16.09.1999

LSA

Party notes

The first gathering of the newly reconstituted London Socialist Alliance election bloc met on September 8 (see Weekly Worker August 19 for the pre-history). The meeting brought together 18 comrades representing 10 organisations, including the Socialist Party, the CPGB, the Socialist Democracy Group, Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Workers Power, Socialist Outlook and the Independent Labour Network. Comrades began the job of focusing attention and work on next year’s London assembly elections.

A notable absence however was the Socialist Workers Party. Comrade Toby Abse of the ILN reported that, despite approaches to the SWP’s two previous representatives at the abortive United Socialists discussions preceding the European elections, there was no firm indication of the SWP’s willingness to participate in this latest attempt to unite the left in the capital. This may again place a question mark over the whole enterprise, as the SWP’s collapse before Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party in June prompted most to desert the project. Nothing indicates that they are made of stronger stuff now.

The meeting was conducted in a fraternal manner, although there were several important bones of contention. In the Communist Party’s view, despite best intentions, there is a danger of repeating the errors that wrecked a united left challenge in London last time around.

First, on choosing candidates. Communist Party representatives put forward a resolution outlining a straightforward, transparent and fair method of picking the slate. This proposed that the 14 constituency-based candidates for the London assembly be chosen bottom up, by meetings of Socialist Alliances and other interested working class bodies. Where no local Alliance exists, we suggested that the LSA should fill the position with a round-robin system of the organisations in the electoral bloc or with mutually agreed ‘independents’.

The 11 candidates in the alternative list system should be chosen by the LSA. Each constituent political organisation in the LSA would be guaranteed one candidate each, with the remainder being picked by the LSA as a body through negotiation and compromise.

To us, these seem eminently sensible suggestions, calculated to build trust, give clear gateways to other groups that may wish to join the bloc and retain a flexible approach to incorporating non-aligned candidates that may come forward from the wider movement. It is disappointing then that the meeting rejected them, with only the two CPGB reps voting in favour.

Apart from the all too familiar knee-jerk anti-CPGBism that some comrades seem unable to grow out of, this reflects the left’s hopeless lack of self-belief. Clearly, comrades are still hung up on recruiting what they dub “credible” candidates for the LSA slate. The notification for this September 8 meeting (signed by LSA secretary and leading SOer Greg Tucker) illustrated what this delightfully ambiguous phrase means to some. It spoke of how “in the right circumstances”, a slate of “credible candidates with a proven record and a good campaign” could attract a layer of voters. The “credible candidates” would be “trade unionists, strikers, environmentalists and other campaigners and socialists”. The fact that “socialists” are tacked on the end almost as an afterthought is obviously no accident.

Thus, the September 8 meeting agreed that LSA officers should approach the London bodies of various unions - in particular the RMT and the firefighters’ union - “to arrange discussions on the issue of independent candidates” (LSA minutes, September 13). Yet despite rumblings from some sections it is unlikely that we will witness any sort of mass split away from official Labour by London trade unions - in the absence of a rebel Livingstone election bid, that is. Rather it seems that independent candidates of the left opposing privatisation of London Underground might receive what was called the “tacit endorsement” of transport union branches and higher regional bodies. The decision on LSA candidates has been put off to an unspecified “future meeting”. But nothing stands in the way of a united left putting together a “credible” platform now. Nothing, that is, apart from the fantasy perspectives that allow most socialist organisations to see massed ranks of illusionary “trade unionists, strikers, environmentalists and other campaigners” just over the hill, mustering to save them.

What would actually give an LSA platform credibility under today’s conditions? First, the actual prospect of the left coming together at long last. That would be an effective answer to charges that it has been more interested in its various petty ‘party’-building projects than actually being of use to the movement. The oft repeated ‘why don’t you all get together?’ has a philistine aspect to it, but also expresses a perfectly understandable exasperation at the sectarian nature of much of the left.

This relates to the other contentious point in the September 8 meeting. What is the political platform? It has been taken as read that “the programme adopted for the Euro-elections would form the basis” for the platform for the London assembly contest. Yet this programme was not debated openly by all the organisations involved in the United Socialists initiative. It is a hopelessly economistic document, cobbled together in various backroom cabals.

We believe that if the LSA initiated an honest, open and wide-ranging debate about the type of programme we need, this could have the effect - not of “confusing” potential voters, as one comrade patronisingly put it - but actually mobilising support for our slate.

Mark Fischer
national organiser