11.06.1998
Manchester Alliance in trouble
There is now little doubt that the new course set upon by the Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance is to paddle itself up a sectarian backwater as fast and as far as it can get. The GMSA annual conference last month was stage-managed to get the result of excluding the Communist Party from active participation. It ended the previous system of automatic representation on the steering committee for each affiliated organisation. The manager of this farce, John Nicholson, used a charade of voting and democracy to reduce discussion to one minute and refuse to let candidates speak on their nominations. By the end of the meeting he was reduced to screaming “shut up” at those who raised objections (see Weekly Worker May 21 for a full report). Now the clique organised round Nicholson hopes to build a CPGB-free zone.
The GMSA ‘Europe’ meeting on Thursday June 4 provided confirmation. The organiser, Chris Jones, could only organise a whimper.
Originally the meeting was organised by the GMSA as a debate between different platforms on the issue of European integration. John Pearson from the Campaign for a Democratic SLP was nominated to provide an internationalist position for the debate. Jones, who takes exception to comrade Pearson’s support for the Weekly Worker however, insisted that the platform was already too full to allow any more speakers on it. Incidentally all of Jones’ proposed speakers would be sympathetic to his own little-England brand of ‘internationalism’. At the thinly attended GMSA steering committee meeting which discussed this point, Jones’ attack on debate and diversity was supported by Mark Caterall of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and Noel Pine of the Socialist Party of England and Wales. Then voting three to two, with Steve Riley of the CPGB joining comrade Pearson, the previously agreed GMSA agenda of a debate on Europe was set aside in favour of merging it with a rally to build for the Cardiff demo.
Having triumphed in the committee, the ‘joint meeting’ organiser was determined to have all the speakers from the rally and none from the debate. And this is where Jones came unstuck. One after another his promised speakers dropped out. (He had promised a big name, MEP Michael Hindley, to be joined by a Green Party spokesperson and a fraternal comrade of Socialist Outlook from Germany.)
On the evening before the meeting with not a speaker in sight, a desperate call was made for Mark Caterall to step in. Comrade Mark did what he could at short notice. But why did Jones not call the one person who had been prepared to speak all along: last year’s GMSA committee member, paid up individual member and representative of affiliated organisation, comrade John Pearson? To which question, for the ears of the assembled comrades he replied: “You’re surprised that I didn’t ask John. Well, I’m surprised that you’re surprised.”
Comrades may wonder at the flippancy of this GMSA committee member who recently pledged himself to building a democratic inclusive organisation with a non-sectarian way of working, yet does not want to see a left opponent on the platform. These crass sectarian antics have shown up the committee and embarrassed the GMSA as a whole. John Nicholson who said little all evening, left the building with a face like a smacked arse.
The GMSA cannot succeed in this manner. Its way of working must include all partisans of the working class. Revolutionaries and democrats on the committee must now see that the exclusivist changes pushed through at the May annual conference were a mistake.
By far the most important initiative of the evening came from CPGB, CDSLP, SLP and independent comrades with the call for a unified left platform against the Labour Party in the forthcoming European elections. Unsurprisingly, this was not taken up by John Nicholson or by the AWL, SO or SP comrades - all members of the GMSA steering committee. It remains to be seen whether the GMSA will honour its previous commitments to stand candidates in next year’s campaign.
Steve Riley