12.12.1996

Socialist Labour makes its mark

As we go to press, voting is beginning in the Barnsley East by-election. A major challenge is being mounted by Ken Capstick and the Socialist Labour Party.

There is no doubt that the Labour Party has been rattled by the SLP in Barnsley. The enthusiastic campaign, backed by members and supporters of the Communist Party and other left groups, has been well received. This safest of Labour seats has seen Tony Blair and other leaders scurrying into the constituency. They are worried not by the Tories or Liberal Democrats, but by the prospect of seeing their majority cut by this challenge from the left.

Speaking in the constituency, Blair reserved some of his sharpest comments for the SLP. Hitting at one of Socialist Labour’s weak points, he described Ken Capstick’s pledge to open six coal mines in the area as a “cruel deception”. While unemployment can reach 80% in the former mining towns, there is nothing to be gained by making promises that the SLP cannot keep in the absence of the working class taking control of the whole society, not just six mines. We have already seen the dangers of workers trying to compete in a capitalist market at Monktonhall and Tower.

We should demand work or full benefit, set at a minimum wage level of £275 a week, rather than nostalgically looking back to one particularly unpleasant industry.

Despite that, the SLP looks set to make a substantial impact, as the fight for a working class party is stepped up.

Peter Manson

Ken Capstick, a long-standing Labour member and former vice-chair of Yorkshire National Union of Mineworkers, resigned from the Labour Party in April this year and joined the SLP. He had been selected in 1991 by a large majority of constituency Labour Party members to contest Hemsworth at the general election. But his selection was overruled by the party leadership. Now he is fighting for Socialist Labour. He spoke to the Weekly Worker...

How do you think the campaign has gone?

I am confident we will do well. The response we have been getting from our canvassing and leafleting has been quite good - I feel it is better than at Hemsworth. I am confident that we will not only save our deposit, but do a lot better than that. If I get double figures in terms of percentage, then that’s a start.

How difficult has it been to persuade people to make the break from Labour?

People have voted Labour all their lives, and their parents before them. But the thing we have got going for us is that the values they always stood for are ours, not New Labour’s.

Of course there are people who will vote as they always have, and that’s a fact. They want to get rid of the Tories, whatever it takes, but they’re likely to get a Tory Party mark II - they’ve got that as a problem. Labour is riding high in the opinion polls. Nevertheless a lot of people are adamant that they will be voting for us - and they come and volunteer the information: we don’t have to canvass them. Yesterday we were leafleting in Cudworth, and people were actually coming out of their homes and asking for posters.

But one very significant thing is that there has been absolutely no hostility towards us from people who say they are going to vote New Labour.

How important is the ex-miners’ vote in Barnsley?

The vote of the ex-miners and their families will decide the issue. This is still a ‘mining’ constituency, right from one end to the other. The Labour Party knows that too. Tony Blair, John Prescott and all the rest have been out here canvassing, but apparently have been getting a cool reception.

When I heard Blair was in the constituency, I thought there must have been a disaster. It’s funny, isn’t it? - He was never there when pits like Halton Main and Grimethorpe were being closed down. He was never there at the time of the pit camps. He was never there when the area was hit by mass unemployment. He’s finally visited this week. I wonder why.

I’ll tell you what, though. New Labour may have the machine, but our team has got a damned sight more enthusiasm. Some people are not going to admit it now, but when it comes down to it, they will end up voting for me.

How bad is unemployment today?

Most of the ex-miners are still unemployed. Hundreds of families have been reduced to income support.

Have you been getting much support from outside the area?

Lots of people have been turning up here from all over the country. We’ve been putting them up overnight in sleeping bags. Dozens went out yesterday - they leafleted whole areas in a matter of hours.

What about other left groups?

The Socialist Workers Party have supported us this time: not like in Hemsworth, where they tried to ride two horses with one arse, to use a good old Yorkshire expression. Militant Labour have been helping too. They have been quite disciplined in not handing out their own stuff.

The only problem we’ve had is with the Socialist Equality Party, who are standing against us.

I am in the CPGB, but I want to be a member of the SLP. The constitution stops me from joining. Why can’t there be affiliated organisations, like the original Labour Party had?

You can join. But you can’t be in another organisation - like I couldn’t be a member while I was still in the Labour Party. If you want to join the SLP, you are more than welcome, but you must leave your old organisation.

Look, no new party of the left has ever made such an impact. I think we’ve averaged 13% in the local elections we’ve contested.

You were saying that you thought people were supporting the SLP because it stands for the old Labour values. Do you view it in that way?

I was a Labour Party member for 18 years. First of all I view the SLP as an old-style Labour Party. Kier Hardie would be much more at home with us than with New Labour. Where the Labour Party is abandoning socialism, we are the only socialist party standing in the by-election.

But shouldn’t we be aspiring to something better than old Labour? After all, far from introducing socialism, they sent in troops against the workers, and defended capitalism.

Despite all its faults, ordinary working people held onto the hope that they would get some social justice from a Labour government.

We’re not talking about reforming capitalism, but abolishing it. We will take the privatised companies back into public ownership for a start. But we will nationalise the profitable industries too.

I was talking about the four-day week the other day, and someone said: “That seems a bit over the top.” But there are tremendous advantages in new technology. Is it ‘progress’ spending more time at work, while millions are in part-time jobs or are unemployed? As we go into the 21st century, we must have a four-day working week.

Do you think it will be possible to introduce socialism in a single country? If you nationalise the big companies, you will only be controlling a small part of their production.

I’m not denying the tremendous difficulties there would be with socialism in one country, but that’s what we would set out to do. Cuba manages it and survives, regardless of attacks from just about every capitalist country. We have got to start somewhere. How about in Barnsley East?