27.05.1999
SPEW set to splinter
Dissidents from a number of regions about to walk out
There are alarming signs for the beleaguered leadership of the Socialist Party in England and Wales of a new series of splits from what remains of its organisation. The talk is of the imminent decamping of the bulk of its Nottingham branch, of links between leading figures in Manchester and the recent Merseyside Socialists split from SPEW. However, most serious is the challenge looming in London.
It is claimed that 30 to 40 members in London - including long-term cadre - have been involved in discussions with comrades from the Socialist Democracy Group - the core of which began with a SPEW split around Phil Hearse - with a view to establishing a new organisation - London Socialist. A handful of comrades from other groups are said to be involved, but SPEW dissidents and the SDG are the two key components in London.
This latest exodus from Peter Taaffe’s disintegrating group is in open political sympathy with the recent Merseyside split - now the Merseyside Socialists - and apparently have the active sympathy of the Committee for a Workers International faction within the Scottish Socialist Party.
Oppositionists in London have been meeting for some time. An informant described their political evolution as “ending up going in the same direction, reaching the same conclusions” as the Merseyside Socialists and the SDG. Supposedly these are “further down the track”, but there appears to be agreement on another split. Personal and political ties have facilitated this liaison. For example, SDG members who had been in SPEW have been attending some meetings in London.
An important development came in London when meetings were thrown open to SDGers in general, a move that seems to indicate that “there are no obstacles to a merger”, in the words of an SDG comrade. Another meeting is scheduled for June 19 where, according to one source, “if everything goes well we will dissolve” into a new formation.
Thus, June 19 is the scheduled date for a substantial split from the already anaemic SPEW in London and the creation of an anti-Taaffe organisation, in explicit sympathy with the Merseyside split, and to be followed shortly by Manchester and Nottingham versions. A national meeting is planned for later in the year with - some people have even suggested - the attendance of Tommy Sheridan, although whether this will be as an MSP or as an SSP representative has not been made clear.
It is understood that comrade Sheridan will be touring England after the European elections undertaking a number of meetings, both for SPEW “and others”. If the comrade does indeed agree to appear on the platforms of the new split, it will be a stinging slap in the face for general secretary Taaffe. SPEW’s central leadership has been at pains to mute any criticism of the SSP, to ensure that the divorce between Scottish Militant Labour and SPEW is as ‘uncontroversial’ as possible.
The May 21 issue of The Socialist hypes Sheridan’s election to the Scottish parliament as a “historic election victory”. If this prominent comrade - a “member of our sister party in Scotland” - was seen to be even implicitly endorsing such a split, what price the integrity of the organisation? The dissidents are talking of “doing an SSP in England”. How can Taaffe fight now, after ducking the battle in Scotland?
In fact, the all-too-rare successes in the recent round of elections on May 6 are a double-edged sword for the Taaffe leadership. The only significant progress came in areas that are clearly pursuing projects distinct from the central leadership’s. Gaining a second councillor in Coventry for example poses a challenge because the line pursued by Socialist Alternative (Nellist) is altogether different from the SPEW majority. It is clear that Dave Nellist does not concur with Taaffe’s assessment of the potential of the Socialist Alliances, and his strength in Coventry undermines the argument of his own leadership. He is also reportedly close to many of the comrades in London currently contemplating a split.
While The Socialist may celebrate the successes of “our” organisation in Scotland, the SSP has resulted essentially from a nationalist split in the ranks of the CWI, even if this has yet to go from separation to divorce.
Supporters of the walkout from SPEW are talking of a group of between 50-60 people in London. Others put the potential far lower - some at 10 to 15. Either way, this new crack in the façade of Taaffe’s ‘small mass party’ could have severe effects on the morale of his fast declining sect.
Clearly, SPEW’s forced optimism is already wearing thin. In the issue of The Socialist cited above, Hannah Sell - on behalf of the executive - is reduced to writing political nonsense about the recent election results. She asks us to believe that what she herself characterises as “modest” successes gave “confidence to lefts, including the few remaining in the Labour Party”. Indeed, “it is likely that the number of MPs who have rebelled against the cuts in disability benefit was increased when they saw how popular socialist ideas would be”. When central SPEW apparatchiks are reduced to such desperate rescue attempts on their myopically ‘upbeat’ perspectives, clearly something is very sick in the organisation.
The discussion document we reproduce opposite, penned for the putative new group by a SPEW member, is clearly a reaction against this type of sterile, self-consoling vista of the imminent collapse of world capitalism that SPEW members have been dulled with by their leadership. It underlines that the purpose of the new group is “not to focus our energies on predicting capitalism’s collapse”. Yet its main thrust defines it - just like its parallel development in Merseyside - as a liquidationist trend, a move to the right - but one relatively open to debate and clarification.
We could be seeing ‘endgame’ for SPEW. Active loyalists in London must now number a few dozen. Yet the various ‘Socialist’ formations clearly offer no solution. They appear to lack sufficient political coherence to form anything other than a network, linked by a vague comprehension of what they do not like - ‘democratic centralism’, as experienced at the hands of the bureaucratised SPEW leadership; an opposition to narrowly sectarian, ‘build the party’ perspectives; and mechanical predictions of the impending collapse of capitalism. What these comrades are positively for is far more problematic.
The Taaffe leadership appears to have lost the capacity for any meaningful political initiative at all. Whether it has the capacity to launch a counter-offensive is extremely doubtful. It has certainly shown no such competence up to this point. Its more likely fate is to stand as a historical example of how the fight for hard political principle is the only way to build coherent organisations in the long run.
A negative example of that simple truth, of course.
Mark Fischer