22.09.2004

Left populism and its discontents

Tensions are growing in the Socialist Workers Party - of course, it is all carefully hidden away from the organisation's rank and file. SW Kenning reports

Tensions are growing in the Socialist Workers Party - of course, it is all carefully hidden away from the organisation’s rank and file. SW Kenning reports

Under John Rees the Socialist Workers Party is relentlessly being refashioned into a vehicle to promote left populism. But many SWP members are unhappy and a few seem to be actively contemplating rebellion.

Externally, the Rees regime means crass electoralism - “a popular, radical alternative to neoliberalism and war”, in his words (Socialist Worker September 19). Fearing anything that might bring temporary unpopularity, the SWP has retreated from taking a definite principled stand on issues as diverse as a workers’ representative receiving a worker’s wage, opposition to all immigration controls, republicanism and supporting abortion rights. Lowest common denominator unity and making it as councillors and MPs is all that counts.

Internally, the Rees regime means easing aside SWP veterans, such as Chris Harman, and producing a paper that is less and less overtly political and more and more like a leftwing version of the Daily Mirror.

With Chris Bambery as editor there has been a distinct change of style. Pop music, human interest stories and sport are increasingly dominant. The idea is that Socialist Worker should serve as the weekly paper of Respect. The editorial staff are being encouraged to embrace yet further ‘modernisations’. As a result, Charlie Kimber, a longstanding Socialist Worker hand, is rumoured to be on his way out, though apparently Bambery is not overjoyed at the prospect of losing such a valued asset. Judy Cox is another said to be considering her position.

Some leading SWPers fear that comrade Rees in particular has ‘gone native’ in Respect - we have even been told that Rob Hoveman is amongst them. Reportedly he wants to quit as Respect organiser (permission was denied). Certainly the way John Rees and Lindsey German excitedly contrast the ‘new’ coalition to the ‘boring’ old left is being used as prima facia evidence of an opportunist metamorphosis.

It is easy to see why. For example, in the September 18 issue of Socialist Worker, comrade Rees says: “Respect has always done best … when it organises in ways that the traditional left has not.” He goes on to cite some examples: In Hartlepool, Respect football supporters are apparently “organising to hold up ‘Vote John Bloom’ placards at the match”. In Islington, “Respect is sponsoring a showing of Ken Loach’s Navigators” and in Birmingham, the local Respect organised a “Picnic for Peace in a local park”, with stalls, a barbecue and “inflatable castle”. In the same vein, the comrade lauds the experience of “the Italian left”, with its “long tradition of street festivals and cultural activities” which “Respect should replicate in this country”.

Now, the idea that the “traditional left” in this country - of which the SWP is actually a component part, of course - never got it into its collective head to organise the odd film show, barbecue or stage a festival with a bouncy castle for the kids to break a leg on is risible. The ‘official’ Communist Party staged many big cultural events throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Pageants, sporting Olympiads, showings of banned Eisenstein films, concerts, theatre performances. Indeed, along with people like Joan Littlewood, the ‘official’ CPGB helped launch the Workers’ Theatre Movement, Unity Theatre and the whole folk revival of the 1960s, which included well known figures such as Lonnie Donegan, Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger. Even in decline, in 1977, the ‘official’ CPGB put on the People’s Jubilee at Alexander Palace. Nor should we forget the huge events organised by the TUC, Anti-Nazi League, Rock Against Racism, etc, etc.

It is certainly true that the left here has not established the same sort of cultural hegemony in working class communities that we have seen in Europe. But then the revolutionary left in Britain has never had the same mass character as, for example, the Italian or French. A few Respect picnics here and there are no short cut to rebuilding a genuine base amongst the working class. The key is politics. And here is the rub.

Organisational forms loyally follow politics. Populism therefore goes hand in hand with its own style of organisation: thus festivals and picnics are promoted as a substitute for “sitting in horrible little rooms, talking only to each other”, as comrade German memorably put it (Socialist Worker June 24).
Again, this is nonsense. Cultural activities and political meetings should not be counterposed. They can and ought to complement each other. But serious political meetings should come first. Without them Respect’s membership cannot learn from each other, cannot think critically and cannot even begin to challenge the leadership. Clearly what the Rees-German partnership intend. Politics is to be for them and their chosen circle alone. They will flatter, bargain with, and manage the celebrities: George Galloway, Yvonne Ridley, Ken Loach, Mark Serwotka, etc. Meanwhile the rank and file is expected to get on with the donkey work of dishing out leaflets, raising the money and canvassing. Their reward for all the hard work is effectively to be a version of bread and circuses ... picnics and peace festivals.

Public, though cloaked, criticism of the populist turn has come from international co-thinkers - they probably consider themselves relatively immune from any immediate retaliation from a vengeful Rees-German partnership. The most notable example is Eamonn McCann - veteran author, commentator and public face of the SWP’s sister organisation in Ireland. He has written an obituary of Paul Foot in the current issue of the NUJ’s house paper The Journalist. Here he recounts an anecdote that has apparently infuriated Rees and German.

The last meeting Foot addressed was at this year’s Marxism. Before proceedings began, he gave clear instructions for the chair who introduced his session: “He’s told me that the only thing he wants said is that he’s been an organised revolutionary for 42 years,” she dutifully told the audience. This, comrade McCann suggests, shows he was not “a softie on the margins of a hard party”. In fact, comrade Foot expressly “intended the remark for fellow Socialist Workers Party members who he feared might be vulnerable to seductive new fame” (The Journalist September).

In the world of the SWP this amounts to a full-scale assault on the Rees-German partnership.
We have reliably been told that McCann’s contribution to this October’s special issue of Socialist Review - which contains various tributes to and articles by Foot - has been suitably snipped and cut, some have used the word ‘censored’. The Rees-German partnership is determined to maintain a facade of monolithic unity - which admirably serves their opportunist appetites.

There are other stresses and strains too. It seems a group of leading SWP members - we do not have all the names - has signed a collective letter to the central committee asking for the “real” figures for the SWP’s membership and Socialist Worker’s circulation. Given all the preening, posturing and pretence - dynamite.

The SWP once boasted of 10,000 members and Socialist Worker sales of 30,000. Very unlikely, even in the mid-1970s. Our estimate for dues-paying membership today would be around 2,000. But in terms of active members it surely cannot be more than a 1,000. A figure given credence by Respect’s own claim that it has notched up 3,500 paper members.

As to Socialist Worker, that is a mystery. We know its web ranking - usually well below the Weekly Worker. We also know that it is carried by WH Smith - and that they require a level of minimum sales. Whether or not SWP cadre are sent in to buy up their own paper we cannot say. However, that was certainly what the now defunct Revolutionary Communist Party - founded by Frank Furedi, Mick Hume and Mike Freeman - used to do in the 1980s. Their members bought Living Marxism from newsagents simply in order to keep the damned thing displayed.

Not surprisingly the demand for real figures has caused something of a panic.
Martin Smith wants to tell. By coming clean he can - perhaps - show that with himself as national secretary membership is rising. He is also keen to put more emphasis on the SWP itself - building Socialist Worker meetings and forums, which have been neglected due to the demands of Respect.
On the other hand, his predecessor, comrade Bambery, is not keen. Real membership figures would reflect badly on him. And yet, when it comes to Socialist Worker, it is another story. He fervently believes his revamped paper will outsell Harman’s version.

Either way, the Rees-German partnership want to keep up the pretence that everything is moving forward from one new high to another. Given the present balance of forces in the SWP, they will in all likelihood get their way. What is sure, though, is that fewer and fewer people will believe them.