12.05.2004

Fighting capacity

The editors of the Weekly Worker are pleased to carry a regular column from the Red Platform, a group of CPGB comrades who take a minority view on a number of issues: not least our attitude to the Respect unity coalition. Clearly our commitment to open polemic and minority rights is no empty boast.

While just about everyone in our organisation is agreed on the need for critical engagement with Respect, the Red Platform comrades, along with some others, believe that such engagement should stop short of calling for a vote for Respect candidates. They do not actually make the blunt demand, 'Don't vote Respect', but the conditions they wish to impose are so restrictive that in effect that is what they are saying, for it is highly unlikely that any coalition candidate would pass the test they set. Indeed, if we were to place the same conditions on all other left candidates standing in the June 10 European Union, Greater London Authority or local elections, in all likelihood not one of them would be deemed worthy of support.

According to the defeated motion moved by the comrades at our April aggregate, Respect candidates must "announce their support and campaign" for the three principles of open borders, republicanism and a worker's wage in order to earn our backing. There is, of course, a logic of a kind in wanting to impose such conditions, since the CPGB was instrumental in highlighting the abandonment of these principles before, during and after the founding of Respect. All featured in the Socialist Alliance's programme, People before profit, drawn up for the 2001 general election, and were consciously rejected by the Socialist Workers Party in the transition to Respect.

However, they were supported by most SA candidates only in a very formal sense. The SWP, with its disdain for programme, took little interest in the drafting of People before profit and was quite happy to let others take the lead - not least the CPGB. But the SWP saw to it that the SA campaigned exclusively around the so-called 'priority pledges' - an economistic wish list that downplayed or ignored the key question of democracy, including the demands for a republic and the free movement of people. While the commitment of SA candidates to accept only the average wage of a skilled worker was sometimes referred to, it was hardly the cutting edge. Only the two CPGB Socialist Alliance candidates campaigned for all three principles.

In other words, while our aim in championing these principles within Respect was to strengthen the coalition, it had the effect of bringing to the fore the SWP's shift to the right. We had no intention whatsoever of wielding them as ultimatums. After all, a failure by Respect to accept the three principles would mark no practical change from the situation in the alliance. In fact we specifically stated that we would not withdraw support if the founding convention voted against our proposals - although we would, of course, continue to fight against the unprincipled retreat led by the SWP.

In response to our charge of inconsistency, the Red Platform comrades argue: "The fact that such conditions were not applied to the SA or the Socialist Labour Party reflects their objectively different nature: whatever their weaknesses, they were progressive and inherently partyist projects" (Weekly Worker April 29). Let us not dwell too long on how "progressive" (a relative concept) and "inherently partyist" they were (while the CPGB recognises that Respect represents a retrograde step compared to the SA and even the SLP, all three were or are a site for the struggle for a single, revolutionary workers' party - despite the opposition to that struggle from the majority in each formation).

However, the main point concerns the effect of applying such conditions today. While it is quite correct to state that different circumstances call for different tactics, the fact that the left, mired as it is in economism, has never campaigned for a republic and consistently played down demands like open borders ought to tell us something. Are we to insist upon a more principled approach from Respect candidates?

Yet Red Platform comrades seem to be advocating an unconditional vote for other left forces on June 10 - the Scottish Socialist Party in the EU elections, the Socialist Party in local elections and perhaps one GLA constituency, and at least some SA Democracy Platform candidates (also in local elections). I am uncertain as to whether this support will also be extended to the SLP (comrade Cameron Richards has stated that he personally does not favour voting for Arthur Scargill's "degenerate" party) and the Communist Party of Britain.

Such a pick 'n' mix approach betrays a certain incoherence. SP election material will not mention, let alone highlight, the demand for either open borders or a republic. Neither will the propaganda of the SLP or CPB, who will also steer well clear of a worker's wage. SADP comrades will stand on a variety of localist and economistic platforms and will almost certainly not focus on the constitutional monarchy. Yet the Red Platform comrades would apparently have us recommend that workers should vote for, say, an SP candidate who accepts only one of the three principles, while - perhaps in the same polling booth - they should refuse to vote for a Respect candidate who might accept two of them. What lesson can possibly be learnt from such an approach?

Even if it were correct to impose special conditions on Respect - which it is not - clearly the three that have been chosen do not fit the bill. Our Red Platform comrades especially do not want to vote for anybody from the Muslim Association of Britain (though they are standing as individuals and accept exactly the same manifesto as the other candidates). Its members are deemed irredeemably reactionary, almost akin to fascists, and are therefore totally beyond the pale. Yet, when I spoke to Anas Altikriti, who heads the Respect EU list in Yorkshire and Humberside, he enthusiastically agreed with open borders and a worker's wage (albeit ideologically filtered though his muslim prism). As to abolishing the monarchy, he was open to persuasion, although on balance he tended to favour the status quo (Weekly Worker April 29). In terms of historical parallels he brought to my mind the turbulent Russian priest, father Gapon, of 1905. Altikriti's ideas were incredibly fluid: an eclectic mix of old Labour welfarism, militant anti-imperialism, internationalism and traditional islam.

So the three chosen conditions could on their own quite conceivably lead to urging a vote for a leading member of MAB but not socialists such as John Rees, Linda Smith, Lindsey German, Ken Loach, Michael Lavalette and Greg Tucker. And, because they are applied only to Respect, they do nothing to distinguish it either from Labour Party candidates or the rest of the left. If we wanted, for whatever strange reason, to demonstrate that Respect is completely unworthy, as compared to other, supportable, parties and candidates, we would have to find other criteria.

A difficult, if not impossible, task. Take a look at Respect's founding declaration and compare it to the election pledges of the SP, SLP, SSP and CPB. You will not find much difference, I assure you. Anti-war, anti-privatisation, equal education, a totally free NHS, pensions linked to earnings, EU 'decency level' minimum wage, tax the rich, repeal the anti-union laws, defend asylum-seekers, end discrimination, protect the environment …

True, the others might give more prominence to the words 'socialism' or 'socialist' and might even mention the workers once or twice, but the actual policies are very similar indeed. And the Respect declaration is virtually identical to the SA's 2001 'priority pledges', as the SWP's John Rees delights in pointing out.

It is not that such demands are not supportable - they certainly are. In fact they, or something like them, must be considered essential parts of a revolutionary programme. The problem is that, taken as a whole, the various manifestos of the left - Respect included - do not highlight democracy, but instead concentrate on improving the lot of workers as a slave class. They carry nothing, or next to nothing, about how the proletariat can achieve self-emancipation. Demands that actually challenge the way we are ruled, demands that answer the democratic deficit inherent in the UK state's constitutional monarchy system, demands that prepare the workers to become a ruling class are totally lacking. Nor do they have any understanding of the main weapon our class needs: a democratic centralist Communist Party.

Yes, the SWP is now hurtling down the populist path of elections for their own sake. In the process they have decided that principles such as republicanism, open borders and a worker's wage are inconvenient. Perhaps a woman's right to choose could suffer the same fate. The fight for party has also been set back - despite the backing of a number of RMT branches, etc - and must now be conducted on less immediately fertile ground. Nevertheless these setbacks must not blind us to the reality: there has been no qualitative break. The Socialist Alliance did not represent some golden era of partyism and principle.

So we must begin from where we are, not from where we would like to be - which means with the left as it is, in its present dire state. In order to create the space for partyism, we need to seek out anti-Blair Labour Party candidates where possible. But we also have every interest in working for the success of left-of-Labour candidates - above all those of Respect, which is the only half-serious force. If George Galloway or John Rees were elected on June 10, that might infuriate some morbid sectarians. However, whatever else it did by way of inflating already inflated egos, it would certainly boost the morale, and hence the fighting capacity, of the anti-war movement and crucially the militant working class. Tommy Sheridan did that in Scotland.

And that, not artificial check-lists, is the alpha and omega of communist electoral tactics.