British left When is a 'new workers' party' NOT a party?
Socialist Resistance in print2000sScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
time, splits up into its component parts and stands under different A conference to launch a "Campaign for New Workers Party" (CNWP), organised by the Socialist Party (SP) took place Sunday March 19 in London.
The organisers calmed there were 430 present. In the one counted vote taken, however, 290 participated and there didn't seem to be very many aostendons.
The Socialist Party has proclaimed the conference "resounding success". But this seems overDiowi asseosicill.
There were few significant new forces present from either the trade unions or Labour left. It was a full mobilisation of the SP and its supporters and various far-left groupings - previously in the Socialist Alliance - who had stayed outside of Respect were also present in force.
There were proxy greetings from some trade union left tigures but these fell well short of any real support for the project.
PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka did address the opening session. But he supported and stressed that anything coming out of the conference should relate to and discuss with
He warned against competing left parties and emphasised that no particular organisation or should think that it has all the answers when it came to resolving the crisis of working class representation.
A glance at the organisations moving resolutions at the conference was a sobering experience. There was the SP itself, Tne reconstituted Socialist Alliance, the
UNION Democratic Socialist Alliance - the other reconstituted SA, Workers power, Revolution (Workers Power youth group), the CPGB, the Revolutionary Democratic Group, and the
Socialist (the SP group).
Hannah Sell, the main SP speaker, explained that the purpose of the conference was not to launch a new party but to launch a campaign for a new party. The party itself would be formed at some point in the future.
The devil, however, was in the detail. Such a party, she insisted, unlike must be based on a federal structure. argued, was far too centralised.
When it came to elections, kind of common framework, the various affiliated organi. sations would stand in their own name (SP, CPGB, SA, DSA etc) and on their own programme - not under the name or on the programme of the new party.
This had already been made clear in recent discussions with Respect.
PCS leader Mark Serwotka (centre) correctly stressed the importance of Respect Kind of core wou tame on, names does nothing for left unity.
UNION
As the guest speaker from Respect, I asked if someone could explain to me what would be the point of launching such an organisation on this basis?
An organisation which in its most public moment, i.e. election time, splits up into its component parts and stands under ditterent names does nothing for left unity.
It would not be a new organisation but an electoral arrangement between existing organisations. The title "Campaign for the New Workers Party" is a misnomer.
Most of the organisations at the conference (including the sn- An organisation which in its most public moment, i.e. election SP) were part of exactly such a grouping at the general election last year: the Socialist Green Unity Coalition. Few know about it, however, since they all stood in their own different names and on their own programmes. It may as well have not existed.
The other problem with function on the basis of the full "consensus principle" - not one-member-one-vote like Respect or the Socialist Alliance before it.
This would disenfranchise individual members who were not members of any of the organisations between which
there was a "consensus.'
They would be left with no effective voice or vote. Then there is the issue of accountability - which is hard to achieve in any political organisation but in a federal structure of the kind being proposed is ruled out by the structure itself.
How can an organisation, which does not stand in its UWIl those elected to be responsible to it? They are more likely be responsible to the constituent organisations in whose name they stood and where does that leave the broader grouping?
It was as if nothing had changed since the Socialist Party walked out of the Socialist Alliance four years ago demanding that the Alliance adopt exactly such a structure.
I explained that as part of a minority inside Respect, who thought that Respect should move from being an essentially federalist Coalition to being a political party, along the lines of the SSP Scotland, the position put was pretty incomprehensible.
In order to stand effectively in elections and even more so to have elected representatives in local government or Westminster you have to have a well organised, democratic and accountable organisation. In the end that means a party
This was not raised in the aebate, nowever, orner than by myself. Most discussion, revolved around what the programme of a new party should be when it was eventually launched.
The Socialist Party rightly argued that it should be a broad party containing not only the revolutionary left but broader forces, though the political basis for it in their resolution was to the right of
Predictably the Workers this federal model is internal Power resolution - which fell democracy. It was explained with 77 votes to 213 - insisted that the new party would that such a party must have a
revolutionary programme.
It put it this way: "The party's goal should be the conquest of political power by the working class, the abolition of capitalism, the establishment of a democratic plan of production and the creation of a classless society: socialism".
It is fair to assume that the various supporters of this resolution - i.e. nearly a third of those who voted - will walk
out of any new party when it
fails to adopt a programme
along these lines. This is after
all why most of them left the
SA and why they are not in
I supported those who
wanted a broad pluralist party
and argued that by far the best framework for achieving this was through Respect. It is by far the most significant of the various initiatives that have
attempted to build something
to the left of Labour.
This was undeniably
shown in its general election results. Mark Serwotka had already spelled this out to the
conference in his speech in the opening session.
I argued that the main problem Respect has in developing further is that too much
of the existing left - particularly in the trade unions -who should be in it are not. Those at the conference, and
those who were not, should reconsider and join us.
There may be things about Respect that people may not like, and it clear Respect has not resolved all the problems of working class representation, but Respect is inevitably shaped by those who are in it. If substantial new forces joined it would
become different and stronger organisation.
In conclusion, it was made clear that the NCWP campaign will support all socialist candidates in the forthcoming local elections and will have
further discussions with Respect in order to avoid clashes either in elections or with trade union conference fringe meetings.
This was certainly a posiuve proposal which Kespect should and will respond.