18.02.2010

Debating with left nationalists

This Convention does not take forward a project of principled left unity in any way, writes Nick Rogers

Despite its small size, the Republican Socialist Convention Convention on Saturday February 13 raised a number of issues that are vital to the future of the left.

About 25 socialists gathered in London’s South Bank University in an event organised by Steve Freeman of the Revolutionary Democratic Group - a follow-up to a similar convention in Edinburgh in November 2008. Representatives from the Scottish Socialist Party, the Green Party and Hands Off the People of Iran spoke from the top table. Apologies were received from the Socialist Party in England and Wales, Rob Griffiths of the Communist Party of Britain, John McDonnell and Bob Crow.

The narrower range of speakers had its advantages. If all those advertised had turned up, precious little time would have been left for contributions from the floor. As it was, time was still constrained, as the meeting sought to cover three sessions in succession.

The serious disadvantage was the failure to bring together all the political forces that the pre-convention literature had promised. The presence of SPEW and Colin Fox, co-convenor of the SSP, would probably have been the first time leading figures of these two political groups had met in the same political meeting since their acrimonious split in Scotland over the Tommy Sheridan libel case in 2006. Alas, it was not to be. Quite possibly SPEW deliberately avoided a potentially embarrassing meeting.

The first session on republicanism and the crisis of democracy saw Peter Tatchell of the Green Party propose a 10-point democratic programme: proportional representation; a written constitution and bill of rights; abolition of the monarchy and an elected president; a fully elected senate; the right to recall MPs; abolition of the royal prerogative; strengthening the powers of select committees; abolition of unelected quangos; a federal Britain; and greater power for backbench MPs to introduce legislation.

Comrade Tatchell was not able to stay for much of the subsequent debate, given the three further meetings he was committed to on the day. Toby Abse, speaking from the floor, did raise the apparent contradiction between the demand for PR and that for the right of recall and asked about the alternative vote on which Gordon Brown is promising a referendum in a blatant pre-election (and possible pre-hung-parliament) manoeuvre. Comrade Tatchell did not tackle the PR-recall contradiction, but observed that the alternative vote was probably less proportional than the current first-past-the-post system.

The CPGB Draft programme proposed by the Provisional Central Committee also leaves this contradiction unresolved. Section 4.2 on ‘The working class constitution’ proposes both measures, but does not explain why the majority of the electorate should not simply eject any representative elected under PR on a minority of the votes (Weekly Worker February 11). No doubt this issue will be explored in the debate on the Draft programme. While it is understandable that small left parties challenging the monopoly of working class representation exercised by the Labour Party should back PR, it does not seem obvious to me that this electoral system ensures the most direct and accountable form of political representation.

In the same session Colin Fox spoke on the importance of republicanism, characterising the monarchy not as a “benign institution”, as many even on the left maintain, but as a “latent” one that could be deployed by the ruling class in a political crisis.

He thought comrade Tatchell’s programme did not really pose a sufficiently stark challenge to capitalism. The British state, if it thought it advantageous, could accept a republic, an elected second chamber (even the Conservatives were proposing that) or PR - in the same way they had learnt to live with universal suffrage. The problem is that power is not located in parliament, but in unelected boardrooms, he said.

What was important was who you elected. Comrade Fox had been shocked to learn of the behaviour of left Labour MP Harry Cohen over his expenses. Comrade Fox had lived in a nearby constituency in London and had previously regarded him as a good socialist - indeed he was one of the few Labour candidates to receive the endorsement of the Weekly Worker in the 2005 general election. What the expenses scandal revealed was the extent to which the ruling class could corrupt socialists. Holding workers’ representatives to the principle of the worker’s wage was crucial.

In a contribution from the floor I emphasised the importance of democratic issues. Democratic demands were a way of moving beyond purely trade union politics to challenge the way that the British ruling class ruled. Socialists should demand a single chamber of recallable representatives subject to frequent election. There was no need for a president or a senate. A US-style system of checks and balances was explicitly designed to thwart the popular will.

Also of immediate importance was the requirement to tackle the bourgeois state’s monopoly of arms. It was common sense for 19th century republicans to oppose standing armies and call for popular militias. No serious programme of genuine democracy in the 21st century should omit this demand.

The first session concluded with a discussion by Mehdi Kia, co-editor of Middle East Left Forum and member of Hopi, of the situation in Iran. He highlighted the secular character of many of the protests against the regime. In 1979 the key programmatic slogan had been ‘Independence, freedom, Islamic republic’. Increasingly popular today were the slogans ‘Independence, freedom, Iranian republic’ and ‘Islam is our religion, not our state’.

Joseph Healey of the Green Left reminded the meeting of the appalling decisions taken by the Stop the War Coalition at its last two conferences to deny membership to Hopi. The young Iranian put up to oppose Hopi membership had told us to “go to Iran to protest against the regime”.

Nationalism

The second session dealt with the national question. Comrade Freeman asked whether there was a national question in England. He suggested that confusion between British and English identity had become more acute over the last 20 years, as evidenced by the union jack giving way to the flag of St George at football matches. The British nation was in decline and we were halfway towards a fully-developed English national question.

Allan Armstrong of the Republican Communist Network and the SSP turned to the national question in Scotland. He thought Peter Tatchell’s rather “abstract” republicanism was exactly what was not needed.

The Scottish National Party had shown that it was prepared to play the parliamentary game to prove that it did not pose a disruptive challenge to the corporate status quo. It was now in favour of retaining the monarchy - not even offering a referendum to the Scottish people on the issue.

A Scottish republic, on the other hand, would ditch the monarchy, throw out US and British military bases, and reverse the cuts and privatisation. The British state would use all the resources at its disposal to resist the loss of North Sea oil and the Trident bases. Scottish republicanism was a strategy to strike a blow against the imperialist UK state, break the link with the US and “build internationalism from below”.

Toby Abse declared he took a “Luxemburgist” position on the national question. Far from believing the break-up of existing national states to be progressive, he thought the creation of a European state would provide better opportunities for socialists.

I said that I did not think it was any particular concern of socialists to try and resolve the national identity problems of people living in England one way or the other. It was the BNP and Conservatives who were trying to focus minds on the supposed injustices of the devolution arrangements for the English. We should encourage a class-based identity that encompassed migrants and the working class internationally.

However, in Scotland and Wales there clearly was a strong sense of national identity and national questions existed. The demand for a federal republic was the way to relate to the question, both in England and in Scotland and Wales.

The English must make clear that they had no wish to retain either nation within a broader state against the will of their people, but neither would they force them to separate. As for socialists in Scotland, comrade Armstrong’s argument hardly provided a ringing endorsement of the case for independence, since it would be precisely the conciliatory SNP that would lead moves to split Scotland from Britain, making every attempt in the process to avoid rocking the establishment boat.

The strongest possible challenge to the British state was to be made by the working class across Britain - and preferably across Europe, raising the demand for a European republic.

David Broder and Chris Ford of Commune spoke after me and expressed support for the RCN’s “internationalism from below” and the perspective of breaking up the UK. Comrade Broder did not see why unity with Europeans was more important than, say, with Bolivia, where British multinationals were just as involved as in many European countries.

Comrade Ford spoke about the opportunities the national question created for socialists. The break-up of the UK would strike a blow against a major imperialist state. For his part, comrade Healey thought that the break-up of the UK was as inevitable as the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Time was now fast running out and in a short reply comrade Armstrong commended the arguments of the Commune comrades, while telling comrade Abse and me that our arguments were typical of the “Brit left”, without actually replying to them.

Colin Fox in the next session on the general election set out the classic SSP case in support of the party’s independence strategy. The political centre of gravity in Scotland was to the left of Labour and the SNP - and by implication of England. Even an independent bourgeois Scotland would not be occupying Afghanistan, would not host Trident and would not carry out privatisations.

The social democratic prospects of an independent Scotland are open to question, to put it mildly. The SNP’s “arc of prosperity”, which included Ireland and Iceland, is looking distinctly less prosperous in the wake of the financial crash. What is not clear at all is how the creation of another small nation - even in the light of sub-Maoist arguments about breaking up imperialist states - helps build the unity of the working class. After all, it is Britain occupying Iraq, the British state seeking to privatise public services - even in a devolved Scotland. Should not socialists across Britain be mounting a concerted challenge?

True, the SSP did participate in Saturday’s meeting in London, but comrades Fox and Armstrong attended as representatives of the party’s international committee. Treating England as a foreign country is bad working class politics and fails to recognise the reality of the British state.

Election

As far as the general election campaign is concerned, Colin Fox is one of 10 SSP candidates being fielded in Scotland - a figure which entitles it to a Scottish election broadcast. Comrade Fox is standing in Edinburgh South West against Alistair Darling, whose Trotskyist and Labour left political history he humorously recounted in a strong speech.

Joseph Healey spoke about his campaign for the Green Party in Vauxhall. He said that the Green Left faction was prepared to work with the rest of the left. A few weeks before he had campaigned for Salma Yaqoob in Birmingham.

So what is the future for the Republican Socialist Convention? As things stand, it does not take forward a project of principled left unity in any way. ‘Convention’ was a rather grandiose title in the circumstances. The contributions of Dave Craig and Steve Freeman in the Weekly Worker and Morning Star in the run-up to the meeting rather obviously glossed over any areas of difference - and still failed to get SPEW or CPB along. No practical actions were proposed.

Nevertheless, any forum that gets together socialists of different traditions, in however limited a way, to talk about issues that do not usually form the content of left discussions - and a forum moreover where CPGB comrades can criticise the halfway house common sense of most of the left and the nationalism of many of the comrades - is not completely without value.