03.05.2000

Simon Harvey of the SLP

Arthur's LSA spectre Lies, damn lies and Scargillism

Socialist Labour's campaign for the Greater London Assembly elections was dogged at every step by the reality of the London Socialist Alliance challenge.

Comrades reading this article will of course know the results of the May 4 poll and will be in a position to confirm what I suspect will be the case - that the LSA has won many more votes than our party.

Every one of the dozen or so Socialist Labour comrades who handed out leaflets outside tube stations or attended any of the six rallies addressed by Scargill and other SLP speakers across the capital can relate how they personally, or the party as a whole, were challenged by members of the public for standing in opposition to the LSA. People who approached our comrades on the street had read the widely distributed LSA material which had been delivered door to door in most areas and were genuinely puzzled as to why our party had not participated in the alliance. After all, there seemed to be a broad consensus on most policies, many said.

Clearly Arthur Scargill was surprised and dismayed by the depth, penetration and enthusiasm of the LSA campaign. Recalling the aborted attempt to stand in the 1999 European Union elections, when the Socialist Workers Party collapsed as soon as it became known that our general secretary was to head the SLP list in London (to be quickly followed by most of the other alliance partners), perhaps Scargill had expected a recurrence this year.

Certainly he continually put out the blatantly false claim that, "The Socialist Labour Party is the only party with a socialist programme standing in the London member list for the GLA elections" (Socialist News election special, April-May). It is true that the LSA is not a party, but surely the Communist Party of Britain, which, like the LSA, ran an equally sectarian and dismal splitting campaign, is just as much a 'party' as the SLP. Scargill wanted voters to believe that the SLP was the only socialist organisation contesting, of course - Socialist News did not even admit there were others.

It must then have been most disconcerting to have to field question after question relating to the LSA at the seven pre-election rallies, held in Erith, East Ham, Broadwater Farm, Stoke Newington, Walworth, Southall and central London's Conway Hall. In the end Scargill was forced to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to dismiss and discredit the alliance's platform. But his attempt at a point-by-point rebuttal was dishonest in the extreme and, frankly, pathetic.

At a meeting in Walworth Scargill went through the seven bullet points on the LSA's final election leaflet, claiming that each was either inadequate or plain wrong. For example: "Stop the privatisation of the tube and bring the rail back into public ownership" (LSA leaflet). How does that compare to, "London Underground must be kept in public ownership ... the regional railways must also be returned to municipal ownership" (SLP election address)?

But Scargill did not bother to make the comparison: it was enough to state that the LSA supports Ken Livingstone, whose call for a bond issue is "privatisation by one means or another". Perhaps it would be churlish to question why the normal means of raising additional finance for state-owned industries (borrowing from big banks and other capitalist institutions) is considered superior by Scargill to doing so through bonds.

Next point: "End police racism and corruption. Ensure asylum-seekers are welcome here" (LSA). "Who could disagree?" asked Scargill. But only the SLP proposal for "police accountability" can ensure racism and corruption are rooted out. Here our general secretary is attacking the LSA from a distinctly reformist, rightwing angle - something which must cause not a little embarrassment and discomfort to the likes of London regional president Harpal Brar - whose adherence to revolutionary national socialism leaves him (on this question at least) nearer the LSA's left wing than to Scargill: the bourgeois police are an instrument of the state and can never be made genuinely accountable to the people, as Scargill believes.

"Secure a fully funded NHS. End privatisation and cuts" (LSA). Ah, but it doesn't say, 'Bring back into the NHS those parts that have already been privatised.' This is disingenuity taken to the depths. Scargill knows full well that every LSA component agrees with the elementary call for "a National Health Service completely free and available to all at the time of need and upon demand" (Socialist News election special).

"Oppose the sell-off of council houses. End homelessness." Scargill's response? "Fine. But why not call for all housing taken over by private landlords to be taken back?" This omission was clearly enough to damn the LSA as a bunch of reformist opportunists. Strangely though, it is also missing from SLP election address, which is content to demand "an immediate halt to the sell-off of public housing".

"Secure a decent minimum wage and trade union rights for all." Here at last Scargill appeared to be on firmer ground when he asked, "What is a 'decent minimum wage'?" However, he then went on to specify the absurdly inadequate £6 per hour - far below what workers need. In fact the only reason the LSA did not name a figure is that the alliance partners have all arrived at different ones. But they all (with the exception of the CPGB) share Scargill's incorrect method: instead of fighting for what is required to reproduce ourselves at the cultural level of 21st century Britain (at present around £300 per adult, per week), they either pluck a figure out of the air, trail the TUC or even champion the EU 'decency level'.

While on the subject of wages, our general secretary went on to comment that the commitment of LSA candidates to "only take the average working wage of those who elect them" was "completely hypocritical". After all, he said rather cryptically, in their workplaces they are happy enough to take "what their trade union has won for them". Did this mean that he equated, for example, MPs voting themselves a pay rise with the struggle of a workers' union? Or perhaps it was somehow unprincipled for our elected representatives to hand over part of their salary to the movement?

Finally: "Set up tough controls on water and air pollution." Again this was insufficient for Arthur: why not take the water companies back into public ownership? Scargill did not say what his disagreements were with the final bullet point: "End student tuition fees. Provide high quality education for all."

As several questioners at the various meetings clearly believed, there is in fact very little on any of these points where SLP policy differs substantially from that of the LSA. The truth is that both are left reformist; both share the misconception that "public ownership" under capitalism is progressive; or even, despite all the evidence of the last 50 years, a step towards socialism.

In reply to a friendly question, Scargill agreed that "they" (the LSA's components) had voted Labour in May 1997. Furthermore "they" had campaigned for a vote for Alan Howarth, the ex-Tory Labour candidate, against him in Newport East at the general election. In fact only Workers Power did so - and was condemned by others on the left for this opportunism. But surely the point is not what the left did in the past - Scargill himself had been a loyal member of what he described at Conway Hall as a "party of fudge, a party of compromise, a party that never could have been a socialist party" up to 1995. The point is that now virtually the whole left is breaking to some degree or another with their past automatic support for Labour - an excellent thing that should be encouraged. Other SLP loyalists seemed to think that "they" supported Nato's bombing of Yugoslavia.

With no more than a couple of dozen semi-active London members to publicise the meetings, they were mostly poorly attended. Thanks to comrade Brar and his fellow Indian Workers Association member Hardev Dhillon - like Brar a candidate on our GLA list - the rallies in Erith and Southall were filled by IWA supporters. But the central London event attracted just over 40 comrades, while the four local meetings averaged 15-20.

Comrade Nick Long, speaking from the floor in Conway Hall, pointed out that, by contrast, the LSA had mobilised around 1,000 people to two rallies. Comrade Long, himself a former Scargillite loyalist, but now a member of the Socialist Democracy Group, expressed his disappointment that the SLP was not part of what was clearly a more viable intervention "despite my criticisms of the Socialist Alliance". Scargill retorted, without any hint of irony or embarrassment, that it would have been "the easiest thing in the world to bring in 500 people and stack a rally", but instead the SLP had preferred to concentrate on its "many" local meetings. Yes, Arthur, we all believe you.

The Conway Hall meeting in particular was dominated by the LSA spectre. Comrade Joti Brar opened the rally from the chair by recounting what LSA supporters had told her on the previous day's May Day march. If the SLP had taken part, Scargill could have had a prominent place on the common list; as it was, the SLP would now be "trounced". Joti retorted that to have done so would have meant "renouncing our socialism". In any case, accepting, it seems, the inevitability of a poor result, she declared that the SLP did not depart from 'principle' for opportunistic short-term gain.

In similar vein her dear father, Harpal, the only other speaker apart from Scargill himself (it seems that our general secretary was unable to persuade a 'big name' such as Bob Crow or Joe Marino to turn out), recounted how LSA supporters had asked him, "Why not join with us?" But they had all, without exception, scurried away once he challenged them with their support for Ken Livingstone.

Yes, said comrade Brar, "we are all socialists in a funny kind of way. But we will not support every scoundrel who has reduced fares some time in his life." Once you start making distinctions between reactionaries, he asserted, you end up saying, 'Goebbels was not as bad as Hitler'. Comrade Brar pretends not to understand the reasoning behind the call to give Livingstone critical support and appears to have forgotten Lenin's advice to the fledgling CPGB to support Labour despite the enthusiastic backing of its leaders for the imperialist slaughter of 1914-1918. The nuances of the tactics employed in order to split Labour and build a working class party worthy of the name are beyond him - and Scargill too of course.

The LSA's support for Livingstone was in truth the excuse that Scargill was forced to resort to again and again. "I can't see the difference between the capitalist parties and the 'Marxists' and 'Trotskyists' who back someone who supports privatisation," he said. He told his audience that Livingstone had actually voted for privatisation of the tube.

But, a member of the audience asked, what about in the constituencies where the SLP was not standing? The speaker described himself as a teacher who had the opportunity to vote for Christine Blower, the LSA candidate, who was a leading figure in his union opposing the rightwing NUT leadership. In response Scargill repeated the tortuous formulation that he had been employing at all the rallies: "I will not be drawn. We cannot back any of the capitalist parties. The SLP is standing on the London members list and everyone should vote for the Socialist Labour Party."

Finally after being pressed by another comrade to state clearly that he was advising abstention, Scargill said: "Read my lips. Vote SLP for the members list. Don't vote in the constituencies. Don't vote for mayor."

Apart from this disgraceful wrecking advice, Scargill made an interesting disclosure in his final intervention. He said he had been approached a year ago by "a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party, a very old friend of mine" (the form of words he had used at earlier meetings to describe Paul Foot). The comrade had, according to Scargill, offered to give the SLP a clear run in the assembly elections if he in turn agreed not to stand against any SWP-backed candidate for mayor.

Be that as it may, we are surely now approaching a decisive moment in our party's short history. The whole GLA episode has demonstrated once and for all that any remaining thoughts of Socialist Labour leading a break from Labour are just a pipe dream. There are two choices facing us: accept that the break has failed and join in with those fighting to forge a new working class party through projects like the LSA; or face oblivion. I am not confident that Scargill will make the right choice.