10.04.1997

Victory for political boldness

Ian Driver’s Vauxhall constituency members have been arbitrarily expelled. Stan Keable’s Brent East branch has simply been ignored by the NEC. Arthur Scargill announced in the Morning Star that Stan was “not a member”. SLP branches have been informed in a recent circular that “there is no Socialist Labour candidate standing in Brent East”. Both London branches are fighting vigorous election campaigns.

A meeting was called by Terry Dunne, member of the Socialist Labour Party’s national executive, on Monday April 7 to ‘reconstitute’ the Vauxhall SLP branch in South London. Every member of the branch with the exception of Barry Biddulph (whose membership ‘voiding’ by the leadership sparked its controversy with the branch) received an invitation to the meeting.

After declaring Barry’s membership ‘null and void’ the SLP leadership disbanded the branch and expelled all its members, seemingly for defending Barry and discussing documents on SLP policy which Acting General Secretary Arthur Scargill disagreed with.

The invitation to the ‘reconstitution’ meeting suggested that if ‘unrecognised’ members of the branch accepted the witch hunt, then they would be considered for readmission to the party.

Members, including Barry, were out campaigning for their candidate, Ian Driver, but they decided to attend the meeting to demand that the undemocratic decision to void, not recognise or - in plain English - expel them be rescinded. In particular, they decided they would continue to refuse to accept the witch hunt or the voiding of Barry Biddulph.

There was a suggestion from a comrade from another branch helping with the election work that it would be good tactics at the meeting not to insist that Barry Biddulph was a member. This would, he argued, enable the comrades to become members of the party again. ‘Better to be on the inside rather than the outside,’ was the main argument.

This view was rejected by the comrades. Not to accept Barry as a member was to accept the witch hunt. Indeed it would legitimise the bureaucratic expulsion of Barry and other comrades. Having accepted the voiding of one member, how could they object to the voiding of others in the past or the future? The members might be on the inside but they would have to dance to the tune of Scargill’s bureaucratic methods. And who would be next for voiding? If members cannot even discuss alternative policies to those approved by Scargill without fear of expulsion, what is the point of recognised membership?

When the comrades arrived at the meeting they found Terry Dunne reconstituting the constituency branch with two members of the Economic and Philosophic Science Review group (formerly the International Leninist Workers Party - see article below). These two individuals had previously been told to leave the branch for constantly disrupting meetings with irrational ranting against most comrades. Their homophobia is contrary to the official policies of the SLP. However, this and their membership of another organisation did not deter Terry Dunne from recognising them as members.

Terry Dunne told Barry Biddulph he was not a member of the SLP and objected to Barry’s presence. But another comrade made the obvious point: “Why pick on Barry? None of us are members - we have all been expelled.” Terry went into his usual bullying mode, demanding an immediate, uncritical loyalty test.

All the comrades, apart from the two EPSR members, voted for Barry to stay. Terry Dunne then appeared to expel everyone. Although how you expel comrades who have already been expelled is difficult to understand. He did appear to give them, but not Barry, the right of appeal. But if one member has been voided without the right to appeal, the recognition of this comrade by others would clearly be viewed as a breach of party rules. So no appeal by those who continued to recognise him would succeed.

One of the comrades arbitrarily ‘expelled’ by Terry Dunne was the Vauxhall election candidate, Ian Driver, who had clearly voted for Barry to stay. However, Scargill is now saying Terry Dunne exceeded his authority. Apparently Ian remains a member. This is an important victory for political boldness. The active members of the branch deserve congratulating for making such a principled and audacious stand against Scargill’s bureaucratic methods.

Dave Hume