10.06.1999

SLP rejects Kosovar rights

Brar repeats Livingstone smear

Leading Socialist Labour Party member Harpal Brar stooped to a new low earlier this week when he dubbed the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Weekly Worker “agents of the CIA”.

Comrade Brar, effectively number two in Arthur Scargill’s organisation, was badly shaken at a London SLP election rally by a question from the floor. Marcus Larsen, a candidate on the ‘Weekly Worker’ London list for the EU elections, was the cause of his embarrassment. He quoted the following passage from Brar’s secret Brussels speech in May 1998:

“For comrade Scargill to break with Labour and yet maintain illusions in social democracy ... was to persist in errors which, if uncorrected, could not but do irreparable damage to the cause of the working class.”

Comrade Larsen invited Brar to say what he thought Scargill’s “errors” were and whether he thought Scargill had now ‘corrected’ them. Looking grey in the face, comrade Brar, who was chairing the rally, did not answer the question directly. He stated: “From time to time we will have our differences - and we are quite capable of sorting them out without the intervention of agents of the CIA.” Unable to bring himself to utter the words “Weekly Worker”, he referred to the CPGB’s paper as “a scandal sheet funded by the intelligence services”.

This was indeed ironic, for in the very issue of the Weekly Worker containing comrade Brar’s speech - the issue comrade Larsen was holding up at the rally - Brar is quoted as saying: “Ken Livingstone, ... being unable to deal with the political and ideological side of the [formation of the SLP], stooped to this disgusting smear against Scargill” - Brar then reproduced Livingstone’s statement which implied that Scargill had been ‘helped’ by MI5. But of course this was not the first time the Labour MP had made such an allegation. During the 1992 general election campaign he resorted to exactly the same gutter tactics when he was opposed by the CPGB in his Brent East constituency.

A further irony came with Scargill’s earlier assertion to the rally that the more you are insulted and misrepresented, the more you know you are on the right track. But Scargill himself also tried to deflect attention away from the substance of comrade Larsen’s question, stating it was “tainted” by the questioner’s own past actions. He did not adopt comrade Brar’s “disgusting smear” tactic, but instead asked the “young man” to confirm that he was the same Marcus Larsen who had “falsified” his SLP membership application form in order to become a member of two organisations “in contravention of the constitution”. Comrade Larsen replied that he had never been given the opportunity to vote on Scargill’s constitution, which, as Scargill himself admitted to the rally, was ratified only in December 1997. Turning the tables on the SLP general secretary, comrade Larsen asked what he thought of Brar’s own ‘dual membership’.

Brar stated that “we” (presumably he meant the Association of Communist Workers) had waited a whole year before joining the SLP after its foundation: “When we joined, we disbanded our organisation.” I assume the ACW is “disbanded” in the same way as members of the Fourth International Supporters Caucus and the Economic and Philosophic Science Review allegedly dissolved themselves - both, like the ACW today, were once embraced by Scargill as a result of their grovelling sycophancy before they were dumped.

Comrade Brar’s main political activity consists in writing, editing and promoting his bimonthly publication Lalkar - officially the journal of the Indian Workers Association. He is never seen selling the SLP’s Socialist News. Even a cursory glance at the contents of Lalkar confirms that it carries its “own programme, principles and policies, distinctive and separate propaganda” - to quote from the SLP constitution.

Comrade Brar contended that the ACW’s entryism had been totally different from that of the CPGB. He had supported the SLP from the start.

In fact back in 1996 Brar had written: “Communists cannot join the SLP, for clause II, paras 4 and 5 of the SLP’s constitution bans this course of action ... Communists cannot adopt this dishonest, entryist position, but must continue to give the SLP critical support from outside, while redoubling their efforts to build a genuine Marxist-Leninist party” (Lalkar July-August 1996). Actually it was only after behind-the-scenes negotiations with Scargill that comrade Brar changed his tune.

Continuing his tirade against the CPGB and the Weekly Worker, he declared that his Brussels speech was not “secret” at all. It was made before representatives of around 70 organisations, and not all were Stalinite: “Some of them were of your persuasion,” he told comrade Larsen - ie, they fell under Brar’s rather broad ‘Trotskyist’ categorisation. Of course Nikita Khrushchev’s ‘Trotskyist’ speech denouncing Stalin to the CPSU congress in 1956 was heard by several thousand delegates. It was secret nevertheless.

Comrade Larsen was allowed to ask a second question, this time relating to Kosova. Scargill had earlier slammed “people who support the KLA”. To enthusiastic applause from the majority of the 40-strong audience the SLP general secretary added: “We all know they are financed by the CIA.” Comrade Larsen wondered whether Scargill thought that Ho Chi Minh had been wrong to accept funding and training from the American OSS - the forerunner of the CIA - when he led the Vietnamese struggle against Japanese imperialism. Another question that went unanswered.

Scargill retorted that the SLP was “against independence for Kosovo completely”. Incredibly he described this anti-democratic and therefore anti-socialist attitude as an “internationalist approach”, explaining that the break-up of former Yugoslavia had divided a formerly united people. What is more, until recently more than 60% of Kosova’s population had been Serb. “We are for the right of the people of Yugoslavia as a whole to self-determination,” he said. “Kosovo is an integral part of Yugoslavia.” He added: “Ironically the United Nations also says that.” More ironic than comrade Scargill thinks: the SLP shares imperialism’s view that a settlement must be imposed without regard to the Kosovars’ wishes.

Perversely Brar accused the CPGB of being “socialist colonialists” because of our support for Kosovar self-determination. In response to a question from a comrade from the US, who stated the all too evident truth that Kosovar rights had been suppressed, Scargill retorted: “We have never said we are against Kosovar rights” - so long as they do not try to put them into practice obviously.

The meeting had begun with comrade Brar. The SLP, he said, was for withdrawal from the European Union - “not because we are little Englanders: far from it”. Turning to the EU elections, he asked rhetorically, “Why does the Morning Star say ‘vote Labour’?” Because it does not want to lose funding from the trade union bureaucrats, came his own answer. As for The New Worker, “They haven’t got the bloody guts to say, ‘Vote Labour’.” According to comrade Brar, the New Communist Party declined to make any recommendation in its weekly paper, preferring instead to send out a private letter to members, advising them ... to vote Labour.

The left should “follow the lead of a Marxist party - one that bases itself on the philosophy of Marxism,” he concluded. Apparently he was referring to the SLP.

Comrade Brar introduced the first speaker - none other than his daughter, Joti, who, like himself, was a London candidate in the EU elections. The speech she read out had a familiar ring for comrades who had bought the first issue of the SLP’s women’s journal Women for Socialism (May). It consisted almost entirely of her article published in that issue, including the remarkable claim that the rapidly shrinking SLP “is growing exponentially”. The speech also included the section of her article which read:

“Several other outfits calling themselves socialist have decided to stand in this election where previously they only acted as campaigners for the Labour Party. There is only one reason for this - the very serious threat that the SLP poses to social democracy.”

It is very likely that comrade Joti Brar naively believes this to be true. As if the CPGB - the only other “outfit” standing in London - has ever campaigned for Labour. The comrade seemed to think that the SWP was also contesting in the capital. None of this prevented Scargill from remarking that her speech was “one of the best contributions I’ve heard for a very long time”.

Next to speak was Bob Crow, assistant general secretary of the RMT rail union. Perfectly encapsulating his British road, national socialist politics was his statement to the effect that the EU “prevents nationalisation from happening”. His immediate concern, however, appeared to be the EU’s agreed policy of abolishing duty-free allowances, which “will cost my members two and a half thousand jobs”. Comrade Crow is probably aware that if VAT were abolished, it would cost unions representing inland revenue workers many jobs. Perhaps in view of this we should campaign for the retention of such iniquitous indirect taxes. Certainly that would be the logic of comrade Crow’s sectional outlook.

Like Harpal Brar, comrade Crow taunted members of his former organisation, the Communist Party of Britain, in the audience with the Morning Star’s call for a Labour vote, especially given Blair’s onslaught on Yugoslavia.

This theme was also taken up by Scargill. He reported that two CPBers had approached him the previous week, saying, “Arthur, we’ve had enough.” Their decision to join Socialist Labour was an example that others should follow, he said. I must confess that my attention began to wander as Scargill reeled off for the umpteenth time all his figures proving how “we” had lost out through membership of the “Common Market”.

Yes, Arthur, the EU is a “capitalist club”. But “voting us in to get us out” is as logical as calling for workers to “withdraw” from Britain.

His dire national socialist diatribe continued with the claim that the EU was responsible for the importation of millions of tonnes of coal, “all of it inferior to British coal”, at least in the world of Arthur Scargill.

Apart from the intervention by comrade Larsen and the US comrade, only one other person - a visitor from Kurdistan - asked to speak. Scargill assured her that the SLP backed the Kurdish struggle wholeheartedly. He did not announce that his party was ‘against independence for Kurdistan completely’, or that it was for ‘the right of the people of Turkey as a whole to self-determination’.

Apart from the dozen or so Scargill loyalists and London SLP members, the rest of the audience consisted mainly of assorted ‘official communists’ and Stalinites. None felt confident enough to make any kind of contribution and many of them applauded Scargill. Members of the CPB did not rise to the anti-Morning Star bait.

In view of the lack of questions, Scargill rambled on interminably, treating his audience to a sad display of second-rate theatrics, peppering his anecdotes with a variety of badly impersonated foreign accents.

The rally was finally ended with Harpal Brar’s concluding remarks. He noted that there were no representatives of the bourgeois press in the hall. Nevertheless he expected coverage of the rally to be featured in an unnamed weekly paper with a report that Scargill had been “rattled” by an intervention from the floor. “Does he look rattled?” he asked. It was true: comrade Larsen’s questions had not worried Scargill at all. But the same cannot be said for comrade Brar. His “agents of the CIA” smear spoke for itself.

Alan Fox