01.05.1997

Sectarianism weakens election campaign

The 1997 general election has been marked, however weakly, by the growing desire for a working class alternative to the Labour Party.

Some small left groups, such as the ultra-sectarian Workers Revolutionary Party, one of its offshoots, the Socialist Equality Party, and the Labour-loving Communist Party of Britain, stood a handful of candidates. But the main organisations standing that consciously want to build that alternative were the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Party and the Scottish Socialist Alliance (a full analysis of the results of all the left candidates will be carried in next week’s Weekly Worker).

The Communist Party of Great Britain gave its full support to those SLP and SSA candidates standing on the Communist Manifesto, and offered critical support to all other candidates in the three organisations - despite their many shortcomings. Clearly it was desirable that the need for independent working class organisation should be posed by a single candidate in as many constituencies as possible.

There were only 19 candidates fighting for the SP and 64 for the SLP. Yet incredibly six constituencies were contested by both organisations. Overwhelmingly the blame for this sad state of affairs lies squarely with Arthur Scargill and the SLP leadership. He brushed aside - or, more usually, ignored - all SP overtures aimed at electoral cooperation, and did his utmost to prevent local arrangements.

For comrade Scargill the building of a socialist organisation is a simple question - all militants must abandon their organisational ties, drop their publications and join ‘his’ party. Therefore groups like the SP or the CPGB are viewed at best as distractions. As the SLP general secretary (acting and unelected) already has all the answers, how could he possibly learn anything from, let alone cooperate with other organisations?

Of course in many areas SLP branches refused to stand against the SP and many local understandings were reached. But in those six constituencies there was a conscious decision to stand without any reference at all to the SP.

In Peckham and Camberwell the SP had been trying to reach an agreement for the best part of a year. Under the influence of NEC member Terry Dunn, many members of the former South London SLP branch were persuaded to believe that the SP was only interested in having a clear run for itself in the constituency. When the Peckham and Camberwell Constituency SLP was formed by a handful of loyal Scargill bureaucrats, including Tony Goss, even talking to the SP was out of the question. The SP’s Joan Barker was opposed by Angela Ruddock for the SLP.

In Leicester the SLP branch is run by supporters of the rabid Economic and Philosophical Science Review. Previously vociferous opponents of leadership bureaucracy and the witch hunt, at the end of last year EPSR followers made an abrupt about-turn and now cravenly act as loyal lieutenants to the leadership’s every move. Not that this viciously sectarian grouplet needed any excuse to stand against the SP. Its Leicester followers had already refused - backed up by supporters of Socialist Labour Action, it has to be said - to discuss the standing of a single socialist candidate with the SP in a council by-election. In the general election the SLP stood three candidates in Leicester, including EPSR supporter Dave Roberts, who opposed the SP’s Josie Nicholls in Leicester West.

The SLP leadership was rightly determined to contest as many seats as possible. It called on branches that had already decided to fight the election to consider putting up an additional candidate in an adjacent constituency. For example, in Leeds Scargill pressurised the local organisation to stand in Leeds Central, where after a lengthy dispute an understanding had been reached that the SLP would not oppose the SP. But this was overridden at the last moment, despite the fact that three Leeds constituencies were left uncontested. Dave Rix was the last-minute SLP candidate in Leeds Central, opposing the SP’s Chris Hill.

In many parts of the country inexperienced SLP branches felt they had neither the resources nor the ability to put up candidates. A few others, most notably in the west of England, took up a dogmatic ‘Trotskyist’ position, ludicrously deciding that it was more important to kick out the Tories by voting for New Labour than it was to stand SLP candidates.

Scargill, for all his sectarianism, at least has more dynamism and vision than these comrades. But instead of trying to patiently win over those branches reluctant to contest, in some cases he bureaucratically went behind their backs and imposed candidates without any consultation.

The Bradford branch, despite having more than 20 members on paper, had sunk into inactivity and virtually ceased to exist. Comrade Scargill was determined however that the SLP should have a presence in the town in the election. He did not attempt to infuse the local membership with a sense of enthusiasm for what was possible by asking an activist to convene a meeting. Instead, just five weeks before the election, he approached Abdul Khan, a leading member of the Kashmiri Workers’ Party in Britain, and persuaded him, having rapidly taken out an SLP membership card, to contest Bradford West.

For a further two weeks comrade Khan was not put in contact with the local members. When Bradford branch secretary Andy Mills was eventually informed of the decision, he was told that the election address had already been printed and so the seat to be contested could not be changed. Ironically comrade Mills had just finished helping to fold the SP’s election addresses for its candidate, Sajjid Shah, in the same constituency.

“It was an NEC decision,” comrade Mills told me.

“We had no say in it. I would have been standing myself if it wasn’t for my university work. Militant helped us in two council by-elections and I wanted to return the favour. Why couldn’t we have stood in Bradford North?”

Howard Oakes, Bradford Socialist Party branch secretary, said that Scargill’s move was divisive: “It will split, confuse and disillusion workers,” he told me before polling day. “They will say, ‘The left are just fighting themselves’.” Comrade Oakes is particularly upset because the British National Party also stood a candidate in the constituency and he felt it was important that the left was shown to be a more powerful force in Bradford, with its large immigrant population. He had himself been forced to change his address after being viciously attacked by a member of Combat 18.

This incident demonstrates the dangers of sectarian disorganisation. If the left fails to build a credible, working class alternative to the mainstream parties, then that alternative could just as easily come from the extreme right.

Peter Manson