06.02.1997

SLP branch reports

Election debate continues

After the discussion document from members of South West branches on whether the SLP should vote Labour in constituencies where the SLP is not standing (see Weekly Worker January 9), the election debate rumbles on in Bristol branch.

Last week Arthur Scargill spoke at a public meeting in Bristol which attracted about 250 people. Militant Labour, Workers Power and the Socialist Workers Party attended. Arthur Scargill gave a powerful speech ramming home the importance of the SLP standing in the elections against Blair’s New Labour. He stated that the party should stand as many candidates as it possibly could and that Bristol should be standing in three of the five constituencies.

He easily rebutted the SWP which criticised the policies of the SLP as being reformist and that we should be talking about revolution not about implementing a four day week. Scargill said the SLP was about taking power. Ironically one local SWPer actually displays a ‘Vote Labour’ poster in his house. Revolution tomorrow, vote Labour today. Though criticisms can be made of the SLP policies, the SWP talk of revolution is just so much hot air while it steadfastly refuses to engage in a movement that has broken with the Labour Party, and instead loyally supports Labourism.

The branch has won the debate on elections, agreeing in principle that it is correct for the SLP to stand in the forthcoming general election, but the Labourites still strangle the branch by arguing that it cannot afford to stand. Bristol has 40 members, which is a lot more than some constituency branches, which with a handful of members are doing what is necessary to put the SLP on the map.

Coventry

Debate has been continuing in Coventry branch as to the feasibility of standing a candidate. The branch has 43 members and had decided to stand Dave Spencer in Coventry North East, but some members were worried about raising the necessary finances. However the campaign is likely to go ahead and the branch may consider standing in the North West as well against the millionaire who runs the New Statesman given the desire of the SLP to stand as many candidates as possible.

Dave Spencer is to stand against Labour’s Ainsworth - once a leftwinger who moved rapidly to the right and was previously accused of ballot rigging to secure his selection against a Campaign Group candidate.

Militant Labour is standing Dave Nellist in Coventry South and is well known in the area so the SLP still has a way to go to raise its profile.

Vauxhall

The recently formed Vauxhall constituency SLP branch is planning to stand a candidate. It has lively debates at every meeting including recently on the strikes in South Korea, sending a solidarity message to the strikers.

The branch is plagued by those now well-known witch-hunters of the Economic Philosophic and Science Review, who seem to be there only to try and pass sectarian gagging motions. The latest effort read thus:

“Anyone selected as a candidate for the SLP should be positively supportive of the SLP and its leadership and not hostile. That anyone who believes that Arthur Scargill and the other leadership to be ‘anti-working class bureaucrats’ or ‘constitutional manipulators’ or ‘liars’ or ‘Stalinist empire builders’ should not be selected. In fact we can’t see why they remain the SLP since their single purpose is simply to attack it.”

Readers will be pleased to hear that this puerile motion from the thought police of the ESPR was rejected by nine to three with two abstentions.