29.09.2004

In safe hands?

Having ensured total control over the organisation of this year's European Social Forum, London mayor Ken Livingstone now wants to make sure that the most important ESF meetings will be in safe hands too: the list of British chairs proposed for the plenary sessions reads like a Who's who of Livingstone-sponsored organisations, reports Tina Becker

Last week’s meeting of the programme group discussed which chairs “residing in Britain” should be put forward for the 27 plenary sessions to be held during the ESF, which takes place in London from October 15-17. These sessions are the only ones which are the property of the whole ESF - the majority of meetings (seminars and workshops) are organised by groups from across Europe themselves. Having pushed through an unimaginative list of rightwing speakers for these sessions against considerable opposition (see Weekly Worker September 16), the organisations in control of the ESF have unsurprisingly not changed their undemocratic ways when it comes to the selection of chairs (though, apparently, that is what they promised some disgruntled ESF activists).

Chairs at plenary sessions do not simply choose contributors from the floor - they have also been given a five-minute slot do a bit of intervening themselves. In fact, they are the most powerful people on the platform. No wonder then that we have seen fierce arguments when it comes to who should be chosen. The ruling clique of Socialist Action and the Socialist Workers Party once more put together a slate, which was - as usual - not circulated in advance. Heaven forbid that anybody should actually look at it beforehand, let alone make suggestions for potentially better choices.

Apparently, according to programme group chair Rahul Patel (SWP), this list was “put together after broad consultation with the different movements”. This process of “consultation” basically consists of SA- and SWP-sponsored organisations phoning each other up and haggling over lists between themselves. Only the NGOs are actually able to put forward their own suggestions - because neither the SWP, Socialist Action nor the mayor have any foothold in them.

The meeting did not actually come to any final decisions - on the insistence of Redmond O’Neill. Livingstone’s adviser on transport (and a leading member of Socialist Action) insisted right from the start of the meeting that the whole list should “only be discussed as a whole” and argued against going through it one by one. He also proposed (successfully) that a further meeting should be called for September 30 to discuss the list again. In the meantime, some more mysterious “consultation” would be going on.

The real reason for comrade O’Neill’s suggestion was quite obviously the make-up of the meeting: for some reason, the SWP only managed to bring a handful of their members to the 50-strong gathering. Socialist Action and GLA-sponsored groups brought another 15 or so - and the rest was made up of members of the ‘democratic opposition’ (basically anybody who is not in the orbit of either SA or the SWP). The SWP’s Chris Nineham - always far more blatant than comrade O’Neill - suggested that “at the next meeting, we should come to decisions with indicative voting”.

Undoubtedly, he will be making sure that enough of his comrades show up on that occasion.

Incidentally, as of the evening of September 28, the September 30 meeting has still not been advertised on the ESF website or by mailshot: quite obviously, the “consultation” is only supposed to involve groups and individuals who are ‘on message’. No doubt, the list of potential chairs that will be presented to this meeting will be pretty identical to the first one.

The proposed list for the ‘Peace’ section is filled with friends of Ken Livingstone in and outside the Labour Party: Jeremy Corbyn MP, Alice Mahon MP, Bruce Kent from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the SWP’s Chris Nineham.

After having elected only general secretaries to speak in the plenary sessions, “the trade unions” have apparently again chosen exclusively high-ranking members of their own bureaucracy to become chairs: Diana Holland OBE (TGWU women’s officer) sits on the Labour Party national executive, where she has played a rather unimpressive role. On crunch issues, she often chooses to abstain - like when it came to decide if George Galloway should be re-admitted into the Labour Party, for example. Gloria Mills MBE (Unison’s organiser for equality) was appointed by the then home secretary, Jack Straw, to serve on the Commission for Racial Equality and she also sits on the Labour Party national policy forum. Lucy Kelly (deputy general secretary of Amicus) is the only suggested trade union chair without any awards from the queen.

Jeremy Dewar from Workers Power suggested that the CPGB’s Lee Rock (London regional organiser of the civil services union, PCSU) should be considered for chairing one session, “so that we have at least one rank and file union activist on the platform”. However, Rahul Patel refused to take this on board: “We have been told by the PCS that they do not want to be part of the ESF, as they are too busy preparing their forthcoming strike.”

As this was news to Lee Rock, he asked comrade Patel after the meeting who exactly in the PCSU told him that. Unfortunately, comrade Patel could not remember. Strangely, he also could not recall how he might have come by this information. Needless to say, comrade Rock will again be put forward as a chair at the next programme meeting - in the meantime he will be seeking official support from his union. The SWP-SA had previously refused to allow the PCSU’s leftwing general secretary, Mark Serwotka, to be a speaker from an ESF platform (although he is one of dozens of speakers at the final demonstration) - and that despite the fact that the union is engaged in defending tens of thousands of jobs that are about to be wiped out by chancellor Gordon Brown.

The ‘Anti-racist, black, Asian and minority ethnic’ section has supposedly chosen almost exclusively people from organisations closely associated with Livingstone or SA: the National Assembly Against Racism, Jewish Council for Racial Equality, Society of Black Lawyers, Unite Against Fascism, etc. The most important plenary in this section is of course the one in which Livingstone himself will be speaking. It is suggested that the plenary entitled ‘Stop fascism and the far right’ should be chaired by the SWP’s Weyman Bennett. Weyman used to be the chair of the SWP’s Anti-Nazi-League (ANL), before it closed down shop in favour of Unite Against Fascism. He is now co-secretary of UAF - Livingstone himself holds the position of chair. No doubt comrade Weyman will be asked to make sure no troublemakers get to speak - those who might criticise Livingstone’s controlling role in the ESF or his disgusting call for RMT tubeworkers to break their union’s strike.

All in all, there are three straight members of Socialist Action on the list (Redmond O’Neill, Anne Kane and Milena Buyum), along with four from the SWP. Two members of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain are being put forward to speak in plenary sessions on ‘Political parties and the social movements’ (the only plenaries where the speakers are not yet finalised). While Andrew Murray is supposed to speak as a representative of the ‘social movements’, his general secretary, Rob Griffiths, has been suggested on behalf of “the communist family” (and their comrade Kate Hudson has been confirmed as a speaker in an anti-war plenary).

Not bad for an organisation which has had so little input into the ESF process … The important thing here is the quality, no doubt: over the years, the CPB has proven itself to be very loyal to Livingstone indeed. CND chair Kate Hudson has only recently changed her official membership from Socialist Action to CPB - though her links to her former comrades are quite evidently still going strong.
Needless to say, the CPGB has not been approached by the rest of the “family” to choose our representative for this particular plenary session. But, come on, who really wants to listen to the young cousin when they can have boring old uncle telling the same story over and over again instead? Anyway, it’s best to ignore that rude upstart who keeps wanting to talk about those embarrassing family secrets …

Whose demo is it?

As in previous years, this year’s ESF is to end with a demonstration. However, ever since the SWP’s Chris Nineham announced that he would be forming a ‘working group’ to prepare for it, he has not been able to report much to the various ESF committees (nothing apart from the route of the march, in fact). And now it turns out that this ESF demonstration has been miraculously changed into a demo “called by the Stop the War Coalition, Campaign against Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain” (Stop the War website and leaflets). Neither the ESF website nor any of the ESF publicity material has even mentioned it.

Not only that. The main theme agreed for the demo at the last ESF preparatory assembly in Brussels was “For another Europe in another world”, with additional, but lesser emphasis, on the war and the US elections. A wide range of representatives from Europe were very outspoken in their criticism of the SWP’s attempt to focus the demonstration mainly on the forthcoming US elections. “We are all against Bush - that is surely not the question,” said Annick Coupé from the French delegation, for example. “However, we can only really fight his neoliberal agenda if we take up all the struggles that are currently going on in Europe. This is where we live.” A remark that was greeted with loud and extended applause from about three quarters of the audience.

Unfortunately, the Stop the War Coalition (run by the SWP) has not only decided to take the demo off the ESF’s hands - it has also changed the theme. The only leaflets and posters advertising the demo carry the huge slogans, ‘Time to go: Bush out! Troops out!’ Not even on the back of the leaflet has space been found to reproduce the ESF slogan agreed in Brussels. In short, there is not a word about Europe in any of the propaganda.

Daily assemblies

Leading comrades from across Europe have now taken up the call for daily meetings at the ESF to plan for the Assembly of Social Movements, which takes place on the last day of the ESF. The ASM is a way around the ridiculous rule that bans social forums from taking any actions or deciding on any statements, a rule imposed by the self-appointed elite running the World Social Forum.

On the international email list, comrades Sophie Zafari (for the French delegation) and Franco Russo (for the Italians) have in the last few days repeatedly insisted that these meetings should go ahead to ensure a more democratic and inclusive set-up of the ASM. They have been backed up by a number of organisations from Britain and delegations from other countries.

However, when CPGB comrades brought up this issue at a number of ESF meetings in London, both the SWP and Socialist Action were less than keen on it. Chris Nineham, for example, announced that there would be no need to reserve any rooms for such daily ASM meetings (see Weekly Worker September 23). No wonder, really. Socialist Action’s main interest in the ESF is to make sure it will be a tame and fully controlled Livingstone jamboree. October 17 will not only be the last day of the ESF - no doubt it will also mark the end of SA’s involvement in this forum for European left unity.

The story is a little more complicated with the SWP. It had hoped that by staging the ESF in London it could become another ‘big player’ in Europe, alongside Rifondazione Comunista, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, etc. Unfortunately, though, with only around 1,200 active members and next to no weight in the trade unions or local communities, the SWP does not really match up. Its cloned sects in the International Socialist Tendency have even less impact.

However, the SWP’s biggest problem is not so much its reduced size. The reason why the comrades will not even come close to Rifondazione’s or even the LCR’s influence over the working class is their deep-rooted economism and total dismissal of important political questions. In the undying words of Chris Nineham, to talk about Europe and its new constitution is “boring”. Questions of democracy and how we are ruled are seen as a diversion from the ‘real issues’: trade unions, the NHS, public services, etc (important as these are). The state, and how our rulers rule - either in individual countries or on the level of Europe - is a “non-issue”.

Our comrades from across Europe, on the other hand, have made it very clear that their main interest in the ASM is precisely to launch a European-wide campaign against the EU constitution. However, it is the war or nothing for the SWP. Vital as it is to build up a movement against the occupation of Iraq, it is criminal to waste this opportunity to take steps towards closer left unity across the continent in opposition to the EU of the bankers.