18.02.1999

All-Britain alliance

Tom Delargy of the Scottish Socialist Party, discusses some of the issues and differences that are beginning to emerge and outlines his views on left unity

The Scottish Socialist Party held a day school on Sunday February 7. It was an interesting event. ‘Interesting’ is unlikely to be the word Bill Bonnar and Allan Green would have chosen. I caught them in intense discussion outside the venue immediately after it ended. Neither looked particularly happy. Of the two, it was Bill who had the best excuse for such a long face. Allan had after all been soundly thrashed in only one of the two debates - the one on Europe. At least in this debate, Allan and Bill had each other (and a third SSP big gun, Hugh Kerr MEP) to keep themselves company.

But when it came to the morning session, on drugs, Bill found himself completely isolated. So much so that he apparently saw no point in making a contribution in defence of the policy paper he distributed at last November’s national council. This paper attempted to dress up an authoritarian populist approach in philosophical garb. Our Bill’s ‘philosophy’ and that of the SLP’s Royston Bull (on drugs at least) share much in common. Our Willie just cannot compete with Royston’s literary skills. The absence of such talents inside the SSP by those arguing against the decriminalisation of drugs might, in part, explain why Bill has found himself so spectacularly isolated.

Frances Curran, SSA candidate in the Paisley South by-election, wrote the four-page conference discussion paper on drugs. She also opened off the discussion, acquitting herself well on both accounts. She had to admit that there remained one, but only one, area of controversy between herself and Kevin Williamson - the SSP’s ‘Decriminalise Drugs’ candidate for the Scottish parliament. In Frances’ paper, she advocated a five to 10 year period between the decriminalisation of cannabis and a comprehensive decriminalisation. This sentence jumped out at me in precisely the manner it did, apparently, at Kevin. It has no place in a document which so powerfully puts the case for drugs decriminalisation. The insertion of this sentence looks like the price Frances was asked to pay in order to get some of Bill’s friends, kicking and screaming, into the ‘decriminalise cannabis’ lobby. But it is far too high. Unless we decide to junk Frances’ general analysis, effectively endorsing Bill’s instead, we need to be clear that if and when we get the power to legalise cannabis, we will not sit on our hands for another decade giving tacit endorsement to Jack Straw’s law and order crackdown on drug users.

Frances stated that comrades’ attitudes to this issue reflected a generation gap in society at large. If there was ever any doubt about this, the debate should have dispelled it. Although no one spoke in defence of Bill’s position, some older comrades wanted an ‘emphasis’ which would completely undermine the policy. Harvey Duke, SSP candidate in last year’s European by-election, stated that decriminalisation should not be our main emphasis! He then listed (in a manner which the CPGB would denounce as bowing to economistic side-issues - I would not) a set of alternative approaches. Approaches which would focus virtually exclusively on the economic misery inflicted on millions of victims of capitalist society. Every single point Harvey raised is valid and has to be encompassed into our overall message. But it is wrong to counterpose these economic arguments in favour of a society where production is for human need, not profit, as against the case for decriminalisation in the here and now under existing capitalist society.

Those who are hesitant about decriminalisation are not the only ones tempted to take a one-sided approach. Kevin Williamson, apparently, has also been drawn into choosing between a false set of alternatives. It would appear that he took some persuasion before agreeing to stand on a party label, wanting instead to put himself forward as a single-issue candidate. However flawed the SSP’s programme is, Kevin would be making a grave mistake if he tried to detach the issue of drugs decriminalisation from the society which conjures up the conditions within which this cancer continues to spread.

Debate within the SSP on this issue is far from over. But a positive consensus is being formed, one which can allow us to prise open the cracks appearing within the British establishment. We have it in our power to provoke a wide-ranging debate throughout society at large, provided, that is, that we do not take fright and start backsliding towards Bill Bonnar’s position.

If the SSP can draw up policies which flow logically from Frances’ analysis, then I expect to be in the majority at conference, which will make a nice change. I had almost forgotten what this feels like. If I am not in the majority on the European debate (and I will not be), my only crumb of comfort is knowing that Mr Bonnar will not be either. If the balance of arguments at the day school was anything like an accurate reflection of the state of the party as a whole, then SML (or the “CWI in Scotland”, as they now refer to themselves) can push their line through. If they choose not to impose their line on the party, this will be because we have here a highly explosive issue. They must realise that they are playing with fire, and that a serious split cannot be ruled out if any attempt is made to mandate Hugh Kerr to argue in the European parliament in favour of the CWI line - one he vehemently opposes.

I cannot win this one, if for no other reason than that I do not know what my own line is at the moment. I am genuinely rethinking the whole subject. I have never believed in socialism in one country, nor even in one continent. My instincts, nevertheless, remain thoroughly opposed to the Maastricht Treaty and Emu as proposed on a capitalist basis. Exactly how to formulate such opposition in a manner which unites the genuine left throughout the entire continent and builds ever greater solidarity amongst workers’ organisations (in the first place trade unions) is the question I am now examining. If I cannot uncritically support the CWI motion, this is primarily because there is an unspoken context committing the party to the idea that workers’ power must necessarily unfold in Scotland prior to taking root in the rest of the UK. For my part, I accept this as a possibility but by no means likely and certainly not worth advocating.

Although I will not be on the winning side in this debate, I recognise that it marks a crucial turning point in the brief history of the SSP. It offers us all the opportunity to wake up to the real balance of forces within the party. These have, thus far, been kept in complete darkness. People have been voting together not realising (or, in many cases, pretending not to notice) that they are fundamentally divided and are voting for entirely different things.

This European debate has polarised people who all belong to the “independent socialist Scotland” camp. I have to confess to feeling a little sorry for the anti-CWI coalition of Hugh, Bill and Allan. Allan in particular seems genuinely gobsmacked that his CWI partners are taking such a fundamentalist line of opposition to the Maastricht Treaty and the single currency. During his contribution, he posed what he took to be a rhetorical question in order to highlight the lunacy of the CWI: “Would an independent socialist Scotland have an independent currency?” He seemed shocked by a chorus of “yes!” Allan’s definition of socialism would appear to be compatible with pooling sovereignty with a capitalist United States of Europe, with all economic power vested in a capitalist central bank. Although he would argue for greater democratic accountability and scrutiny by the European parliament, his vision of an independent socialist Scotland clearly has little, if anything, in common with his CWI partners.

Hugh Kerr and Bill Bonnar were never in any doubt about the divergence between their attitudes and those of the CWI. But Allan appears not to have understood this. As I have said, this debate is surely going to prove a watershed for the party. Those who have clearly always wanted little more than a leftwing version of the SNP, or a pre-Blair Labour Party which wants Scottish independence, should, for all our sakes, stop pretending that there is greater agreement with the CWI than is in fact the case.

Whatever the CPGB’s attitude to the SSP in general, and the European debate in particular, I am clear that what we have here is a classic left/right split. While I disagree with large parts of the CWI analysis, my differences with them pale into insignificance in comparison with what divides me from the Kerr-Bonnar-Green coalition.

That said, I would like very much to reiterate what I wrote in a letter to the Weekly Worker last year. Despite all my disagreements with Bill Bonnar, and despite his undisguised sectarianism towards the rest of the revolutionary left in general and the SWP in particular, I am still strongly in favour of a political organisation which can embrace everyone who wants to present an anti-capitalist electoral alternative to New Labour - provided they unconditionally support all workers’ struggles regardless of nationality, and all struggles of the oppressed in their defence and for their liberation. So long as Hugh Kerr likewise fights for such an organisation capable of embracing the SWP, so long as he is playing no role in the alleged attempts to split the ILN from the United Socialists in London, then, despite my differences with Hugh (and they are not small), I am in favour of a united socialist organisation able, at this stage, to embrace us both. The necessity of presenting a united electoral challenge to the Blairites imposes compromises upon all of us.

This is why I would ask the CWI majority and the rightwing minority of the SSP to recognise that the move of the SSA towards a party structure last year has proven to have been premature. Hugh Kerr will not accept the majority line if the CWI wins. In order to stop Hugh jumping ship and building an Independent Labour Network organisation in Scotland - one which will, along with Scargill’s SLP, split our vote - the CWI is highly unlikely to insist it gets its way. Their problem though is that if they refuse to set any limits on what Hugh can do or say, he will continue to go his own way. It is hard to see how this can lead to anything other than a split in the SSP or a split in the CWI or to the discrediting of the idea of what a party in actual fact is. If we accept that de facto the maximum unity we can achieve at this stage is that of an alliance, then we can avoid all these problems.

It is important to recognise that it is not just the European debate which divides us. More fundamentally, we are divided on our ideas as to what socialism is. Belated recognition by Allan Green of the extent of his differences with the CWI is liable to lead him to join forces with others to put together a coherent oppositional faction to defend themselves against encroachment by the CWI majority. Notwithstanding their support for workers’ struggles, their opposition to capitalism (at least for some) is little more than a rhetorical flourish: something they can live with printed on their party card and to sing about in songs; but something which is an unreal utopia, not to be confused with the real alternatives facing us of a capitalist Britain, a capitalist Scotland or a capitalist United States of Europe.

The attitude of these people to capitalism on the one hand and to workers’ struggles on the other run directly counter to one another. Given time, they will all be forced to choose. While they are still mulling over how to resolve this contradiction (and different individuals will jump in opposite directions), they ought to resist any temptation to split from the SSP. They ought instead to call for a return to the old SSA structures.

The left and the right now have an incentive to ensure that no minority is denied representation inside the party. As part of this recognition, all sections of the SSP (left, right and centre) ought to make positive overtures to those socialist organisations in London, and throughout the rest of the UK, that are coming together under the banner of the United Socialists. And we ought not to wait until after the European elections before doing this.