30.04.1998

Communist challenge

The CPGB is standing two candidates in Manchester in the May local elections: Steve Riley in Hulme, and John Pearson in Moss Side. The left as a whole is contesting 20 out of 186 wards in Greater Manchester, with 17 SLP candidates and one each from the Socialist Party (formerly known as Militant) and the Socialist Party (formerly known as SPGB).

Surprisingly the Socialist Party (Militant) has moved its candidate, Margaret Manning, from her traditional contest in Rusholme to Barlow Moor. This is in deference to sitting Labour councillor John Byrne, who the SP considers to be leftwing, and presumably worthy of support. This is a tactical question of course. It may indeed be the case, as has been said, that councillor Byrne voted against cuts, or has otherwise not supported the Blair project, but this is not the end of the matter. The point is that Labourism is the problem, not just its right wing. Even if Manchester city council returned a majority of John Byrne types, they would not be fighting to end the rule of capital or overthrow the monarchical United Kingdom state.

The 1980s-style left Labour councils of Manchester and Sheffield were tried, tested and failed - even at the miserable level of reformism. They promised to protect jobs and services and raised their shields against the attacks of the market. Then they threw their dented shields away. They scurried to implement cuts and sackings as fast as their small careerist ambitions would let them. But frankly the Socialist Party, as reformists, have been little better. The leftwing rebellion in Liverpool suffered no less ignominious a defeat. It was first bought off by Heseltine when it should have pitched in wholesale with the miners’ Great Strike. Then it was smashed with all the authority of market forces, ending again in mass sackings and swingeing cuts in services.

No matter how ‘honourable’ the left Labourites and their friends inside and outside the Labour Party think that their fight is, it has been demonstrated time and again that Labourism is no answer, not even its left variant. John Byrne and any others who genuinely want to act in defence of the working class must look beyond Labourism.

The size of the SLP challenge to Labour - perhaps as a result of exhortation from centre - is to be welcomed, given Socialist Labour’s recent steep decline in Manchester. Previous local elections have been characterised by a reluctance to maximise the number of candidates. Even at a time when the SLP’s ability to mount campaigns was at a higher level than it is now. In central Manchester - dominated by followers of the Fourth International Supporters Caucus - almost every one of the Fiscites are standing. Yet Stockport, where the Economic and Philosophic Science Review rules the roost, the one SLP candidate is not an EPSR supporter. In Bolton constituency - the former home of the Lancashire NUM, and now the North West, Cheshire and Cumbria Miners Association - the Kelly family are standing: three in all. The SLP is also contesting three seats in Trafford.

It is a disappointment that the SLP has ended up opposing other left candidates: the CPGB in Moss Side and the Socialist Party (SPGB) in Levenshulme. This is indicative of difficulties which have been experienced in many areas in gaining electoral cooperation amongst the left, and with the SLP in particular. Through the Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance, CPGB comrades aimed for a joint campaign with GMSA affiliates on an agreed minimum platform. This attempt was sabotaged firstly by the Socialist Party. In Manchester it refused to countenance a common campaign, seeing it as more important to promote its own organisation. This decision, expressed first in December 1997 and confirmed in February 1998, would appear to go against SP national policy. At the March Network of Socialist Alliances meeting Dave Griffith of Coventry SP said that there were no principled objections to standing as SA candidates where SAs were strong enough on the ground. Then Paula Mitchell told the London SA meeting that the SP favours its candidates standing under the SA banner where SAs exist; and simply as Socialist Party where they do not.

The next blow against an electoral agreement came from the GMSA itself. At the February meeting of the GMSA committee, in a motion supported by GMSA Labourites, it was decided that the GMSA committee would recommend against forming an electoral alliance. Yet the issue still had to be decided by the GMSA membership. The meeting organised to debate this on February 26 was cancelled by GMSA convenor John Nicholson in favour of an anti-Gulf War meeting. No alternative arrangement was made. The move within the GMSA to stage a coordinated electoral challenge to Labour was wrecked by comrades in the GMSA who still hold onto Labour’s coat tails. This is despite the founding document of the GMSA, ‘A charter for socialist change’, which calls for an electoral strategy to contest local and parliamentary seats on an agreed programme.

Ironically, Fisc member Trevor Wongsam was among three SLP members who turned up for the cancelled electoral platforms meeting. Wongsam went into private conversation with John Killen of Manchester SP. But he stated publicly that he had no wish to come to any agreement with the CPGB. Nevertheless, Manchester CPGB earnestly believes that there should be a united challenge on May 7, with one workers’ candidate in each ward. We have approached the SLP with a view to gaining some agreement even at this late stage. If the SLP candidate will publicly support a minimum platform of working class demands then the CPGB will stand down in Moss Side and support the SLP candidate.

Steve Riley