17.04.1997

Socialist Party: ‘Faith in working people’

In Peckham, south London both the Socialist Party and the Socialist Labour Party are standing against Labour’s Harriet Harman. We tried to talk to SLP candidate Angela Ruddock but Peckham branch secretary Ann Goss told us her branch would not speak to us. Lee-Anne Bates therefore spoke to SP candidate Joan Barker about the campaign

What has been the focus of the SP’s campaign in the area?

We’ve run many campaigns for the 25 years we have been actively organised here. We were leaders in the anti-poll tax union in Peckham and organised a national demonstration. It was at this time that I became involved in Militant, as it was called then.

I was an ordinary battered woman with four kids. I’d never been involved in politics before. When the poll tax was introduced I had two bailiffs knocking on my door who terrorised my children for about two hours.

I rang the Labour Party because I thought they must be the ones fighting against this, and was completely shocked when I found out they weren’t.

At the moment we are involved in the Sick campaign to save hospital casualties in crisis as well as the campaign to save Guys hospital locally. Dulwich hospital’s closure has just been announced.

Health and education are major issues here. Peckham people are obviously angry at Harriet Harman’s decision to send her kid to a posh school in Orpington. Working people couldn’t even afford the bus fare. Education is not mentioned in her leaflets.

What sort of response have you had so far?

It’s been marvellous. We launched our election campaign about a year ago in the press, so people recognise us. We’ve got big support from the Nigerian community because of our campaigning on this issue against Shell Oil.

I know you wrote an open letter to the SLP. What was your response when you heard it was going to stand a candidate?

We have tried to talk to the local SLP - originally they were thinking of standing Ian Driver. Then all of a sudden they had a meeting to announce their candidate. Angela Ruddock isn’t known in the area and seems to be just a paper candidate.

I think it is a sectarian move because we have been calling for unity. The open letter asked why they would want to stand against a good socialist in the borough. It is not in the best interests of the working class in Peckham to be standing two socialist candidates. I would have been happy to have gone into a socialist forum, maybe the Southwark Socialist Alliance, and debated out who was the best candidate.

The SP was involved in the initial discussions around the SLP. What attitude do you take to it now?

It could become a very strong force in society. But now you can see why we were right not to fold up our organisation on the promise of a new party. The lack of democracy in the SLP will not build a party of working class people that can be a force for socialism. How does expelling Vauxhall branch benefit working class people in the area? Its formation was very exciting, but the sectarian approach is very sad. There are a lot of good people in the SLP and hopefully they can turn things around and make it a democratic organisation.

We would hope the whole thing could be opened up so that we could become a part of it. You can see an example in the Scottish Socialist Alliance with different organisations working together.

One of our arguments in the SLP is that debates in a working class party should be out in the open and made the property of the whole class. Although the SP has a much more democratic internal regime, we have similar criticisms of the SP.

I’m not frightened to say I don’t agree with something in my party. I can get up at conferences and meetings and say what I think, without the threat of expulsion. Disagreements are taken up by the membership.

If we are to overcome the sectarianism on the left and forge some unity do you not think that all debates have to be out in the open?

Different organisations use each other’s ideas anyway. All I can say is you cannot build without democracy. We have always been willing to debate with the SLP.

I’m really trying to get to how the mass of the working class becomes fused with the left, how it takes up the debates going on, rather than those debates being in private and the mass standing outside of them. For example, you have debated the question of immigration controls and say one thing internally and another openly. Do you not think we have to be open so that the class itself can start to take the lead?

It’s the way you work with people. Bermondsey, where I live, is a very racist area. If you go out onto the streets and say, ‘No immigration controls’, people will step back from you, a bit like they did towards the name Militant, as it was dragged through the mud by the press. You have to draw people in. Until they develop a consciousness of what is really going on around them, they are going to be repelled by some of those ideas.

We have to get over the propaganda that is put out by the media. We have to explain where we are coming from first. I myself used to think that it was a crazy idea to have open borders, until it was explained to me. But the debate is still going on.

The constitution - particularly in Scotland - has been made a national issue by both Labour and Tory. Is this something you will be raising in your campaign?

I think a Scottish parliament could eventually become dominated by socialists and then you would start to see a different Scotland developing. That’s when I think it will have an effect on people in England and Wales. That is why the British government does not want to see a parliament in Scotland with any real powers.

I think there is a lot of sympathy in England for the demands for a Scottish parliament, but at the moment it is not a big issue here. Scotland is much more radical and militant at the moment. But the left will build under a Labour government.

What does socialism mean for you? Can it come through an SP government?

Concessions would be given if socialist MPs were elected, but the capitalists will not give over power peacefully. Change has to come through revolutionary means.

Having been through the anti-poll tax campaign, I have great faith in working people. We can fight back and build a society based on a planned economy, where we make things for need, not profit; where we have a decent health service, education and air to breathe. Socialism for me is where my children can reach their full potential (at the moment my kids are in a class of 60) and people aren’t living in poverty. We have to stop these multinationals taking all the money for a very few people.