07.06.2000

Preparing for the general election

Our June 11 conference of the London Socialist Alliance is an important moment in the development of the left. This is despite the fact that it has a quite limited remit: the agenda has been designed to briefly assess our intervention in the Greater London Assembly elections on May 4, to mark out some campaigning areas as priorities for the coming period and - crucially - to agree the general outlines of an LSA constitution. Of course, what all that is about in the short term is preparing for the general election - in 2001 or 2002.

Interestingly the debates in the LSA steering committee on the constitution have revealed a difference of approach between the groups. Evidently we possess unequal weight organisationally, defend distinct traditions and have expectations which lead to particular formulations. Nothing has been revealed in the protracted arguments and debates that is life-threatening to the project, or that cannot be contained within the ranks of the bloc as presently constituted. It has been emphasised that, whatever constitutional arrangements are adopted on June 11, the structure will be kept under constant review. In particular, the various perspectives that have been formally presented or suggested in the various factional papers and journals must be given time and space for the LSA as a body to explore more fully.

While most groups have come forward with their own structural proposals, the two essential competing models are embodied in the proposals of Socialist Workers Party and those of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

The comrades from the SWP want to give Sunday's conference the sovereign power to directly elect a completely new steering committee. In their words, this will mean: "The outgoing steering committee should propose a slate for the new steering committee to conference .

"The new steering committee should be based upon a voting principle which gives every individual member of that committee an equal voice and vote. Only in this way can we give those who are not members of other political organisations full involvement in the work and the discussions of the steering committee . The new steering committee should also take account of the continuing very important role that the organisations that originally founded the LSA have in building the LSA in the future. The steering committee should therefore include in the list presented to conference four members of the SWP, and two members each from the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, CPGB, the International Socialist Group, the Socialist Party and Workers Power" (SWP's proposals on structure, presented to June 6 steering committee meeting).

In contrast, our organisation has argued for a system of indirect democracy, a more appropriate form, given the stage of development of the LSA - as an alliance of left groups (and, we hope, in the immediate future of borough alliances too).

This would mean that the above-named affiliates would be entitled to automatic representation on the steering committee. In addition, we argued that local borough alliances and London-wide trade union bodies which affiliate should have the same right. This committee would have the power to elect its own recallable officers and form sub-committees - including, if it chooses, from non-aligned independents outside the committee. Such office-holders or sub-committee members would then be directly responsible to the leadership of the LSA itself rather than an annual conference. They would therefore be directly accountable and recallable on a day-to-day basis.

Practically, in the here and now, such an arrangement would see a clear SWP majority on the steering committee - it could elect whoever it chose as officers. But - and it is a big but - the other minority LSA components would have the opportunity to become the majority and would have a voice without fear or favour. These are the necessary conditions needed to build trust.

We think the role of borough alliances is crucial - if we are to field candidates in the next general election. They should and will grow numerically and develop politically. Annual snapshot elections by the whole LSA membership might produce a 51% victory for this or that bloc. But what the LSA requires is the ability to include new forces who are taking the lead. They should not have to wait a year nor need the permission of the dominant bloc.

The sub-committee meeting that considered the various options on June 6 was a lively gathering. The composite resolution which goes to conference on June 11 is still under discussion, but is likely to be an uneasy compromise between these two positions, with a degree of direct elections from the conference to ratify the existing arrangements on the committee, plus a batch of independents if and when they come forward. Alongside this, the new leadership will be empowered to accept the affiliation of new bodies to the LSA, organisations that will then have an automatic place on the steering committee.

Those organisations and comrades who pushed for the full steering committee to be elected by direct elections from conference based themselves on 'democracy' and the need to empower non-aligned LSAers. As the SWP's document put it, "Only in this way will the steering committee clearly be seen to have a responsibility to the LSA as a whole and the independence of the LSA be assured."

This simply ignores the reality of the LSA as currently constituted. Whatever the subjective desires of some parts of the LSA, our conference on Sunday will not be composed of one half politically affiliated, one half 'independents'. The majority of comrades who will fill the hall in ULU will be members or supporters of the five constituent political groups that comprise the LSA. As such, they will be under discipline to vote one way or another. In these circumstances direct elections inevitably make the steering committee not the property of an abstract LSA composed of 'independents', but the largest component organisation - that is, the SWP.

The steering committee agreed by a margin of four to two that affiliates should have automatic representation, the SWP and International Socialist Group voting against. The majority of the committee also agreed with the thrust of a Socialist Party resolution. This argued that, "All participating parties, organisations and groups have the right to distribute their own material and sell their papers when working under the umbrella of the LSA" and "all election candidates . have the right to state the name of the party they belong to on election material." Again, the SWP opposed this, while the ISG split and was unable to vote, with LSA secretary Greg Tucker taking a principled position opposing prohibitions.

It is clear that on June 11, if it so chooses, the SWP can overturn all these recommendations of the steering committee and impose its own preferences by mobilising numbers. It would pay a very heavy political price for such an approach, however. As the largest component element, the SWP has a particular responsibility for the whole project: the comrades must be prepared to lose sometimes.

There was a parallel between stances adopted by comrades in the Socialist Party and CPGB on some questions. The comrades made correct points about the rights of new affiliates and of the existing components of the bloc to retain their distinctive public face.

However, while SPers continually call into question the 'trustworthiness' of the SWP, it must be said that Taaffe's organisation has some hard work to do before it repairs the self-inflicted damage of standing one of its comrades, Arwyn Thomas, against the LSA on May 4 (he was on the Campaign Against Tube Privatisation slate). Thus their protestations that they are fighting to safeguard the democracy of the LSA, or to preserve its broad character, are still a little hard to swallow. In particular, a debate about the number of representatives of each group on the steering committee put forward by the SWP illustrated the iniquity of the comrades' position, the mess that Peter Taaffe has led them into.

The SWP proposed - and it will appear in the composite motion going to conference - that in recognition of its numerical weight in the alliance, its political commitment and the resources it has devoted to it, the steering committee elected directly from conference should include "four members of the SWP and two members each from the AWL, the CPGB, the ISG, the SP and Workers Power".

The CPGB and SP oppose this and agree that the present arrangement should continue, with equal votes per organisation. While we may bloc to propose this to conference, it is important to state our very different motivations.

As stated, we are against direct elections at this stage and are in favour of all affiliates having equal standing on the committee. In our structure, this is a formal equality, however. We fully recognise the role played by the SWP and we would confidently expect that many borough alliances would delegate SWP members to serve on the LSA steering committee. We would have no problem about having a large SWP majority on the steering committee, as long as the rights of the minority are constitutionally enshrined and protected. The SP's motivation is very different, however.

Incredibly, its representatives at the June 6 steering committee suggested that the proposal to place SP representation on a par with other groups was "a joke".

In fact, the mildly amusing aspect was the idea that after the outrageous behaviour of its London leadership in the lead-up to May 4 elections, the SP felt entitled to demand anything more than parity with organisations that have thrown themselves in with gusto to the project, that have committed time energy and money to making the LSA work. After all, this is an organisation that:

• has to date not donated one penny to the LSA centrally, despite the heavy debts that have accumulated in our campaigning work.
• did not advertise LSA events - not even ones where SP members were speaking!
• had leading members actively sabotaging motions supporting affiliation to the LSA going through various union bodies.

Constitutionally, the SP had previously presented proposals that in effect embodied a series of veto provisions, constitutional guarantees that a minority could hamper to work of a majority. As John Rees of the SWP pointed out, if a structure such as the one advocated by the SP had been in place prior to May 4, it would have been practically impossible to run the campaign we did. Thus, while the SP make some perfectly correct criticisms of the gung-ho approach of the SWP, the deep suspicion amongst many is that this springs from an unresolved hostility to the project as a whole, a sect-paranoia about being 'swamped' by the SWP, not a concern to ensure the LSA's healthy development.

On the initiative of the Communist Party, the June 11 conference will also be presented with the opportunity to endorse the call for a UK conference to unite our forces for a challenge to Blair in the next general election, with 50-plus candidates as our aim. There is a recognition that this will need another conference, structured very differently from this weekend's, in order to discuss this and other such questions in depth.

On June 11, we will assess the strengths and weakness of our work so far. We will hopefully formalise a structure that will give us the maximum flexibility combined with the rights of the key left organisations to take a full part in the decision-making process of the alliance.