17.06.1999
A nod and a wink
Dave Spencer discusses the dispute in the West Midlands Socialist Alliance over the candidacy of former MEP Christine Oddy
Supporters of Coventry Socialist Alliance have been involved in two rival campaigns during the Euro elections - those of the West Midlands Socialist Alliance (WMSA) and of expelled Labour MEP Christine Oddy.
The West Midlands was the only region in which a Socialist Alliance slate was eventually offered after slates in London and the North West had been withdrawn. In the event the WMSA slate of eight comrades consisted four from the Socialist Party, two from the Socialist Workers Party, one from the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and one from the Democratic Labour Party, based in Walsall. Dave Nellist was listed as number one.
I would argue that the decision to go ahead in the West Midlands, as to pull out elsewhere, was taken in the national committees of the left groups involved, not at grass roots level. In other words the Euro-electoral alliance was a different project from building local alliances or even the national SA. Thus the SWP were part of the slate, but have no presence in local alliances. The SP used the banner of the SA where in local elections they would not dream of doing so. WMSA was a flag of convenience for the left groups.
The other campaign was that of Christine Oddy, the Labour MEP for the Coventry and Warwickshire area who was effectively deselected by the Labour Party, being placed at number seven on their list. This was because her politics are left of centre and she refused to be ‘on message’. Eventually she was expelled from the Labour Party for not campaigning hard enough during the May local elections. She declared that she would stand as independent Labour. There was a lot of anger among Labour supporters in the Coventry area at the way she had been treated - even the lord mayor was quoted in the local press as saying that she was unhappy with the decision.
Christine Oddy made her announcement at the last minute, as did the WMSA, given the collapse in London and the North West. Some comrades felt that there should have been an attempt to unite the two campaigns. However, the question would have arisen as to who should go at number one on the list: Dave Nellist or Christine Oddy. The attitude of WMSA is fairly clear from page two of The All Red and Green, national bulletin of the SA, where joint convenor of WMSA Pete McLaren states: “Christine Oddy may take a few votes off us ... We actually feel confident that our balanced list, with Dave Nellist at the helm, will prove more attractive to protest voters.” On page one Pete McLaren had already stated in upbeat mood: “WMSA not only expects to win back its £5,000 deposit, but it also feels there is a real chance of returning a socialist to the European parliament.” In other words Christine Oddy was a minor irritant to a confidant WMSA campaign.
The actual results were: Christine Oddy - 38,849 votes; WMSA - 7,203 votes and a lost deposit. Christine Oddy achieved 24.86% of the vote in Coventry North West, 24.50% in Coventry North East and 22.56%in Coventry South. WMSA achieved 4.31%, 4.35% and 6.05% in the same constituencies, Coventry South being Dave Nellist’s traditional area. Even in the north of the West Midlands region, in Wolverhampton where Christine Oddy is little known, she still polled more than WMSA and the SLP combined.
I make no comment on the whys and the wherefores of the results, except to point out that Pete McLaren’s assessment was clearly wrong.
Pete McLaren also got something else wrong in my opinion, and it is here that a serious dispute in the Coventry SA started. Many supporters of the Coventry SA backed Christine Oddy and not WMSA. However, when Pete McLaren produced a draft version of the Coventry SA June bulletin for the committee of six to look at, there was no mention of Christine Oddy at all - either that she had been expelled from the Labour Party or that she was standing. Two members of the committee asked for three sentences to be included in the bulletin, which was mainly concerned with how comrades could support the WMSA campaign. These are the three sentences:
“Some Coventry Socialist Alliance supporters will be supporting Christine Oddy MEP in the Euro-elections. She is standing as independent Labour in protest at the appalling treatment of her by New Labour. Anybody who wishes to contact the campaign - phone 552328.”
After consulting the other three members of the committee, Pete McLaren refused to put in these sentences. The voting was three votes to three and he said he was using his casting vote as editor. In other words, the bulletin went out in the name of six Committee members, three of whom did not agree with the content and who had been silenced by the others (Pete McLaren, Dave Nellist and Dave Griffiths, the local SP full-timer). In addition Pete McLaren announced that the bulletin would be posted to all 400 (cost: £76) instead of being delivered by hand. Presumably they thought that the hand delivery, which has been organised every month for the last seven years by two of the silenced three on this occasion might prove to be unreliable!
This is the bare bones of the dispute. There was of course much acrimonious discussion which, while entertaining, detracts from the main points of principle. The key point is that the SA is an alliance of various tendencies, not a democratic centralist party. On this occasion a large number - in fact probably the majority of Coventry SA supporters, including three of the six committee members - would be voting for Christine Oddy. However, these comrades were denied a voice: even three sentences in their own bulletin. The main arguments used by Pete McLaren were that WMSA had to maximise its vote and that the three sentences would make Coventry SA a laughing stock nationally, since it would appear that Dave Nellist and Pete McLaren could not control their base.
There is also a question of democratic method here. The end of getting the maximum vote does not justify the means. Those of us who were in the SLP will recognise bureaucratic thinking and manipulation when we come across it. Here is a blatant example carried out by two members of the national SA liaison committee.
It is not as though this is an isolated example of bureaucratic and sectarian behaviour by the Socialist Party. One of the reasons given by many comrades in Coventry for not supporting WMSA is that they do not trust left groups, since they always put their own interests before those of the class as a whole. Dave Nellist has an excellent record and a reputation as a class fighter, and deservedly so, but he is a leading member of the SP, abides by democratic centralist decisions and puts his own left group first. In the Labour Party as Militant they tried to dominate the broad left; they would vote for rightwingers rather than independent socialists who they thought they could not influence. In the anti-poll tax campaign they tried to control the organisation. To me their behaviour in the Coventry SA appears to be in the same tradition.
In the light of the Scottish, Welsh and Euro elections, it would be a good idea to look back on the history of Socialist Alliances. It has to be said that even before the general election in 1997 it was known that the European elections of 1999 were likely to be fought under proportional representation, as well as the elections for Scotland and Wales.
In my view Arthur Scargill started the SLP in 1996 on the basis that PR was a chance to build a socialist party to the left of Labour; he had some sort of strategy. Likewise the Scottish turn of Scottish Militant Labour took place at the same time - the Scottish Socialist Alliance became the Scottish Socialist Party to include independent socialists, to be built through campaigning in the elections which would use PR.
The Socialist Alliance network in the rest of Britain has been held back by the Socialist Party policy towards it, which has not been that of the Scottish turn, but rather the building of their own small mass party and keeping the SA as an adjunct. This would explain the failure of the Liaison Committee to give any real lead in any field, including setting up a national network and the fiasco of the Euro elections, with slates being declared or withdrawn at the last minute.
Meanwhile the Scottish Socialist Party were prepared well in advance, getting roots in the labour movement and community campaigns and collecting the necessary money and new members over a long period of time.
Many people have used Coventry Socialist Alliance as an example of where the SP have been committed for a long time to united struggle or a form of the Scottish turn. After all Coventry SA was created in 1992 after the general election campaign of former MPs Dave Nellist and John Hughes as independent Labour candidates, when over 120 LP members were expelled locally. This impression of unity is a misrepresentation of the facts however. The SP were never active in Coventry SA until the formation of the SLP in February 1996. They saw the SLP as a potential threat to their own group. Then they saw the Socialist Alliance not as a means of uniting in struggle as in Scotland, but as a way of grouping some independents and stopping them from joining the SLP. Since 1996 they have sent along no more than two members to each monthly meeting and see that it ticks along: Coventry SA is not a very active organisation. In local elections the SP always stand under their own name, not as Socialist Alliance.
It seems to me that Socialist Party members, as well as members of other left groups, should come out on how they see the future of the left and the role of their own organisation in that future. How do they view the Scottish turn? A nod and a wink are no longer good enough.