29.11.2001

Socialist Party hypocrisy

The Socialist Party in England and Wales has laid down an ultimatum. If the December 1 conference of the Socialist Alliance accepts the constitution proposed by the Socialist Workers Party, the SP will walk out. James Mallory looks at the arguments used to justify such an action

The position of the Socialist Party in England and Wales as a semi-detached and often hostile component of the Socialist Alliance seems to be coming to an end. The SP has announced its intention to end its half-hearted and uncooperative participation, if the outcome of this weekend?s conference is not to its liking. Hannah Sell, writing in The Socialist, states: ?If the SWP?s constitution is forced through then we will have to recognise the reality that the SA is no longer an alliance but the plaything of the SWP. On that basis we would have to cease participating in the Socialist Alliance? (November 23).

What this means in practice is not clear. Will SP members be told to completely withdraw from the alliance? In most of the country that is already the situation anyway. Or does it mean that the SP will no longer consider itself to be a supporting organisation? Certainly complete withdrawal would cause considerable problems for the Taaffe leadership, possibly causing a schism within his organisation. Dave Nellist, our national chair, is probably the most prominent SA leader and there are bound to be other comrades within the SP?s ranks questioning the unprincipled behaviour of the Taaffe leadership.

Healthy elements within the SP will no doubt also be dismayed by the miserable set of excuses offered by comrade Sell for the SP?s stance. For communists splitting is a serious matter not to be treated lightly. Seemingly this is not the case for the SP leadership.

It is not the intention of this author to act as defence attorney for the SWP. However, the statement from comrade Sell that ?the SWP have not taken a principled attitude towards the alliance? (with the implication being that the SP have) puts one in mind of pots calling the kettle black.

It is true, as asserted by Sell, that the SP helped initiate the Socialist Alliance project. After the failure of discussions in 1995, it had been excluded from Arthur Scargill?s Socialist Labour Party, founded in May 1996. The setting up of Socialist Alliances in various parts of the country was its reaction. But apart from the CPGB - for the SP akin to a dose of syphilis - all that was picked up was a smattering of rightist flotsam and jetsam. The SP instantly went from the vanguard to the rearguard of the project. When the CPGB launched the London Socialist Alliance the SP came along, but then joined in with the anti-communist witch hunts and attempts to wind the whole thing down.

Things only changed when the SWP made its electoral turn, enthusiastically backing the LSA campaign in the June 2000 Greater London Assembly elections. And the June 7 general election saw the SWP play a leading role in the national SA campaign. But now the SP found itself a small organisation (paper membership stands at around 500) outnumbered by a larger rival - intolerable for any sectarian grouping. So the SP paid lip service to the SA, but all the while doing its best to downplay its significance. Hence: ?It is possible that the Socialist Alliances could in the future play a role in the development of a pre-formation of a new workers? party? (my emphasis The case for a new mass workers? party p14).

Rather than embrace the SA as a move forward and a chance to engage with the SWP at close quarters, the SP has adopted a hostile attitude which often approaches that of active sabotage. The Taaffe leadership took the SP through some amazing political contortions. During the GLA campaign it tried (and failed) to persuade the LSA to stand down in deference to the Campaign Against Tube Privatisation. Then the SP, while backing the LSA in the first-past-the-post constituency elections (SP member Ian Page was contesting in Lewisham and Greenwich), decided to support the CATP London-wide slate against the LSA in the PR poll. However, a rebellion of its London members and the obvious forward momentum of the LSA campaign eventually led to a climbdown with a recommendation to Londoners to cast both their votes for the LSA. This left SP member Arwyn Thomas high and dry on the CATP list.

CATP is raised again by comrade Sell in her polemic. It is put forward as an example of workers moving into struggle. Unfortunately it was of course nothing of the kind. Although it was set up by the London region of the RMT, it never drew in much support from tubeworkers and its electoral intervention was in fact run by a small bloc of RMT leftists, including Pat Sikorski and his shadowy Fourth International Supporters Caucus.

Soon the SP began to take up the whining arguments that are now so familiar: the SWP is imposing itself through force of numbers and therefore ?trampling on alliance democracy? (ie, democratically outvoting the SP). It complained that SWP members had dared to join the alliance in Lewisham, which it regards as exclusive SP territory, and pass a motion calling on comrade Page to stand as LSA, not simply as the local alliance candidate. Following the GLA ballot the SP issued a statement which claimed: ?With the SWP in charge the LSA has turned away from democratic and joint decision-making? (The Socialist March 5 2000).

The rest, as they say is, history. Prior to the general election campaign the SP presented the alliance with a fait accompli, in several areas issuing an ultimatum: either accept our candidate as Socialist Alliance or we stand anyway. There was no question of attending selection meetings since the SWP might have a majority and try to influence the campaign. In an agreement struck with the SWP, the SP was allowed to run exclusivist, Socialist Party campaigns under the Socialist Alliance banner in 12 constituencies. In addition it stood two Socialist Alternative candidates, where no agreement was reached.

In Hackney, it had a presence on the council shop stewards? committee and decided to stand an SP member as an anti-cuts candidate against the SA in a local by-election held on the same day as the general election. Where the SP had any influence, it was often used to the detriment of the alliance in order to further its own narrow interests. Usually the ?workers in struggle? excuse was furnished.

Far from consistently fighting for the interests of the SA project, when those interests have come into conflict with those of the SP sect it has had no hesitation in putting itself first. Indeed, since the SA is now regarded as a threat to its dream of placing itself at the head of a new ?mass workers? party?, SP actions have frequently been nothing short of treachery. Comrade Sell?s portrayal of the SP as ?defender of alliance?s future? is not exactly convincing.

Anomalies crop up constantly in the SP?s hypocritical rhetoric. As if the general election deal with the SWP had never happened, comrade Sell asserts that the SP ?sees local alliances as the key unit where campaigning and electoral decisions should be taken? - so long as the SP has not already pre-empted those decisions, of course.

Comrade Sell claims that acceptance of the SWP constitution will reduce the alliance ?in essence to little more than an SWP front?. This is because the SWP is proposing that the alliance should operate on the basis of ?one member, one vote? (Omov). This proposal is ?superficially democratic?, she complains, but in reality will ?take all rights away from individual members because, at bottom, the SWP are currently able to mobilise enough people to outvote all other forces in the SA?.

The real problem for the SP is that it is not in any position to dominate itself. Since that is the case, the SP is opposed to the very notion of majority decision-making in the SA. It devises a whole set of ?democratic safeguards? which it has written into its own draft constitution for the SA. In place of Omov it proposes ?consensus voting? - perhaps the SP?s most pernicious innovation. A consensus vote means ?the agreement of all locally affiliated organisations and locally constituted members? platforms participating in the meeting, plus a majority of individual members? (my emphasis Conference agenda p6).

In the first draft total agreement was mandatory on everything, even at constituency level, before any decision could be taken. Every vote, no matter how trivial the issue, was subject to ?consensus?. Now clause C1.4 states that a ?consensus vote? will now only be taken ?when requested?. A concession that means absolutely nothing except that the formality of a request has to be gone through before the SP minority wields its veto.

This measure is so profoundly and obviously anti-democratic that it renders claims to ?democratic? virtue made by the SP truly risible. A meeting could vote by a 95% majority for a particular action, but if the remaining five percent belong to a members? platform they could prevent it. Thus for comrade Sell to claim that this ?ensures no one organisation would be able to force through its own agenda with disregard for the alliance? is purely and simply a barefaced lie. Any group with a negative agenda - no prizes for guessing who I mean - would indeed have the whip hand over the majority.

Those with a working knowledge of the history of the SP?s behaviour within the Socialist Alliance might wonder what guarantees we would have against the abuse of consensus voting by malcontent minorities. The answer is none, apart from fine words: ?Socialist Party members? platforms would be willing to compromise within the alliance while maintaining the right to put our independent position? (Pre-conference bulletin p5). Perhaps we can be excused for being sceptical.

Continuing with its nightmarish predilection for bureaucratic organisational solutions to political problems, the SP?s clause D1.2 prohibits more than 40% (less than an absolute majority) of officers or members of the executive being from any one members? platform without a successful ?consensus vote?.

We would not deny the ultimately bureaucratic essence of the proposals put forward by the SWP, in agreement with the International Socialist Group and several prominent SA individuals - that is why the CPGB has proposed a batch of counterbalancing amendments, if the SWP stem constitution wins the day. However, Omov is not only more democratic, ensuring as it does the right of the majority to decide, as against the SP?s minority power of veto. It also more accurately reflects where the SA objectively needs to go: ie, in a partyist direction. True, the SWP states: ?The Socialist Alliance should remain an alliance, operating on a united front-type basis? (p4). But the SP does not even recognise the steps to unity already taken and wants to hold back the forward momentum by locking us in an ineffective federation.

Federalism champions the rights of the part over and above those of the whole. To this we oppose centralism - not a bureaucratic centralism, but one that incorporates an effective democracy: for the whole over the part. Marxists are for centralism in principle. For us federalism is only ever tolerated as a necessary stage that must be left behind as soon as circumstances allow us to progress to a higher form of democracy.

The SP attempts to hide its sectarianism behind concern for ?forces moving into struggle?, as comrade Sell puts it. The SWP is criticised for its alleged ?arrogant? and ?dismissive? attitude towards ?single-issue campaigns?. This is just a fig leaf for the SP?s refusal to engage in a political process which can actually serve those forces by uniting them.

The reality is that the SP is, like the SWP, interested primarily in what has been termed ?primitive socialist accumulation? - the recruitment of ones and twos to a sect. But, while the SWP for the moment is willing to promote the SA, however inconsistently, the SP intends to see it wrecked.