30.05.1996
Taking our bearings
First meeting of the SLP’s NEC takes some important decisions
Most branches of the Socialist Labour Party will by now have had some sort of report of the inaugural meeting of the National Executive Committee (London, May 18). Unfortunately no detailed and authoritative article has been produced and made available to the membership - easily done through a party newspaper. Consequently decisions, differences and perspectives were relayed down the line World War I fashion.
Those able to attend branch meetings were given short verbal reports by individual NEC members. Those of us unable to attend have to rely on the bare outlines of branch minutes. Inevitably then personal slants, fickle memories and factional considerations play a not insignificant role in providing the raw material for any interpretation.
The SLP is visibly crystallising politically and taking shape organisationally. A sub-committee around the main office holders has been elected - this writer does not know whether or not its composition was contested. Given that the NEC meets only bimonthly, this sub-committee is now the real leadership. Effectively it is the SLP’s politburo. Its composition is therefore very important. Apart from the RMT’s Bob Crow, basically it consists of NUMist and Fisc supporters of comrade Arthur Scargill - respectively, comrades Frank Cave and Nell Myers on the one hand; and on the other Patrick Sikorski, Carolyn Sikorski and Brian Heron. Clearly the Fisc faction is well placed to exercise enormous power within the presidential SLP either for good or bad.
The next NEC will take on the mammoth task of finalising the remaining 20 policy papers left over from the May 4 conference. Let us hope the NEC does not do the same hatchet job the old Steering Committee tried on the Ireland and Constitution documents. However, even before we have in our hands the results of next month’s deliberations, the left reformist direction of the leadership’s evolution is becoming apparent.
Responsibility for the party as a whole concerning the women and black questions has been organisationally sidelined. This is a traditional device in a social democratic formation. Being designated black, comrade Imran Khan is to be sent away to organise a black section within three months or so. Other NEC members have likewise been labelled, including by gender. Bridget Bell, Ann Scargill, Brenda Nixon and Carolyn Sikorski will, because of their sex, develop work round the women’s question. If for example Frank Cave, Phil Griffin or Bob Crow had been put on our women’s committee, I for one would be more inclined to take the leadership’s commitment to achieving equality within the party and society at large more seriously. The brothers have successfully ducked the feminist charge of sexism. But they have in the process absolved themselves from the task of actually overcoming sexism which requires the united struggle by men and women to end class society.
Another rather worrying decision concerned the party paper. Comrade Arthur Scargill will be consulting our NUJ members on the viability of a publication. For genuine socialists it must be emphasised that a paper is not an optional extra. It is a necessity. Without a collective organiser, educator and agitator nothing serious will be accomplished. However the general mood amongst those above seems to be against a paper which carries theory, debate and is influenceable from below. There has been plenty of philistine dismissal of traditional leftwing papers. There is also talk of a paper being a financial black hole. The preferred solution would appear to be a newsletter - aka the Labour Party. Branches would be well advised to keep a close eye on developments in this vital area. It is a matter for all of us. Giving the SLP a collective public voice must not be left to NUJ specialists.
The NEC discussed the election question with much heat and passion. Much of the debate concerned the technical options - ranging from six to 100 candidates at the next general election. Frankly the former is much more likely. The chances of comrades Bob Crow, Ann Scargill, Graham Till, etc raising the £250,000 and more needed to field and campaign for 100 candidates are slim, to say the least.
Nevertheless the most revealing and disturbing aspect of the debate concerned our relations with other workers’ parties. No partisan of the working class should support electoral alliances or deals with bourgeois or petty bourgeois parties. There must be no deals or alliances with Greens or nationalists, let alone liberals. But the SLP should be actively seeking out common ground with Labour lefts, the CPGB, the SWP, Militant Labour and the Scottish Socialist Alliance.
We ought to draw up a platform of basic working class demands - say £275 minimum weekly pay for a maximum 35 hours; abolition of the monarchy; immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland; a federal republic of England, Wales and Scotland; free abortion and contraception on demand; against immigration controls. Such a platform should be presented to other parties and organisations for discussion. If there is agreement, it would be perfectly permissible and principled to support other candidates and in turn gain support for our candidates.
Yet the NEC bluntly and uncompromisingly came out against electoral agreements - especially with Militant Labour. We are informed that Militant Labour simply presented the SLP with a take-it-or-leave-it list of the constituencies it wants to and will fight. If that is the case Militant Labour needs to be publicly challenged before the whole of the working class and taken to task. If that is not the case someone within our ranks is being economical with the truth.
The SLP should be distinguished by its clear politics. By its ability to put forward the general interests of the workers’ movement. We have no interest in the promotion of narrow sectarianism. That canker has bedevilled and weakened our movement for too long. Whether or not we go down to the infection will, I believe, be ultimately decided by our democracy, above all the influence of our revolutionary wing and the room it is allowed, or wins, for debate and clarification ... and here is the rub.
A general election beckons. Though on the rocks, the Tories continue their onslaught on democratic rights and working conditions. In the wings Blair is busily preparing a viciously anti-working class government. Literally millions are thoroughly disillusioned with the traditional parties of capitalism. There exists a political vacuum. Unfortunately, despite the pressing need to renew the ideas and theory of socialism and build a mass workers’ party, the NEC spent an inordinate amount of time on May 18 putting into place what could be - unless wiser councils prevail - a witch hunt against its own membership. Comrade John Hendy QC is at this very moment said to be preparing the inquisition.
According to the NEC there have been a series of flagrant breaches of SLP democracy. Have members crossed the picket lines of striking workers? No. Have certain comrades been urging electors not to vote for SLP candidates? No. Has there been an organised boycott of SLP actions and finances? Again no.
There have been vague references to the “doctoring” of a leaflet in the North West and other trivia which are being blown up out of all proportion. But the main complaint of the NEC majority seems to be the paper you are reading and the supposed activity of members of the CPGB and the RDG.
I say we need workers’ unity. One cannot play for two football teams, reply the would-be populists. My grasp of the rules of soccer is woefully limited. But have not our comrades heard of Paul Gascoigne of Rangers and England and other such league and national players? Surely the point is though that working class politics should not lightly be reduced to a game dominated and controlled by big business. Fans physically fight each other with passion every Saturday. But that should neither be welcomed nor copied. Players move from one team to another with a wave of the chairman’s cheque book. That has been the history of trade union bureaucrats, but not those fighting to end this rotten system of exploitation and greed.
What of the Weekly Worker? The fact of the matter is that the CPGB’s paper carries extensive, considered and detailed reports of developments within the SLP and has printed letters and articles from its members on many and varied issues. In my view it has done a great service to the SLP in particular and the working class in general. The Weekly Worker is the best, not to say only, vehicle SLP members have to seriously develop their ideas. Which is why I have agreed to supply an occasional column.
What has been branded a particular infamy by some of our grandees was the reproduction in the Weekly Worker of the full results of the voting for the NEC on May 4 (see No142, May 9 1996). Sadly, one must presume that there are those who would like to treat this material as private property. Should those comrades who put themselves forward to serve the SLP membership be denied knowledge of what support they received from them? Even Blair’s party publishes the results of its NEC and shadow cabinet elections. What a cry of protest there would been from socialists if the capitalist state refused to divulge the votes of Brenda Nixon in the Hemsworth by-election. When they controlled the CPGB, the Marxism Today clique felt obliged to publish congress and executive committee votes. I also note that the publishers of th e Weekly Worker carry all sorts of contrary opinions and reports of their own internal votes and differences. That is how it should be.
The SLP aims to become a mass workers’ party. It is therefore the property of the whole class. A confident and fully informed membership is what is needed. That cannot be achieved if we adopt the arcane communication techniques of the Vatican. The workers need full and open publicity for all the shades and factions that exist. Not black and white smoke signals.
Within the charmed circles of certain SLP grandees the figures would of course be freely discussed and painstakingly analysed. But for those not privileged to be members of the NEC, those not closely associated with Patrick Sikorski, the general secretary, and his secret Fourth International Supporters Caucus, it would be another matter. The whole, the rank and file, would be kept in the dark and in powerless ignorance.
The misguided and frankly dishonest excuse SLP leading comrades offer for their futile attempt to monopolise information is that conference did not decide to make the results freely available. Quite right. But on the other hand it is not admitted that conference did not decide to make the voting figures an NEC secret. Those who want a conspiratorial sect should have put it to the vote. They would, I am sure, have been thrown out of court.
As a result of the Weekly Worker taking what I think is a responsible and well judged decision to publish the results, they are available to the entire working class. In this way activists in our movement can now come to an understanding of the SLP and decide for themselves whether or not to join.
There is another version of the consequences of openness. What is available to the working class is also available to anyone and everyone - including, it is muttered, the Special Branch. Yet surely is has to be admitted that in all likelihood state agents were present at the founding conference in Camden’s town hall. The state will certainly be fully aware of SLP internal affairs. Seamus Milne’s book, The enemy within, on state infiltration of the NUM proves that beyond doubt. Of course keeping votes secret has nothing to do with guarding the SLP from the state. It is about the ability of the SLP rank and file to understand and control their own party.
Without the Weekly Worker, comrades - including those who stood for the NEC on May 4 - would have had no idea of what level of support they command, let alone the overall balance of forces. For example that the candidates of the Revolutionary Platform scored very good results - being counted within the top 25 places. Nor would comrades be aware that only one vote separated Dave Proctor - recommended by the Steering Committee, and Barbara Duke - standing on a left slate. Such information is vital for the democracy of any organisation that aspires to become a mass working class party.
SL Kenning