04.10.2012

CPGB aggregate: The establishment and the left

Michael Copestake reports from the CPGB members meeting

On the agenda at an aggregate meeting of the CPGB membership on Saturday September 29 was the Labour Party, the general state of UK politics and the CPGB’s own tasks and organisational methods in the current political downturn for the far left.

It was Mike Macnair, representing the CPGB’s Provisional Central Committee, who introduced the first debate on the current state of play in Britain. He began with a few observations about the party conference season. With the Labour gathering yet to begin, the comrade looked first at the Liberal Democrats, whose conference was over and done with. The Lib Dems, said comrade Macnair, have effectively merged with the Conservative Party in parliament, but used their conference to feebly attempt some kind of political differentiation.

Labour is ahead in the polls and seems content on maintaining its ‘keep right’ (though left of Blairism) trajectory, emphasising its fiscal responsibility and so on, in the hope that the bourgeois media will view the party as a safe pair of hands come the next general election. Here Labour is gambling that the Tory-led government will become as unpopular as the Conservatives alone were from 1994 to 1997, following which sections of the ruling class were prepared to dump them for Labour - ‘made safe’ by the ascendency of Blairism. But Labour’s ‘do nothing’ strategy may be a foolish gamble, said comrade Macnair - it took 18 years of Tory government for it to succeed last time round.

He noted that, as far as the cuts programme goes, we are still very much in the ‘phoney war’ stage, with most of them due to bite over the next two years and the programme continuing into the next parliament. There may be an increase in strike action and other protests in response to this, said the comrade, though it has to be said that current strike levels are still at an historic low. However, although the cuts as a whole could only be defeated by a movement that seems to threaten the very continuation of the system, there is a greater chance of success in pay and workplace disputes.

On the economic situation comrade Macnair commented that talk about ‘making Britain competitive again’ in manufacture and exports was utopian - the required drop in the cost of labour-power makes this almost impossible. In reality Britain continues to rely on the ‘invisible earnings’ of the City of London and is therefore dependent on finance capital. And only the far left, he added with not a little frustration, could be idiotic enough to think that Britain alone, rather than “we, the workers of Europe”, could break with this dependence on finance capital.

This left continues to loudly and idiotically advertise exactly this brand of nationalistic, Keynesian nonsense, whose disastrous consequences they have not even begun to think through. What is more, the left’s lack of real forces, the comrade added, is leading to its tailing the line of organisations which do have real forces: that is, the trade union bureaucracies, whose reaction to the failure of neoliberal globalisation is nationalistic and limited - something which then colours and shapes the politics of the left groups busy trailing behind them.

In the discussion that followed comrade John Bridge humorously noted that Mike had ‘forgotten’ to mention the Occupy movement, which, given its low starting level and subsequent evaporation, was perhaps understandable, he added. The left’s state of advanced decay is demonstrated by the fact that it is being played like a musical instrument by the bourgeoisie on issues like the Julian Assange controversy.

Comrade Farzad commented on the foolishness of those left groups that hope to see the establishment of a new version of the Labour Party by wooing the trade union bureaucracies - the very same people who keep the rightwing Labour leaders in place. That they seek to do this by accommodating to the nationalistic and reformist politics of those union bureaucrats creates a conveyor belt for this ideology into the left itself.

She pointed out that even in Scotland Labour continues to trail behind the Scottish National Party, while, for her part, Sarah McDonald believed that the SNP remained unlikely to win an independence referendum, although it may achieve the ‘devo max’ option. Comrade Macnair commented that the SNP would not have to win a referendum vote to destroy Scottish Labour - an eventuality which would make the election of a Tory governments in Westminster much more likely.

Labour

Up for discussion was a PCC motion on the resolution proposed by the Aslef train drivers’ union at Labour’s conference, aimed at the rightwing Progress group. Aslef targets Progress indirectly by calling on the Labour executive to impose “acceptable standards of democracy, governance and transparency” on internal groupings, and for 50% of the funding of such groupings over and above £25,000 to be handed over to party centre. John Bridge introduced the PCC motion, which strongly supports the anti-Progress sentiment of the Aslef call, but not the highly problematic method, which would very likely rebound against the left.

Comrade Bridge began by shining a light on Progress. This rightwing think tank provides - at the generous expense of Lord Sainsbury, who accounts for two-thirds of its funding - training, networking and sponsorship for wannabe careerists, councillors and MPs within the Labour Party. Tellingly Sainsbury has withdrawn his funding for the party itself and the union bureaucrats have taken a dislike to this: leaders such as Paul Kenny and Dave Prentis have spoken out against the group, comparing it to the Militant Tendency of old - a destructive interloper, to be removed. The trade union bureaucrats have a clear motivation for taking action against Progress - Lord Sainsbury is threatening their turf.

Importantly, comrade Bridge stated that the CPGB has no objection to expulsions in principle. Giving a concrete example, he reminded those present that the CPGB’s call for the expulsion of those Labour MPs who have flagrantly collaborated with the coalition government - namely, Frank Field, John Hutton and Alan Milburn - still stands (see ‘Expel the collaborators’ Weekly Worker August 26 2010). We do not adopt a ‘live and let live’ attitude to the right wing.

In that sense it is important to build up the left within Labour. He added that, as the left wing of Labour grows in strength, as it has done in the past, the right will ‘expel itself’ by splitting - something we saw from those who left Labour to form the short-lived Social Democratic Party in 1981. In any case, questions around expulsion are tactical, he said.

The discussion that followed revealed broad agreement amongst comrades over the problematic nature of the Aslef motion as an administrative rather than a political attack upon Progress, which the drafters of the motion could not even bring themselves to mention. Paul Demarty pointed out that, no matter what the Labour Party rule book may say, so long as the right remains dominant it will find ways to bureaucratically ban or harass troublesome lefties, so worrying that the Aslef motion is too administrative in nature is perhaps misguided. Ironically, he added, if the left ever were to achieve any measure of success in the Labour Party it would find itself hamstrung by the measures in the motion aimed at Progress requiring the sequestration of funds by the party centre from all internal groupings. Also, he continued, attempts to restrict the right’s access to funds from the capitalist class are more or less doomed anyway - if anyone will get around attempts to control the flow of money, it will be the capitalists.

Comrade Farzad said that the attacks upon Progress by the trade unions and parts of the Labour left represented a sea change within Labour, something that even a short time ago would not have been thinkable. Concurring with this line of thought, John Bridge said that the battle over Progress was one between those whose ultimate aim was the transformation of Labour into an American-style Democrat-type party and those who wished it to remain a bourgeois workers’ party. The Aslef motion, however problematically, represents an attack on the right and so provides a valuable opening for Marxist politics in the party. The PCC motion was carried unanimously.

Organisation

It was comrade Farzad who introduced the discussion on organisation and the future tasks of the CPGB. She stated that the present political environment is one of downturn for the left, and it was in such periods that we must consolidate and reassess. Wondering if the organisation would be ready for a sudden dramatic turn of events - say, a new imperialist land war in the Middle East - she gave her opinion that our work was treated too much as a matter of routine and that there was a lack of ambition within the organisation.

The work of the CPGB, she went on, places too many tasks upon too few people, which prevents more of the wider membership from being fully involved. That would provide relief for a few overburdened comrades and help spread skills. It would also give comrades a the opportunity to develop their political education through their greater involvement.

She suggested that comrades be assigned areas of study by the PCC so that they can be called upon to write on or present a topic. Comrade Farzad reminded those present that the Weekly Worker remains one of the best read Marxist papers around. Its principled political positions have stood the test of time, in contrast to the opportunistic flailing around of the left as a whole. Greater optimism was justified, she concluded, but that means greater ambition.

Comrade McDonald agreed that many of the party’s tasks have taken on a routine nature, naming CPGB interventions at the Socialist Workers Party’s Marxism festival and the annual Communist University as examples. Comrade Laurie Smith ventured that the Weekly Worker could do with using a wider pool of writers and that the party needed to see a better distribution of web work. On the question of education, he emphasised that basic Marxism was something missing not just from public consciousness, but also increasingly from the far left itself, especially its younger members.

Tina Becker stated that the left as a whole is quite happy remaining splintered and impotent, which means that there is a distinct lack of ‘unity initiatives’, within which the CPGB can push the Weekly Worker’s message of Marxist partyism. This has adversely affected the CPGB’s sense of direction. Agreeing with comrade McDonald on the problem of routinism, she said that the Weekly Worker itself is not being used to its maximum potential as a political weapon and organiser.

Comrade Simon Wells re-emphasised that there was little on the left in its dire state to which our work could be oriented, but disagreed with comrade Farzad’s suggestion that party members should be asked to become experts in a certain field and go on to give presentations at Communist University or such like. Comrade Bridge agreed that experts cannot be pre-selected, but he accepted comrade Smith’s point that the Weekly Worker would benefit from wider commissioning.