08.11.2001

SLP split

Political crisis, such as that caused by the imperialist ?war against terrorism?, always tends to bring to a head divisions and contradictions. And organisations with a less than healthy attitude to open and democratic debate will inevitably be hit harder than most: differences that were previously hidden are forced to the surface by the need to respond to events of huge significance.

Arthur Scargill?s Socialist Labour Party is a case in point. Its regime is the living embodiment of bureaucratic centralism, where any trace of membership initiative or self-activity has long since been snuffed out. Everything is decided at the top - specifically by Scargill himself, the general secretary. SLP policies, many of them never agreed or even discussed by the membership, bear the unmistakeable stamp of its labour king.

When islamicist terrorists struck New York and Washington on September 11, Scargill reacted in his usual way, issuing his own statement on behalf of ?his? party and ensuring it was posted on the SLP website and printed on the front page of the next Socialist News, the SLP bimonthly. He saw no need to call an emergency meeting of the national executive, which was due to meet on September 22 in any case.

As far as Scargill - and the rest of the world - was concerned, the SLP position had been determined: ?The attacks ? should have come as no surprise. That there has been an appalling loss of life ? was to be expected, bearing in mind that there are groups, including whoever was responsible for this unprecedented attack, which believe they have no option but to hit back at a superpower that ignores United Nations resolutions and international law, and has indiscriminately bombed countries including Libya, Iraq and Yugoslavia, with terrible consequences for the people, their societies - and their economies? (Socialist News October-November).

Not a word of criticism, let alone condemnation, for the perpetrators of those inhuman acts of barbarity. For Scargill it is to be ?expected? that the crimes of imperialism will be combated through the use of mass murder - with the aim of killing as many people as possible. True, according to Scargill, ?The Socialist Labour Party deplores the loss of life in the United States, as in other countries ? However, ? the devastation and death that descended on the US on September 11 is a direct consequence of global capitalism, and of the determination of the US - and Nato - to try to dominate the world by force.?

So in the eyes of Scargill all those who are opposed to ?global capitalism? - no matter how reactionary their own programme - have carte blanche to use whatever methods they see fit, irrespective of the ?appalling loss of life?, irrespective of their own aims. No wonder his normally supine executive did not quite see it that way.

When the NEC met the following week, Scargill had a rude surprise. Far from getting his views rubber-stamped, for the first time in the short, sad history of the SLP Scargill was outvoted on the executive. The statement agreed by the NEC finally found its way into the hands of the membership almost a month later. It reads:

?Whilst the Socialist Labour Party deplores the loss of life in the United States, in an attack which rocked and shocked the world, it was an attack which should have come as no surprise, given the US policy in the Middle East. We not only condemn the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but unequivocally condemn the response which the USA, Britain and other nations plan to take against the alleged perpetrators ?.

?Our party asks all branches to convene meetings to explain why we condemn both the hijack attacks in New York and the Pentagon and also condemn the state terror of the US, Britain and others? (original emphasis SLP Information Bulletin undated).

This internal document does not actually explain ?why we condemn ? the hijack attacks?, so presumably the handful of branches that have organised or eventually get around to convening meetings will have had to think up their own, no doubt pacifistic, reasons. The Information Bulletin referred to ?a leaflet outlining the party?s position? that had already been produced, but this has not been posted on the SLP website, where Scargill?s original statement can still be read. Nor was it distributed by SLP members at the mass CND demonstration in London on October 13.

The website is administered by comrades Joti Brar and Carlos Rule, who are both supporters of the only remaining hard faction operating in the SLP - those around the ultra-Stalinite journal Lalkar, edited by Joti?s father, Harpal Brar. The Brarites, whose unstinting devotion to and heartfelt admiration for JV Stalin knows no bounds, also control the London regional committee. They have constituted themselves as Scargill?s most reliable, not to say sycophantic, allies and have been rewarded with leading positions, including on the NEC.

No doubt Scargill was expecting to get his way at the September 22 executive meeting, when the Brarites, as usual, backed him to the hilt. Brar himself had already made his own views known in his bimonthly publication (formerly the journal of the Indian Workers Association): ?The blame for this disaster [the September 11 attacks] must be put ? on the US terrorist government ? Today?s hijacks have shown that even without access to the multi-million-dollar high technology military hardware in the hands of the imperialists, the oppressed people of the world can strike back ? It is the need to fight back against injustice that fuelled the actions of the hijackers, who sacrificed their own lives in the cause of the need to resist? (Lalkar September-October).

But the NEC, in a rare display of independent thinking, did not fall for this claptrap. As if the perpetrators of the September 11 terror attacks (?this disaster?) bore no responsibility for their own vile actions! Scargill was overruled and the terrorists were duly condemned.

But who, apart from the remaining 400 or so SLP members, knows what the official SLP position is? Socialist News is edited by Scargill?s close supporter and confidante, Nell Myers, and no doubt he will claim that it was too late to change the front page. The production of the October-November edition was obviously too far advanced by the September 22 NEC meeting! As for the website, well, our Brarite friends have not bothered to update it since the general election (except for posting Scargill?s own statement of course). You can still read that the SLP is going to stand 114 candidates on June 7 and that the ?next issue? of Socialist News will contain all their details.

The SLP is nearing the end of its political life. That the collection of tired Scargillites that make up the majority of the NEC have actually rebelled against Scargill, their mentor, marks a new phase in the party?s degeneration.

But surely there is a warning here for other left groups. The Socialist Workers Party - a much larger and vastly more dynamic organisation than the SLP - also refuses to condemn the September 11 outrages and keeps a shamefaced silence on its clearly implied support for the Taliban. The SWP too had to give way on the use of the ?c? word when it came to the revised official statement of the Stop the War Coalition (see Weekly Worker November 1).

But the fundamental problem still remains. Like the SLP, the SWP does not operate an open, democratic regime, where the expression of opinion by the membership, as opposed to the parroting of the leadership?s latest line, is actively encouraged. When it is a question of such an untenable position as the refusal to condemn the September 11 attacks - and the dishonest way this is explained - then it is inviting trouble.

Simon Harvey