19.12.1996

Misinformation

Around the left

Without doubt, the political landscape has altered considerably. The advent of the Socialist Labour Party has led to a much needed injection of fluidity into our movement. The continued fall-out from the collapse of ‘official communism’ and the seemingly irresistible rise of Blairism have also contributed to this spirit of emboldened political thinking.

Inevitably, this rapidly changing landscape is placing stresses and strains on many organisations. The old shibboleths and commandments - more often than not a ‘security blanket’ against a cold and hostile looking world - look less and less convincing.

The best example is the Socialist Workers Party. Its tired, ‘vote Labour, but ...’ brand of politics is looking distinctly ropy, if not past its sell-by date. In order to convince the demoralised troops that everything is fine on the front, Socialist Worker has to really scrape the bottom of the barrel. In its recent report on the Barnsley East by-election, it states: “At the SLP founding conference all the leaders’ emphasis was on contesting elections” (December 7).

Comrades, this is blatant misinformation. Elections were hardly discussed at the conference. Indeed, you could criticise the founding conference for not discussing the election question seriously enough. However, the SWP obviously feels that the SLP is invading ‘its’ political space. Thus, Socialist Worker informs us: “At the SLP conference Arthur Scargill attacked revolution as ‘irresponsible’ .”

Yet another untruth. Scargill criticised certain revolutionaries who were advocating the formation of workers’ militias - ie, arming the workers. Whether you agree with Scargill or not, one thing he was not doing was attacking the idea of revolution. For his own reasons, Scargill is more than happy to describe the SLP as a Marxist or revolutionary party.

The SLP’s existence is edging the SWP towards crisis. Up beat reports of how “36 copies of Socialist Worker were sold and two people joined the SWP” (December 14) in Barnsley East fail to disguise this.

It should also be noted that Militant Labour is going through convulsions. At a recent conference 71.4% voted to change its name to the Socialist Party. A sizeable minority of 24.8% voted for Militant Socialist Party, while a proposal to retain Militant Labour only secured 3% of the vote. A massive 98% voted to change the name of the paper and support the establishment of Scottish Socialist Voice (reported in Militant December 1).

This decision to ditch its ‘brand name’, or ‘logo’, is somewhat puzzling. It would be interesting to know the views of the ‘oppositionists’ in this respect. Hopefully we will be able to read about them in the successor to Militant.

Don Preston