17.04.1997

SLP election launch in Manchester

The Socialist Labour Party election campaign in the Manchester Gorton constituency was launched last week at a public meeting attended by 50 people. Pauline Nazir, a Bakers’ Union national executive committee member, gave the first speech. She offered a stark example of sweatshop Britain. A local bakery was offering wages of £1.20 an hour, and the job centre had threatened to stop the benefits of unemployed workers who were reluctant to apply for jobs there.

An active Labour Party member until July 1996, comrade Nazir told the meeting of the “final straw” that had led to her joining the SLP. She had been a delegate to last year’s Labour Party women’s conference. At an ‘any questions’ session led by Tony Blair, a student with a young family, forced to rely on student loans, had asked Blair what a Labour government would do about student grants and loans. She had received the arrogant reply, “Next question, please”. This incident epitomised the dismissive attitude of the Blairite Labour Party towards the working class. It was perfectly clear that a new, socialist, working class party must now be built.

Jim Flannery, SLP candidate in Wythenshawe and Sale East, reported that canvassing had already started in that constituency. When it was built in the 1950s, Wythenshawe was the largest municipal housing project in Europe, and was regarded as a model estate. It is now an area of high unemployment, poverty and disrepair. Labour’s majority, before the recent boundary change, was 19,000, and it had become clear from the early canvassing returns that complacent Labour candidates had not bothered visiting parts of the estate for donkey’s years. SLP canvassers had therefore received a warm welcome on many doorsteps. It was also clear that a major concern of residents was the anti-social behaviour of gangs of youths, hanging around the streets. Comrade Flannery suggested that the situation in Wythenshawe was a picture of a derelict society. The young people’s disaffection could hardly be surprising, when they had no jobs, no money, and no prospects for as long as they lived in a capitalist society. Socialism was the only answer.

Gorton’s candidate, Trevor Wongsam, commented on the only election issue to have emerged so far from the major parties - sleaze. This was a symptom of the lack of differences between those parties on any of the major problems in society. He pointed to the Sun newspaper’s support for Blair as the clearest evidence yet that New Labour was an anti-working class party. Conversely, comrade Wongsam was the fighting, local candidate who would represent working class concerns.

Arthur Scargill opened by announcing that the SLP is now “Britain’s fourth largest political party”, with a membership of 8,000, including those trade unions that had applied to affiliate. He concentrated on previewing the party’s forthcoming manifesto, and in particular its fiscal programme.

The bedrock was to be the elimination of unemployment, by means of a four-day week, and voluntary retirement at 55, both on full pay. Non-essential overtime would be banned. A minimum wage of £6 an hour would be introduced, and the link between state pensions and average earnings would be reinstated. Student grants would be restored, and loans abolished. No income tax would be payable on earnings less than £10,000 a year, but higher rates of taxation for the rich would increase.

This programme of wealth redistribution was to be paid for from the savings and increased revenues associated with ending unemployment; withdrawal of Britain from the European Union; taxation policy; and massive cuts in defence spending. Comrade Scargill did not mention SLP policy on taking industries and financial institutions into state ownership. Neither did he refer to any constitutional programme, except for support for proportional representation.

The latter reference was made in the context of his arguing against the notion that a vote for the SLP would be a wasted vote. The percentage vote received by the party in the Hemsworth and Barnsley by-elections would give the SLP 30 MPs, if repeated in a general election conducted under PR. Any person wondering how effective a block of 30 socialist MPs might be need only look at Italy, where 40 MPs of the Communist Refoundation had blocked many anti-working class measures, he said. The SLP was fully committed to extra-parliamentary action, such as the roads protests, the campaign against open cast mining, and anti-racist and anti-fascist activities.

The meeting ended with two contributions from the floor. A Socialist Workers Party member announced that the SWP had decided to call for a vote for the SLP in all constituencies in which it was standing. He went on to advise the SLP on the primacy of non-parliamentary activities, and cited the SWP’s approach to fighting cuts at one of the local schools.

Voided Manchester SLP activist John Pearson referred to the project of building the SLP as a mass party of the working class, and asked the speaker’s views on whether they felt the working class was entitled to know of the debates that took place in the SLP, and of how the party was run. Dependent upon their views upon this principle, he further asked that they comment on the expulsions of “good socialists” from the SLP, without charges being made known to them and without the opportunity to defend themselves; and on the party leadership’s action in closing down the London Vauxhall branch, and the ‘derecognition’ of all its 40 members. The chair asked Scargill if he wished to respond. His curt “no” must have stirred some feelings of déjà vu in Pauline Nazir.

Comrade Pearson reiterated that his questions had been directed to all the speakers. Silence prevailed upon the platform. Pearson ventured that the other speakers (two of whom were from the Trafford SLP branch, which had supported the John Pearson Defence Campaign), were perhaps afraid to express their views because of the presence of comrade Scargill. This brought Scargill back. “Not at all,” he retorted. “They probably can’t comment because they know nothing of the circumstances of the cases you refer to. And they probably think Vauxhall is a car factory in Liverpool”.

David Reed