It is not just sad, but disastrous, that no SLP member could reciprocate such support, for fear of a letter from our general secretary ‘voiding’ our membership for supporting another socialist organisation. Similarly, joint work with the Socialist Alliances comes hard up against the draft constitution. At a Socialist Alliance conference I attended earlier this year, the SLP was the only organisation present which did not cast a vote on any of the resolutions discussed. Five SLP members, including the regional organiser, nervously watched each other, because to raise their hands and vote might be construed as going beyond ‘visitor’ status. This is not the way to overcome left sectarianism.

It is false to equate the position of Labour Party members making the break to the SLP with that of members or supporters of socialist and communist organisations who want to build the SLP as the mass party of the working class. Undoubtedly Dennis MacDonald, Joe Marino, Arthur Scargill and many others have undergone a cathartic experience in breaking with Labour. But they are wrong to demand that a similar ritual be performed by those coming from organisations that are not pro-capitalist and do not propose anti-working class policies or programmes.

Many comrades are proud of their organisations, and firmly believe in the theoretical and organisational gains they have striven for. No doubt they also have lessons to relate as to the mistakes they have made too. The SLP membership test should simply be one of the desire to unite socialist forces in order to establish the one united working class party that Dennis, Jimmy, I and so many others seek.

Arthur Scargill told the magazine Marxism Today in 1981: “I think that the only way that we’re going to achieve working class power is by the involvement of all sections of the working class.” He was right then, and I hope that such an approach will soon become the principle upon which the SLP is to be built. I look forward to an active, vibrant, inclusive SLP, where all the ideas developed by “all sections of the working class” are debated and tested, a forum within which the correct way forward for our class can be thrashed out.