26.02.1998

Scare stories

Simon Harvey of the SLP

As the SLP’s star wanes, the Socialist Alliances are developing new life. Having faded to almost nothing over the last two years in England and Wales, the Alliances are developing potential as a fruitful arena for building a political challenge and alternative to Blair. All this threatens Scargill’s sectarian and exclusive project. Scargill has refused all electoral cooperation with others on the left, including the Scottish Socialist Alliance.  And as last November’s Paisley by-election shows, the SLP can be the loser. The SLP gained just half the number of votes achieved by the SSA.

Those familiar with Scargill’s method know that he does not react to such developments in an honest or rational way. Self-belief becomes self-delusion.

At the last meeting of the SLP’s national executive committee, Scargill reported on developments relating to the European parliament elections to be held in 1999. Scargill claims to have obtained a leaked home office report whose recommendations would effectively ban electoral alliances. Political parties would have to register to stand in elections, he claimed.

Of course, there is the possibility that this is true and that there is a conspiracy of silence amongst bourgeois journalists against reporting this home office document, which would signify a substantial shift in British electoral law. Or perhaps it has only been leaked to the SLP.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that our comrade leader is indulging in scaremongering. Morale in the SLP is low. The SLP in Scotland is considering liquidating into the Scottish Socialist Alliance. Branch activity is feeble, and just about everyone thinks that the second congress of the party was an anti-democratic farce.

With MEPs Hugh Kerr and Ken Coates kicked out of New Labour, and then pointedly deciding not to join the SLP, demoralised members are noting the rekindled interest in the Alliances and looking hopefully towards them. Scargill pathetically and self-defeatingly wants to stem the tide by spreading disinformation to the membership with the intention of preventing SLP work in the Socialist Alliances amongst the rank and file. Scargill seems prepared to resort to all manner of tactics to ensure the party does not stray from impotent sectarianism.

Marxist Bulletin

Desperate times, desperate measures. With the SLP project looking decidedly uncertain, the Marxist Bulletin - one time arch-‘loyalists’ on the party’s left - seems to have been sent into a spin. Whereas the Fourth International Supporters Caucus has no pretence of revolutionary politics, the Marxist Bulletin comrades attempted to portray themselves as the SLP’s very own revolutionary tendency. No longer. In the last issue of the Marxist Bulletin, they criticised the CPGB for not knowing when to “break from a corrupt political framework” with the decided implication that they do. Well, no half measures here.

The Marxist Bulletin comrades holding positions in at least one CSLP have resigned, not from the SLP - yet - but from branch executive positions. They have also withdrawn from the SLP’s Democratic Platform. As well as being a rather confused reaction - not all of their editorial board appear to have resigned from CSLP executive positions - it is also silly. If they are preparing to leave the SLP - perhaps they have now concluded it is a “corrupt political framework” - then it seems rather puerile to abandon positions on party branches. What better position to argue your corner than on the leadership? Although I understand that the Marxist Bulletin is not officially synonymous with the International Bolshevik Tendency, the group to which most MB supporters once belonged, the fact that the IBT in the US has recently suffered a major split must have sown not a little disorientation and demoralisation among these comrades.

Dunn and the block vote

Former NEC member Terry Dunn continues his campaign around the ‘unconstitutionality’ of the block vote of the North West, Cheshire and Cumbria Miners Association. Last week I noted that the exercise of the NWCCMA block vote breached the statutes of the SLP. I have no doubt this is true and thank comrade Dunn for bringing this to my attention.

But, what to do? The practice of our general secretary is to ride roughshod over even his own constitution, if it suits him. Comrade Dunn is not the first person to point out such anomalies. However, unless comrade Dunn is prepared and able to mount a party-wide campaign against the leadership, his cause is lost. Failing that, the only realistic possibility would be a legal challenge and its inevitable consequence - the defeat of the party leadership by a bewigged member of the ruling class. Perhaps these facts are dawning upon Dunn? I have heard that he is thinking of leaving altogether. I hope not. All I can say to the comrade is that you might still find allies in places where you have not yet dared to tread.

SLP Scotland

The SLP in Scotland met in aggregate last Saturday. Under 20 comrades attended. I have not had a full report from this meeting, but understand that all comrades feel that the party’s 2nd Congress was a travesty of democracy. However, some seem to think this is acceptable - all political organisations have their flaws, but at least we’ve got Arthur - or at least so the thinking goes. Another understandable criticism is that the party’s NEC still has no Scottish representation. No wonder even the most loyal of Scargillites have an eye on developments in the Scottish Socialist Alliance.