11.02.1999

No Fisc fight

Simon Harvey of the SLP

At the insistence of Brian Heron and Carolyn Sikorski, there has been no attempt to rally the Socialist Labour Party’s remaining democrats to defend them from imminent expulsion.

Comrades Heron and Sikorski, along with Terry Dunn and Helen Drummond, face charges of contravening the constitution before a complaints committee on Saturday February 13 at The Place, Dukes Road, Euston. But the two Fourth International Supporters Caucus leaders have dismissed any notion that the membership should be informed of this shameful new purge, let alone actually mobilise in order to fight back.

The four have been hauled before the disciplinary hearing for having dared to issue their ‘Appeal for a special conference’, following the national executive’s decision to cancel the 1998 annual congress. But general secretary Arthur Scargill decreed that party organs could only “request” a special congress, not publicly “appeal” for one. He got the December 1998 NEC to ban the circulation within the party of any document whatsoever - thus ruling out any possibility of such a “request” winning the support of the necessary 25% of the membership. When the comrades rightly refused to withdraw their appeal, Scargill decided to invoke the complaints procedure.

Despite the obvious fact that he has resolved to expel the Appeal Four - why bother with the disciplinary procedure if you do not intend to follow it through? - Fisc seems to believe that it can still persuade the general secretary of the error of his ways. Like the class struggle itself, it seems, internal disagreements are best pursued through the power of reason alone, without having to resort to distasteful mass action - at least according to Fisc.

However, in this case ‘reason’ has been severely impaired by Fisc’s past behaviour. As Scargill is only too keen to point out, it is a little disingenuous of Heron and co to make the claim (however correct) that there is nothing unconstitutional in circulating an appeal within the party, when in 1997 the Fiscites made up part of the “unanimous” NEC vote to threaten the SLP’s Democratic Platform with disciplinary action for doing just that. The DP comrades drew up a list of the SLP’s democratic failings which they sent to Scargill, having asked members across the country to sign it. At least Scargill is consistent.

Fisc’s unwillingness to launch a real fight - even when comrades Heron and Sikorski appear to be on the verge of expulsion - is further illustrated by the controversy over the cancellation of last month’s women’s section annual conference. A circular signed by comrades Sikorski and Liz Screen, the two section representatives on the NEC, complains of foul play. A number of previously unknown constituency women’s sections were suddenly notified to the national section in January. In addition Scargill was claiming that there were now no fewer than 57 women’s groups based on constituency branches. He was attempting to show that the handful of members who have supported the Sikorski-Screen leadership were out of touch with this mass of female comrades.

But where are these mysterious 57 groups? Comrades Sikorski and Screen point out that they were informed by Scargill stooge Paul Hardman at the November 1998 special congress that the women’s section block vote would be limited to 72 - no, not the number of section members: the number of paid-up women party members. Clearly 72 is a pretty dismal figure compared to the 2,265 individual membership that president Frank Cave claimed at the time. Even alongside the actual 400-450 paid-up individual members represented at the congress, it is low. Nevertheless a membership ratio of one woman for every six men is probably about right - and a sad commentary on the failure of the overtly feminist approach pushed by Fisc and accepted by Scargill from the party’s birth.

It is worth noting here that comrades Sikorski and Screen see nothing untoward in the fact that they were able to cast these 72 votes in whatever way they saw fit (they were not enough, however, to save Fiscite vice-president Patrick Sikorski from defeat at the hands of Roy Bull, the “former editor” of the Economic and Philosophic Science Review). Apparently the views of ‘women’ on every issue are faithfully reflected by the section’s congress delegate, Carolyn Sikorski.

As to the 57 new sections, they are clearly a figment of Scargill’s manically overproductive imagination. Perhaps he looked through the constituency branches that still exist on paper and added up those that can boast a woman member. Comrade Screen, who until recently thought that Scargill could do no wrong and still cannot quite believe that Carolyn is about to be booted out, is being rapidly disabused of her illusions.

In addition to threatening to flood the section conference with phantom female Scargillites, the general secretary ruled that the women comrades must not discuss his disciplinary action against the Appeal Four, nor the repercussions for the party of vice-president Bull’s election. Clearly our women should not worry their little heads about such matters. Bull, who has still not confirmed Scargill’s claim at the January NEC that he has “resigned” from his post, is notorious - along with his EPSR -not only for homophobia, but for his own peculiar twisted form of anti-feminism, which sees all campaigns for women’s rights as a ‘diversion’. Fisc of course is suffering from the common misapprehension on the social-democratised left that anti-feminism per se is synonymous with male chauvinism.

Obviously it is perfectly proper for the women’s section to discuss any question it chooses, including the vice-president’s views - and those of an EPSR woman like Jane Douglas, Bull’s partner, who recently wrote attacking feminism, saying that: “If women want equality with men and more support with the domestic division of labour, then let’s make sure men get to political meetings where there is a chance of raising real socialist awareness and advance” (Socialist News December-January).

You might have thought that Carolyn Sikorski would relish the opportunity provided by the conference to wield the full weight of dominant political correctness and ridicule comrade Douglas’s Bullite recipe. In the process she could have used the meeting as a focal point to cohere the swelling ranks of disaffected and demoralised members into some kind of opposition to Scargill’s shameless dictatorship and ruthless determination to drive out those who object to it - now including comrade Sikorski herself.

She could have gone ahead with the conference, attempting to mobilise the admittedly meagre remaining forces at her disposal, and seen just how many of Scargill’s imaginary 57 women’s sections turned up. But instead of calling his bluff, Sikorski and Screen played into his hands. They called off the conference and meekly requested discussions with the NEC in order to reach a ‘sensible understanding’.

The Fiscites’ touching faith in Scargill’s ability to ‘see sense’ - even after he has tripped them up and knocked them off their feet - is about to be repaid with a kick in the teeth.