05.02.2004

Bureaucratic fist tightens

Tina Becker reports that the ESF is in great danger of being totally taken over by Ken Livingstone - with the full support of his little helpers in the Socialist Workers Party

The first meeting of the UK organising committee to prepare for the European Social Forum to be held in London later in the year took place on Thursday January 29. The meeting very quickly confirmed what many people had feared: that this year's ESF is in great danger of being totally taken over by Ken Livingstone - with the full support of his little helpers in the Socialist Workers Party.

Controversy ensued well before the meeting, because invitations were sent out rather selectively. At our UK assembly the previous weekend, it was announced that all those who signed up to the statement 'For a UK Organising Committee to host the European Social Forum in London' would be invited (see Weekly Worker January 29). However, despite signing the document, the CPGB was just one of many organisations which did not receive such an invite.

This was no accident. We were told by Dave Holland (Livingstone's supremo for European and international affairs) that we were not invited, because we are not a "a national or regional organisation, but a political party". We were allowed to stay in the meeting, though our attempts to clarify the internationally agreed position on the participation of political parties (see below) was referred to the next meeting of the committee, due to take place on Thursday February 5. It is still unclear why other organisations did not receive invitations.

Fifty-five people attended the meeting, representing quite a wide range of organisations (though I did recognise at least 15 members of the SWP, attending on behalf of this or that front). As has unfortunately been the norm, the atmosphere was decidedly hostile and unfriendly. This was not helped by the fact that chair Alex Gordon was being 'guided' by Redmond O'Neill (Livingstone's appointed policy director on public affairs and transport), who kept whispering instructions into his ear. Most seriously perhaps, Alex Gordon announced that our four ESF working groups were abolished forthwith. The ESF preparatory assembly on December 13-14, which was attended by many international participants and which is the highest body of the ESF process, had set up working groups to deal with programme, practicalities, culture and enlargement. While the enlargement group never met, the practicalities group was sabotaged by members of the SWP - they used the undemocratic 'consensus principle' to block the group from taking any decisions.

However, the programme group (which contained a number of SWPers) has been meeting regularly since December and is quite far advanced in drawing up methods on how to put together seminars and plenary sessions for our ESF later in the year. Dave Timms from the World Development Forum unsuccessfully tried to deliver a report of the programme group to our UK organising committee, but was prevented by comrade Gordon, who refused to add the item to the agenda. Members of the culture group were equally dismayed at apparently having been abolished.

Redmond O'Neill explained that only the organising committee could decide which groups should exist from now on. "How about the four working groups we already have?" somebody suggested. Afraid not. According to Redmond, working groups will be established at some later stage in the process. "But only seven organisations have officially affiliated to the ESF so far, so we cannot set up those structures yet", he explained, supported by his comrades-in-arms in the SWP. Until the structures are satisfactory to Redmond, "certain groups should be dealing with certain tasks".

By a strange coincidence, the GLA seems to be involved in all these tasks. As comrade Gordon ran through the list of items to be discussed (venues, website, accommodation, translation, etc), Redmond came in on almost every one to announce that the GLA would take care of them. Was there any other group that would like to help? Anybody apart from the CPGB or Workers Power, that is. "You represent a party, so the minute taker will not be able to take your names down," Alex Gordon declared when we tried to get involved. Jeremy Dewar from WP unsuccessfully tried to convince people that he only represented a newspaper, not a party.

But the rather harmless NGO, Friends of the Earth, was shunned too. When its representative, Hannah Griffiths, said that she would like to get involved in the group that would invite organisations to the ESF, the call for additional help was all of a sudden dropped: "Oh, well, we will all just send out invitations for groups to join; so you can use your database and we will use ours," Red-mond said.

That might have been to do with the fact that Hannah has been quite critical of the secret nature of the process and had previously acutely embarrassed the GLA and Globalise Resistance: She announced at a meeting that Friends of the Earth had in fact not signed up to the ESF bid, despite being listed as a supporting organisation. She has definitely been pushed into the 'enemy camp', which is increasingly well staffed with members of the CPGB, Workers Power, the Green Party, World Development Forum, a number of local social forums, Red Pepper, Just Peace etc. Whenever one of those people spoke, they were shouted down by SWP hacks - or shut up by comrade Gordon. Quite clearly, it is becoming increasingly difficult to influence the way the ESF is being organised. As a result, a number of people have unfortunately decided to turn their backs on the process, after having experienced the undemocratic nature of the official structure. However, this is exactly what the GLA and GR are hoping for. Without a democratic opposition, they could just run the whole ESF like another 'Respect' jamboree.

We must fight hard to make the ESF the property of all the interested groups and organisations in Britain and Europe. The event has already been increasingly sanitised since the first forum took place in Florence in 2002. While our first ESF had the flair of a massive anti-capitalist festival, the second forum in Paris already felt like a rather uninspired conference. We cannot allow the ESF in Britain to be remembered for being a boring, bureaucratic non-event.

Tens of thousands of anti-capitalist activists will come to London. They should form the core of the ESF, not Ken Livingstone. While we must carry on arguing for more democracy in the official structures, we should also attempt to break out of any straightjacket. We should fight to make sure that the ESF provides space for all groups; that the workshops will take place close to the main centre; that European and Britain-wide networks will emerge - in short, that we can achieve a purposeful event, not just a glorified rally.

On a positive note, both the programme and the culture group are planning to carry on meeting despite having officially been abolished. And some people involved in local social forums across the UK are planning to meet in London on February 7-8 to discuss the way forward.

Money troubles

Redmond O'Neill presented a 'Draft indication of possible expenditure', according to which the whole event would cost exactly £1,488,546. This includes the hire of Alexandra Palace (£218,675), a seven-hectare marquee village on the grounds of Ally Pally (including site rental of £497,909), the professional running of a website (£10,000), free accommodation and expenses for the translators and volunteer transcribers (total of £170,940) and £127,500 for six people who would be employed full-time from April 1 to December 31 2004 to oversee the organisation.

Redmond did not volunteer any information as to how this could be covered. So CPGB comrades asked him how many organisations had already promised any funds. "Well, I'm afraid I cannot give you any information on this, so you'll have to carry on lying in the Weekly Worker," he sneered, to cheering from some of the SWP comrades. He was referring to my article in last week's paper, which reported that the GLA was committed to giving £250,000.

Only when a representative of the Muslim Parliament of Britain repeated my question did Redmond feel obliged to give a proper answer. "The GLA will have to go through all our budgets to see if they are relevant to the ESF," he explained. "I can, for example, think of the international budget or the consultation budget and I should imagine that three of four conferences during the ESF will meet our criteria." So how much money are you talking about, Redmond? "I really cannot give a figure." Well, he did at a number of previous occasions and - guess what - the sum mentioned was £250,000.

According to Redmond, no other organisation has yet committed any money - though Steve Bell of the Communication Workers Union said his union was "discussing our affiliation in two week's time and we will also discuss a donation of £500".

Party troubles

At a number of meetings, quite a few people have mentioned almost in passing that the ESF is a "party-free space". These have included Alex Gordon (RMT executive), Kate Hudson (chair of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and member of the Morning Star's Communist Party of Britain) and Redmond O'Neill himself. Livingstone's policy director on public affairs and transport is of course a long-standing member of the sectarian and highly secretive Socialist Action, which operates not only in the GLA and the Labour Party, but is also influential within CND and the National Union of Students. While SWP comrades have not joined in the witch-hunt against parties, they certainly have not raised any objections. They are safe, of course, by appearing as anything but members of the SWP: Globalise Resistance (Guy Taylor, Jonathan Neale), Unite against Fascism (Weyman Bennett), Stop the War Coalition (Chris Nineham, Lindsey German) or even Project K (Alex Callinicos). No doubt, they will think of more fronts soon, as only one representative per organisation is allowed to attend the OC.

Currently, the CPGB is the only political party that does appear under its real name. Workers Power comrades present themselves as "supporters of Workers Power newspaper". Members of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty never speak, so the question of their affiliation never arises. And the Socialist Party does not turn up anyway.

Redmond O'Neill tried to shed some light on the problem during our assembly - but failed miserably. He said: "The ESF is part of the World Social Forum and therefore parties are not officially allowed to participate. That does not mean if you are a member of a party, you cannot participate. It simply means you cannot take part as a member of the Labour Party, but you can attend as a member of the CND."

It looks as if we have to refight a battle line that has dominated many of the international ESF assemblies over the last two years. So time for some clarification. The disputed sentence in the WSF 'Charter of principles' reads: "Neither party representations nor military organisations shall participate in the forum. Government leaders and members of legislatures who accept the commitments of this charter may be invited to participate in a personal capacity."

Even before our first ESF in Florence many groups and political parties across Europe challenged the interpretation that this would mean parties would have to hide behind some kind of front. Then, our friends in the SWP took a principled stand: at meeting after meeting, Alex Callinicos and Chris Nineham argued alongside comrades in the CPGB against the banning of parties (see, for example, Weekly Worker December 12 2002). But now that they have a finger in the pie of this year's ESF, there is no need to fight for principles, it seems.

Anyway, two years ago, our Italian comrades were delegated to reach an agreement with the WSF on the question. They reported to the ESF European preparatory assembly in Vienna on May 11-12 2002 that they had in fact come up with a compromise: According to this, national ESF mobilisations could if they wanted opt to allow parties to openly take part in the process. The next ESF assembly on July 13-14 2002, which took place in Thessaloniki, further clarified this by agreeing that political parties would also be allowed to organise workshops. At the ESF event itself, speakers who were members of parties would not be advertised as such in the programme. However, they were free to state any affiliation in their speeches (see Weekly Worker July 18 2002).

Since this agreement has not been overturned or even challenged, it is still valid. The Italian committee decided to allow parties. Dishonestly, the French banned them, despite the fact that most leading participants on the French organising committee were members of the Communist Party of France, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire or the Socialist Party.

It would be a big step back if the British ESF mobilisation decided to follow the French road. Such a ban would be highly hypocritical on a number of levels - not least because the organisational process is being led by a recently readmitted member of the Labour Party (and staffed by members of Socialist Action and the SWP). A ban only leads to party members concealing their political affiliation, thereby making the whole process even less transparent and less democratic. Supporters of the ban foolishly seem to believe that somehow declaring our event a party-free zone will attract more people to it. Surely, the question is - what kind of parties take part? And would a ban really keep any of them out? Hardly.

In Scotland, comrades are not quite so foolish. In fact, comrade Jill Hubbard from the Socialist Worker platform of the Scottish Socialist Party reported at a previous meeting that the SSP and the Green Party had joined the Scottish ESF mobilisation. Are we supposed to throw them out again?

Jeremy Dewar cheekily challenged Redmond O'Neill's authority to effectively take over the running of the ESF, as he was a member of a government body - also banned under the WSF charter. "Well, if you throw me out, I'll have to throw you out of my building," Redmond snapped. Surely, the point is not to throw out either Redmond or WP or the CPGB, but to allow all interested organisations to openly participate.