Letters

Expel miscreants

The Weekly Worker (September 16) carried an article outlining the result of the debate at the Party aggregate in September regarding the newly termed ‘British Irish’. While the article contained the usual spin, it was a fair reflection of the positions taken. The accompanying statement from Jack Conrad, however, was not and contained a worrying trend to vilify those who will not bow down to the great intellectual Party thinker at the first opportunity.

The argument and subsequent non-vote on the theses was caused solely by Conrad right at the end of the meeting (when all amendments had been put and voted on and the chair had called for a vote on the theses), insisting that it be voted on paragraph by paragraph, after the discussion had taken it as a whole. This was quite rightly rejected and it was agreed the theses would ‘lie on the table’. Therefore it comes forward to the next aggregate. Why then the need for a special statement?

The name-calling also reflects the way the comrade dealt with opposition at the aggregate. Whilst part of that opposition and one of the principal antagonists, I fully accept that comrades put their views forcefully and sincerely and at times in the heat of the moment resort to ‘unparliamentary language’. The carrying it on into print is something else. If Conrad believes that his opponents are imbued with “vicarious Irish nationalism, residual bureaucratic socialism” - ie, Stalinism - then surely he should be taking steps at the PCC to have these miscreants thrown out!

Let’s get back to the arguments and stop this nonsense of trying to label everyone who disagrees as somehow politically deficient. This was the method employed by the likes of Healy, the Sparts and - yes - the old official Stalinists of the CPGB. There should be no room for this in the reforged (expunged of Stalinists) CPGB.

Michael Farmer
Rochdale

British-Irish

With his leadership faction giving pride of place to his ‘Theses on the British-Irish’ at the CPGB aggregates, Jack Conrad can have every confidence that he will achieve a majority in October. This leader of the Party was also provided with highlighted space for a demagogic statement denouncing the opposition as being “amorphous and theoretically weak” and opposed to ‘consistent democracy’. Unlike Conrad with his powerful intellect, their ideas apparently stem from “vicarious Irish nationalism and residual bureaucratic socialism”.

With Conrad getting his majority, can we expect a future occasion when the stalwarts of the ‘CPGB’ will carry the slogan ‘Arm the British-Irish Liberation Army’, while demanding the self-determinational right for Conrad’s new ‘patchwork Ulster’ to be part of a Greater Britain within Ireland?

Dave Norman
London

Nano-smears

I would not plumb the depths, the new political low, of Steve Hedley with the lurid and utterly shameful headline, ‘Informer Metcalf’s infantile disorder’ (Weekly Worker September 16). Nor do I need to defend Mark against the worse slur and smear on the character of anyone involved in the workers’ movement I have ever read in more than 25 years. He can quite adequately defend himself. Incidentally didn’t a “dead Russian” coin the phrase, “infantile disorder”?

If Steve Hedley had written a political reply to a very political statement by Mark Metcalf - which clearly outlines the difference between a bureaucratic, broad left approach to industrial activity and organisation and a rank and file one - I would have written a political reply as my contribution to the debate. But I am not about to start swimming in the murky depths in which Hedley is trying to submerge the debate.

What I will reply to is his snide references to and dig at myself and the Building Workers Group of which I am proud to be secretary. It seems he is engaging in the “nano-sized” argument as a substitute for real political debate. On what authority does he base his assertion that there is only myself and “two other workers in the Building Workers Group”?

If we are so small and by inference have such little influence and impact, how come John Laings took out a high court injunction against us in 1986, which we successfully defied? How come full-time Ucatt official Dominic Hehir took out a high court writ against me in 1996, with the tacit support of the general secretary and executive council, in another attempt to silence us? We saw this off as well. How did I manage to get 15% of the vote in a three-way contest against two broad left candidates officially backed by the union in a recent election to the executive council?

Recently in furtherance of a Ucatt recruitment drive I visited dozens of sites and was very well received by literally hundreds of building workers in this process, to the extent of getting an enthusiastic round of applause in a canteen full of groundworkers on one particular site. None of whom were in the union, but quite a few joined. I will be visiting many more sites. Of course I will be delivering a rank and file as well as the official union message. Maybe not if Ucatt general secretary Brumwell reads this!

No, I am not isolated from the only people who really matter. The union bureaucrats and their allies in the broad left have undoubtedly tried to put me in political isolation but have not quite succeeded. I am quite physically and geographically isolated by the building employers with my severe blacklisting but refuse to let it stop me agitating and organising.

Brian Higgins
Building Workers Group

Gramscian

Steve Hedley’s appointment to a Ucatt official’s post, following his dismissal from rail work and, I can only presume, his leaving the RMT union, smacked of Gramscian theory on the nature of trade unions under capitalism, where

“A metalworker’s official can pass on indifferently to the bricklayers, the bootmakers or the joiners. He is not obliged to know the real technical conditions of the industry, just the private regulations which regulate the conditions between entrepreneurs and the labour force.”

Current pay scales under the construction industry joint agreement range from £4.55 an hour for a general building operative to the craft rate of £6.05 an hour. On average less than Steve Hedley’s £17,000, warm office environment and comfortable job security.

Only by a return to the militant rank and file action used in pressing the building workers’ charter in 1972 will the beaten, defeatist attitude prevalent on sites for the past decade be lifted. Unfortunately, as I am sure Steve is aware, a sizeable number of construction workers in this country consider trade unions ‘a waste of time’.

Jon Tait
Lancaster

Arthur’s backing

While I enjoy Simon Harvey’s insights into the SLP, I believe he made one small error when he implies that comrade Scargill would not be best pleased to hear that his party’s youth section supports violent action such as June’s ‘Carnival against capitalism’.

I recall, back in the summer, comrade Scargill stated (on the BBC’s ‘Question time’) that he backed the rioters’ action “wholeheartedly”. I confess to being surprised but he gained a round of applause from me at least.

Ivan Doyle
Oxford

Unprincipled

I have been reading your paper through the internet and I have to congratulate you because you are having very useful discussions.

John Stone (Weekly Worker July 22) denounced the League for a Revolutionary Communist International’s motives in making a bloc with the Argentinean PTS. I would like to add some information regarding the methods of this organisation. For almost four years the PTS and the LRCI flirted, talking of creating a pole of attraction. None of their discussions were in front of the class.

The PTS also promoted a broader political movement aimed at fusing with many currents to form a non-Leninist grouping. It failed because no significant working class organisation joined them. The PTS is capable of changing lines and political relationships in a very unprincipled way - as does the LRCI.

Gabriel
Argentina