12.09.2001

Greater Manchester

New stage reached

Around 50 comrades attended the sixth annual general meeting of Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance on September 8. This was down from 70 the previous year - a disappointing drop in support, considering that GMSA?s paper membership stands at 350, the highest figure ever.

The poor attendance is not surprising, however, as Socialist Alliance activity in the region has shrunk to a residual level since the general election. Symbolically, the GMSA website has remained frozen on June 7 2001. An even more graphic impression of the political mood of GMSA?s leadership greeted members arriving at the AGM venue. The hall was festooned with posters - Anti-Nazi League, Globalise Resistance, Protest @ Labour?s Conference. There was literally not one Socialist Alliance poster. And whilst each of the aforementioned front organisations set up by the Socialist Workers Party had well stocked stalls at the back of the hall, just one sad, unattended table bore left-over general election material of the SA. The new banner of the GMSA was also absent.

Just over half of those present were SWP members, whilst the left organisations - CPGB, Alliance for Workers? Liberty, International Socialist League, International Trotskyist Opposition of the Fourth International and Workers Power - mustered 10 all told. The rest were personnel of the titular leadership - the group of independents around John Nicholson - or were non-aligned comrades.

Proceedings began with a discussion on the subject, ?How do we fight globalisation?? Sue Fishwick of the World Development Movement and Globalise Resistance presented the opening - the most prominent non-Marxist currently being feted by the SWP, George Monbiot, had declined an invitation. Sue began by answering the rhetorical question, ?What is wrong with globalisation anyway?? Transnational corporations control the global economy. That control is based upon the needs of profit-making. Share values come before all other values - political, cultural, humanitarian. The rule-making agencies, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation, as well as the regional trading blocs, are all unelected bodies, which use governments as administrators and enforcers. Through their structural adjustment programmes, they are giving creditors access to all resources in the underdeveloped debtor nations and bleeding them dry.

Turning to the title of her talk, Sue reported that people are mobilising and fighting back on many fronts - forming new political organisations such as the Socialist Alliance; fighting for revolution to destroy the state; engaging in pressure and lobbying of governments and non-governmental organisations; instituting alternatives, such as cooperatives or fair trade networks. One thing we can all do is exercise our power as consumers, she suggested. The market has to meet new demands. All of these methods of fighting globalisation are valid, stated comrade Fishwick. We need unity, whilst preserving diversity. Let?s work together, she concluded.

This philosophy is, of course, nothing but crass relativism. All methods are not equally valid, precisely because they need to be assessed from the viewpoint of what their end is. There is a correct way forward in overcoming global capital and this is a programme for working class political power and international socialism. Marxists have a duty to engage in open ideological struggle for that correct politics. Those comrades of the left who were successful in being called to speak by the chair, Norma Turner, did attempt to emphasise the need to concentrate on the role of the working class and the fight for socialism. Contrarily though, the action-on-all-fronts perspective won praise and endorsement from comrade Nicholson and from the leading representatives of the SWP.

A second discussion session, entitled ?Countering the influence of the far right?, was opened by Amin Hadi for the ANL. Unlike some of the SWP?s ANL organisers, Amin does not hold the fascist groups to be the main enemy. He began by attacking the shallowness of the Blair government?s professed commitment to anti-racism. At this very moment, he reported, Blair is leading the refusal of the western powers at the United Nations conference on racism to apologise for slavery. He is doing so, of course, because - as a champion of the interests of capital - he does not want to open the door to reparations. The most obvious and practical form of reparation would be, he suggested, cancellation of the debts of African nations.

Moving on to the role of the police, he asserted that the Oldham force was racist to the core. This is an assessment that very few on the left in Greater Manchester would disagree with. Not only have petty and opportunist crimes committed by Asians been reported as racist attacks, but there has been clear discrimination in terms of police arrests when genuinely racist incidents have occurred. Remarking on the alarmingly high votes achieved by the British National Party in parts of the North West, the comrade implicitly recognised the inadequacy of the ANL slogan, ?Don?t vote Nazi?, when he advocated the necessity of Socialist Alliance candidacies in these areas.

An earlier than expected opportunity was likely to occur in Burnley, where two council by-elections seemed probable. The BNP had stood on a platform of ?rights for whites?. We need to counter this by fighting for demands that unite the working class. Nevertheless, the schema comrade Hadi outlined was a dichotomous one, which had the SA concentrating on elections and the ANL on physical opposition to fascists and racists.

Peter Grant of the CPGB stressed the importance of the Burnley by-elections. These must be contested by the SA, even if this meant splitting the Labour vote, he urged. We have to recognise that Nick Griffin is no bonehead, but that he is a politician who is capable of theorising the opportunities for harnessing reaction. He has changed the BNP and is set to change it further, as witnessed by his recent revelation that he has made approaches to Sikh leaders, with a view to promoting an anti-muslim front. We must be capable of making changes in our own political methods if we are to win working class unity and a repoliticised class.

And fighting racism and fascism is not the only case where this is true, continued comrade Grant. Socialist Alliance leadership must be stamped upon all the campaigns represented in the posters around the hall, he concluded. Most immediately, that is the necessity with regard to the September 30 demonstration at the Labour Party conference.

The final session was dedicated to consideration of a revised structure for the organisation of the Socialist Alliance in Greater Manchester. For five years, GMSA was all that existed in the area. Now, arising from the general election work, SAs have been established in North Manchester, South Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Wigan and Oldham. As recently as July, at the GMSA steering committee, the SWP leadership had made clear its preference for the disbandment of the regional organisation, with the dispersal of members and finance to the local alliances. Their main argument for this had been, rather weakly, the need to avoid having too many meetings. There had been almost total opposition to the scheme from all of the other political organisations, whose chief concerns had been the dangers of fragmentation and the loss of opportunities for in-depth political discussion and debate. As the AGM approached, the SWP made a partial retreat.

On the table was a draft for a new structure, to operate at least until the organisational decisions which might be made at December?s national conference become operative. The steering committee would be replaced with a ?Greater Manchester Coordinating Group?, comprising one delegate per 10 members elected by each of the local alliances, together with a convenor, treasurer and membership officer, who would, as previously, be elected by the AGM. The requirement for monthly full membership meetings had, however, been removed and the role of the new committee would be narrowly drawn: ie, ?to coordinate financial, membership and cross-district issues that the local alliances wish to raise?.

The AWL moved the addition of a clause which would define GMSA as ?a regional organisation of Socialist Alliance members with the following aims: to coordinate region-wide activities (eg, rallies, Euro-elections, mobilisations); to coordinate financial and membership issues; to provide a means to bring together all members of the alliance in the Greater Manchester area; to provide a forum for political education, discussion and debate. The GMSA should hold at least four members? meetings a year?.

This was backed up with a joint CPGB/AWL amendment on the composition of the committee. This would have the delegates from local alliances joined by ?one delegate elected by each of the locally affiliated groups and organisations?. (The mechanism for achieving inclusivity on committees which is now favoured by the CPGB - that is, for the consensual drawing up of an electoral slate by an inclusive conference arrangements committee - was declared defeated at July?s GMSA members? meeting, in a bureaucratic sleight of hand by comrade Turner.) The amendment went on to suggest that officers should be elected by the committee itself, rather than by the AGM, and that all committee members should be recallable by their respective electorates, in order to achieve effective accountability and responsiveness to political changes.

As has sadly become the norm in GMSA over the latter years of its existence though, these substantial proposals, being the initiatives of minorities, were dealt with abruptly and peremptorily. Debate was truncated, even though the usual excuse - the tyranny of the clock - was not a factor this time. Predictably, they were heavily defeated, although no convincing arguments were raised against them. Support did not extend beyond the ranks of the left revolutionary organisations.

The same fate befell a CPGB proposal to delete a clause reading, ?Membership is open to all individuals and organisations which by their actions show that they do wish to work in a democratic, anti-sectarian way. Behaviour which is oppressive (eg, violent, sexist, racist, homophobic) will not be permitted and membership may be withdrawn on these grounds?. John Pearson, moving the amendment, gave examples of the two occasions on which he had the charge of sectarianism hurled against him during the last year. Once was for selling the Weekly Worker at a GMSA public event. The other was for criticising the convenor, John Nicholson, for an administrative omission.

He contrasted the attempt to lay down standards of behaviour which members must abide by with the total absence of reference in the document to the rights of members: eg, the right to freedom of expression and criticism; the right to publish opinions and to distribute publications; and the right to form platforms. He also objected to the codification of an expulsion sanction without any reference at all to a right of appeal. The clause was ill thought-out and potentially dangerous and should be removed, pending reworking in the light of the national conference?s decisions, he argued - to no avail.

The only successful amendments were moved by SWP members. A proposal to produce a monthly newsletter, with an editorial policy ?in line with the aims of the GMSA?, was carried nem con. Also comfortably carried was a proposal from North Manchester SA to delete John Nicholson?s trademark quotas - ?no more than 50% of the membership of SA bodies shall come from affiliated political organisations and no more than 30% from any one organisation?. These were rightly branded as totally unworkable.

They were replaced by a statement of intent: ?All structures should aim to involve as wide a layer of membership as possible. We want maximum participation of black, women, lesbian and gay and disabled members at all levels of the Socialist Alliance. Each Socialist Alliance should actively consider measures to encourage this. Wherever possible, all meetings should be disabled-accessible. The Socialist Alliance brings together people from many different campaigns and political groups. We encourage all Socialist Alliance delegations and committees to be representative of the contributions made by ex-Labour Party members, non-aligned campaigners and activists, and the organised left.?

The AWL sought to tighten up the formulation by adding: ?It is our aim to ensure that all structures are representative, both with regard to gender, race and age, and the inclusion of minority viewpoints.? This was too much for Mike Killian, a former SWP full-timer, who attacked the concept of committee seats being allocated to representatives of minority platforms. This is a distortion of democracy, he declared. The clause was only narrowly defeated though, by 20 votes to 16, when a substantial number of North Manchester SWP comrades abstained.

John Nicholson?s defeat on quotas came at a poignant time. The next item up was the officer elections and the announcement that he would not be seeking re-election as convenor. John Baxter, the SWP?s lead member on SA work in Manchester, was elected to the position unopposed. The de facto leadership is now the formal leadership. Comrade Nicholson had become increasingly uncomfortable with his figurehead status. He had been visibly incensed, for instance, at the post-general election rally, when the SWP?s John Rees had slammed the GMSA?s decision not to stand a candidate in Oldham. He has hinted that he sees his future role being in a North West Socialist Alliance, a level of organisation which he suggests is appropriate with the approach of the next European parliament elections and continuing government consideration of regional assemblies in England.

September 8 was thus the end of an era and the opening of a new one in this sub-region, where the Socialist Alliance has so much potential strength. It is to be hoped, in particular, that the advice given to its members by comrade Peter Grant will be heeded and that strides will be taken in the forthcoming year in delivering a substantial contribution to the building of a Socialist Alliance party.

John Pearson