27.06.2001

Waltham Forest

Clumsy control-freakery

There was controversy both before and during the June 27 Waltham Forest rally to discuss the way forward for the Socialist Alliance.

The original proposal for the platform included Dave Nellist as a speaker from the Socialist Party, plus the Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain. This was a sensible line-up, as it would have sparked a genuine debate between clearly counterposed alternatives for the future development of the alliance.

However, a steering committee meeting of June 14 then voted to overturn the previous decision, effectively withdrawing the invite to the SP and CPGB. A new line-up was agreed with an SWP national representative, Mike Marqusee for the national SA, the local SA candidate Sally Labern (an SWP member) and an SSPer.

Predictably, this top table did not present alternative perspectives as such. Controversy did flare up though, provoked by the intervention of SP comrades in the 45-strong audience. As the meeting progressed, comrades such as Simon Donovan, Linda Taaffe and other SPers constantly heckled, barracked and disrupted the meeting. While the comrades undoubtedly had a point against the anti-democratic diktat of the SWP, their manner of making it alienated many. The meeting descending periodically into chaos and much time was wasted in pointless shouting matches.

Clearly, an SPer should have been on the platform. Ditto the CPGB (we assume the SP would agree?). Once again, the SWP has laid itself open to charges of bureaucratic manipulation through clumsy control-freakery. After all, in one of his more calm contributions from the floor (generously extended well beyond the three-minute limit imposed on others by the embattled chair), comrade Donovan had nothing of much interest to actually say.

What was the problem with having him say it from the platform?.

Ian Mahoney