WeeklyWorker

30.10.1997

Leadership splits begin to show

Simon Harvey of the SLP

As SLP congress approaches, divisions begin to open up at the top of the organisation. The cracks begin to show. This is not surprising. Internal party struggles conducted in an anti-democratic fashion, through the use of a witch hunt, tend to turn in on themselves.

Undoubtedly, the clique around Scargill, still too weak in size and cadre to constitute itself as a stable bureaucracy, will be attempting to paste the wallpaper over these cracks at congress. But this could prove no easy task.

Significant in this respect is a report I have recently heard coming from West Lewisham CSLP in south London. It was proposed by one comrade that Arthur Scargill should be nominated as president and that London regional president Brian Heron be nominated for the general secretary/treasurer post.

West Lewisham is also home to current NEC member, and congress organiser, Terry Dunn. He would have none of it. According to Dunn, Heron has been an unhelpful influence on the NEC.

Comrade Dunn is viewed by many as a loyal Scargill sycophant. His comments surely point to growing divisions - divisions which may prove fatal, for some members of the NEC at least.

Europe

Beneath such apparently superficial differences, of course, lie deeper programmatic and policy splits which cannot be wished away. They can only be clarified by open and intransigent ideological struggle - within the party, yet in front of the class.

Europe is fundamental in this. Gordon Brown is not the only one with a headache over Europe. Debate on this issue will continue to dominate all classes in British society in the coming period.

Current SLP policy is to “come out of Europe and into the world”. The position reveals the completely reformist and nationalist character of those in the party who support the policy. It displays a ‘Britain first, then Europe’ belief in reforming capitalism, state by state. It is the old CPGB programme of the British Road to Socialism trying to be reborn.

It must be noted that the current policy was not decided by the founding conference of the party. Europe was cynically dropped down the agenda to avoid debate and the present policy was imposed by the NEC. The motion agreed by the pre-conference working group on Europe - which maintained a position of fighting for a workers’ Europe against the bosses’ EU club - was ‘accidentally’ left out of the conference papers altogether.

Resolutions 29, 30 and 31, put forward by Dulwich, Darlington and Cardiff South CSLPs, would mean a complete turn-around in party policy for the better. All in essence call for a Europe run by the working class. All say that the European working class should not pay for the capitalists’ attempt to integrate their system. All state that socialism is international or it is something else. All decry petty nationalism and the narrow ‘little Englandism’ which has so marred the workers’ movement in this country.

The resolutions have the hallmarks of the different traditions within the left that the comrades come from. I hope that party members who support a vital change in policy on Europe are able to come together and support one of the motions. If not, I believe all three should be supported. The motion from Cardiff South, while not in any essential contradiction to the other two, contains practical demands for action as well as correct principles. It reads, in part:

“The SLP fully supports the magnificent struggle of workers across Europe fighting back against the bosses’ attempts to make us pay for their single currency and European market.

“However, we should not line up with the nationalism of the ‘Little Englanders’ or ‘Eurosceptics’ who want to defend ‘British sovereignty’. Inside or outside Europe, workers will continue to be exploited by capitalism. Instead we should fight for the following action programme:

Although I do not agree with all the formulations in this resolution it is a clear break from the narrow national socialist policy the party currently has. I will be voting for it, and the other two resolutions, in December. I wonder where Sikorski, Heron and their ilk will be placing their mark - for internationalism or nationalist opportunism?

Stalin

Some may say that Scargill’s adoption of Stalinism, illustrated by his speech in Southall last weekend (see back page), was inevitable. I ask why? Why has he turned to Harpal Brar and, heaven help us, Roy Bull for an explanation of the collapse of the USSR and not to Heron and Sikorski? Given that influencing Scargill was clearly part of Fisc’s strategy, with Heron’s beautiful spin on the British road to socialism in Capital and Class just after the SLP’s formation, why couldn’t Scargill have developed in that direction?

Scargill, no great theoretician, clearly relies on populism for his political demagoguery. To opt for a public pro-Stalin position in Britain in 1997 is to seek political suicide. The leaders of the old ‘official communist’ parties - especially those in Europe - would not dare do such a thing. Clearly, the nature of the witch hunt, and the fact that Scargill has felt the need to undertake one, has shaped not only the development of the SLP, but the development of Scargill’s politics.