31.05.2000

Simon Harvey of the SLP

Arthur strikes for Britain

After the debacle of the Greater London Authority elections, the SLP's fortunes must surely be at an all-time low. Despite standing as "Socialist Labour Party - leader Arthur Scargill" we managed just 0.8% - almost exactly half the percentage recorded by the London Socialist Alliance.

As every remaining party activist will tell you, we now have a tiny fraction of the membership that peaked at around 2,000 in 1997. Most branches have long since folded and most of those that are still officially in existence are just about defunct. Our website has practically been abandoned (the only result of the last 'update' on May 26 seems to have been the removal of all mention of the disastrous GLA 'campaign'), and communication with the rank and file is almost non-existent.

Nevertheless, our party is not dead yet. From time to time the bourgeoisie likes to put on display what it believes should now be regarded as an eccentric, but basically harmless relic from the past - the defeated ideology of socialism. And for this purpose who better to turn to than the militant leader of the miners' Great Strike? Today Scargill may still be president of the National Union of Mineworkers, but, despite the heroic battle of 1984-85, both the workforce and the NUM membership is decimated.

With this purpose our general secretary was invited to appear on BBC radio on May 30, when he was the main guest for over an hour on Nicky Campbell's Radio Five Live morning show. Campbell introduced him as perhaps the prime exponent of "the 's' word".

However, Scargill was caught off guard at first, when he was asked to comment on an ongoing discussion with other guests on 'problem children' and school exclusions. He mumbled about 'dealing with each case as it arises' and complained vaguely about "the system". "The problem is capitalism?" Campbell helpfully suggested. "You're doing very well," Arthur replied, recovering his composure. "Ten out of ten." Getting into his stride, he suggested that the solution was to "pump money into education". It is of course true that "the problem is capitalism", but primarily as a result not of underfunding, but its inherently alienating social relations - although Scargill can hardly be expected to rise to such levels of sophistication.

He went on to answer several phone-in questions and responded to a variety of points put by the presenter. The first listener (clearly an LSA supporter) asked why the SLP had not joined forces with the alliance. Voters had not been aware the SLP was standing in the GLA elections, the caller said, until they found out when they actually came to vote. If the left had got together it might have won a seat, and that would have provided us with a forum for propagating socialist ideas - far better than small groups like the SLP trying unsuccessfully to get their message across in isolation.

Scargill's retort was predictable: the LSA is a "conglomerate of parties all at each other's throat", he declared. Obviously the irony of this remark escaped him. The LSA components certainly have their differences, but they had actually agreed to a united electoral challenge, while we refused all their approaches for a single slate. And Scargill criticises them for disunity. The SLP was formed to unite the left, he went on. Its formation provided a unique opportunity for everybody to "leave their baggage at the door". Unfortunately though, "not all" had joined.

In this way Scargill vainly continues his attempt to portray the rest of the left as splitters from the one true socialist party. He is aided, of course, by his loyal Stalinite lieutenant, London regional president Harpal Brar, who ludicrously stated before the election that the LSA's sole purpose in standing was to block the SLP. A cursory glance at the results gives the lie to both of them.

Next Scargill was asked by a listener about his views on JV Stalin: did he regard him as "a good socialist"? Arthur replied that he thought Stalin had been a "very good leader", especially during World War II. It was true that he had committed "many, many errors", but, there again, "Churchill in Britain was also criticised".

Campbell at this point mildly suggested that it was perhaps not Stalin's record as war leader that was the main issue. After all he stood accused of being a "mass murderer". Did Scargill think Churchill had killed more people than Stalin? And what about the gulags, the show trials? Yes, yes, said Arthur, but these "mistakes" must be seen in context. Don't forget, "the problems of the Soviet Union were infinitely worse after Stalin than before his death".

As Scargill was unwilling to venture an opinion on whether Stalin was responsible for more deaths than Churchill, Campbell tried another tack: who did our general secretary think was worse - Stalin or Thatcher? By now Scargill was really getting tied in knots. Until and unless he knew the truth, he could not go along with allegations against the former Soviet leader: "If people were killed, or put into concentration camps, it was wrong." Arthur conceded that Stalin may have done those things, but he knew that Thatcher had "destroyed our manufacturing industry, people's hope". The listener who had originally asked the question compared Scargill's response to the holocaust-denial of David Irving.

Scargill did, however, state that he had always opposed the restrictions on travelling abroad that the USSR had imposed. Hearing this, when Campbell asked him what the SLP's position on asylum-seekers was, he no doubt expected Scargill to call for the dismantling of all border controls: did Socialist Labour support an "open-door policy"? But our general secretary's response was to make clear that he backed such a position only in relation to people "fleeing oppression" - ie, exactly the same formal stance as the mainstream parties.

But Campbell ought not to have been surprised. Scargill's little-Britain national socialism is well known. He had already told listeners that the owners of US and German companies like Ford and BMW should be instructed to "go home". Their factories should be taken into public ownership and used "for the benefit of people in Britain". This narrow nationalism extended to Scargill's views on football: as a self-confessed "fanatical Leeds United supporter", he complained about the number of foreign players in the Scottish and English premierships and called for "British teams with British players". Indeed, he continued, the Celtic team that won the European Cup under manager Jock Stein consisted in its entirety of players who came from within 16 miles of the centre of Glasgow.

Another caller asked him why as a Yorkshireman he had stood in the GLA elections. Scargill answered, correctly, that the people of London were entitled to be represented by whoever they wished, whether or not they were a Londoner. One of Campbell's other guests thought he saw a contradiction between Scargill's views on the composition of football teams and on political representation. But there was no contradiction: Scargill stressed again his jingoistic call for "British teams with British players" - just as, presumably, he calls for 'British local government with British councillors'.

By way of summing up, Campbell asked Scargill whether he was not living in the past - a forlorn individual expounding an outdated ideology. Arthur replied that people like himself must continue to state the truth - their greatness will eventually be recognised, no doubt: "If Jock Stein had been around today, he would have been supporting Arthur Scargill and the Socialist Labour Party," was his bizarre conclusion.

It is certainly true that Scargill's version of top-down bureaucratic national socialism is well past its sell-by date. But, while the media are prepared to use him as an occasional walk-on curiosity, he manages not only to discredit the SLP, but to continue to divert the working class from any vision of genuine self-emancipation.