09.05.2001

Brent and Harrow

Reluctant rank and file

Socialist Workers Party comrades Brian Butterworth and Roger Cox, alongside CPGB comrades, did their best at our May 3 weekly meeting to win support for the proposal to field railworker Derek Goodliffe, a member of the CPGB, as parliamentary candidate for Brent East. But the motion was lost by 11 votes to seven, and the seat vacated by London mayor Ken Livingstone will not be contested, leaving the council leader, Blairite Paul Daisley, unchallenged from the left.

The reluctance of the International Socialist Group and a number of independents, including ex-members of Brent East Labour Party, combined with the absenteeism of the SWP rank and file. An underlying factor, it must be admitted, is the weakness of CPGB forces locally. Until now SWPers have invariably constituted the voting majority in our meetings, but not on this occasion. Those SWPers who attended, as always - though some dissented in discussion - voted in unison for the proposal, in an exemplary disciplined manner

Comrade Cox upheld the "principle" of the SA nationally supporting a contest "wherever someone wants to stand (barring nutters)". He also spoke of "breaking the horrid, nasty sectarianism of the past", implying a continued reluctance by some comrades to back a CPGB candidate. Comrade Butterworth argued that increasing numbers are fed up with New Labour and "it would be wonderful to stand in Brent East", as many will already be looking for a way to vote against Labour. The SA can help people "fight back and take control of their own lives". He praised Hampstead and Highgate SA for wanting to field a candidate with far smaller forces than we have in Brent East. "Don't start from the very passivity we decry in others," he implored.

Arguments mustered against contesting Brent East included that our political movement is a "baby" which must learn to "crawl before it can walk"; that standing would "alienate the Brent East Labour left" and "drive away the very people we seek to win"; that we lack resources: comrades are "already overstretched" working in Brent South; that we have "no nucleus" in Brent East and could not mount a "credible" campaign.

Despite the victory for caution, it can only be a good thing that democracy in the SA - open discussion and one member, one vote - was seen to operate freely. Any imposition of a central decision would have nullified the rights of individual members. Every effort must now be made to draw comrades from Brent East, including disaffected Labour Party members, into our Brent South campaign, where local tenants' activist and Unison steward Mick McDonnell is challenging Paul Boateng.

Stan Keable