13.02.1997

Two Scargills and two election tactics

SLP: news and comment

By announcing the voiding of Stan Keable, our acting general secretary/treasurer, Arthur Scargill, will no doubt sully his reputation in the eyes of history. Moreover his statement issued to the Morning Star denouncing comrade Keable throws the SLP’s general election tactics into utter confusion.

Comrade Keable, membership no 1,069, is an elected committee member of West London SLP and secretary of the newly formed Brent East Constituency SLP. Apparently the first he heard about his purported non-membership was comrade Scargill’s statement in the Morning Star (February 3 1997). To date there has been no official communication - neither to the West London branch, nor Brent East CSLP, nor to comrade Keable himself.

Frankly comrade Scargill’s running of the SLP’s internal regime is in striking contrast to the man who despised anti-communism and fought every manifestation of McCarthyism in the workers’ movement. It is almost as if there are two Arthur Scargills.

In his teens Arthur Scargill came to regard himself as a communist. He was elected in 1956 to serve on the National Committee of the Young Communist League. He stood for Worsborough council as a CPGB candidate in May 1960. The Yorkshire Area NUM rightwing tried to witch hunt him. In March 1961 they moved a resolution calling for the expulsion of communists.

Even after joining the Labour Party in 1963 comrade Scargill had a consistent and proud record of opposing the ban on CPGB affiliation and proscriptions against individual CPGB members (see A Scargill interview ‘The new unionism’ New Left Review July/August 1975). One month prior to the publication of his notorious so-called SLP ‘constitution’ the comrade was still berating the “modernisers” responsible for “expelling” communists (A Scargill Future strategy for the left November 1995).

Nowadays, of course, Arthur Scargill presides over his own anti-communist witch hunt. Dissidents are effectively expelled (voided) at whim. There are no charges, no hearings, no right of appeal. Either they receive a short, one-line note or, as in the case of comrade Keable, read about it the paper of another, hostile, organisation.

Denying natural justice and elementary democracy must be quickly stopped if the SLP is to have a healthy future. What of Arthur Scargill himself? Must he now be ranked alongside Ramsay MacDonald, Frank Chapple, Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock?

By no means. He is no class traitor. Scargill remains a beacon of militancy and hope. Whatever his failings in 1984-5 and 1992, he fought to the furthest point that his political programme and abilities allowed ... and he continues to do so.

While Arthur Scargill is undergoing a complex process which sees him both break from the Labour Party and contradictorily witch hunt communists he has by no means yet turned into his opposite. Without him it is unlikely, to say the least, that the SLP would ever have come into existence. That it has is of great significance. The SLP unites a thin, but important layer of socialists, communists and class conscious workers. And, despite left reformist liquidationism, together we stand on policies which are an anathema to every establishment party, pundit and publication - The Guardian, The Sun and the Daily Telegraph would dearly love to see the SLP collapse amidst internecine civil war.

Needless to say there still exists a window of time for comrade Scargill to rediscover his former self and reinvent his present self as a working class politician ready for the 2lst century. The comrade should take a lead in ridding the SLP of its Old Labourite ‘constitution’ and drafting another - one firmly based on class unity and affiliation, full democracy and open debate. If this is done, comrade Scargill and the SLP will become a focal point for rallying the left and in due course re-articulating the entire working class movement.

Comrade Scargill the individual, as said, was decisive in launching the SLP. But that should not make it his property. Seemingly comrade Keable was sacrificially voided by our acting general secretary to placate Ken Livingstone. Having publicly linked the SLP to MI5 and despite standing on Blair’s pro-capitalist manifesto, Livingstone “expressed surprise” that he would be challenged by us in the general election (Morning Star February 1 1997). In contrast I would express surprise if we did not put up a candidate against such a left cover for New Labour.

Has Scargill been bamboozled by Livingstone’s clever politicking? Late last year Livingstone conjured up a scenario whereby Peter Mandelson and the Milbank “modernisers” finally transform Labour into a “middle-of-the-road” party (Morning Star October 23 1996). To prevent this happening, to preserve Labour as a reformist party fit for his ambition, Livingstone platonically waved the threat of a leftwing split. This was meant to scare the right and enhance Livingstone’s limited power of initiative.

Livingstone’s careerist manoeuvres must have been music to the ears of comrade Scargill. It was a siren call. Scargill voided Keable and dived overboard to embrace Livingstone. He “insisted” that the SLP “has never intended to contest and will not contest London’s Brent East constituency in the general election” (Moring Star February 3 1997). Is comrade Scargill thereby calling upon the Brent East electorate to vote Labour? What else can one conclude? Voting labour would be a dramatic change-about of SLP tactics. Confusion can only but result - after all, why break from Labour only to vote Labour?

Whether through unrequited courtship of Labour MPs or misguided anti-communism, Scargill’s Morning Star statement left SLP election tactics in a complete mess. The dubious and highly unlikely prospect of half a dozen Labour MPs defecting after the general election has with the voiding of comrade Keable produced a self-inflicted wound and political incoherence. Recent leadership talk of opposing all who stood on a Blairite manifesto - ie, opposing those who oppose the working class - now seems to be forgotten and by implication thrown into reverse. Clarification is needed urgently.

Scargill’s statement also makes a mockery of our procedure. The National Executive, Committee “unanimously agreed” at its August 13 1996 meeting that “any constituency party which wishes to contest in any parliamentary constituency in addition to those already determined by the party shall be able to do so subject to the agreement of the NEC” (not the president nor the acting general secretary/treasurer). It further decided that the “selection of a candidate for a parliamentary constituency shall be the exclusive responsibility of the constituency party concerned” (Socialist Labour Information August 30 1996).

Brent East is a properly constituted CSLP. Hence it has the “exclusive right” to select a candidate for the general election - only “subject to the agreement of the NEC”. Everyone knows that the NEC has not discussed Brent East CSLP. Comrade Scargill should therefore immediately withdraw his Morning Star statement. He had no right to issue it. The NEC must consider and then come to a collective view.

Unless that is done Brent East CSLP deserves support from across the whole movement if it presses ahead with its general election plans. Winning the case for socialism surely means winning working class votes from New Labour and the likes of Ken Livingstone.

SL Kenning