30.05.2001

Simon Harvey of the SLP

Missing candidates

Last week I reported that it looked as though Arthur Scargill would not quite manage the 116 Socialist Labour Party general election candidates he had announced in Socialist News. Now that the dust has settled and nominations have been published, we can see that the actual total is 113.

Nevertheless this is a pretty impressive achievement for an organisation of barely four times as many members. Scargill has persuaded more than half of his remaining activists (and some distinctly non-activists) to allow their names to be put forward. In a massive, centralised effort, the SLP general secretary has almost single-handedly garnered the finance and organised the nominations. Dispensing entirely with selection meetings (there are virtually no branches left capable of holding them in any case), the SLP general secretary for the most part directed those willing to stand to constituencies where Socialist Labour once had some kind of base.

Not surprisingly in the circumstances, one or two of his candidates did not make it onto the ballot paper. For example, Nicola Horau, prospective candidate for Ilford North, who stood for the SLP in last year?s Greater London Authority elections, is not among the nominated candidates after all. But, since she is the partner of Bob Crow, RMT deputy general secretary, who has abandoned the SLP and pledged his support for the Socialist Alliance?s Louise Christian in Hornsey and Wood Green, that is understandable.

Danny O?Neill was supposed to contest Vauxhall for the SLP against Theresa Bennett, one of the alliance candidates expected to do well. Thankfully, for whatever reason, he has not been nominated. The other absentee is Jimmy Hackett, former surcharged councillor who was earmarked for the Liverpool Walton seat. In a rare example of attempted cooperation with the SA, Morning Star fan Alec McFaddon had tried to broker a deal, whereby comrade Hackett would contest Walton, while the SA would have a clear run in Liverpool Wavetree.

However, no doubt after Scargill himself stepped in, as he did in one or two other areas where local SLPers tried to avoid a clash with the SA, the SLP?s Michael Lane was put down for Wavetree - even though Mark O?Brien had already been nominated in the same seat for the SA. Now it turns out that there will be no left candidate in Walton and two in Wavetree. But what happened to comrade Hackett?

Also on Merseyside, deputy headteacher Mike Parry was down to contest Warrington South, according to the general election issue of Socialist News (May-June). But, like Labour?s Sean Woodward, he was parachuted into St Helens South when the furore over Woodward blew up. Clearly SA candidate Neil Thompson - a leading FBU activist - has a good chance of winning many thousands of votes. SA comrades were therefore rightly annoyed when they learnt that the SLP was going to stand. But Mersey SLP loyalists seem to think that comrade Thompson should stand down, since comrade Parry was nominated first. Not that the SLP had made any attempt to discuss the matter with the SA in advance of course.

Ricky Tomlinson, the star of TV?s The Royle family who featured on the SLP?s election broadcast, at Scargill?s request turned up for a meeting in St Helens to back comrade Parry last week. But wires seem to have got crossed and Scargill himself failed to show. However, demonstrating that his commitment is to the working class and socialism, not one particular sect, the following day comrade Tomlinson was out campaigning in Blackburn for the SA?s Jim Nichol.

In the West Midlands the SLP?s Tim Logan was to stand in Coventry North West against ex-Labour MEP rebel Christine Oddy, leaving Coventry South and Coventry North East to the alliance. But suddenly, just before close of nominations, comrade Logan - who accounts for approximately 50% of the SLP membership in the city - was switched to the South. It could be that Scargill is rather more sensitive when it comes to independent Labourites like comrade Oddy, or perhaps it was felt that the SLP could do a more effective wrecking job if it opposed SA national chair Dave Nellist, the former Labour MP for Coventry South, where he stood in 1997. That is exactly what the SLP did in the local elections of May 1999, when it decided to contest St Michael?s ward in a disgraceful, but thankfully futile attempt to prevent the election of Socialist Party member Karen McKay.

But comrade Nellist himself had switched to Coventry North East, leaving the South to the third SP councillor in St Michael?s, Rob Windsor. So comrade Nellist will not have an SLP opponent after all. By the way, several former SLP members in the city - natural supporters of the SA, you would have thought - have decided to campaign for comrade Oddy instead. This is because, as in other constituencies where the SP claimed the candidate, the two other Coventry campaigns are being run as exclusively Socialist Party affairs.