14.08.1997

Scargill confirms democracy ban

Simon Harvey of the SLP

Arthur Scargill has finally gone into print to defend the Socialist Labour ‘constitution’. In the August edition of Socialist News, our general secretary expounds his views (in the article reprinted here) on why his constitution is sacrosanct, not up for discussion by the membership and how anyone trying to alter it is merely a wrecker and a spoiler.

Not surprisingly, his argument is very weak. As a political personality, Scargill relies much more on heavy handed verbal demagogy than on lucid written debate and polemic. Nevertheless, it is most useful that he has been forced into print in an attempt to justify his autocratic handling of differences within our party.

Scargill’s basic premise is that a party which is not united is weakened. On this level, I could not agree with him more. The point, though, is how to create genuine unity. He also correctly identifies the political situation in which our Socialist Labour Party was founded - “against the backdrop of 18 years of Tory rule, with the British trade union and labour movement divided”.

Given the extent of my agreement with comrade Scargill, you would assume that I would share his conclusion. Fortunately I do not. In a style befitting a Kafkaesque nightmare, Scargill concludes:

“Those involved in convening conferences or meetings or circulating correspondence to CSLPs attacking our constitution and policies are acting against the constitution and must realise that their actions will have to be dealt with accordingly.”

It seems that any criticism or campaigning to change the constitution of the party is banned. The members of our party are not even allowed to challenge anything in the policy documents. Catch-22 par excellence!

Any criticism of the leadership is deemed to be an anti-party action. Scargill’s edict is an attempt to arm a politically weak leadership with a bureaucratic defence mechanism.

The question is how we unite the various strands, traditions, experiences and ideas that already exist in the party. How do we unite the best anti-capitalist militants of our class? How do we move towards a genuine, conscious unity of the entire membership, given the differences that exist from the past and which will exist as life itself develops? How can we move away from the sectarian factionalism which has so befogged the left?

Bureaucratic control will only act as a pressure cooker, drive real differences underground, force people to rely on bureaucratic manoeuvre and lead to snivelling sycophancy towards the leadership. Scargill’s method will not create a healthy party regime. And looking toward the future, a party created around the unquestioned reputation of one trade union leader can only evaporate after that leader is gone. Will Scargill’s method lead to a united party after his retirement or death? Hardly. Internecine battles, long left hidden, will come to the fore - Sikorski and his Fourth Internationalists versus Harpal Brar and his Third Period Stalinists?

Real party unity, lasting party unity can only come from genuine debate and open criticism with disciplined unity in all party actions. No one is advocating a do-as-you-please set-up. The irony of course is that, despite his protestations, Scargill has already established an affiliate party. Six places are reserved on our national executive for trade union representatives. However, while ‘non-political’ organisations are welcome, those committed to socialism such as the Socialist Party, Scottish Militant Labour and the CPGB are excluded. Given that we have an affiliate party, why not open it up to all socialist forces prepared to work together? I personally would prefer a democratic centralist party with the right of open factions. Given that is not the case, I believe all working class, socialist and progressive organisations should be able to join.

What Scargill is afraid of is any political debate. I doubt a rejoinder to his article will be allowed in the pages of Socialist News. Scargill states that “Our fight is against capitalism and not against each other.” Behind this truism, he discloses his fear of the membership. If socialism is the self-liberation of the working class, then it can only achieve power by learning politics for itself, through debating openly and consciously. Scargill’s fear of ‘internecine warfare’ amongst the left is in fact a thinly disguised contempt for theory and political debate. In reality, it discloses the contempt he holds for the membership and our class. Political debate only for the NEC (if you are lucky) - everyone else follow my orders. The entire basis of the party was established not by the membership, but was decided in shady negotiations in the Great Northern Hotel in 1995. If you don’t like it, lump it. Hardly inspiring. Certainly not what is necessary for our class.

Scargill states: “Bitter experience has taught me that no political party of the left can succeed on the basis of a federal structure.” Yes, there is no precedent of our class taking state power with a federal party. However, Scargill has established a ‘federal’ affiliate party - complete with MacDonald’s anti-communist bans and proscriptions. He also lauds the success of Italy’s Communist Refoundation and Spain’s United Left, both based on autonomous left groups operating as factions. Just what is Scargill’s model for success?

In his 1995 document, ‘Future strategy for the left’, and in various public speeches, he makes it fairly clear that it is Keir Hardie’s Labour Party. Where is the success there? Its dependence on the trade union bureaucracy, not on the most militant sections of the class, gave the Labour Party an inherent rightwing bias. Well before Blair, the Labour Party was selling out strikes, fighting the bosses’ wars, sending troops into Ireland. Hardie’s Labour Party is no model for our class to take power. The best model we have to date is Lenin’s party. It is such a party we must fight for still.

In his defence, comrade Scargill harks back to ‘Future strategy for the left’. In that document he erroneously claims that the Labour Party “at the time of its formation had both a constitution and policies which projected a socialist philosophy”. He then adds: “Its affiliates included the Communist Party [I imagine he means the British Socialist Party - precursor to the CPGB, which was never allowed to affiliate], Cooperative Party, various socialist societies and trade unions.” Even so, if this is the heritage Scargill claims from the early years of the Labour Party, why does he reject it in practice now? Indeed, Scargill’s actions have more in common with the ‘modernisers’ he rails against in the very same document.

Scargill lambastes those early ‘modernisers’, MacDonald and Henderson, “who were responsible for expelling the Communist Party from affiliation and introducing the bans and proscriptions which were prevalent in the 30s and later during the Cold War period of the 50s”. Arthur, you have short-circuited the history of the Labour Party. You are Keir Hardie and Ramsay McDonald rolled into one, but at a lower level. Let’s hope you don’t drift further.

Scargill claims that the reason why he could no longer remain a member of the Labour Party was because, with the dropping of clause four, it “had abandoned all pretence of commitment to socialism”. Obviously, he had no problem with the affiliate structure. Yet all those comrades arguing for constitutional change - some of whom Scargill ludicrously claims were never party members - are committed to socialism. Why is there no room for debate around the constitution by fellow socialists and party members who, you will remember, have never had a vote or discussion on the constitution?

The weakness of Scargill’s argument is so patent, so clear. His method may have been developed from 45 years’ of trade union struggle, but it is 45 years where the main lesson he seems to have learnt is to trust no one except himself. His method will either bury the SLP or create it in his own image - a Bonapartist reformist sect. Arthur, you may create your own Camelot, but our class needs more than castles in the air.