29.01.2004

Neither fish nor fowl

The unity coalition does not know whether it wants to be a movement or a party, argues Steve Freeman of the Revolutionary Democratic Group

When Superman comes flying to the rescue, characters often ask, "Is it a bird? Is it a plane?" and the answer is, of course: "No, it's Superman". This more or less summarises the rather restricted debate on the nature of the Respect coalition at Convention of the Left. Certainly Mark Hoskisson of Workers Power felt a bird was needed. To make it fly it should be called a revolutionary party. I argued on behalf of the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform that in effect we needed a plane to take us from where we are today to where we need to be if a new workers' party is to be formed.

However, the Socialist Workers Party and its allies had the winning argument. They had Superman on their side and that is all that counts. In truth the convention was almost a rerun of developments inside the Socialist Alliance. The Socialist Party was there to remind us its comrades used to be in the SA until the SWP roughed them up. The SWP with the International Socialist Group were there as the majority bloc that controls the SA. Since the SWP 'forgot' to include Alan Thornett (ISG) on its Respect leadership slate, we might guess that relations have become a little strained. But he got added in later, so he is nearly, but not quite, yesterday's man.

Then there was Workers Power representing all those who ran away from the SA because they had no stomach for a fight with the SWP. WP has now returned for a last hurrah. Finally we had the SA 'awkward squad' who had formed themselves into the Democracy Platform. The DP was itself divided between those who seem intent on joining (CPGB), the 'wait and see' group (Revolutionary Democratic Group and others) and the 'no way, José' of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty et al.

It was therefore a major feat for the Democracy Platform to unite. The majority of the Democracy Platform committee agreed a policy of constructive engagement. We were able to unite around our submission, 'Britain at the crossroads', and in support of our amendments to the main proposal on the questions of republicanism, immigration controls and a workers' wage. We even managed a degree of unity with the AWL. The AWL was prepared to support our agreed positions, whilst conducting their own separate campaign against Respect and George Galloway, which the rest of us did not support. The SA Democracy Platform was born in the autumn 2003 from the crisis enveloping the SA. So this was our first public intervention. Against overwhelming odds, it was absolutely certain we would lose all the votes. It is important to say quite clearly that we lost. But what did we gain? The most important thing is that we were able to intervene with a clear set of policies and put down a marker for an alternative direction. In 'Britain at the crossroads' the SA Democracy Platform defended the programme of the Socialist Alliance and applied it to the new situation. By doing this, we established ourselves publicly as the SA minority prepared to unite and fight the liquidation of the SA and its policies by the SWP.

Let us review the relative merits of the three alternatives - proposed by the SWP-Galloway, Workers Power and the SA Democracy Platform. It is worth remembering that any position can carry the day with thousands of votes, but collapse shortly afterwards under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Equally a strong position can be overwhelmingly outvoted and remain rock-solid. So the question is not whether the SA Democracy Platform lost the vote. It is whether it has a credible position, which will pass the test of time and put us in a position to challenge our opponents in the future.

Certainly the winning ticket in the lottery, the Superman option, is held by the SWP. It entitles you to a free shot at the elections on June 10. George Galloway explained that the aim was to raise £1 million and secure one million votes, by tapping into the anti-war sentiments that put around one and a half million people on the streets on February 15 2003. Supporters spoke about the need for an "electoral challenge" and an "electoral coalition". The main weapon in this election campaign will of course be George Galloway himself. With a rebel MP at our head surely the votes will roll in?

What is completely lacking here is any vision about where we are heading or what the purpose of this exercise is (apart from the obvious - getting votes). This is one reason why organisations like the Socialist Party and the Morning Star's Communist Party of Britain have not signed up. Added to this is the 'short-termism' of the SWP, which expresses its well known (except to SWP members) weakness: the SWP does not have a programme and does not care very much about such things. It prefers to respond to spontaneous movement. So when it comes to an election campaign, policies are not high on the agenda. In the SWP mindset, we do not want any policies that could put people off, because we want muslims and anti-war people to vote for George.

This is of course electoralism. As a political method it is no different from the method of Blair's New Labour, which jettisoned all sorts of socialist policies in pursuit of votes. Jack Conrad was absolutely right to say that in the hands of the SWP "elections become not about making propaganda and enhancing class combativity, but rather saying what you think people want to hear in a desperate bid to get elected - almost for its own sake" (Weekly Worker January 22). After saying for decades that elections were irrelevant, the SWP has now arrived at the point where votes are the be-all-and-end-all. This shows once again how the SWP's worship of spontaneity leads to the opportunism of voting to maintain immigration controls and keeping the queen in Buckingham Palace!

The second option proposed by Workers Power was that Respect should become a workers' party and adopt a revolutionary programme. Many comrades agree with the need for a workers' party, including all those in the SA Democracy Platform. But Workers Power has reduced this to a dogma. This becomes even clearer when we understand that they mean a revolutionary party. The Respect coalition is the political extension of a popular, cross-class Stop the War Coalition. The idea that these forces could form a revolutionary party simply does not fit with reality. We might as well call on the TGWU to form itself into a Bolshevik party. Abstract propaganda point, yes. Real world politics, no.

Mark Hoskisson of WP made a good speech pressing all the right buttons. He condemned capitalism and imperialism, praising socialism as the only answer, and the need for a revolutionary party. Every SWP member in the audience could relate to this, thinking to themselves that just such a party, together with such politics, already exists. It is called the SWP. They could at the same time feel the warm glow of self-satisfaction. Workers Power is only tiny. There is no chance of Respect forming a revolutionary party either before or after June 10, regardless of the result. If it is not a bird, could it be a plane? The third option, put forward by the SA Democracy Platform (albeit in the name of the RDG), was set out in 'Britain at the crossroads' (see Weekly Worker January 22). This starts from the anti-war movement itself. It basically says we need to rebuild the anti-war movement by transforming it into a pro-democracy movement. This is not something to be artificially imposed on that movement from the outside, but is within its own logic. There is a democracy movement waiting to be born. We are merely its midwife.

The focal point for a movement is not elections. It must be on the streets, in the workplaces and in the communities. Our model could be the anti-poll tax movement, the Stop the War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the suffragette movement or the Chartist movement. The proper role for elections would therefore be to build the movement. A successful election campaign is one that produces growth and a strengthening of the movement.

A movement is very different from a party. A movement can bring together a range of parties, along with trade unions and community organisations and campaigns. But a party can grow out of a movement as the experience of the anti-poll tax movement and the Scottish Socialist Party has shown. Therefore in advocating the building of a mass movement, we have not abandoned the need to build a new workers' party. On the contrary, we are proposing to take concrete steps towards a new party by the best route presented to us - the crisis of the Iraq war. Not the abstract propaganda for partyism, but moving to a workers' party in the world as it is.

How does this differ from electoralism? In building a democratic movement, the tactic of standing candidates may be very useful. But the purpose of standing in elections is not about harvesting votes, but using the opportunity of the election to build the movement and raise consciousness about what the working class needs to do. Elections are subordinated to the needs of the movement and the interests of the working class. 'Britain at the crossroads' takes seriously that task by focusing on key issues which are facing the British people today and which any movement must get right if it is to succeed. Unless we can correctly identify these issues, we will be unable to intervene in mass politics. The SA Democracy Platform picks out the issues of democracy, equality, Europe and social justice. On each issue, the British people face real choices about the future direction of the country.

The Respect conference reproduced a range of views we find in the country as a whole. On democracy, for example a minority of Respect were in favour of a republic, but the vast majority were not. That is true of England as a whole. When Tommy Sheridan spoke, we were reminded that the SSP supports Scottish independence, to which George Galloway is opposed. Most people, even in Scotland, do not want a break up of Britain. Mark Serwotka made clear the fact that his union, the PCSU, was in favour of the euro, whereas the Respect majority opposed it. This again mirrors wider social attitudes.

Of course the Respect coalition does take up the question of democracy. This proves my earlier point that the issue of democracy reflects a real strand within the anti-war movement. The draft says: "There is a crisis of representation, a democratic deficit, at the heart of politics in Britain. We aim to offer a solution to this crisis." Unfortunately the statement does not really explain what the crisis of representation is. It does not explain the democratic deficit. It does not say how we can solve the democratic deficit. It claims to "offer a solution to this crisis" but then fails completely to say what that solution is. This is not serious politics. Respect's opponents could justifiably say that there is a "democratic deficit" at the heart of the coalition's politics.

The Labour government took Britain into an illegal war on false pretences over weapons of mass destruction. The real aim was to install a pro-US government in Baghdad. The WMD fiasco showed very clearly what socialists have known for a long time. Britain is not a democratic country. We do not have a democratic system of government. Under the constitution of the crown, power is concentrated in the hands of the prime minister and his close aids, top civil servants, security chiefs, etc. It is the power that Blair used to take Britain to war, to slavishly follow the foreign polices of US imperialism and to privatise our public services. This is the power that parliament is unable to challenge or check.

On the one hand we find the concentration of power in the hands of the executive and on the other hand a weak and feeble parliament and bankrupt constitution. Many ordinary people think, with justification, that voting is a waste of time, because nothing changes. It is this same alienation that can turn people to fascism and the BNP.

The massive anti-war demonstrations were significant precisely because they sought to challenge that concentration of power. In doing so these demonstrations were implicitly and sometimes explicitly about the failure of democracy and how Britain is governed. 'Britain at the crossroads' identifies this as its point of departure and the seeds of the future. Our task as socialists is to complete the transformation of the anti-war protests into a new democracy movement.

A broad movement for democracy would have to have solutions to what Respect calls "the crisis of representation" and the "democratic deficit". The SA programme People before profit provides democratic answers. Real democracy must be republican. We are not about reforming the crown. We aim to abolish it. Republicanism is about the sovereignty of the people in all matters. We are republican democrats, not Liberal Democrats, who think the answer to the democratic deficit is proportional representation. Republican democracy should not be separated from its social roots. It must address the question of poverty and wealth, as it impacts on health, education, pensions and housing, etc.

Now we come to the vexed question of socialism. Is Respect a socialist organisation or not? There are quite divergent views on this. But the more interesting question is whether it needs to be socialist. In my personal view a mass democratic movement has to be republican, but it does not have to be socialist. The anti-poll tax movement was not socialist; nor was the anti-war movement or the trade union movement. Yet socialism has an absolutely vital role guiding any democratic republican movements. On the other hand, a workers' party has to be socialist. There is no point in seeking to build a non-socialist party.

The Socialist Alliance has in People before profit a clear set of policies - on the democratic republic, equality, social justice, Europe and internationalism - which Respect needs to take on board. The SA Democracy Platform did a great service for the Socialist Alliance by defending its own programme against overwhelming odds.

So what is Respect? Is it an attempt to building a mass democratic republican and social movement? I have never yet heard of a republican movement that opposes the abolition of the monarchy. So the answer is obviously no. Perhaps it is the beginnings of a new workers' party, whose MPs are paid on a worker's wage? Given the politics, programme and its declared aims, it is not that either. It is neither fish nor fowl. It may have got a thousand votes at the rally, but until it sorts out whether it is trying to build a movement or a workers' party, it will have a thousand problems. Still, these are interesting times. Let us begin a discussion inside the Democracy Platform to see what our next steps should be.