10.12.1998

Crunch time for dissidents

Simon Harvey of the SLP

This Saturday’s meeting of the national executive committee of the Socialist Labour Party - the first since the election of the new NEC - will undoubtedly be dominated by the rebellion of the London regional committee under the presidency of Brian Heron.

Comrade Heron of the Fourth International Supporters Caucus lost his seat on the executive at last month’s special congress in Manchester after Arthur Scargill decided to dump him, along with fellow Fiscite Patrick Sikorski, from the leadership of our party. Comrade Sikorski was easily unseated from the vice-presidency by Royston Bull, editor of the wondrously misnamed Economic and Philosophic Science Review, whose rabid homophobia has been well documented by the Weekly Worker. The only remaining Fisc supporter on the NEC is Carolyn Sikorski, who was returned unopposed by the women’s section.

The three Fiscites were prominent among the comrades who initially began discussions with Scargill about the formation of Socialist Labour back in 1995 and were elected onto the leadership at the founding congress in May 1996. They threw themselves into the witch hunt of communists and democrats, and were fully behind the policy of voiding (ie, effectively expelling without right of appeal) comrades alleged to be members or supporters of other political organisations.

Strangely however, they kept quiet about Bull and the EPSR supporters, despite the publicity given by the Weekly Worker and the fact that his cut-and-paste weekly circulated openly within the SLP in contravention of Scargill’s imposed constitution. Nor did Fisc or any of its supporters put in an appearance at the well attended Campaign for a Democratic SLP fringe meeting at the 1997 2nd congress. This meeting addressed by Peter Tatchell was designed to expose the homophobia of the EPSR.

After briefly lending support to the democratic wing of the party, the EPSR gang suddenly did a complete about-turn, switching to sycophantic pro-Scargillism and enthusiastically embracing the witch hunt. Although Fisc was prepared to tolerate the EPSR as anti-communist minions, Heron and co never for a moment suspected that the Bullites would ever be able to win top positions in the leadership. But they failed to account for the Scargill factor. King Arthur brooks no criticism. No independent thought, no hint of opposition. When the full 3rd Congress due for November 1998 was abandoned after Scargill had neglected to make the necessary preparations, Pat Sikorski had the temerity to criticise the general secretary for his “over-centralised” autocratic regime and issued a mildly worded set of proposals aiming to clip his wings.

Scargill decided that Fisc and its allies had to go. He switched to the only other contender for vice-president, Roy Bull. Scargill even gave tacit backing to the ‘Campaign to support Scargill’ at the special congress. Its seven candidates for the NEC, including two other EPSR men and ultra-Stalinite Harpal Brar, were comfortably elected.

Clearly, with Bull in high office the SLP is no longer a viable proposition for Fisc. The press would only have to lay hold of his rantings to blow the entire project, and Fisc know it. So Brian Heron and Carolyn Sikorski finally broke their long silence on Bull’s anti-constitutional “own propaganda” carried in the EPSR. Comrade Heron proposed a motion at the November 24 London regional committee meeting calling on Scargill to remove Bull from his democratically elected position. The LRC further resolved not to contest next year’s European elections unless Scargill agreed to their demand. This blackmail motion was carried by six votes to two.

Heron has since circulated London branches with a report of the LRC’s stance along with examples of the disgusting homophobia found in the EPSR. It was the first time he had spoken out on the issue. If the Fisc comrades had previously objected to Bull’s view that homosexuality is an “emotional and sexual malfunction”, they had done so very quietly indeed.

Now that Heron and Carolyn Sikorski (who also came out in favour of the LRC resolution) have gone public, there is no way that Scargill will tolerate them. He was already furious that they, along with Terry Dunn and Helen Drummond, were the initial backers of the ‘Appeal for a special congress’, where branches would be allowed to put motions and amendments, in place of last month’s Manchester rally. Even worse, they circulated copies of Scargill’s correspondence with Pat Sikorski to their close contacts - and our general secretary considers any disclosure of his ‘private’ comments as an act “detrimental to Socialist Labour”, even when they concern such public matters as the nature of a working class party. But of course he regards the SLP as ‘his’ party, not the property of the working class.

Comrade Heron is convinced that he and Carolyn Sikorski will be singled out for expulsion. He believes Scargill will view their behaviour as particularly “detrimental” since they were both NEC members at the time. But expulsion is not a foregone conclusion. No doubt NEC member John Hendy, just back from his lengthy visit to Australia, will caution against hasty action. Comrade Hendy is the lawyer who drafted the party’s constitution, and is well aware that the disciplinary code agreed at the December 1997 congress cannot be put into operation, as there were no elections for a disciplinary body at last month’s special congress.

No one has yet been expelled from the SLP under any disciplinary code. And it is difficult to see how Scargill could void the membership of former and current members of the NEC. He can hardly claim to have just discovered that they were supporters of Fisc all along and therefore falsified their membership application forms. Besides, arbitrary action against prominent members would surely further alienate comrades such as Hendy, Bob Crow and other more independent-minded NEC members like Bakers’ Union president Joe Marino, who all have more than a little respect for Heron and the Sikorskis.

But Fisc’s pathetic tactics have left Scargill a better way. Claiming the high moral ground, he will no doubt label the call to remove Bull an outrageous slight against the membership’s democratic will, and declare the refusal to contest the Euro elections a breach of discipline. Scargill could well dissolve the LRC and impose his own loyalist alternative - in the ‘interests of the party’ of course.

Embarrassing Rix

I was interested to hear how SLP member Dave (‘Mick’) Rix would perform on last week’s Any questions. Comrade Rix is the general secretary-elect of Aslef, the rail drivers’ union, and is thus, along with Imran Khan, Bob Crow and Scargill himself, one of our party’s few public figures.

After a tentative start Mick began to speak more confidently. But he hardly differentiated himself from New Labour on a range of questions. On the House of Lords he correctly dubbed the existence of hereditary peers an anti-democratic anachronism, but he raised the abolition of the second chamber only as one possibility to be considered. And he did not make the obvious link between the ending of hereditary power and privilege and the dumping of the monarchy.

However, his contribution on the European Union was just embarrassing. Siding with Tory Nigel Evans, he thought that the main issue to consider was “whether we should give up our sovereign power as a nation”. It was left to Tory defector Emma Nicholson, now a Liberal Democrat, to raise the question of the working class - even if it was from the point of view of an enlightened bourgeois. Calling on Blair to join the EU social chapter, she said of Britain, “A market without workers’ rights is a slave market.”

British road national socialists like Scargill may mouth phrases about ‘internationalism’, but their politics tie in perfectly with national chauvinism. Unfortunately it seems that comrade Rix comes from the same BRS school.