10.07.1997

Affiliation as tactic

Terry Burns’ contribution to the debate on the nature of campaigning for Socialist Labour Party democracy touches on a number of issues of central concern to all SLP members. His letter is a spirited call for democracy in the SLP, and a partisan appeal for us all to address the task of

“building a socialist party that is able to reintroduce socialism into the everyday vocabulary and political agenda of working people. A concept of socialism free of the tainted totalitarian states of the east and free of the betrayals of Labourism” Weekly Worker July 3).

Summarising the main points discussed at the Campaign for a Democratic SLP meeting comrade, Burns identifies three issues: the general lack of democracy in the SLP, the need for the campaign to have a journal and the question of affiliation by other socialist and working class organisations to the SLP.

The CDSLP meeting passed a motion calling on Constituency SLPs to only submit congress resolutions aimed at removing those clauses from Scargill’s draft constitution which forbid membership to members of other socialist groups and only allows for affiliation from trade unions and CSLPs.

Comrade Burns states that it is this - what he describes as “the main plank” of the CDSLP - which causes him to question his ongoing involvement in the campaign.

While the basis of the comrade’s concerns are well founded, I believe his conclusions are incorrect as to the basis of the CDSLP. Like comrade Burns, I too believe that the best form of organisation for a revolutionary socialist organisation is not an affiliated federal structure. As Terry desires, I aim for the organisational unity of the best and most resolute fighters for our class in one party at the highest possible level.

As an active participant of the CDSLP meeting, I do not believe that the ‘main plank’ of the campaign concerns affiliation of other parties. This is simply the concrete tactical manifestation of the campaign against the witch hunt.

The amendment for the affiliation is aimed at destroying, concretely, the main weapon of the witch hunt. It is no accident that the very clauses mentioned in the NEC ‘yellow sheet’ distributed at the CDSLP conference banning the ‘right for SLP members to assemble’ are those the campaign calls to change.

Comrade Burns is perfectly correct to say that “the party can be completely democratic with or without affiliations”. The reverse is also true. One has only to look at the internal life of the CPGB under the leadership of the sterile pro-Moscow ‘official communists’ or its Eurocommunist progeny, or at the practices of many of the Trotskyite organisations, from Healy to Cliff.

To discontinue involvement with the CDSLP on the basis that its main plank concerns winning the SLP constitution for affiliation of other working class and socialist groups is spurious. To counter the CDSLP to other democracy campaigns with ‘broader aims’ is equally false. Perhaps it is unfortunate that no statement of aims was developed at the conference, but as far as I am concerned, the call to amend the constitution is merely the best way to achieve the broader aims which comrade Burns has laid out in his letter. That is, to win the SLP to being a

“democratic party where socialists engage in discussion and debate ... a campaigning socialist party with a healthy internal life ... [which will lead to] a deluge of comrades joining the party, cascading in from all the various socialist and campaigning organisations”.

The other campaigns mentioned by Burns have aims which include: “rights of members facing disciplinary charges, the rights for minorities, tendencies and platforms”, inter alia. To my mind, these aims are shared by the CDSLP. Although not part of the proceedings of the June 14 meeting, the decision of the SLP Left Network to establish the CDSLP included a statement to alter Scargill’s draft incorporating the broader measures mentioned by comrade Burns.

At present, the editorial board of the CDSLP’s agreed open publication is formulating a simple statement of aims to be placed in every edition of the journal. I for one would welcome Terry’s contribution to developing such a statement.

What is being debated is a difference over tactics. I support the five points comrade Burns develops in his letter regarding disciplinary action, appeals and the constitution. I believe they are entirely compatible with the aims of the CDSLP. Our difference is in the best way to achieve these aims in the immediate period up to congress.

The SLP leadership will be able to dodge or incorporate any calls for an appeals procedure. Indeed, I have heard reports of Fiscite door-keeper Carolyn Sikorski calling for an appeals procedure to be developed. Such a procedure will only be open to members, so all the witch hunters will have to do is declare an undesirable a non-member and all avenues for appeals are closed to them.

The NEC will be able to push all manner of bureaucratic blocks in the way of discussing the constitution at congress. Scargill has been reduced to lying through his teeth by claiming that the constitution has already been voted on (see his letter to Martin Wicks, Weekly Worker July 3). No, the motion to have only one resolution on the ‘constitution’ go to congress is in order to concentrate our fire.

The SLP has been formed as an affiliate body, with Scargill invoking the early years of the Labour Party as a broad church with

“affiliates includ[ing] the Communist Party, Cooperative Party, various socialist societies and trade unions whose members were automatically regarded as being members” (Future strategy for the left, November 4 1995).

Given that the SLP has been established as an affiliate body, and given that the SLP leadership is conducting a witch hunt against all opposition using clauses limiting affiliation, I, and the majority at the CDSLP meeting, hold that the best way to defeat the witch hunt and work towards those broad aims mentioned by Burns is to remove the bans and proscriptions against communists and others as a step towards opening up the SLP to democracy as Terry Burns wants. I believe this to be more effective than attempting to ban affiliation altogether - including trade union affiliation. Scargill in November 1995 himself linked the development of the Labourite ‘modernisers’ with anti-communist bans and proscriptions. Now he is repeating history at a lower level, which cannot bode well for the future of the SLP. We must make sure that we create the best conditions for putting forward the socialist view of organisation and the future of the SLP.

Dubbing debate sectarian

Another recent missive on developments in the SLP comes from Kirstie Paton of Vauxhall SLP. Writing in Workers Power, Paton complains that the CDSLP and its proposed journal has little to do with the fight for democracy in the SLP and more to do with the ‘pet project’ of the CPGB. She goes on to describe its project of rapprochement as “constructing a loose socialist grouping” (Workers Power July-August 1997). Readers of the Weekly Worker, will know that this in itself is either deliberately dishonest for the sake of Workers Power readers, or rank stupidity. However, to say that the proposed journal has nothing to do with the struggle in the SLP comes from the heart of sectarian dimness which must have taken years to perfect.

Kirstie’s abstract posturing and complaining that the meeting did not get down to specifics on how to fight the witch hunt is mere hot air. Comrades from Socialist Labour Action, of which Kirstie is one, were present at the meeting and I remember no ‘concrete proposals’ from them apart from suggestions that there ought to be such ‘concrete proposals’. The majority resolution to amend Scargill’s draft constitution is a very concrete way to “throw off the bureaucratic constitution imposed on the party” (ibid).The tasks of the CDSLP involve agitating for CSLPs to pass such a resolution for congress and continuing the pressure on the NEC at every available opportunity regarding the rights of expelled members.

Comrade Paton’s brilliant observation that those supporting the CDSLP have “little agreement on the issues facing the broader workers’ movement” is somehow meant to be proof that they cannot issue a publication together. They are in, and surely think others should be in the SLP. But one other task of the publication must be to explore areas of agreement and difference among SLP members on the issues facing our movement, because such avenues of debate and discussion are denied through official SLP channels. It is ABC of any trade union militant that the best way to win a right is to exercise it in practice. That is what we must do with regards to winning the campaign for democracy in the SLP.

The CDSLP must act as a fighting bloc for democracy in the SLP; with this Paton agrees. However, for her this somehow precludes it from thinking, from developing political and programmatic debates. What better weapon for democracy than democracy, openness and debate itself.

Simon Harvey