30.01.1997

Move politics onto our ground

The Socialist Labour Party is contesting the Kidbrooke by-election in South London. Lee-Anne Bates spoke to Peter Pierce, the SLP candidate

What are the main issues you are fighting on in the election?

The Labour council under Biair’s orders is intending to increase council tax and continue with devastating cuts across all sections. In social services six home helps have just been made redundant. There is supposed to be £4.5 million knocked off the education budget for next year, and because of the pressure of the election coming up the council has said schools won’t be affected. That means adult education, youth centres and clubs, etc, will be decimated. Essential services are being hit and campaigns have already begun against the cuts.

The SLP is working in these campaigns. Two days before the election there is a lobby of the council and we will be there with an SLP banner and will probably be the biggest organised group. So our campaign is already having an impact.

All the other parties may say they’re in favour of saving schools, but then they say, ‘We have to make the cuts elsewhere’. They all share this consensus that we have to have cuts, that ‘we’ can’t afford the welfare and services that we had previously.

That is where the SLP is different. We are not campaigning for what we can afford, but what we need. We need education, social services and youth facilities. Some of the estates are already desolate and yet they are actually closing down a youth centre in Kidbrooke which is attended by 500 kids a year in one of the most deprived areas of the borough.

What actual impact can you have if you are elected in fighting for what people need? You will be one person up against a Tory government and a Labour council.

My role would be to highlight and fight every attack on workers, expose all the protestations of trying to help people.

We do not make promises like the other parties. All we promise is to be the best fighters for the class. As socialists, we say only the working class can itself liberate workers.

At the moment of course there is no mass movement of our class. People think their bounds are set within the limits of existing society, but once we move beyond the rules set by capitalism then we can actually change things. It can’t be done by one councillor or even an SLP majority on the council.

You raise a number of national and international questions in your election address. How are these relevant in a local election campaign?

The main political parties put on a facade of campaigning on local issues and think that they are relating to people’s real needs. But everyone knows that people vote in elections on national issues.

It is national issues like the health service that are important to people. But there are also other important issues that I have included in my election address such as the national question. There is a big movement in Scotland which at the moment is not having much impact in England. It is the job of socialists to link those struggles and raise people’s aspirations from their local struggle to a general struggle. For example the monarchy is a question which is on everybody’s lips since the TV debate. To pretend that people aren’t interested in such issues and are only interested in who is going to run the council is absurd.

People are voting for a political party, so we have to link our answers to local problems with our answers nationally. The cuts in Greenwich are repeated throughout the country.

You talk about the need for world socialism. What does socialism actually mean for you?

As my election address says, socialism means workers themselves being in control of all aspects of their lives: “It will require revolutionary change and cannot be voted in by a few MPs, let alone a local council.” That is the demarcation between reformism and revolutionary politics. I view myself as a revolutionary. People make revolution by organising themselves. It cannot be handed down from above.

I know some people in the SLP think socialism can be legislated in by parliament or even a workers’ assembly. But it can’t be done like that. It can only be achieved by all the people acting for themselves. Once that activity stops then so does socialism.

Some of the SLP policy documents seem to suggest that an SLP government will introduce socialism in the confines of Britain. A particular example would be the policy on immigration controls. Do you then have disagreements with some of those policies?

At our conference last May the question of immigration controls was one of the most intense and liveliest debates. There was certainly opposition to the idea of immigration controls.

I think this exemplifies the difference between revolutionary internationalist socialism and national socialism in one country, which is by definition reformist. If you want immigration controls, then you are saying that what we are building is a socialist island in Britain. This is in fact impossible. We should stand for the free movement of workers throughout the world. The borders that exist at the moment are capitalist ones.

What would you say to those revolutionaries that haven’t joined the SLP because they think those policies take a reformist approach?

Some organisations are being a little disingenuous. For example the SWP says the SLP is a reformist and electoralist party. In that way it hopes to keep its members cocooned and out of this real movement of the working class.

We need revolutionaries and socialists to join the SLP and help to shape it.

Have you been in any other organisation yourself?

I was in the Communist Party of Great Britain for 20 years before joining the SLP, and still consider myself a communist.

Our organisation, which has the aim of reforging the CPGB, has applied for affiliation to the SLP. We see the opportunity to unite different left groups and individuals, starting the process of forging one united party. Do you favour other left groups joining the SLP? This would require a change in the constitution.

It’s clear that if we are going to achieve anything we must have one united party of the working class. Personally I think it is a bit unrealistic to expect comrades like yourselves, Militant Labour and the SWP to close down your entire organisation and publications. I read the Weekly Worker and the other left press as well, and though I might have disagreements, I do have common ground. These groups contain many dedicated comrades that should be in one party.

At the moment some people in the SLP don’t want other parties to join and as a result many talented people are being prevented from working with us. Comrades from ML, the Indian Workers Association and your organisation have been out campaigning with us. One of your comrades out with us had been actually removed from my SLP branch, yet he worked with us with as much dedication as anyone else. We need such comrades in our party. If that requires a change in our constitution, then I am in favour.

I spoke to SLP member Jimmy Nolan about this last week and he argued that while he wanted to see groups coming together, he worried about all our past disagreements. He thought these may keep us divided, unless the SLP builds a strong framework first.

There are left groups which do behave in a very sectarian way. But those with their own sectarian projects will be found out. They won’t last very long because they won’t be the ones that throw themselves into the work. I am sure there are some groups like that in the SLP already, but I’m saying, don’t throw them out, let them prove themselves in practice.

Otherwise we could wait forever before we start to unite. What are we afraid of? Nobody knows all the answers: we only arrive at those answers together. This relates back to what I was saying before. If you think socialism can be delivered to the working class rather than the class making it themselves, then of course this will be reflected in the type of organisation you build. Unfortunately I do see a minority in our party, even in the leadership, with that view, who see their job as telling the membership what to do.

Is your branch standing a candidate in the forthcoming general election? What impact will the SLP make?

The local election will give us a good idea about the impact here. We got 20% in Forest Gate and in the parliamentary by-elections we have fought we saved our deposits. Of course it will be more difficult in the general election because we will be standing candidates up and down the country at the same rime, including here.

The actual votes we will get will be varied. But the most important thing is to put our marker down. The general election is the best time to talk politics and to put forward an alternative to the capitalist parties.

Some left groups have said the SLP shouldn’t stand because it will split the Labour vote and may let the Tories in.

I say ‘good’, if we split the Labour vote. That is very likely in Kidbrooke. It was previously a Tory ward which was taken by Labour. Labour would have considered it safe now, but with us challenging from the left they won’t feel so secure and may have to pose left. Our standing will put pressure on them. We can start to move politics onto our own ground - the ground of the working class and socialism.