10.05.2000

LSA - build on GLA success

The elections to the Greater London Assembly have pointed, clearly and unambiguously, towards left advance in Britain.

The London Socialist Alliance has demonstrated that left unity pays. Standing in every one of the 14 constituencies, including in leafy middle class outer-London suburbs, the LSA won 46,530 votes - a fraction under three percent. If only the eight inner-London constituencies are counted, this rises to over four percent.

Two candidates in particular - Cecilia Prosper in the North East and Theresa Bennett in Lambeth and Southwark - achieved excellent results, both comfortably saving their deposits. Comrade Prosper gained 8,269 votes (7.03%), while comrade Bennett received 6,231 (6.17%). The more forces we were able to muster behind the campaign in a given area, the better the result.

Apart from in Lambeth and Southwark, where the tiny Communist League also stood, winning 536 votes, the LSA was the only left group contesting the first-past-the-post seats. However, in the 'London members' ballot, where an additional 11 seats were decided by proportional representation, the LSA was opposed by the Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party, the Morning Star's Communist Party of Britain, the Campaign Against Tube Privatisation and the leftwing gay rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell, standing as an independent.

The LSA came out in front despite these sectarian splitting tactics. But our return fell to 27,073 (1.63%), as party list votes were pulled in several directions. If we add up the votes of the LSA, SLP and CPB - the three groups openly standing on a platform claiming to be socialist - the total won is 48,252, with an almost identical percentage (2.91%) as the LSA received in the constituencies.

According to the Socialist Worker election supplement, the "combined socialist vote" reached 5.3%. However, this is problematical, as the support for Tatchell and the CATP must have been very mixed. Although it would have included a certain proportion of those considering themselves "socialist", it is too simplistic to say, as the supplement does, "If they had gone in with the LSA, the left would have got a seat in the assembly" (May 5). The 2.93% gained in the constituencies gives an accurate snapshot of our actual support.

Nevertheless, with only around five percent needed to win a seat, a breakthrough was indeed possible. To use Tommy Sheridan's phrase, when he addressed the LSA's pre-election rally, united we are "stronger than the sum of our parts".

Take the SLP. It appeared on the ballot paper as 'Socialist Labour Party, leader Arthur Scargill', demonstrating clearly that it now depends entirely on its general secretary's semi-intact reputation. But instead of using it to build the prestige of a united working class challenge Scargill preferred to stubbornly cling to his deluded belief in his own destiny as a labour dictator. But his star is fading and 'his' party gained just half of the LSA's vote. In every election the SLP's support continues to dip. Either it must come on board the unity project or continue its slow death.

The CPB did even worse, picking up around a quarter of the LSA's total - this dismal result is bound to accentuate internal divisions. The CPB campaign was almost invisible - barely mentioned in the Morning Star. But, doggedly sectarian and determined not to have anything to do with the LSA, like CATP and the SLP it refused all our approaches to draw up a common slate. Instead it advised a New Labour vote in the constituencies. It is true that the influence of the Morning Star is on an ever downward curve, but a clear call in its pages to back a united LSA campaign everywhere would surely have added more than the half percentage point the CPB itself achieved.

CATP is obviously a single-issue campaign which hoped to benefit from Ken Livingstone's position on tube privatisation. Its candidates were all members of the RMT transport union claiming to represent the wishes of tubeworkers. In fact overwhelmingly they are leftists of one variety or another with a long history in the sectarian milieu, headed by one Patrick Sikorski, formerly Scargill's loyal witch-hunter general in the SLP and leader of the shadowy Fourth International Supporters Caucus. Nevertheless CATP's election propaganda was totally bereft of any class content and its 17,000 votes could have included a middle class element, who fear that privatisation might result in more delays, higher fares and safety threats, and who gave CATP's "London for Londoners" call a reactionary interpretation.

One of CATP's other candidates was Arwyn Thomas, secretary of the Covent Garden RMT branch. Comrade Thomas is a member of the Socialist Party in England and Wales, whose own failure to campaign for the LSA was another negative factor that cost us votes. The SP leadership became antagonistic to the alliance once it became clear to them that the Socialist Workers Party was taking the lead. The SP called for a vote for CATP and campaigned only in Greenwich and Lewisham, where the alliance candidate was Ian Page, a Socialist Party member. SP-inspired local leaflets did not mention the LSA and it was left to the other groups to promote him using LSA material.

Eventually general secretary Peter Taaffe and his loyalists were forced - not least by a swell of opposition, which included Dave Nellist, Alan Page, Tommy Sheridan and Harry Paterson - to come out belatedly with half-hearted 'support' for the LSA, while continuing its carping attacks on the SWP and continuing to focus almost exclusively on comrade Page. The bankruptcy of all these 'go it alone' groups has been truly exposed.

However, the LSA is in a strong position to call on all of those who have up to now held back or refused to get involved to set aside their sectarianism. The unity of the majority of leftwing organisations in London has paid off, especially with the involvement of the SWP, by far the largest group. The overcoming of years of self-imposed isolation from the rest of the left shows the potential for a mass revolutionary party built initially through the coming together of the left. It shows that the left can be the catalyst for the creation of a movement way beyond its present numbers.

The LSA has broken down barriers and developed trust. Vitally it has shown that revolutionaries and working class militants can unite despite differences over such vital issues as the Soviet Union, the Balkans War and our attitude to questions of the constitution and democracy.

This unity points the way to the kind of party we need - one that is democratic and open, built around the acceptance of a revolutionary programme, and within which there is a right for permanent factions. The fact that the groups involved have seen the objective necessity for unity around elections should also encourage them to see the objective necessity for the creation of a party based on genuine democratic centralism. We need to aim for the highest degree of unity, not be satisfied with a 'united front' or a Rifondazione-type 'halfway house'. Breaking workers from reformism does not imply winning them to a more leftwing version before introducing them to revolutionary politics. In fact the opposite. As Rosa Luxembourg famously pointed out, you do not get to revolution by practising reformism in the here and now.

Despite the advance represented by the coming together of the LSA, for the majority of its component parts the idea of a revolutionary organisation is still based on agreement with the 'party' line, which up to now has been centred on a mono-idea: eg, the nature of the Soviet Union - whether it be state capitalism, courtesy of Tony Cliff, or the 'degenerated workers' state', à  la Trotsky. This, linked to a complete lack of openness and the discouragement of debate among members, has created a stultifying and sectarian left. The jibes of journalists like David Aaronovitch in The Independent about the "57 varieties" reveal a truth (April 19).

The fact that the divisions are now being positively addressed is a tremendous step forward. Even Aaronovitch is forced to admit his amazement that the project has met with some success, however limited. But it needs to go much further. The reality of Blairism has forced groups to begin to put aside their sectarian ways and work together against New Labour. That same approach should guide us in terms of the question of a mass revolutionary party.

There is widespread support for taking the unity project forward. Importantly the SWP is expressing public enthusiasm and optimism for the project. Paul Foot described the result as "an unprecedented achievement for a party which didn't exist three months ago ... The LSA is here to stay" (press release). Note the use of the word 'party'. A little premature, but it does demonstrate the way many on the SWP leadership are thinking. According to Chris Bambery, "The Socialist Workers Party would be happy to be a smaller goldfish in a much bigger bowl" (Socialist Review May).

The by-election in Tottenham caused by the death of Bernie Grant will be the next big test. There is no reason why a single socialist candidate should not aim far beyond the saving of our deposit, but, building on the GLA experience and concentrating our forces, fight to win the seat.

The LSA conference scheduled for early June must be viewed as a stepping stone towards deepening and broadening the unity forged through the GLA campaign in order to generalise it across Britain.

LSA results

(Also: Lambeth and Southwark Jonathan Silberman Communist League, 536)

Left lists' votes

Total left vote: 88,515 (5.33%)