09.03.2006

Fight for a Marxist party

The Socialist Party's campaign for a new workers' party must be put on firm Marxist foundations, says Ian Mahoney

On March 19, the Socialist Party is hosting a conference of its Campaign for a New Workers' Party. While the campaign's chances of success seem slim in the short term, clearly the fact that the SP comrades have taken this initiative underlines the political fluidity characteristic of this period. Debate around the question of the political representation of the working class - the prospects of building a party to the left of Labour - is now engaging thousands of advanced workers in our movement.

Given the defeats of our class in the 20th century, it is inevitable that, as this pivotal question begins to re-emerge, we are seeing a great deal of confusion - or rather we observe a great deal of confusion being actively propagated by trends scarred by the politics of the past. Essentially, the ongoing crisis of Labourism is embroiling ostensibly Marxist organisations that have been shaped historically by their lack of political independence from this treacherous form of sham working class politics.

No group expresses this more explicitly than the SP. As the Militant Tendency, it was a profoundly loyal faction of Labour and actually invented a history to prettify the anti-working class record of its host. We were once told by general secretary Peter Taaffe that the reason why Labour had operated as a "second eleven of capitalism" was that the right wing had "infiltrated the movement" (Militant: what we stand for 1990, p29). Indeed, Militant attempted to present itself as the embodiment of the core values of Labourism: in contrast to the 'entryist' right wing, "Marxism", Taaffe maintained, "has always been part, and an important part at that, of the Labour Party right from its inception" (ibid).

The fact that the SP now finds itself outside the ranks of the Labour Party - and, indeed, it bluntly states in the founding statement of the CNWP that "the chance to reclaim the Labour Party has long passed and there is no point in continuing to fuel false hopes" - does not represent a fundamental break with this flawed political outlook. It is clear that the comrades actually hope to recreate a Labour Party - but a Kier Hardie version rather than Tony Blair's, of course.

Although SPers believe that they have turned the corner after a hard period of organisational losses and decline, the launch of this campaign is actually an expression of the programmatic crisis that has embroiled the SP for a number of years now. It is, though, also prompted by a renewed confidence - bolstered by the mess the Socialist Workers Party seems to be getting itself into with its Respect initiative. But at the same time, the CNWP initiative will undoubtedly expose the reformist method at the heart of SP politics.

The advertising blurb for the conference on the campaign's website states: "While broader questions, such as the programme of a new party, are undoubtedly important, we think it would be premature to take decisions on those issues at an initial conference that aims to begin building a campaign for a new party." However, this key question has to be confronted sooner rather than later. After all, the type of party we are fighting for tomorrow will actually influence and shape the sort of campaign we run today - that much is obvious.

Thus, SPers must face up to the question - what sort of programme should people who dub themselves Marxists fight for any new working class formation to adopt?

It is clear that the SP - a right-centrist political formation - is actually intent on building an organisation to the right of itself, a new grouping explicitly characterised by Tony Mulhearn, a veteran of the Militant-led debacle in Liverpool in the mid-1980s, as a "broad left formation". Leading SPers have already given us a clear indication of the brand of politics they believe appropriate for such a new formation.

The founding statement tells us that "in the past the Labour Party, however imperfectly, provided a voice for the working class". SP councillor Dave Nellist has stated the possibility of the need for the SP to show "self-restraint" in pushing for its politics, at least in the early days of any new organisation (Weekly Worker November 17 2005). The same brand of "self-restraint" the SWP has shown itself adept at in Respect, we presume?

Obviously, the implied assumption behind comrade Nellist's comment is that the SP's politics are thoroughly grounded in Marxism in the first place - not an opinion we share, of course. Comrades will recall the rightist role that the SP played in the Socialist Alliance, for example.

Speaking in support of the SP proposal to delete demands to scrap all immigration laws at the SA's March 10 2001 policy conference. Hannah Sell urged us to 'restrain' ourselves for fear of giving offence to those sections of our class with chauvinist sentiments. Obviously "we do agree with" the demand, she said, but it was not a good idea to "write down what is blatantly true and we all believe", since even the "most advanced sections of the working class" are convinced that border controls are necessary (Weekly Worker March 15 2001).

The logic of this method is clear. The formally principled elements of the political platform of any group become increasingly hollow as - day to day - 'sensible' politics take precedence. At some point, however, theory has to make the leap to catch up with practice and even the formal commitment to anything approximating working class principle is junked. In that sense, the SP is entering some very dangerous political waters with this campaign - even more so, given that its core programme is so thoroughly Labourite as it stand in the here and now.

The occasional rhetorical flourish aside, when it was still Militant, the SP was committed to the achievement of 'socialism' "through an enabling bill in parliament", not the revolutionary democratic struggle of the masses themselves (P Taaffe What we stand for June 1990, p8). Thus a "socialist Britain" could apparently be achieved "through parliament backed by the mobilised power of the labour movement outside" (our emphasis, Militant International Review No33, autumn 1986, p9). In other words, exactly the sort of auxiliary 'walk on, walk off' role assigned to the action of the masses by reformism historically - and with the same counterrevolutionary logic.

Coming back to the present, the chances of the campaign actually achieving its aim of a reformist Labour Party mark two are virtually nil, so the real opportunities for the SP to exercise "self-restraint" may be very limited. It is unlikely to be successful in bringing on board many serious figures from the trade unions for a project of building a new Labour Party - after all, they continue to wield influence in the old one that, SP obituaries notwithstanding, stubbornly continues to exist.

After the RMT-sponsored conference on working class representation on January 21 - which was organised only very reluctantly by Bob Crow and the leadership around him - there are no more union initiatives on the question of political representation in the offing, indicating a certain loss of momentum.

A spokesperson at the SP national office assured us that the conference will be well attended by trade unionists and campaigners, but it is clear that the campaign has not yet caught the imagination of many beyond the ranks of the SP itself - it will have the feel of an "initial conference", we were told. The comrades are looking to organising a bigger conference as soon as feasible, but the gathering on March 19 is "just to get things started".

Nevertheless, this initiative from an important working class group is a significant one and we urge all comrades to become involved in the campaign. In contrast to the SWP's strangulating control-freakery in Respect, the SP comrades appear for the moment to have a fairly relaxed attitude to the involvement of other left groups and seem keen to "to make sure that all points of view are heard at the conference" in a debate around resolutions (www.cnwp.org.uk).

The CNWP founding declaration states that "a new party and any pre-party formations" should offer the right to "all groups and individuals, providing they are in agreement with the basic aims of the party, [to] democratically organise and argue for their point of view".

This is a sensible approach. Again, the SP spokesperson underlined that "we will make sure that different points of view are represented" on the interim steering committee that will be set up by the conference. The CPGB will urge the conference - which will be overwhelmingly composed of people who define themselves as Marxists, we suspect - to fight for a genuine working class party, one based on the theory and practice of Marxism.