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Workers Power Global, London, 6 July 2003
It is now clear that the Socialist Alliance national conference decision on „re-launching‰ the alliance has become the cover for a purge from the alliance of anyone who opposes the Socialist Workers Party&Mac226;s project to create a new electoral bloc. As a result the Socialist Alliance is coming apart at the seams.
At the first executive after the conference the SWP moved to get rid of Steve Godward (independent) as vice chair and Marcus Strom (Communist Party of Great Britain) as Nominations Officer. They succeeded in voting Steve out but failed to get rid of Marcus. When their plan to carve out everyone not to their liking became clear even some of their allies were obliged to vote against them.
The push to transform the Socialist Alliance into the SWP&Mac226;s private property at the executive was followed up inside the Birmingham Socialist Alliance with a move to oust Steve Godward as chair of that alliance at its AGM.
A leading local SWP member had told Steve, a former Labour Party member, a victimised firefighter and a committed member of the Socialist Alliance, that he was „politically finished in this city‰. His crime? Nobody is actually sure, because the SWP have never explained why they have systematically set out to attack him. The most obvious reason is that on a number of occasions he has failed to jump when asked to by the SWP. In other words, he thinks for himself.
At the Birmingham AGM a raft of new members (mainly from the SWP) turned up. Many of these had joined the alliance and had their applications processed in the preceding week, some on the preceding day. A local SWP member replaced Steve as chair, by 39 votes to 35. Every other non-SWP officer was voted out and replaced by SWP members or their allies. A clean sweep in Birmingham. Where next?
The SWP&Mac226;s justification for these moves has not been written down anywhere. But at the executive meeting Rob Hoveman (SWP) argued that there was now the need to create a „coherent‰ group of officers who could carry through the decisions of conference. Those who opposed the conference&Mac226;s decisions were deemed unsuitable to serve as officers. This pretext is both bogus and contrary to the norms and traditions of the Socialist Alliance.
It is bogus because Marcus Strom voted for the conference resolution to which the SWP attach such importance, while Steve, as chair of the meeting, did not vote. The only person at the executive meeting who actually voted against the resolution was Mark Hoskisson (Workers Power). So, it doesn&Mac226;t matter if you agreed with the conference resolution &Mac246; if the SWP decide you oppose the „new line‰ you oppose it no matter what you say or do.
It is contrary to the norms and traditions of the Socialist Alliance because we have always operated on the basis of inclusiveness, even where there are disagreements. That is why despite substantial differences over both our election manifesto and our position on the Euro (issues decided by conferences) both Mark Hoskisson and Marcus Strom have served as officers on the executive for over two years.
Nobody has ever claimed that the differences that these comrades have with the majority line have ever impeded their ability to carry out the work of the alliance because they have operated according to the pluralistic and inclusive norms of the alliance.
Nor does the constitution give any special powers to the officers as a group and it certainly does not stipulate that such a group be „coherent‰ &Mac246; or to give it its real name, monolithic. Quite the reverse. In recognition that we are an alliance rather than a democratic centralist organisation it calls for plurality and the representation of different trends at every level of the alliance.
These norms and traditions are being trampled on by the SWP. It has decided to use its majority in the alliance not simply to determine policy (which nobody ever objected to &Mac246; after all it was the majority) but also to exclude from positions all opponents to its line. In so doing it is destroying the alliance character of the organisation. It is creating a front for itself &Mac246; a Socialist Worker Alliance pure and simple. It will be a miracle if any non-SWP supporting members of the alliance in Birmingham remain in the organisation for any length of time following the disgraceful coup that was engineered at the recent AGM.
What are the politics driving this transformation of the alliance into a front? Comrades of the International Socialist Group, together with several of the independents on the executive, insist that the resolution passed by conference will not result in the formation of any unprincipled new alliances. Specifically, they argue, it is not a recipe for a popular front type alliance in which working class socialists unite with non-working class, non-socialists and through which the distinctively working class and socialist character of the organisation are either blurred or subordinated. They point to the fact that the resolution says that any new organisation will be, „open, inclusive, democratic, and of course socialist.‰
In our view these comrades, whatever their own intentions, are failing to see what is happening before their very eyes. The conference resolution is being used by the SWP to reduce the open and inclusive character of the alliance itself in order to facilitate a new „platform‰, as the SWP have termed it, that will not necessarily be socialist. The SWP have decided that the most radicalised people in Britain are the Muslim Communities. Those communities are organised, largely, via the Mosques. Therefore, the new alliance will of necessity embrace not just Muslims as individuals (something that would be a welcome step since it would signify that such people were moving towards socialism) but the Mosques.
It is of course inconceivable that a joint platform with the formal representatives of the Muslim faith could be a consistently socialist platform. That is not Islamophobic, it is the plain truth. The Mosques are not represented by working class Muslims but by middle class clerics, frequently with ties to local businesses (i.e. local smaller scale capitalists). The politics of these people &Mac246; while often being both anti-racist and anti-imperialist &Mac246; are shaped by their social and religious position in society. They can fluctuate between radicalism and conservatism. They can even embrace &Mac246; as can the Labour Party &Mac246; declarations in favour of social justice. But they are not socialist politics; they cannot represent an independent working class view.
This is why any formal electoral bloc with such forces is impossible. Of course we would, as happened in Preston, welcome support for a socialist candidate from the whole Muslim community, including representatives of the Mosque. It is clear that the Preston comrades did excellent work in earning such support. But that is very different from offering a formal bloc to such representatives on the basis of a new political platform.
Yet such a platform is what the SWP want to construct. This has become clear in the past months. In March the Socialist Alliance helped convene a meeting in London to discuss the possibility of broadening the opposition to Blair. George Galloway, along with representatives of the Socialist Alliance, the FBU, the RMT and the PCS addressed that meeting. It is clear from the platform that this was a working class, socialist meeting to discuss a working class, socialist alternative to Blair.
The SWP consulted with the Socialist Alliance throughout the build up to this meeting. It was in line with an agreed policy of trying to attract broader working class forces.
Compare this to the meeting convened in Birmingham just prior to the AGM. The platform consisted of John Rees (SWP, but billed as a Socialist Alliance speaker), Salma Yaqoob (Birmingham Stop the War), George Monbiot (a liberal journalist) and George Galloway. No trade union representatives were on the platform. George Monbiot didn&Mac226;t turn up but was replaced by Dr Nasim of the Birmingham Central Mosque.
Neither the Socialist Alliance executive nor the Birmingham Socialist Alliance were consulted over either the platform or the organisation of this meeting. Nobody had decided that John Rees should represent the alliance at the meeting (unless of course it came from the newly „coherent‰ officers of the alliance). And when the question of what the meeting was for was put George Galloway responded by telling the audience that nothing could be said at the moment but that they could trust their leaders.
The speakers all referred to some kind of coalition or new political movement around „core values‰ and Galloway warned that in order to preserve the bloc, each might have to „lay aside some things that might offend others‰.
This meeting was designed to pave the way for the new bloc the SWP are pushing for &Mac246; in the name of the Socialist Alliance &Mac246; an alliance with a „peace and justice‰ wing of the Mosques. If such a bloc emerges it will spell the end of the attempt to build a genuine socialist alternative to Blair at elections. It will mark the beginning of a descent, certainly by the SWP, potentially by the Socialist Alliance, into a cross class alliance that will do a disservice to the millions who hate Blair and who are oppressed by capitalism and imperialism.
Whether the SWP realise this popular front dream is another matter. Already one hoped for right wing ally, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) have publicly announced that they have no intention of entering an electoral bloc with the Socialist Alliance. Their stated goal is to help the left in the unions „reclaim the Labour Party‰ and pursue the popular front by other means. Should the SWP succeed in forming a bloc with sections of the Mosques then it is highly likely that the organisation will be plunged into civil war.
There are plenty of socialists inside the SWP who will be repelled by such a popular front. But it remains equally possible that the Mosques open to the idea of challenging Blair at the polls will be able to do so effectively without the help of the SWP. And if the Socialist Alliance remains in existence and insists on including clear demands for secular education, lesbian and gay rights and women&Mac226;s liberation then such a bloc will be impossible.
This reality, however, is not enough to clear the minds of the SWP leaders who, desperate for better votes now that they have ventured into the field of electoral politics, are looking for some &Mac246; any &Mac246; means to achieve this. If a deal can be brokered in Birmingham, they believe, then it can perhaps be repeated elsewhere.
These then, are the political issues behind the ugly incidents on both the executive and in the Birmingham Socialist Alliance. It is time that every socialist within the alliance confronted not just the results of bureaucratic chicanery but the politics that act as the motor force for such chicanery. At the National Council supporters of Workers Power, and we hope others, will support a resolution (see below) plugging the holes in the resolution passed by the last conference of the Socialist Alliance.
We want it to be clear that any new initiative for left unity excludes a popular front style bloc with the Mosques. It should rather be based on the push to create a real working class alternative to Blair &Mac246; a workers&Mac226; party. Any other course will mark the end of the attempt to build such an alternative through the Socialist Alliance. Sadly the organisation will be reduced to being a mere appendage of the SWP, and there is no way we will accept that, under any circumstances.
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