16.07.1998

For a new party

“A totally open and public document for discussion amongst members and sympathisers of the London Socialist Alliance and all the London borough Socialist Alliances”, written by Toby Abse of Lewisham SA

Much of the discussion at the Sunday July 5 general meeting of the London Socialist Alliance got bogged down in administrative details about the LSA’s structure, leading many comrades unfamiliar with the entire prior history of our minuscule organisation to wonder whether there were any significant political differences at stake or whether we were just enjoying arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It is not my intention here to suggest an agreed structure is not required, nor to suggest that any type of structure selected at random would do, but to argue that the essence of what divides us is our totally divergent political projects, not essentially contingent organisational questions which can be sorted out at the autumn conference.

The majority of us on both sides of the debate are thinking, whatever the divergences of the time scale, in terms of building a party (whilst there may be important pragmatic reasons for delaying this until after the Euro elections, I think only a minority would accept the Peter McLarren objection to a party as such). The fundamental question is what sort of party do we want to build. The CPGB are seeking to reforge the Communist Party: in other words they are seeking to build a democratic centralist Leninist revolutionary vanguard party which would have no room for left reformists or social democrats (as an historian I would question whether the actually existing CPGB of 1920-1991 ever bore much resemblance to this model, but this is irrelevant to the matter at hand). Whilst certain formulations beloved of the CPGB (such as ‘national socialism’ when referring to the Scottish Socialist Party) are eerily reminiscent of third period Stalinism, they ostensibly seek a united front. However, tactical protestations of willingness to work with left reformists in articles addressed to LSA members are always contradicted by more theoretical polemics envisaging a purely revolutionary regroupment printed side by side.

The CPGB may be publicly critical of Stalin, embrace the notion of world revolution (rather than socialism in one country), albeit in an extreme form - it has to break out on the same day in every country, and have some sort of bureaucratic collectivist analysis of the old USSR and the surviving self-styled communist countries (if I am decoding the more abstruse theoretical articles in the Weekly Worker correctly) and on this basis may perhaps fuse with certain fragments (such as the Movement for Socialism and the Marxist Bulletin) drawn from the stranger, more cult-like (Healeyite or Spartacist) variants of British Trotskyism. But the exact degree (or sincerity) of their evolution away from classical Stalinism, while perhaps the subject of intense ideological debate amongst their ‘critical supporters’ in the tiny groups listed above, is irrelevant to those of us pursuing an entirely different project.

Supporters of motion two want to create a new workers’ party, but on an entirely different basis, as a mass party, not a tiny ‘vanguard’ sect. (Whilst what follows seems to me a reasonably accurate reflection of the thinking of the Socialist Democracy Group and Socialist Outlook, it is possible that the Socialist Party is moving toward, rather than totally in agreement with, the arguments I am advancing, which are perhaps closer to SML. Obviously in the last analysis I only speak for myself and would be genuinely grateful for any clarification from any supporters of motion two who feel I have unintentionally misrepresented their position.)

Our position is that there has been a qualitative change amounting to a genetic mutation in the nature of the Labour Party, turning it from a social democratic reformist workers’ party linked to the trade unions and committed in principle to the welfare state, some measure of redistributive taxation and some measure of nationalisation, into an overtly pro-business, neo-liberal party akin to Clinton’s Democratic Party.

We recognise that there is a sizeable social democratic minority within the Blairite LP (perhaps around 50 within the PLP, if one aggregates the 1997-98 votes on single mothers, Iraq and tuition fees, but greater at the grass roots, as the vote for Livingstone against Mandelson for the NEC showed. I note there are also tiny groups of self-styled ‘revolutionaries’ like Workers’ Liberty and Socialist Action embedded in the LP, but they have no influence and are as amenable to dialogue as the Healeyite and Spartacist sects) and our aim is to win as many of these people as possible for a new workers’ party. Whilst we are thinking in the first instance of those in the Campaign Group like Jeremy Corbyn and Alan Simpson, we would not seek to exclude even the Roy Hattersleys, should they want to join us. (Comrades should note Hattersley’s revealing comment in The Guardian, July 6 1998, that “one of the reasons I have softened my attitude towards PR is the prospect it provides of a party that speaks for the poor”.) It appears to us that Tribune is signalling the increasingly desperate position of left social democrats within the Blairite LP and may in time prove a forum for dialogue with layers of left Labour activists. The utterly intransigent Labour loyalism of Labour Left Briefing seems heavily overdetermined - Bash seems to be trying to seal the ears of his crew to what he views as the siren call of Coates and Kerr.

The slow process of purging candidates lists at the Scottish, Welsh, local and European levels will culminate in some deselections of sitting Westminster MPs and we should not reject any left Labour MPs, however belatedly they turn to us. Similarly, it is absolutely essential to work closely with the Independent Labour Network (it may have only about 500 supporters but it is an invaluable bridge to far wider layers of left social democracy). It goes without saying that any joint list with the ILN for the Euros is not compatible with ‘the pure revolutionary programme’ of Hackney SA - comrades can’t have their cake and eat it!

Given the Blair government’s extraordinarily intransigent stance on both trade union legislation and the minimum wage, coupled with its growing reliance on funding from big business and its attraction to state funding of political parties, we believe that in the medium term a break between the trade unions and the LP is now inevitable, but that it may be very slow and uneven, and the task of winning trade unionists to a new formation may not be an easy one.

We believe that there is a place for revolutionary currents within such a new workers’ party and would be totally opposed to bans and proscriptions of the type that the CPGB suggest we favour (which don’t work anyway, as the SLP experience demonstrated to those, who unlike myself, were not put off by its constitution). Everybody should have the right to produce their own papers and pamphlets and express their views freely, but nobody should expect tokenist reserved seats on any party executive and nobody should oppose party policy during an election campaign (the latter point is just common sense in electoral politics), although they have every right to get it changed subsequently.

However, we think all such revolutionary currents would be a relatively (perhaps even absolutely) small minority within the new formation - given that anybody with the slightest hold on British reality must recognise we are not in a revolutionary situation in Britain, nor are we likely to be in the foreseeable future, and that even the economic class struggle measured by the annual number of strike days is at its lowest ebb for decades.

Therefore we believe that it is absolutely essential to support all workers in struggle over pay and conditions and to oppose all privatisations (the London Underground, the post office, council housing, education action zones) and all attacks on the welfare state (single mothers, the disabled, pensioners, hospital closures). Only by a resolute defence of the working class and the poor and the oppressed in general in both workplaces and communities can we rebuild people’s belief that there is a viable alternative to Thatcherism/Blairism. Any partial victory will have incalculable consequences for the rest of the class struggle, hence the enormous importance of the tube dispute.

Proportional representation would assist the growth of such a new workers’ party by undermining the traditional ‘wasted vote’ and ‘Labour is the lesser evil’ arguments. It might perhaps in certain circumstances enable it to gain some bargaining power vis-à-vis New Labour of a type possessed by Rifondazione Comunista in Italy and the PCF in France, but we suspect that the Blairites have gone further to the right than D’Alemana’s PDS or Jospin’s PS and, faced with competition to their left, might be more inclined to a grand coalition (with Liberal Democrats and moderate Tories) against us - particularly if the German elections result in Schroeder doing something similar.

There is probably a difference of emphasis amongst motion two supporters on the exact role of greens in such a party of recomposition. My position (shared, I think, by all or most of the Socialist Democracy Group) is that the environmental struggle and the anti-capitalist struggle are inseparable (eg, Monsanto and the GM soya bean and maize) and that the majority of greens could be won over to socialist politics if approached in an intelligent manner (not a dogmatic or sectarian one). Others (Socialist Party, Socialist Outlook) are inclined to assume that only a minority in the Green Party could be won over to socialist politics. I would argue that the best tactic is to enter into serious discussions about joint campaigns (first and foremost about London Underground) and/or electoral pacts but in good faith and with some measure of flexibility - not with the predetermined objective of exposing all greens as treacherous vermin and enemies of the workers’ movement, which is what I suspect some advocates of the ‘principled links’ amendment to motion two had in mind.

Whilst we do not seek to exclude the CPGB and other supporters of motion one from our projected party of recomposition, we assume that, given the repeated condemnations such a project has received in advance from John Bridge at public meetings (eg, the Critique conference on social democracy earlier this year) and in the columns of the Weekly Worker, the CPGB and their allies might reflect upon the merits of a ‘principled split’ from what in their eyes would be an opportunist and counterrevolutionary body akin to the Scottish Socialist Party, one that doubtless threatens the otherwise imminent arrival of soviets in Brent and Hackney, spearheaded by the armed popular militia on the Kilburn High Road (one trusts John Bridge is not training them on Hampstead Heath, lest he be accused of Parxism).