26.03.1998

SLP to boycott Blair’s referendum

Simon Harvey of the SLP

The London regional committee of the SLP is calling for a boycott of Blair’s referendum for a London Government Authority. The decision was unanimous. That there was no dissent indicates a shift in position by Brian Heron, who had previously spoken against a boycott at CSLP meetings. Comrades from the London regional committee have been assigned to develop a campaigning strategy.

I welcome the decision and look forward to campaigning against Blair’s rigged referendum. The government’s white paper on a London authority is out. It has one take-it-or-leave-it, question: do you want a mayor and local authority for London? More akin to a dictator’s plebiscite than a genuine referendum.

There is no genuine extension of democracy for Londoners envisaged in the new authority. The mayor will be a US-style executive dictator, working hand-in-hand with the City and other vested interests of the ruling class to develop policy set to be approved or otherwise by a ‘slimlined’ elected authority. Blair has in mind a complete transformation of local government. Old Labour sleaze to be replaced by a thoroughly modern variety - a caste of professional decision makers hand picked from the bourgeois parties. Small business graft and influence of a petty nature to be pushed aside by big business, big bucks and Branson. Such is the ‘new Britain’ of New Labour.

So far, the response of the SLP to Blair’s top-down constitutional reformation has been haphazard. In the Scottish devolution referendum the party voted ‘yes, yes’ along with Labour, the Scottish National Party, Liberal Democrats, Scottish Militant Labour and dissident Tories.

In Wales, the story was different. In the lead up to the referendum, Scargill single-handedly ordered the postponement of the Welsh party conference to head off criticism and probable removal of Welsh secretary, ‘his man in Wales’ Dave Proctor. This left the party completely unarmed in the face of Blair’s proposals.

It now appears that elements of the SLP in Scotland are calling for Scottish independence (see below). A dog’s breakfast if ever there was one. This comes from Scargill’s incoherent method of party building. A thousand flowers are allowed to bloom, so long as his central bureaucratic authority is left unchallenged. On certain questions which are integral to Scargill’s authority, such as Europe, debate is severely curtailed. Other issues of little concern to our general secretary, such as constitutional change and the national question, are left to spontaneity.

The Fiscite spin on this is de facto regional autonomy within the party. A tendency to geographical federalism based not on political principle, but on an opportunist approach to ‘unity’. It is thought that Scottish comrades should decide on Scottish issues, Welsh on Welsh, Londoners on London ... Such an approach has plunged Peter Taaffe’s Socialist Party into crisis beginning with the desertion of Panther UK, Scottish Militant Labour declaring for independence and various regions, like Liverpool, declaring financial independence.

Socialist News

The eleventh issue of our party’s paper is out. Again it is characterised by its extreme eclecticism. Apart from reading about Malcolm Mead’s holiday in Cuba, we get a lesson from Paul Lockwood on the difference between the incorrect term of ‘command economy’ apparently used to describe the USSR by “‘left’ sneerers” and the correct term of ‘planned economy’. And Paddy Lloyd argues that we need to “broaden our perception of fighting for the disenfranchised to include animals”!

Of more substance is Chris Herriot’s article, ‘Hidden history: Scotland’s past of oppression and insurrection’. According to comrade Herriot, through the Act of Union (1707), “Scotland was reduced to the status of a mere commodity and sold to her neighbour by a ‘parcel of rogues’”. While he does not directly call for Scottish independence, it is implied. The entire article is prefaced as arguments against “those who argue against Scotland’s independence”.

The comrade’s descent into nationalism is clear when he points out the act of union was agreed by a Scottish parliament “drawn from the rich and the powerful; neither elected by nor accountable to the majority of Scottish people” - as if the English and Welsh masses had a democratic say.

The comrade then unwittingly undermines his indirect argument for Scottish independence. He states: “the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745 further complicated the question of home rule, since it posed one dynasty against the other, and pitted highlander against lowlander”. The national oppression of the Scots, which is central to his mystified argument, is revealed as aristocratic feuding, no doubt fought with the blood of the toiling masses, as ever such wars were.

Fending off arguments about Scotland’s integral role in the British Empire’s rapacious and blood-thirsty plunder of the world, comrade Herriot feebly argues “there is nothing unique about oppressed peoples being used by imperialism as the tools to crush other oppressed peoples”.

Homophobic ranter and ex-Trotskyite raver Royston Bull is given the back page this issue. “Arrogance? Hypocrisy? Absolutely, and almost (but not quite) beyond belief” argues the editor of Economic and Philosophic Science Review. Alas, he is not talking about himself or the SLP regime, but the Lord Chancellor’s luxurious refurbishments. The irony is most beautiful: “Hypocrites or what?” screams the headline. “Double standards rule the roost, says Royston Bull”. For once, I agree with you Roy.