22.01.1998

Fisc in a twist

Simon Harvey of the SLP

Well, Fisc have got themselves into something of a bind, haven’t they? As the Sikorskis, Pat and Carolyn, and Brian Heron sit down at this month’s national executive meeting, I wonder what must be going through their minds as new NEC member (and Stalin Society aficionado) Harpal Brar waxes lyrical on the need to drive Trotskyites from the ranks of the SLP.

Trapped by the circumstances of history - or rather, trapped by their semi-Nietzschean concept of history - they will no doubt bide their time and bite their lip, their position on the NEC greatly weakened after the December congress.

They will of course be minus their ‘more principled’ comrades, Roshan Dadoo and Imran Khan. Both refused to take their positions on the NEC in protest at the abolition of the black section - a constitutional amendment sponsored by comrade Brar.

Richard Tisdell, whose views appear to be very close to those of Fisc, has put in writing some of the contradictions and frustrations they must be experiencing. The Weekly Worker (January 15)published his contribution to a discussion going on in Lewisham and Greenwich SLP. Comrade Tisdell makes it clear that he was “shocked and dismayed” at the utilisation of the 3,000 block vote which “demonstrated a contempt for the rank and file” and resulted in the abolition of the black sections. The comrade notes that the “party has become the object of ridicule”.

His solution? Comrade Tisdell writes: “It is important that rank and file party members strive for the maximum possible unity in the struggle for internal democracy. I believe that this will be achieved by concentrating our campaign on the issues of opposition to the black vote and supporting reinstatement of the black section.” Now, here is the rub.

Comrade Tisdell wants to change the constitution of the SLP. This is a path fraught with danger. Anyone who has followed the development of the SLP knows that, in what is a classic Catch 22 situation, it is against the constitution to campaign to change the constitution.

No doubt he wants to do so ‘cleverly’ and certainly as a partisan of the SLP. Well, comrade, no matter what you think of those in the party who have been campaigning against the witch hunt and for a change in the original, imposed, constitution, they too, like myself, did so genuinely, with the interests of the SLP as a whole in mind.

Richard says: “We should resist the temptation to disregard the authority of the NEC. There is every reason to expect that attempts to behave in the way that Southwark [Vauxhall - ed], Cardiff and others have in the past will be met with decisive action.” But then in his concrete proposals, the comrade suggests: “We make clear to NEC members that we are not prepared to provide candidates and fund elections if we continue to be denied effective democratic representation at party congress.”

What is this other than ignoring the authority of the NEC? And it should be pointed out that Vauxhall CSLP, despite being suspended and its entire membership being threatened with expulsion, continued as a matter of principle to stand, fund and campaign for a parliamentary candidate.

Those who fought the witch hunt from day one, including its first victims, were always at pains to point out that it really had nothing to do with the CPGB per se. It was about the type of party we were building. In a classic repetition of history, albeit on a diminutive scale, we have a farcical replay of the parable of Pastor Niemöller: “First they came for the communists, but I was not a communist ...” Starting with a witch hunt against the communists, we quickly saw the net widen. It has now extended to the very edges of Fisc’s political spectrum. Roland Wood and Dave Osler, partisans of the United Secretariat, have been ‘cashiered’ out of the party - kicked out for supposedly falling behind with their dues.

Just who will be next? The future of the witch hunt hangs in the balance. Will Scargill back off, secure in the knowledge of 3,000 votes in his back pocket? Will his hand be stayed by more independent minded NEC members such as Joe Marino, or will he ‘finish the Trots off’, urged on by Harpal Brar and the ravings of the Economic and Philosophic Science Review?

So whatever happens, comrade Richard Tisdell, and no doubt his Fiscite co-thinkers are in a bind. For my money, they are more than welcome to work with the Democratic Platform in achieving our joint aims, spelt out by comrade Tisdell, as “striv[ing] for the maximum possible unity in the struggle for internal democracy”. The door is open, Brian, Carolyn, Pat and co.

Block votes and a federal party

In the light of ongoing division at the top of the party as to the use of the block vote, it is worthwhile looking at the NEC’s report to congress. A subsection of this report is titled ‘Building on our aims and constitution’, which largely seems to be a thinly veiled response to the coverage of the SLP within the pages of the Weekly Worker.

The view that the SLP has a potential to win mass support, it says, “prevails even among critics on the left and those critics include, sadly, some comrades who despite actually joining the SLP have maintained a constant sniping at Socialist Labour’s constitution and leadership”.

The NEC report states: “The only other challenge to our party’s constitution is an attempt - yet again - to change Socialist Labour into a federally structured organisation, something the SLP has made clear it will not become - because that is a sure recipe for disaster.”

The report continues in a similar vein: “The decision to build a unitary - not a federal - party is one of Socialist Labour’s founding principles. It is a cornerstone. People who believe in federalism, and believe that Socialist Labour should be based on a federal structure, cannot in honesty be members of this Party.”

Only the terminally stupid or the wilfully dishonest can deny that a party which comprises affiliates exercising block votes is a federally structured organisation. This threat of expulsion for merely wanting constitutional change makes clear one message to the members - ‘This is not your party’. Whose “decision” was it to build a “unitary” party? Certainly not the membership’s.

Harpal Brar is clearly one individual who does want a unitary party. At least the comrade is consistent. He was vilified by Brian Heron at congress for trying to turn Socialist Labour into a Bolshevik-type party. If only this was so. Comrade Heron is clearly in favour of a bureaucratic federal party, complete with the anti-communist clauses of the Labour Party introduced by Ramsay MacDonald.

Writing in Lalkar, the paper of the Indian Worker’s Association (GB), comrade Brar correctly points out Fisc’s hypocrisy regarding the use of the block vote to abolish the black section. No one seemed to cry foul over the use of Fisc’s ‘own’ block vote - that of the black section itself. Comrade Brar’s desire for a unitary party led him to oppose the black section. It will no doubt lead him to oppose the women’s section next.

My position is for one of consistency. A workers’ party ultimately needs democratic centralism in order to achieve unity and take power. But if this stage of the rearticulation of a workers’ party is based on affiliation, then it should be open to all working class, socialist and progressive organisations, subject to congress approval, who will accept the policies and constitution of the party. This would permit the affiliation of all anti-capitalist forces and allow the SLP to become the “party of all left-thinking people”, as comrade Frank Cave put it during congress.

There is clearly no way such a reform in the SLP’s constitution is going to come about without some ‘road to Damascus’ conversion by its founder-leader. The SLP’s chances of becoming the progressive force its foundation promised are now very slim indeed. The battle over the SLP constitution has shifted. It is now the bureaucratic unitarists, such as Brar and other Stalinites, versus the Trotskyite bureaucratic federalists of Fisc. While Fisc played anti-communist doorkeeper, they had the ear of Scargill. Who plays Cerebus now?

Union affiliate

I have been making further enquiries about the North West, Cheshire and Cumbria Miners’ Association. I previously stated: “It seems this is not a trade union after all, but a retired miners’ association” (Weekly Worker January 8). This perhaps gives the wrong impression. In fact, the NWCCMA is, it seems, the living shadow of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (the forerunner to the National Union of Mineworkers). The NUM was previously a loose federation of various miners’ associations and it would appear that when the structure, and name, of the union changed, the former miners’ associations were not wound up, but utilised as bodies of retired miners. They still carry out some of the service function, such as representation regarding pension payouts. In that sense, these miners’ associations shadow trade unions. The amalgam of the North West, Cheshire and Cumbria is connected with the long and slow decline of the British coal industry. The great miners’ leader of the 20s, A J Cook, wrote of the dwindling number of mines when he moved to south Wales almost 100 years ago.

Today the Lancashire NUM no longer operates as a separate region of the union. It was incorporated into the national structure and now runs a local office of the national union.

My thanks to a Yorkshire NUM activist for the clarification.