04.09.1997

Manchester Socialist Alliance relaunch

Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance has entered its second year of existence with an organisational restructuring and the adoption of a programme of debates and activities aimed at building its socialist unity project.

Affiliations have been secured from the Socialist Party, CPGB, Alliance for Workers Liberty, Socialist Outlook, International Socialist League, and the North West Campaign for a Democratic Socialist Labour Party.

Each affiliated organisation has a place on the steering committee which will meet monthly and which will receive reports from designated link persons on current campaigns and struggles. The steering committee will also carry out the organisational work arising from the Socialist Alliance’s initiatives.

There will be a monthly full membership meeting, incorporating a bi-monthly programme of debates. The first series of debates are to be on: Scottish and Welsh devolution; Labour and the trade unions; Europe; proportional representation; and Ireland.

The November GMSA meeting will be dedicated to an attempt to secure a socialist unity platform for future local and parliamentary elections in the area. GMSA’s convener is a member of the Socialist Alliances Network liaison group, set up at the June 7 national forum of Socialist Alliances, and he will report to GMSA meetings on the activities of the liaison group.

The Greater Manchester branch of the Socialist Labour Party, which affiliated last year to GMSA, no longer exists, and it is to be regretted that the SLP is not now an affiliate. In its application to affiliate to GMSA, the CDSLP(NW) described the fight for democracy in the SLP, and the aim of securing the removal from the SLP’s draft constitution of those clauses which debar affiliation to the SLP of working class, socialist and progressive organisations, and which deny individual SLP membership to persons who are members or supporters of other political organisations.

It went on to explain the CDSLP’s views on the importance of open discussion of the problems encountered during the struggle to democratise the SLP, and the need to link this discussion with the fight for socialism in the working class movement. Manchester CDSLP comrades will be striving to secure official SLP involvement in the GMSA, and at the very least SLP participation in the electoral alliance.

John Pearson