Letters

Not long to wait

After watching BBC2’s first few If programmes I was inclined to bring readers’ attention to elements of the historical cycle that seem fit to burst in the next few decades.

Many elements of our society - the economy, pensions, services, social security - seem to be at, or hurtling towards, what can only be described as breaking point. Such a situation seems comparable to Russia in the early part of the 20th century. As fundamental aspects of society begin to snap, people will yearn for nationalised industries and will begin to turn from the endless pursuit of profit that has poisoned our social spectrum throughout recent history.

As soon as we hit the next big economic recession, which should be 30 years at the very most, the country will be ripe to experience the first brand of 21st century communism.

Not long to wait
Not long to wait

Forerunner

Alan Thornett, ageing leader of the International Socialist Group, is apoplectic at any left criticism of the Respect venture. He has been heard to claim that the CPGB was never critical of the formation of the Socialist Alliance in the same way as it slams Respect.

Not so. Look at the back issues of the Weekly Worker, comrade Thornett. With Respect, we are thrown back to politics similar to those which inspired the formation of the Socialist Alliance itself. The scattered and autonomous alliances formed during the 1990s established the national Network of Socialist Alliances in Rugby on September 5 1998. Its founding principles were wholly inadequate.

Here is what the Weekly Worker said at the time: “Evidently the Liaison Group [leading committee of the NSA] owes more to Proudhon than Marx, more to the abstract than the concrete, more to the green than the red. Nowhere in the ‘Opening statement’ do we find a positive reference to the term ‘socialism’. All we are told is that Labour has abandoned “whatever aspiration” it had toward ‘socialism’. ‘Socialism’ is also missing from the proposed ‘aims’.” (Weekly Worker September 3 1998)

From this we concluded: “The Liaison Group is committed to a half-baked, ethical or sentimental socialism. There are countless banal platitudes about ‘justice’, ‘fairness’, ‘freedom’ and ‘ecological sustainability’. But the class struggle is absent. Indeed both the term and the concept of the working class has been exorcised”. Sound familiar?

Needless to say, the inadequacies of the forerunner of the Socialist Alliance did not prevent us from joining the network and urging a vote for its candidates. We saw the possibility that it would develop into something better.

Forerunner
Forerunner

Loud and proud

Rae Hancock hit the nail on the head in her criticism of Jack Conrad (Letters, March 25). The elitist, intellectual attitude she describes does not just apply to the CPGB, but almost all of the official left.

A small group of mainly middle class academics make up the so-called ‘vanguard of the proletariat’. For them the ‘working class’ is a romantic concept, and not a day-to-day reality. This is why a massive majority of the working class feel alienated by the left, and won’t touch it with a barge pole. The Respect coalition, like the other political incarnations of the liberal middle class, will fall on its arse, and help the fascists rather than hinder them. If you’re working class, shout it loud and proud, but don’t be deluded that these people hold the key to our future.

Loud and proud
Loud and proud

Visceral hatred

Is it the official policy of the CPGB that Wales is a mere “geographical region” and not a nation entitled to independence if the people of Wales so decide?

Is Scotland and the Basque country not also entitled to independence, as distinct from whatever Manny Neira may deem acceptable to vague “geographical regions” on his imperial map? (‘Leadership still lags behind the led’, March 25). As an Englishman living in Wales I start to see why left nationalists have a visceral hatred of the UK left.

Visceral hatred
Visceral hatred

Contradiction?

Isn’t there a contradiction in the CPGB’s opposition to Scottish self-determinism and your support for a united Ireland? What is the difference? Would I be an internationalist to argue for ‘Northern Ireland’ to remain within the ‘union’ or take an opportunist Committee for a Workers’ International position that argues for a ‘federation’ to avoid an anti-imperialist position on Ireland?

Contradiction?
Contradiction?

Defying Respect

Steve Godward, a firefighter of 24 years and a Fire Brigades Union divisional representative, was wooed by and stood for the Socialist Alliance as their candidate in Birmingham Erdington during the 2001 general election. Well known in the area as an anti-racist, he is regularly harassed by the local far right. He has consistently built good relations with local secular muslims whom he was gradually winning over to the politics of the SA.

A leading striking firefighter who was sacked during the 2002-03 national industrial action, Steve is currently challenging the West Midlands fire service’s refusal to reinstate him following deputy prime minister John Prescott’s February 2004 ruling that his dismissal and loss of livelihood was wrong.

But not only has Steve received no support at any stage from his own political organisation - the Socialist Workers Party-dominated Socialist Alliance - he found himself fighting a rearguard action when he was victimised by the SWP and their associates.

(i) He was purged by the Salma Yaqoob/Socialist Action/SWP faction in Birmingham, along with a raft of other proven socialists from the highly successful and growing Birmingham Stop the War Coalition.

(ii) In a surreal bit of obedience training, the SWP district organiser announced, “You’ll be politically finished in Birmingham,” when Steve was booked to speak at a Birmingham Trades Union Council teach-in on Palestine without their permission. Steve is Birmingham Trades Union Council vice-chair and has toured Palestine as a trade union delegate sponsored by the FBU and BTUC for the purpose of twinning Birmingham with Ramallah.

(iii) Justifying throwing Steve to the wolves at the 2003 SWP Marxism conference, John Rees, leading SWP central committee member and editor of the party’s theoretical journal, publicly declared that Steve Godward - a victimised striking firefighter, a trade unionist and a socialist fighting for his livelihood - “represents very little”.

Despite several email requests for solidarity, there has been no response from campaigning journalist Paul Foot, a fellow SA candidate. Similarly, prominent SA supporter Ken Loach has issued no response to the plight of this working class socialist.

And even though he kept his fellow members on the SA executive committee up to date on his case, Steve has received only a few replies from individuals, none from SWP SA executive committee members Hoveman and Rees, and has seen no SA campaign for his reinstatement to the fire service.

Yet the local media and even MPs from throughout the region are backing his fight, including West Midland Labour MPs Ken Purchase and Sion Simon, and Euro MEP Simon Murphy. Support has come from as far as Northern Ireland and the US. Says Steve: “The irony is that I looked to the left to support me and my only help has come from the state. What does this say to working class people about the left?”

As part of the SWP’s apparent bid to scuttle the SA, John Rees, nominal SA press officer and now Respect national secretary, pressured out the two acting press officers so that by late 2002 there was no functioning press operation to publicise either the firefighters’ strike or the 2003 local elections in which the BNP made alarming advances.

Steve says that “in retrospect, it’s clear that the SWP were intent on scuppering the Socialist Alliance in favour of their new coalition and never had the ‘respect’ to even discuss it with us. Respect has attempted to liquidate the SA, which is a proper socialist alternative to New Labour, and tried to force it not to stand candidates in the June elections.

“I’m forging ahead with the Democratic Platform of the Socialist Alliance to bring democracy back to the left. And, yes, I will be standing again in Birmingham Erdington as the democratically selected candidate for the SA whether the SWP and Respect like it or not.”

Defying Respect
Defying Respect