23.10.1997

Cracks begin to open up

Socialist Party conference

The anodyne micro-report of the Socialist Party’s recent conference that appeared in the organisation’s newspaper (The Socialist September 26) is frankly not worth reading. It tells its readership nothing about the real dynamics, the real debates and what this means for the SP.

We have made the point numerous times that the SP resembles the old ‘official’ Communist Party a great deal. The opportunist leadership of this organisation also produced bland reports of its congresses, attempting to gut the proceedings of real political content, as if the differences cleaving the organisation would somehow melt away if they were not made public. The SP - with it formal commitment to openness and post-Stalinist democracy - would do well to take warning.

In fact, real problems were on display in this important meeting.

First, in the number and type of delegates. Despite the hype surrounding the name change from ‘Militant Labour’ and the determinedly up-beat assessment of the organisation’s immediate prospects, it is clear that the SP continues to decline organisationally. The 120 delegates were in general older than at previous conferences. More importantly, included in this total were numerous full-timers and national committee members. Normally this layer would attend with voting rights automatically; this time they were there as representatives from branches.

This does not indicate that the conference organisers anticipated a rough ride from a coherent opposition and decided to beef up the delegates with ‘heavies’ - far from it: the organised opposition at the conference was pathetic. No, what it shows is that the SP is down to the bare essentials. The full-timers and national committee members were there to fill holes left by the steady decline in the organisation’s cadre base.

Taking them as a barometer of activity, paper sales must make depressing reading for the leadership. Circulation stands at between 1,800 and 2,000 a week. This is a big slump since the general election and is way down on the old Militant. Given the ‘popular’ nature of The Socialist, its sales are squeezed in this reactionary period. Primarily, the slump reflects organisational problems, however. Thus, a figure was bandied around of 1.3 paper sales per member, which is unimpressive enough. When you consider that this statistic must include bookshops, subscriptions, complimentaries and so on, we get a sobering picture of the real level of activity of the SP branches. In many areas, there is barely a flicker of life.

Interesting - and again like ‘official communism’ - the delegates tended to vote in regional blocks. This is indicative of the fact that local fiefdoms are being created as the SP’s opportunist programme pulls its constituent parts in different directions,

This has been taken to its most extreme in Scotland under the influence of nationalism. While there were 30 delegates from London alone, Scotland had no more than a token presence, described by one delegate as having more of the taste of being “fraternal” visitors rather than being an integral part of the same. Significant in this context is the fact that Alan McCombes - the effective leader of Scottish Militant Labour - was not present at the conference.

There was a “hidden polemic” over Scotland. Frances Curran (SML candidate in Paisley South) gave the organisation’s main report, which underlined that it intends to stick with the Scottish Socialist Alliance and even - to the surprise of some SP comrades - that the Communist Party’s involvement was welcome, as it ‘sharpened up’ SML comrades. Mike Waddington - SP’s national organiser - also spoke in this part of the conference. Essentially, the implicit argument was over the future direction of the Scottish organisation. As we have reported, general secretary Peter Taaffe and the SP leadership have tried to persuade SML to dump the SSA (just as it has dumped the Socialist Alliances in most other parts of the country) and follow the ‘Taaffe orientation’ of concentrating on building its own organisation. After all, it is proving so successful everywhere else ...

Likewise, the district of Liverpool - relatively strengthened since the general election - asserted its autonomy from the leadership. This has taken both financial and - significantly - the beginnings of a political form. Dave Cotterill - a key figure in the area - organised what was called an “ambush” over the question of European Monetary Union against leading SP intellectual and editor of the party’s theoretical journal, Lynn Walsh.

Essentially, Walsh had foolishly argued that Emu was rendered “impossible” because of the ‘inevitable’ prospect of a slump. Quite correctly, Cotterill suggested that this was untrue, that an extension of the credit system, for example, could delay any downward oscillation. The bush-whack was efficient and backed by solid research. It forced a compromise on the final resolution.

Another telling straw in the wind came when Liverpool abstained as a block on one of the resolutions moved by the totally marginalised Hearse opposition.

Inevitably, the South Wales organisation has also started to assert itself, speaking of the growth of left republicanism. The fact that its only partners in the Wales Socialist Alliance are the distasteful anti-English nationalists of Cymru Goch is also significant.

As readers of this paper will know, the SP contained a small organised left faction around national committee member Phil Hearse (see the faction’s article, ‘Socialist democracy and democratic centralism’, Weekly Worker August 28). The resolutions sponsored by the trend were easily brushed aside by the leadership, which secured a very comfortable majority for its line.

In the immediate aftermath of this setback, the group has resigned from the SP. We will be featuring more detailed statements from them in the near future, but we should make it clear that this is a totally unprincipled course. The comrades should have remained within the organisation, accepted its discipline and worked to convince comrades of the mistakes of the SP majority. The last thing the movement needs is another group of sectarian splitters.

Mark Fischer