07.10.1999

Politics of exclusion

London Socialist Alliance chair justifies witch-hunting

Mark Fischer has clearly overreacted to the Socialist Democracy Group’s light-hearted and irreverent remarks on our website regarding the Weekly Worker/Communist Party of Great Britain (Weekly Worker September 30). We have clearly touched a raw nerve! I think one of our members must have collected a large wager in light of comrade Fischer’s response!

Our impious comments do however sum up much of the feeling many socialists have regarding the CPGB. The Weekly Worker is clearly a mixture of LM and Private Eye. Informative, entertaining reading, but not serious politics.

The reaction of comrade Fischer would appear to be driven more by frustration at the failures of the CPGB and the tensions and strains within the organisation. The letters from Communist Party comrades within the same issue appear to give testimony to this.

Comrade Fischer is however correct to ask comrades to judge an organisation by its practice and, I would also suggest, its successes. The balance sheets between the two make interesting reading.

All the projects the CPGB seem to be involved in turn to dust. The frustration many on the left have with the CPGB is that their involvement often means the kiss of death for an initiative or project. The attempt to hijack the Rugby Socialist Alliance conference comes to mind. The disruption caused by the CPGB clearly put the Socialist Alliance project back. Hence the situation this year when discussion seeking to draw together comrades for a London Euro challenge proceeded without the involvement of the CPGB in the important stages. The isolation of the CPGB was evident at the relaunch London Socialist Alliance conference in Lewisham in August and the last meeting of the LSA.

I am not aware of any socialist in the Socialist Labour Party - which at its height had more than 2,000 members - who became attracted to the methods, tactics and politics of the CPGB. Having had the misfortune to witness first hand a leading CPGBer operate, I am not surprised. That comrade was repeatedly admonished by the SLP branch and narrowly escaped expulsion for putting women who had fled domestic violence at risk. The CPGB continued to stand around the sick bed of the SLP long after the rest of the left had seen the patient was brain-dead and the life support machine had been switched off!

The contrast with the record of the Socialist Democracy Group could not be more stark. The SDG over its couple of years of existence has drawn together a wide range of socialists. Members and supporters of SDG politics are involved in a wide spectrum of campaigns, from anti-racist work, third world solidarity, defence of public services campaigns (with notable success in Lewisham), trade union work, helping to launch a new trade union journal for militants and work to build broad SAs.

Membership of the SDG includes activists who have been involved in the Independent Labour Network, Scottish Socialist Party, former members of the Labour Party, the SLP, Socialist Outlook, independents and not just those former Socialist Party comrades involved in a debate in the SP regarding the lessons to be drawn from the formation of the SSP. We all share a determination to see the formation of a new party of the left. The ongoing success of the SSP is an inspiration for all socialists (why no mention of the Hamilton South result in contrast with that of the SLP in Wigan, Mark?).

I am therefore pleased to inform comrade Fischer that the SDG is no more. We have resolved to liquidate our organisation and put our resources at the disposal of a much larger group of comrades and help facilitate the development of the Socialist Network. SN will be launched in Liverpool on October 16.

All those who support the need for a new Marxist politics and are willing to examine and reassess how socialists should organise are welcome to attend.

If Mark Fischer were to ring he may find the line constantly engaged!

Nick Long