20.06.2002

Coup in Wales

Events in the Welsh Socialist Alliance have put the crisis in the Public and Commercial Services Union into perspective - the left is as adept as trade union bureaucrats at abusing democratic norms when it wishes. At the WSA national council meeting in Pontypool on Sunday June 16, the constitution of the alliance was effectively torn up, so that a process could begin whereby Welsh Socialist Voice, the publication of the WSA, is slowly put to death. As issue three of WSV arrived from the printers, it soon became clear that it is likely to be the last one for quite some time - if not the last one, full stop. Regular readers will already de aware of the disdain felt for WSV by the majority of members of the Socialist Workers Party, the largest affiliate to the WSA (see Weekly Worker May 2). Yet on Sunday, the SWP majority went one step further and attempted to relegate the status of WSV to a quarterly 'wrap-around', directly under the control of the national officers of the alliance. Interestingly, an amendment to this proposal was also put by a 'minority' SWP member who sought to maintain some regularity of publication by advocating that it becomes bimonthly. It was from this point that tragedy descended into farce. A vote was taken on the amendment, with five voting in favour and eight voting against - the bulk of the opposition coming from the SWP. Yet, given the bureaucratic '40% rule' (no more than 40% of those voting at national council may belong to any one organisation), it was anticipated that the SWP would have to determine which of its comrades' votes counted, given that a large majority of those attending were SWP members. Things did not turn out that way. The SWP clearly has bad memories of the 40% rule. At the December 2001 NC meeting, one of their members bypassed the rule by resigning from the SWP in the middle of the meeting and proceeded to vote against his organisation (see Weekly Worker December 13 2001). With a minority amendment from its own ranks on its hands, the SWP majority clearly decided that lightening was not going to strike twice. Instead the SWP majority chose to ignore the 40% rule and sought to persuade the chair that it did not actually apply. The main proponent of this was WSA secretary, Julian Goss from the SWP, who was present at the meeting in December. At this point, luck was on the side of the SWP. As both the official chair and vice-chair were absent from the meeting, another comrade (an independent) had been given the responsibility of chairing. Unfortunately the hapless comrade neither had a copy of the constitution with him nor understood it (he conceded later that he had never even read it). Following the advice of the secretary, the chair now ruled that the 40% rule did not apply and he moved to the main motion, which was duly carried. This was despite the advice to the contrary of the former chair of the WSA, who had presided over the meeting in December. The constitution was now dead in the water. In short, our secretary has abused his office. This is not to say that the 40% rule is a good one. Far from it. Indeed, ultimately, majorities should have the right to be just that and the rule can, in certain circumstances, have some quite ludicrous consequences. But that is not the point. The existing constitution should hold sway unless democratically amended. Simple majority decisions are what is required - and that applies to constitutional amendments too. In fact, at the annual conference in January it had appeared that the SWP was intending to amend the constitution - it argued for a special conference to take place in September 2002, which, amongst other things, would debate the question of the constitution. Yet in May the SWP announced that it would not attempt to introduce a motion on the lines of the one passed at the Socialist Alliance conference last December. It became clear later in the meeting that the SWP no longer thinks that the special conference is necessary and proposed that WSA branches should be advised that it would be preferable if it did not go ahead. This was endorsed by a large majority, despite the unanimous vote of annual conference in favour of the special conference. Apart from being gross abuses of democracy, the two decisions (to run down WSV and to persuade branches against the special conference) reinforce one thing - an SWP attempt to use bureaucratic manipulation to gain total control over the WSA. The SWP claims that it has withdrawn its original constitutional amendment to maintain the unity of the WSA. However, a more likely explanation is that if the 40% rule can simply be ignored or 're-interpreted', it follows that the SWP no longer needs a constitutional amendment passed. It follows also that the SWP no longer needs a special conference. Clearly logical, but in keeping with the worst traditions of the left's bureaucratic scheming. Hopefully the SWP's methodology is plain to see. Yet it was lost on the two Socialist Party members at the national council meeting. With both their national officers absent, it fell to two other rather dozy SPers to hold the Taaffeite fort. However, they failed to raise so much as a grumble about the abuse of democratic procedures, indeed accusing those at the meeting who attempted to defend democratic procedures as being 'constitutional cretins'. How ironic. In England their comrades walked out of the Socialist Alliance when the SA democratically voted for a rule change. Who says turkeys never vote for Christmas? Whilst it is still premature to compare the events with Arthur Scargill's butchery of democratic norms in the Socialist Labour Party, the omens are not good. Cameron Richards