04.11.2004

Constitutional shenanigans

The closing session of Respect’s first national conference witnessed a bout of particularly crude triumphalism on the part of the Socialist Workers Party and its closest allies. Those of us in the political minority were alternatively condemned for seeking to damage and undermine Respect and ridiculed for failing to secure substantial representation at conference.

As it happens, this was the session of conference that dealt with Respect’s constitution. Socialists usually take a lot of persuasion that party constitutions, organisational issues and procedural arrangements deserve much attention. It is an error we all too often have the opportunity of repenting at our leisure.

The composition of the Respect conference is a case in point. The founding conference of Respect in January saw all members of Respect given speaking and voting rights - even if the number of contributions was severely restricted. Indeed the payment of £10 on the day without even joining Respect was sufficient to secure full participation.

The right of a national executive elected by slate at the founding conference to transform the nature of Respect conference without the agreement of the membership is surely highly questionable. But since the founding conference produced nothing in the way of a constitution, the NEC (and particularly its majority political faction) no doubt felt its authority was unrestricted.

The way in which the SWP majority in branch after branch excluded political minorities from branch delegations has been well documented in the pages of the Weekly Worker. The SWP not only wanted to ensure that it had a majority at conference, but wanted to ensure that dissident voices were silenced.

The treatment of Dave Landau at the Islington Respect branch meeting in the week before conference is particularly instructive. Dave is a well respected independent socialist who is extremely active in a range of campaigns, including anti-fascist work. But Dave is also a member of the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform and was the author of the motion on secularism at the conference. Dave’s exclusion from the Islington branch delegation, despite the appeals of International Socialist Group members, explicitly on the grounds that he would move a motion that did not have the support of the branch majority, demonstrates that the SWP’s commitment to political pluralism is well-nigh non-existent.

As a former activist in the Scottish Socialist Party since the beginning of 1999, I had the opportunity to take part in and observe the evolution of a very different project. And as the convenor of the committee that redrafted the SSP’s constitution in 2002, I worked closely with a number of comrades, includ ing the SWP, to guarantee minority representation, pluralism and accountability at all levels of the party.

It is possible to make a direct comparison between the constitutional arrangements of the SSP and those of Respect. It is also something of an object lesson in political opportunism to contrast the approach of the SWP to internal constitutional issues when it is the dominant majority (as in Respect) and when it forms a political minority (as in the SSP, which it joined in May 2001).

The first three conferences of the SSP were all-member conferences. Only when the SSP had established a strong branch structure throughout Scotland was there a move to switch to a delegate conference. The first proposal along these lines was thrown out by SSP conference. A speech by Mary Ward of the Republican Communist Network insisting on her rights as a political minority in Dundee was instrumental in swinging the decision. Subsequently a delegate conference was approved with the proviso that delegations would be elected by single transferable vote on the basis of one delegate for every four branch members. STV (a form of proportional representation), as well as the high level of representation of the membership (compared with one in 10 in Respect), guarantees that minorities in branches are elected to branch delegations.

The Respect constitution is silent on how branch delegations are to be elected. In practice the slate system has been adopted with simple majority votes on removing and adding names to the slate, giving the power of veto to the political majority in the branch.

Until 2002 the SSP also provided for minority motions at national conference. Branches sent two majority motions and amendments and one minority motion and amendment. Such was the SSP’s commitment to the rights of political minorities and to wide-ranging debate that a motion and amendment that had been rejected by the branch majority would be sent to conference in preference to motions and amendments that had majority support (if more than two had been passed).

This was not a provision that could survive indefinitely, but even today political platforms within the SSP may send one motion and one amendment to conference, so long as they are able to muster the signatures of 10 SSP members. What is more, all SSP members have full speaking rights, including the right to move motions, whether or not they are delegates to conference.

Respect’s new constitution does provide for 20 members to come together to send a motion to conference, but speaking rights are restricted to delegates, with visitors corralled, for this conference anyway, in a separate section of the hall, so that they can exert minimum influence on delegates. Moreover, the level of hostility exhibited by SWP speakers to the sponsors of many of the motions submitted under this provision, suggests that this rule may have a short shelf-life.

A motion from Swindon and John Nicholson (a member of the Socialist Unity Network who the SWP ensured was an outgoing member of the EC) providing for platforms within Respect and specifically mentioning the experience of the SSP was moved by Greg Tucker of the International Socialist Group (it is worth remembering that in Scotland the ‘P’ in SWP stand not for Party, but for Platform). The proposal was opposed by the SWP, with Chris Bambery leaping up to speak against, and was heavily defeated. The Respect constitution allows for membership of other political parties - the SWP is hardly in the business of dissolving itself. But different political tendencies should organise openly. This is not always the approach of the SWP - they ensured that a motion asking all prospective national council members to state their political affiliation was defeated.

Another constitutional motion blocked by the SWP was a proposal (strongly backed by the ISG) to allow oppressed groups (women, black and ethnic minorities and lesbian and gay men) to have the right to self-organisation. Salma Yaqoob opposed, insisting that Respect was all the self-organisation any member should require. The SSP has always catered for networks “to encourage the self-organisation of members of the SSP who suffer from specific discrimination and to enable them to organise collectively in campaigns against oppression and to take the lead in the party on these issues”. Such networks have rights to send a motion to conference and a delegate to national council. In Scotland SWP members often play a leading role in these networks and profess to be strong supporters of the right of oppressed groups to self-organise. In Respect, however, the SWP’s primary concern is to restrict the political space available to any potential challenge to its dominance. Thus the opposition to networks, self-organisation and platforms.

One clause of a CPGB constitutional motion proposed to allow a simple majority, rather than the agreed two-thirds, to alter the constitution at future conferences - but, having secured the constitutional provisions it wants, the SWP is not about to allow a straightforward majority in Respect to overturn them. Strangely, when we redrafted the SSP constitution, no one from the SWP suggested that similar restrictions should be placed on the right of national conference to amend the constitution.

Another motion from John Nicholson dealing with inclusiveness and democracy in Respect was perhaps a little hastily drafted, but provoked blanket opposition from Linda Smith to any suggestion that wider circulation of national council and executive committee minutes might enhance internal democracy. Again, the SSP constitution repeatedly insists that higher bodies should not only take minutes, but should make them available to lower bodies.

A motion from Bristol asking the national committee to review the slate system by which it is elected was carried. Another motion making a more detailed proposal was remitted for the consideration of the national council. We shall see what comes of this. If the majority in Respect were concerned with promoting democracy and pluralism within the organisation, a move towards electing the national council by single transferable vote would make sense. The full diversity of Respect could then be represented as of right, rather than depending on the political generosity of the SWP - a generosity proven to be all too easily withdrawn.

Within the SSP the proposal from the constitutional redrafting committee that the executive committee be primarily elected by STV (with gender balance) provoked the most controversy at the June 2002 conference that considered its proposals. The majority International Socialist Movement platform was divided. Regional organisers, who lost their automatic representation on the EC, generally opposed the proposal; Frances Curran, then full-time organiser of the platform, and Scottish Socialist Voice editor Alan McCombes backed it. The SWP, which had much to gain from a system that would ensure the representation of political minorities, enforced a three-line whip in support. This weekend, by contrast, John Rees opined that the slate system was “the worst possible method of electing a leadership body except for all the others”.

The weekend of October 30-31 demonstrated yet again that Respect is far from being a broader version of the Socialist Alliance. For the SWP, Respect represents the abandonment of the project of left unity. Respect is designed to exclude and marginalise other organised left groups, in favour of the more disparate forces the SWP has discovered in the anti-war movement. In pursuit of this project a flexible approach to political principle has enormous advantages. Attachment to political pluralism and accountability is, to coin a phrase, just another shibboleth that can be conveniently abandoned.