17.05.2000

SP (Nellist) win in Coventry

Dave Nellist's version of the Socialist Party in England and Wales has won a third seat in Coventry, giving the organisation all three councillors in St Michael's ward.

In the May 4 local elections Robert Windsor polled 1,182 votes (46.2%), narrowly defeating the Labour candidate to join Dave Nellist and Karen McKay as the ward's elected representatives. Like the CPGB, the SP is of course prohibited from standing under its own name by the undemocratic stipulations of the Registration of Political Parties Act and so contested as Socialist Alternative, its registered name under the act.

In Coventry, however, the suffix '(Nellist)' was added, distancing itself from Peter Taaffe's PO box 24697 wing, and building on the reputation of the former Labour MP for Coventry South East. Five other Socialist Alternative (Nellist) candidates stood, mostly returning good votes - particularly in Binley and Willenhall (like St Michael's also in the Coventry South East constituency), where Becky Tustain won 380 votes (13.1%). The total vote for 'Nellist' in these six wards was 2,502.

In addition community activist Martha Young won 438 votes (18.2%) in Henley for the Socialist Alliance. But comrade Young relied almost entirely on the efforts of a few close supporters. SP (Nellist) comrades concentrated on campaigning for their own Socialist Alternative candidates.

In Westwood, the SP's Mary Manley actually stood against another member of comrade Nellist's Coventry and Warwickshire Socialist Alliance. Harry Brooks had previously announced his intention to contest the ward, but the SP decided it ought to be fought by Socialist Alternative. Unable to run as 'Socialist Alliance', comrade Brooks stood as 'Independent Voice of the People' and won 192 votes (7.1%), against comrade Manley's 292 (10.9%).

However, these results are most encouraging, and the election of another socialist councillor provides the left with a small but not insignificant boost. Taaffe's wing will crow and celebrate in The Socialist, but it is only too evident that the centrifugal forces at work within the Socialist Party in England and Wales and the Committee for a Workers International can only but increase. Nellist - who backs the London Socialist Alliance - won. Peter Taaffe - who opposed the LSA - stands exposed as misleader and loser.

Coventry was not replicated elsewhere, whether the Taaffe loyalists stood as Socialist Alternative or Socialist Alliance (as in Sheffield). Pete Glover's 416 votes in the Sefton (Merseyside) ward of Netherton and Orrell was difficult to evaluate, as there were three vacancies and his only opponents were three Labour candidates who each polled 900-1,000 votes. Comrade Glover was the only SP candidate in the whole of Merseyside. His former comrades in the Merseyside Socialists backed the two Socialist Alliance candidates in Liverpool, whose results were very poor. Merseyside was the one area where Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party received reasonable votes: Alan Fogg gained 175 votes (13.2%) in Netherley, while Carole Whatham's 90 votes represented 11.8% in Page Moss. In Sefton's Ford ward, where the SLP has been the most dynamic (and non-sectarian) from the outset, the support for its three candidates translated to around 16%.

Elsewhere, however, Socialist Labour's performance was disastrous. In most areas the SLP was unable to contest at all, while in others it managed only a token intervention. For example, in Barnsley - previously considered ideal Scargill territory - there was only one candidate, compared to 16 that Socialist Labour fielded in 1998. Two years ago the SLP total of 1,633 votes represented 6.5% of the vote in those seats, but in 2000 Terry Robinson was left to carry the flag alone in Worsborough ward, and his vote dipped from 244 (15%) in 1998 to just 92 (5.2%) on May 4.

What we are witnessing is the end of the SLP as any kind of force. This will surely be confirmed at the next general election, when it will be extremely doubtful if Scargill will be able to muster more than a handful of candidates - assuming of course his party is still around.

Nevertheless the Coventry results, plus the useful returns for the London Socialist Alliance in the Greater London Authority elections, confirm once again that the left is capable of presenting a viable alternative.

The experience of the LSA proves that the left can overcome both its lack of self-belief and its destructive sectarianism. But the SLP has consistently ignored all appeals for unity, while up to now the SP has apparently only been interested in electoral alliances if it believes it can dominate them itself.

Yet if we pool our forces we can start to make real progress. We must begin to prepare now for a coordinated, all-UK intervention in the general election with at least 50 candidates.