12.06.2002

No activity, no information and no communication

Socialist Labour Party general secretary Arthur Scargill is continuing to make gallant efforts to disguise the extent of the SLP's decline. The triennial congress usually gives members the opportunity to mingle with comrades from throughout the country and, at least for a couple of days every three years, to emerge from their local isolation and attempt to gauge the party's overall health. And so, in order to give the illusion of a vibrant mass organisation, Scargill has seen to it that just about every member who wishes to do so will be able to attend. The congress arrangements committee has announced in an internal document that, "The CAC has agreed to invite up to six delegates per CSLP to ensure maximum participation" (SLP Information Bulletin June). In 1999 each Constituency Socialist Labour Party was entitled to send three delegates and around 140 turned up. A year earlier only one delegate per CSLP was permitted, yet 100 came to the 1998 special congress in Manchester. Scargill hopes that he will be able to reach that number again on November 2-3. Of course, most CSLPs do not have six members, let alone six activists prepared to travel to London for the gathering in Conway Hall. In fact most of the remaining membership is either not organised in a CSLP or completely inactive. Nevertheless, the few dozen branches that still operate on some level will do their best to help swell the numbers. However, the SLP local election figures have already provided an indication of the party's meagre weight. On May 2 there were council seats being contested in most of England, but, in the words of the SLP Information Bulletin, "it was worrying that our party fielded fewer candidates in this year's local elections than in last year's general election, instead of fielding more". Considerably fewer, actually. We stood only 78 candidates, compared to 114 in the general election. Comrades will recall that Scargill crowed how that figure far exceeded the 98 put up by the Socialist Alliance in 2001, but this time around he does not bother with the comparison. Not surprising, when you consider that the SA had 220 candidates on May 2 - almost three times more than the SLP. Of course, the number of local election contests gives us a much more accurate reflection of real strength on the ground. Apart from in a few pockets Scargill almost single-handedly ensured nominations were handed in and deposits paid in the general election. Such an intervention would have been impossible to contemplate when there were thousands of council seats to consider. But even the figure of 78 contests is misleading, since exactly half of these were accounted for by just five centres - Ealing Southall, Barnsley, Sandwell, Bolton and Liverpool. We had three candidates in Manchester and Bristol, two in Southampton and one each in Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield. In many major towns and cities, as well as most London boroughs, there were no SLP candidates at all. In total we won 9,772 votes and an overall percentage of 5.84% (almost identical to that of the SA). A picture of the SLP's disorganisation can be gleaned from the description of the discussions of the May 18 national executive committee meeting: "The general secretary presented to the NEC a report on the results of the SLP's 78 candidates "¦ He explained that the report had been completed only the day before, due to delays in sending results to the national office "¦ The national office had requested that the details of each result, as announced by returning officers at each of the counts on the evening of May 2, should be sent to the national office via regions by the morning of Friday May 3. Because this had not been done, our party, unlike other organisations, had been unable to immediately analyse and make public our results." The SLP Information Bulletin also takes regions to task for failing to contact "unfinancial" members and liaise with the NEC over membership details. It notes that members who have stopped paying dues "might have taken a decision to leave the SLP. Reasons for leaving vary, but we know that lack of activity, information and communication can be among them" (original emphasis). The bulletin also comments on the NEC's intention to address the "serious problems of updating and maintenance" of the SLP website - which, as internet users will have noticed, has all but been abandoned. Stalin fans For several years I have been commenting on the increasing prominence of supporters of the Stalin Society in the SLP. Leading light Harpal Brar - also the editor and chief contributor of the ultra-Stalinite bimonthly, Lalkar - is a member of our NEC. Followers of comrade Brar also run the SLP youth and women's sections, as well as the London region of the party. But now the connection has been commented upon by another journal. The June 10 edition of the New Statesman carries an article entitled 'Comrades up in arms'. Its author, Johann Hari, had the misfortune to attend a recent meeting of these comrades in London and remarked that Arthur Scargill is "a very close ally of the society". Hari recalls how in 2000 Scargill told a rally to commemorate the October revolution: "I am sick and tired of listening to the so-called 'experts' today who still criticise the Soviet Union and, in particular, Stalin." Finally he notes (with more than a touch of exaggeration, it must be said): "There is a huge overlap between the membership of Scargill's Socialist Labour Party and the Stalin Society, evident in its campaign for the SLP." Not very original, you might say, especially for readers of the Weekly Worker. But why is it that the rest of the left appears to think that such questions are not the concern of the working class? Socialist Worker was correct to defend Scargill against charges of corruption in 1990 - the Daily Mirror claimed he was in the pay of Libya - as part of an attempt to "smear leftwingers" (June 8). But it is another matter entirely to keep quiet on his links with the bizarre Stalin Society and contempt for democracy - in the NUM, in the SLP and in general.