20.11.1997

Postive and negative

A move to declare the promotion of racist, sexist or homophobic prejudices incompatible with Socialist Labour Party membership, and to initiate disciplinary action against SLP members who are supporters of the homophobic Economic and Philosophic Science Review, has been bureaucratically blocked by SLP acting general secretary, Arthur Scargill.

Wythenshawe and Sale constituency SLP branch had submitted an amendment to a witch hunt motion from the Leicester East branch which is to be considered by the SLP Congress on December 13. Written by the EPSR’s Dave Roberts, the Leicester motion is entitled ‘Defence of the SLP constitution and strengthening the party’ and reads:

“This congress recognises the disruptive influence in the party of people who have political loyalties to opposition parties and groupings. This congress believes:

• That the continued presence in the SLP of people affiliated or ‘in sympathy’ with the anti-SLP stance of the Workers Power group and the CPGB should not be tolerated further.
• That under the cover of a campaign for ‘perfect democracy’ these hostile parties and groupings are organising to destroy the SLP by diverting attention away from the development of socialist understanding and organisation.
• That the struggle for socialism in direct action against capitalism requires above all correct assessment of the current crisis of imperialism and a tried and tested leadership. Not nonsensical provocative and reactionary calls for ‘more’, ‘greater’ or ‘perfect’ democracy.

“The congress resolves to expose the anti-SLP role of the Workers Power group and the CPGB sympathisers, expel them from the SLP and establish firm leadership in the working class war on capitalism and build socialism as the only genuine of democracy [sic].”

Wythenshawe and Sale’s amendment would alter the motion to read:

“This congress recognises the disruptive influence in the party of people who hold political views which are in direct contradiction to the principles of socialism.

“This congress believes that the public expression of racist, sexist, homophobic, and anti-working class prejudices is incompatible with continued membership of the SLP.

“Congress notes, in particular, the presence in the SLP of ‘sympathisers’ of the homophobic publication, Economic and Philosophic Science Review, and calls for their membership to be subjected to an impartial disciplinary procedure.”

Scargill has refused to admit the amendment to the congress agenda, telling the branch that it is “out of order” because it “it seeks to instruct the party to take disciplinary action against party members, as opposed to the motion which refers to people outside the party”. If there is any logic in this argument, then it eludes me and it would have been intriguing to hear comrade Scargill articulate his view during congress debate.

But there are other important implications of Scargill’s ruling. Scargill’s reference to “disciplinary action against party members” ia an acknowledgement that EPSR sympathisers are in the SLP, and he vetoes the suggestion that a challenge should be made to their membership. In doing so, Scargill signals that his favourite Clause II(5) of his constitution - “A member of the party who becomes a member of and/or supports a political organisation other than the party shall automatically be ineligible to become or remain a party member” - is not to be applied to Royston Bull, Dave Roberts and the rest of the EPSR group.

Previously, Scargill has said that the clause would be used to “deal accordingly” with SLP members who, for instance, attend meetings to “coordinate campaigns to challenge the SLP constitution” (‘Scargill bans democracy’ Weekly Worker June 19). Scargill’s determination to crush democracy campaigns in the SLP was firmly stated in his article, ‘Tackling danger head on’ (Socialist News August 1997). Antipathy to democracy is, of course, something that he shares with the EPSR. Cardiff SLP member Terry Burns has described how he was stopped at the door of the conference of the Campaign for a Democratic SLP with the assertion that “too much democracy caused the USSR to collapse” (‘Democracy and the SLP’ Weekly Worker July 3). The ‘picket’ was comrade Adrian Greenman of the EPSR.

Scargill has moved to protect the Bullites despite his being well aware of the series of homophobic articles published in the EPSR. He received a strongly worded complaint from the SLP’s Lesbian and Gay Commission, in a letter dated April 29 1997. This had reported, inter alia, that

“in recent editions of the EPSR they have asserted that homosexuals are ‘prone’ to paedophilia, that lesbians and gay men are clandestine and enemies of the working class; derided SLP policy as a ‘paedophile’s charter’, and suggested, as an alternative, state surveillance of lesbians and gay men and the restriction of [their] employment”.

Scargill had earlier been presented with full details of the EPSR anti-homosexual tirades by myself. Space precludes the reprinting of these (see ‘Homophobia thrives in the SLP’ Weekly Worker July 10). Scargill declined to put the Lesbian and Gay Commission’s complaint to the NEC, but replying that no action was to be taken because there was no evidence that SLP members were involved in the EPSR group. Belying this feigned ignorance, the following four issues of the SLP’s Socialist News contained no less than six articles by EPSR feature writers Douglas Bell, Don Hoskins, Joe Harper and Royston Bull.

The November/December issue of Socialist News contains an article entitled, ‘More than meets the eye’, which states: “It is crucially important for workers to educate themselves out of the backwardness of sexism, racism and homophobia.” Surreally the author is ... EPSR leader and SLP vice-presidential candidate Royston Bull. I can imagine him wincing as he wrote those words. No doubt Bull is attempting to negate the effect of the disclosures carried in the Weekly Worker - perhaps in cooperation with Scargill himself.

It is now evident that the EPSR is not only an approved faction within the SLP, but one which Scargill is prepared to take political risks to protect. Why? Arthur Scargill may have been the most militant and well known union leader of the post-war period, who has led the miners’ union in more than one determined challenge to the bourgeois state, but it has long been apparent that, as a working class leader, he has an acute sense of his own greatness. His model for the working class party of a new type is one of unquestioning foot soldiers led by an authoritative Bonaparte-like leader. “Anyone who cannot accept the constitution and policies of our party [made by Scargill himself and the small clique around him] should not be a member” (‘Tackling danger head on’). “Our party’s policy [on the European Union] is for a complete withdrawal. Those who take a different view should, in line with the constitution, accept the party’s policy or join a pro-European party” (letters to Martin Wicks, spokesperson for the ‘Swindon’ democracy group, Weekly Worker July 3). Neither the policy on Europe, nor the party’s constitution, has yet been discussed by a conference of the SLP.

In such a party, a group like the EPSR is an essential requirement. They can be relied on as spies, as destroyers of democratic debate, as witchhunters and denouncers of ‘oppositionists’.

As with all praetorian guards, macho arrogance is only to be expected. And their little self-gratificatory indulgences have to be covered up or excused.

John Pearson