27.06.2001

Greenwich and Woolwich

Call for party grows

The question of a Socialist Alliance party dominated the post-election public meeting of Greenwich and Woolwich Socialist Alliance, held on June 19.

The question was first raised by Nick Wrack, an independent member of the SA executive who shared the platform with Chris Bambery of the Socialist Workers Party and Kirstie Paton, our general election candidate and a member of Workers Power. Comrade Wrack said that the alliance had ?missed out? on not having a proper national structure: ?Members must feel they have rights, that they can take decisions.?

He commented that some comrades wanted the SA to become a democratic centralist party, whereas he tended to ?another viewpoint?. Nevertheless, comrade Wrack was ?very much in favour of moving as quickly as possible towards a party structure?. And, whatever the structure we embarked upon, it was essential that the SA built upon the basis laid by the general election campaign: ?Don?t pack up and fold up your leaflets,? advised comrade Wrack.

Comrade Paton also took up the party theme in her contribution. She pointed to a couple of weaknesses that illustrated the unsatisfactory nature of our existence as an alliance. Firstly, the SA had not issued a statement on the events in Gothenburg, simply because nobody had assumed the necessary responsibility. Secondly, the ?leafleting v canvassing? controversy that had affected Greenwich, just as it had affected alliances up and down the country during the election campaign, resulted in everybody ?doing their own thing?. A party would have allowed democratic decision-making on this and other issues.

Chris Bambery?s speech was clearly coloured by the two previous contributions. He had started off by stating that Blair had ?no mandate? to govern, since, taking into account the high rate of abstention, New Labour had only received the votes of a small minority of the adult population. True, but the same thing could be said to a greater or lesser degree for every previous administration - no party has ever enjoyed a majority of all those entitled to vote. But for comrade Bambery all those who abstained - ?the two and a half million who didn?t vote Labour?, as he put it - could, along with Green Party voters, virtually be embraced as our own.

However, despite this vast sea of support, comrade Bambery stated that we could not ?just declare a party - I don?t want a party with the SWP dominating?. At first he seemed to contradict himself when he went on to say: ?The Scottish Socialist Party?s where we want to be at.? But he was talking about the size of the SSP?s vote in the general election. He compared the Scottish Socialist Alliance?s return in 1997 with that of the SA in 2001, and expressed the hope that it would not take the alliance four years to match the SSP?s improvement.

Speaking from the floor, Peter Manson from the CPGB pointed out that the SSP?s transformation could in no small measure be put down to the fact that the Scottish Socialist Alliance leadership had been bold enough to ?just declare a party?. What is more, the alliance in Scotland had been dominated by Scottish Militant Labour - just as the SWP is overwhelmingly the largest component of the SA. Whatever you thought about the SSP?s nationalist orientation, continued comrade Manson, it had to be said that the decision to create the SSP had been correct and justified by events themselves. It had drawn in forces wider than those gathering around the SSA.

He then asked comrade Bambery to explain why the SWP considered it acceptable to be ?a minority in the SSP in Scotland?, but unacceptable to be ?a majority in a Socialist Alliance party in England and Wales?. Comrade Manson said that he had no fear of coexisting in an SA party where the SWP was the largest force - ?so long as minorities have full rights, including the right to speak out and go into print with their criticisms?. With such rights enshrined, minorities would be expected to abide by majority decisions - and that, he said, was ?the essence of democratic centralism?: unity in action, freedom to criticise.

Terry Liddle, chair of the Republican Communist Network (England), and Paul Mason of Workers Power also spoke out in favour of a party. Comrade Liddle said he wanted to see the SA develop into a ?republican socialist party? - one that took up and championed, in addition to workers? economic interests, questions of ?high politics? - not least the constitutional monarchy system. Comrade Mason stated that in the short term ?a party, to be honest, is a secondary question?. But the need for coherence and the ability to act was the ?ultimate argument for a party-like structure?.

Unfortunately no member of the SWP - whose comrades made up more than half of the 30-strong meeting - felt able or confident enough to respond to these arguments, contenting themselves in their interventions from the floor with condemnations of New Labour and anecdotal tales to illustrate the SA?s potential support.

So it was left to comrade Bambery to reply. He stated that the Socialist Alliance had been set up as a ?vehicle for an electoral front?. In a large number of SAs ?you are not talking about the left groups?. He gave as examples Hampstead and Highgate, where, he said, ?90% came from the Labour Party?, and Regents Park, where there was only ?the SWP and the independents?.

Through working with such people, said comrade Bambery, we were ?starting to get a taste? of a future structure, but in reality the left groups ?need to be drowned? by independents and ex-Labour members. Even then, ?you can?t have a democratic centralist party - people disagree: you would have both reformists and revolutionaries in one organisation?.

This remark demonstrated perfectly the dismal failure of the left to grasp the meaning of genuine democratic centralism - as if the fact that ?people disagree?, on all sorts of questions, is not a perfectly normal phenomenon. If we were to wait until we all agreed on all questions, then we would never see a revolutionary party at all. In actual fact the public expression of differences within a democratic centralist party - including by any ?reformist? minority - ought to be accepted as a desirable thing. And of course in a non-revolutionary situation the practical distinction between revolutionaries and reformists, if there is one, is actually about what reforms we fight for and how we fight for them.

Next to sum up was comrade Paton, who pointed out that comrade Bambery had not really dealt with the party question - what did the SWP propose in order to make a party a reality? ?We know our class needs a party,? she declared, ?and our intention must be to start building it as soon as possible.? She correctly commented that comrade Bambery had not explained the contradiction between the SWP?s practice in Scotland and its position on the Socialist Alliance.

However, behind the contradiction there lies a consistency of sorts. In Scotland, England and Wales the SWP wants to be a part of a broader movement within which it can fight to win comrades over to what it sees as the already existing revolutionary party - ie, the SWP itself.

As Alex Callinicos made clear in an internal letter to his comrades in the International Socialist Tendency, SWP members in Scotland are not seeking to reshape the SSP as a revolutionary force: ?The Scottish Socialist Party is a peculiar formation: based on a relatively small group of ex-Militant activists whose politics remains at best centrist, it has a very significant working class periphery ?. key elements in the leadership (notably Sheridan and McCombes) ? recognise the contribution we can make to build a much broader workers? party ?? (see Weekly Worker May 31).

The SWP sees itself as constituting a revolutionary minority within ?a much broader workers? party? both in Scotland and in England and Wales. The problem is that south of the border it is the numerically largest group within the objective movement for a party - the Socialist Alliance.

It is one thing to claim, as does the SWP, that the SA as an alliance must provide a comfortable home for ex-Labour members and must therefore base itself on old Labourism. But to insist on left reformism within a party where the SWP formed the majority would be untenable. That is why comrade Callinicos states that ?the SSP is a special case rather than the general model?.

Like its SA allies from the International Socialist Group (Socialist Outlook), the SWP seems to believe that an organisational break from Labour must precede a political break from Labourism. Attract workers first as Labourites and only later try to win them over to revolutionary ideas. Within a larger, reformist (or ?centrist?) organisation the SWP would be free to put forward revolutionary proposals when it considered the time was ?right?. In the meantime it would hope to recruit to itself in ones and twos.

Comrade Callinicos stated in his letter to the IST that the SWP has been able to work very well with ?certain ex-Militant cadres [like comrade Wrack?] and the International Socialist Group ? We see no principled reason why they shouldn?t be integrated into the SWP.? But why not extend these moves towards rapprochement to include the CPGB, Workers Power, the Alliance for Workers? Liberty, etc? And what about the other SA ?independents?, who do not have the slightest intention and would never dream of joining the SWP as presently constituted?

The answer must lie within a genuine democratic centralist party, not a larger SWP sect. As comrade Paton stated to the Greenwich meeting, nobody would be afraid of being in a minority within an SWP-dominated party - so long as that party was democratic and respected minority rights.

Peter Manson