07.07.2004

Scapegoats and witch-hunts

The Italians and the Weekly Worker have together almost brought about the collapse of the London European Social Forum - or so the story goes. All the while, Ken Livingstone is allowed to exploit the ESF for his own purposes, reports Tina Becker

"We are clear now that the funds to run the ESF will be in place shortly.” That was the reassurance those who attended the July 6 ESF organising committee were given by Dave Hillman of the Tobin Tax Campaign, who heads the office working group. For a couple of weeks, it seemed as if there were some serious financial problems, with rumours circulating that London mayor Ken Livingstone had lost interest in the ESF and was considering withdrawing the announced GLA donation of £250,000.

Job interviews for the six ESF workers had to be cancelled at the last minute, because “the finances were not in place”. It is difficult to understand the extent of this “crisis” or the reason behind it. As with most aspects of this year’s ESF, information is ‘classified’ and only released to those who are trusted by the two organisations firmly in charge of the preparations: the Socialist Workers Party (aka Globalise Resistance et al) and Socialist Action, the small Trotskyist sect whose leading members enjoy very well paid positions in Livingstone’s GLA bureaucracy.

Whatever the reasons for the temporary financial problem, it most certainly had nothing to do with the explanation given at the last coordinating committee. Meeting on July 1, the whole two and a half hours were spent attacking the Weekly Worker and the Italian ESF mobilising committee, who were apparently to blame for the “crisis”. At the centre of this claim was a sentence in the Italians’ report of a recent programme working group meeting, in which they urged the SWP-Socialist Action to “find a much better way of working together and relating to others”, otherwise “we shall pull out of the process” (see Weekly Worker June 17).

The Weekly Worker was equally (if not more) to blame - because we published the report, which had of course been widely circulated on the internet. The “main funders” were so worried about this that they put their support on hold, awaiting “reassurances” from the Italians that they would not pull out. Or so the story goes.

Mick Connolly (representing the South East Region of the TUC) went on to claim that the Italians’ report had not been put together by the Italians at all: “I am not prepared to accept that, on the one hand, the Italians go and sign this critical report and, on the other hand, when I speak to them, none of them raise any of the problems mentioned in it.” Like Chris Nineham (Globalise Resistance/SWP), he implied that the report was a fabrication by either the Weekly Worker or “those who are lobbying the Italians, giving them the totally wrong impressions about the process”.

The charge was then swiftly expanded and fire was directed at the Weekly Worker and yours truly. Milena Buyum (National Assembly Against Racism/Socialist Action) has “doubted for a long time Tina’s commitment to the ESF. There should be no reports at all on any aspects of ESF meetings,” she demanded - and was backed up by a number of her comrades. Louise Hutchins (National Union of Students) claimed that she felt “intimidated”: “You are silencing people, because you might report what they say.” Another SA comrade, Sarah Colborne (officially representing the Palestine Solidarity Campaign), felt that “we have been at the receiving end of a witch-hunt and have been scapegoated by the Weekly Worker”. Lee Brown claimed that our ‘Urgent appeal’ against exclusions in the ESF (see below) had been a “despicable witch-hunt”. And there was me thinking that threats to exclude us from meetings and blaming us for putting the ESF in jeopardy, constituted a witch-hunt against the Weekly Worker! How foolish of me …

The only SWP comrade sinking quite so low was Rahul Patel (wearing his London Unison hat): “You have paid your £250 affiliation fee and you think that gives you the right to act as cheap columnists. You constantly undermine the process, playing silly games with appeals and it simply cannot continue. It has to stop immediately,” he snarled.

As the meeting went on, it became ever more obvious that SWP-SA comrades had come with a fixed agenda. They have used some kind of real, last-minute budgetary hiccup to attack all those calling for more openness and transparency in the ESF - including in financial matters. Italian comrades will undoubtedly have been horrified to be told that they are to blame for the potential collapse of the ESF London. I would guess, though, that they have had enough contact with the SWP-SA bureaucracy to calmly judge this story for what it is - a smokescreen.

This was in fact pointed out by all members of the ‘democratic opposition’ present (which is basically everybody who is not in the orbit of SWP-SA). Oscar Reyes from Red Pepper reminded the meeting that every word spoken in parliament is published afterwards. He added that the way to deal with the criticisms raised by the Italians was not to arrogantly dismiss them or simply patronise the Italians for “having a distorted view” (as Kate Hudson from the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain did). “We surely need to discuss how to overcome those problems,” he urged. Javier Ruiz (Indymedia) called the meeting “a farce that has obviously been pre-arranged to stop us from talking openly and properly about finances”. He urged the SWP-SA to produce a proper budget and accounts - reminding them that it was precisely this lack of financial and organisational transparency that has stopped most of the NGOs from affiliating to the process.

Undoubtedly, this episode will be quoted over and over again to justify the ‘necessity’ of excluding CPGB members from ESF meetings, to slap bans on reporting any ESF developments and to keep financial matters secret.

Whose ESF is it?
Only one thing has become clear in regards to ESF finances: neither Ken Livingstone (who notoriously called on tubeworkers to cross picket lines during the June 30 strike) nor the unions are interested in handing over their so-called ‘donations’ to the ESF. They do not want their money to be spent according to the wishes of the 70 affiliated organisations and the 200 or so activists who turn up to ESF meetings, as basically happened at the first two ESFs in Florence and Paris. Then, local and regional government bodies simply handed over their money and left the details to the ESF activists.

Not in Britain. Here, it is simply announced that certain ESF expenditure will be - or has been - covered by the GLA or a trade union. There was no prior discussion about the need for a website that apparently cost the GLA £40,000 (and which has just gone live).

Now the SWP-SA bureaucracy have announced that they want to hire a ‘finance manager’, to be recruited from a professional agency - the cost can be imagined. They have consistently rejected calls for a finance working group that could democratically decide how the ESF’s money should be spent. If this really is supposed to be an event for the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements across Europe, then surely these are the forces who should be in charge of deciding how it should be run.
Instead, the trade union bureaucracy and London’s scabbing Labour mayor are paying the piper - and calling the tune. This sits rather uneasily with the ‘Charter of principles’ of the World Social Forum, according to which all regional forums happen in “a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context”. Only the dishonest ban on political parties has been upheld - on paper anyway.

Like our French and Italian comrades, we must insist on the ESF’s independence. Donations - including from the GLA - are welcome, but there can be no unacceptable conditions. To hand over the whole show to Livingstone would be to bring discredit on the social forum movement itself. Of course, nobody would want to see the ESF London not happening, but if we cannot guarantee political independence from the London government, we must seriously consider whether alternative (no doubt less glossy) plans ought to be made.

Rewards for Ken’s cronies
Livingstone has made good use of his little helpers in Socialist Action. He has surrounded himself with these closet Trotskyists, who literally act as a sword and a shield for him. Were they amongst those briefing the press about the “political nutters” in the RMT? We ought to be told. Certainly in the ESF, SA have been behind the many bureaucratic manoeuvres, backroom deals and stitch-ups, in order to ensure that the whole thing is put firmly under Livingstone’s control.

SA members Redmond O’Neill and John Ross have recently been promoted to director for transport and director of economics respectively and are now earning a whopping £111,000 per year. Also, it has just been announced that longstanding SA member Simon Fletcher has been re-employed as Livingstone’s chief of staff - for an annual salary of £117,000.

Like other SA members employed by the GLA, Fletcher (who was Livingstone's research assistant when he was MP for Brent East) has been appointed, not elected. Nevertheless, in April 2002, when Livingstone went on a long holiday in Australia, Fletcher was effectively in charge of the GLA. The normal procedure would have been to put his elected deputy, Nicky Gavron, in control. But then it is doubtful that she would ever declare, “I don’t sneeze without the mayor's permission”, as Fletcher has done (The Guardian May 31).

This bowing and scraping loyalty to Livingstone has materially put some SA leaders into the upper reaches of the middle class, of course at the cost of their socialist souls. SA nowadays stands for Salary Advancement. However, the mayor’s call for scabbing has greatly increased the strains on this shadowy group, which still somehow imagines itself somewhere within the revolutionary spectrum. Squaring the circle between upholding socialism in theory, while in practice enforcing the policies of London’s Bonapartist mayor, leads to pained embarrassment. Eg, I am told that, when questioned about his attitude to scabbing and the RMT strike, Peter Leary (NUS executive) claimed to have “no opinion” on the matter, as he had been “on holiday”.

A new SA leadership is apparently waiting to take over; the likes of Redmond O’Neill and John Ross will supposedly be given less prominence. But what is really needed is not a reshuffle of personnel. Rather it is a complete rejection of the rotten politics that have fatefully, step by step, taken SA to the point where, along with Livingstone, it finally crossed class lines.