25.08.2010

Jane Loftus syndrome

Gerry Downing wonders why so many 'revolutionaries' cannot back the rank-and-file candidate in the election for general secretary of a major union

Jane Loftus was the Socialist Workers Party member on the executive of the Communications Workers Union who voted for the sell-out deal against SWP policy after last year’s postal strike. How many more manifestations of the ‘Jane Loftus syndrome’ do we need before we put the working class before ‘influence’ and careers in the bureaucracy?

It took sustained pressure from many SWP rank-and-file Unite members to win their party to support Jerry Hicks for Unite general secretary against a leadership that was desperately fighting to maintain the relationship of Gill George and Pete Gillard, the SWP’s leading trade unionists in Unite, with the United Left defenders of the bureaucracy. When the SWP Unite caucus, meeting at the January 30 London Right to Work conference, voted to back Jerry Hicks by 30 votes to five, these leading lights fought bitterly to keep current assistant general secretary Len McCluskey as their candidate. The RTW conference adopted a resolution supporting rank-and-file organisation, but when it came to putting that resolution into practice the SWP leaders’ reluctance was only overcome by an internal revolt.

Sounds a lot like Peter Manson’s Weekly Worker report on Doncaster SWP in July. The local Unison full-time branch secretary did not develop “the combativity and self-activity of the working class” and his “increasing bureaucratisation” was bringing “the party into disrepute”, claimed the Doncaster comrades in their resignation letter (‘Defections no answer’, July 15).

The United ‘Left’ sprung into action immediately on hearing the news that the SWP had switched its support. It noted “with deep regret” that the organisation had agreed to call on all its supporters to back Jerry Hicks for general secretary, “in the full knowledge that this will bring its members in United Left in conflict with the democratic position of United Left … this decision was made not by SWP United Left supporters alone, but by the SWP as an independent political party, the majority of whom are not members of Unite the Union and have no rightful voice in the affairs of Unite, let alone United Left” (UL national coordinating committee statement, May 25).

From an organisation whose predecessors played such a large part in the Transport and General Workers Union on the instructions of Moscow, this is rather rich. But the bureaucrats had their solution:

“United Left NCC has no wish to exclude SWP members from United Left, but must insist on the following standards of conduct from SWP United Left supporters for the duration of the Unite general secretary election: SWP members in United Left must not use the United Left e-group or any other United Left vehicle for communicating support for Jerry Hicks. SWP members in United Left must not openly campaign for Jerry Hicks, including submitting nominations or distributing leaflets. If they wish to do this they should withdraw from United Left (and not attend United Left meetings) for the duration of the general secretary election campaign.”

And further: “In response to the Socialist Workers Party decision last weekend, it is the view of the chair and secretary of United Left that the following principle must also apply: SWP members must stand down from any official elected position within United Left for the duration of the general secretary election campaign, unless they make a personal declaration of support for Len McCluskey. This includes United Left national officers, NCC delegates, and those holding regional United Left elected positions.”

Old uncle Joe himself could not run a better ship than this one!

The Socialist Party has in the past shown it knows the first principles of rank-and-filism - leading walkouts to defend victimised members against the instructions of the union leadership, for instance. But, following their comrades in the Public and Commercial Services union, the SP are now in bed with these bogus Broad Left/United Left fakers and so refuse to back Jerry Hicks. It too is backing McCluskey. Influence and alliances with the bureaucracy is preferred to mobilising the ranks of the workers.

In fact the SP is marginally to the right of the SWP on this, since its own Jane Loftuses are still SP members, while at least and the SWP does castigate its bureaucratic backsliders: Loftus resigned from the SWP after she was criticised for her part in the CWU defeat, while in PCS Sue Bond did apologise for voting for the 2005 pensions sell-out (whilst carrying on as before) and Martin John resigned from the SWP rather that acknowledge it was wrong to accept the deal!

Is the SP’s project of a reformist left alternative to the Labour Party, forged with these opportunist fake lefts bureaucrats, so attractive that it justifies abandoning the class struggle itself? Similarly the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty put the careers of its aspirant left bureaucrats, like the appalling Zionist, Jim Denham, before the class struggle. The AWL’s Ed Maltby can write excellent analyses on the opportunism of the SP’s and SWP’s trade union work (see ‘The “Loftus affair” and the left in the unions’, January 14, AWL website). But on Jerry Hicks we might quote to the AWL from the Bible: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

Comrades, we are facing a vicious onslaught on our living standards, on our democratic rights and on the welfare state - it will soon be a crime to be young, old, poor or a worker. It is too early to speak of struggles of revolutionary proportions, but that must be a prospect. We need leaders who can fight the cause of the working class to the end, not those who put bureaucratic careers before the vital necessity to mobilise the class in its own defence. This kind of political chicanery bodes ill for the coming class war. Demand your group support Jerry Hicks now and break with those who think that the useless bureaucrat, Len McCluskey, is all the Unite members deserve.

The leaders of these last two groups might think that they have gone too far to turn back now, but consider the awful prospect if the rank-and-filer, Hicks, beats the lumpen bureaucrat, McCluskey. How to rationalise that to an outraged membership? It was bad enough when the SWP’s Gill George and Pete Gillard only chose Hicks after voting for rightwinger Laurence Fairclough to maintain their positions in the United Left. When Fairclough withdrew, they could not extend their compromise to the extent of rebranding rightwinger Derek Simpson a “left progressive”, as the Stalinist-dominated United Left and the Morning Star did.

The SP was no better. It too voted for Fairclough (although SP members seem to remember they had “questioned his left credentials”): “Laurence Fairclough ... will stand as a candidate promising swifter amalgamation, while Jerry Hicks is also promising to stand. Socialist Party members will discuss with the left Gazette group on support for the candidate best able to lead the union in a fighting direction” (The Socialist October 15 2008). But many SPers are campaigning for Hicks anyway, despite their leaders’ sabotage.

Last month the SP wheeled out one of its foremost Unite ‘lefts’, Kevin Parslow, to justify its line. McCluskey used to be a ‘left’, he recalled: “He is a long-time supporter of the left and of Liverpool city council in the 1980s, which took on the Thatcher government to improve the lives of working people in that city.” However, Hicks’s “programme appears more ‘left’ than Len McCluskey’s. Jerry is in favour of the repeal of anti-union laws and confronting them when necessary. He would like to see the election of all officials and the general secretary on an average member’s wage. He would prioritise public ownership and pensions, and puts forward the need for a public works programme.”

A fair degree more “left” than Len, then, but what is the real problem with Hicks? Well, he just does not play the bureaucrats’ game: “He is seen as not wanting to explain his policies” - ie, he walked out of the stitch-up Manchester hustings. “Socialists have influence inside the left by vocalising the pressure for action. This will be absolutely necessary in the next period. Excluding ourselves at this stage is a mistake” (The Socialist July 30). We are to understand from this that independently mobilising the rank and file is just not to be tolerated.

The AWL runs the tightest ship of all - no peep of support for the rank-and-file candidate from the leaders and no real prospect of a SWP-style internal revolt. What an appalling vista for ‘revolutionaries’: the risen masses!