Debating political representation

Submitted by AWL on 3 June, 2003 - 12:16

Solidarity has been debating whether unions should change their rules governing their political fund, to make it easier to donate money to political parties other than the Labour Party. The debate has widened out to take in many issues about working-class political representation. We print below some contributions and invite further discussion of this crucial issue for the labour movement.

Turn to the class, before it's too late

The left policy of pulling out of the Labour Party was in my opinion a massive tactical error for the left. When under attack you should not surrender the entire battle at the first salvo. We handed the party over to the right on a plate then complain that it no longer represents us.

It is now too late to salvage the situation. Where do we go from here?

The Socialist Alliance stifles full and open debate. Without a frank exchange of views we cannot form any kind of united front. The relentless arguing must give way to constructive dialogue. We must put our petty differences aside to face the biggest evil: fascism.

In fighting fascism the SA have a disadvantage. They openly support George Galloway, who in turn openly supported the Ba'thist murderers in Iraq. Who can take seriously an organisation that professes socialism, while giving uncritical support to a person that boasts of being best friends with fascist killers? This scandalous alliance must end before it brings the entire movement into disgrace. The mass of the general public has no particular axe to grind with Galloway, but they know that he's a bit dodgy from what they have read in the popular press.
Therefore anyone seen to be associated with him is going to be viewed in the same light.

The bulk of the left doesn't speak the same language as the working class. The BNP are in the pubs, clubs, general meeting places, drinking with and talking to people in a language they can understand. They are seen as 'one of the boys' or good for a laugh. They are recruiting.

The bulk of our movement sits in rooms and halls and talk to each other in a language that would put the average person to sleep in seconds. If we can't communicate we are lost. We need to be more dynamic. We need to get back out on the streets and estates leafleting, holding public meetings, where plain language is spoken. Our message should be clearly understandable to all that hear it. Our newspapers should have more popular appeal. We need to be reaching out to those millions of 'unconscious Marxists' out there.

We should never lose heart. Our aims are for the greater good of the world. We need to take a leaf out of the capitalists' book and package our product more excitingly. Get rid of fancy words and lengthy speeches that would bore the average person to suicide. Bring in an air of excitement and expectancy.

The youth are the streams that should swell the river of socialism. We need to reach them on their own ground and on their own terms. Drop in centres and local cafes are ideal for sparking up conversations.

We have been acting like tortoises for the last few years. It is now time to come out of our shell before it is crushed under a fascist jackboot.

If the SWP are not on board, then go without them. If other factions differ, prove them wrong. A general consensus would be nice but in its absence a move toward a fightback from one part of the movement would be welcome. Someone has to take a lead. Let it be the AWL.

Rick Grogan

Socialist Alliance: Make-your mind-up-time for the SWP

If the prospects for the left rest in the hands of a Socialist Alliance as reflected in the conference on 10 May, then we are indeed in trouble.

But one good thing to come out of the conference was the Executive election shambles: I am now more hopeful that we can abandon the present 'slate' election system.

I also think the conference demonstrated that we can't go on as at present, where we have an 'individual member' structure with the majority of members showing first allegiance to another organisation. It will soon be 'make-up-your-mind-time' for the SWP: is the Socialist Alliance to remain their stop-start 'project' or is it to be allowed to become a party?

Dave Church, Exeter

'Our starting point is workers' unity'

I want to take a look at Burnley and the Northern towns to test the happy little theory of 'the fragmenting labour movement' in the light of the rise of the BNP.

It is a real possibility that the BNP could seize control of Burnley council in the next couple of years. How should the working class socialist left respond?

We should do what we did on the Isle of Dogs in the early 90s and campaign for workers' unity around 'jobs and homes for all' and call for a vote for the Labour Party and canvass for them.

If we were for the defence of the Labour government against the Poujadist petrol tax protesters, we should be for the defence of a Labour Council against the BNP. How we could defend such a council from a BNP wipe out without campaigning for a critical Labour vote has not and cannot be explained by the comrades who talk about standing SA candidates against Labour.

The starting point for a socialist strategy in the northern towns isn't anti-racism, it's workers' unity.

At the moment, the trade unions in the northern towns are close to being paralysed politically because of the level of BNP support amongst their members. Only by the unions putting forward a programme of 'jobs and homes for all' type demands on the Labour councils and Labour government, and doing this through the union-Labour link locally, is there any hope of developing a non-communal united working class response and of winning white workers away from the BNP in any numbers.

If you went into the unions and proposed political and financial support for an SWP/MAB electoral front, you would split the unions along race lines, and/or push loads of white workers out of the unions. We could have a SWP/MAB Unison white collar voluntary sector branch, and a GMB/BNP union for white binmen and cleaners. To go along with the idea that the Labour Party isn't reclaimable in the northern towns is the same as saying 'prepare for the race war', or 'after the BNP, our turn'. To target the Labour Party electorally in Burnley is to seek to destroy one of the few remaining non communal - or at least cross communal - organisations. To seek, as the SWP master strategists do, to uncouple the 'Muslim vote' from Labour on the back of anti-imperialist populism, would be to communally divide the working class when what is needed is a strategy to unite it. The far left would be playing its own dishonourable part in bringing fully blown Belfast style communal politics to the Northern towns.

Jack Hamilton, Worcestershire

'No unity behind New Labour'

The BNP's support has grown because the Labour Government and Councils have attacked the working class. So I can not accept that the way to tackle the threat of a BNP take-over of a Council is to, in Jack's words, 'defend the Labour council'. I don't know the details of Burnley council - and perhaps it's not as bad as my local council in Hackney - but it is clear that white working-class people live in poor conditions, and are turning to the BNP, who appear to be the only party that gives a toss.

It is a nonsense for the labour movement to throw its weight into rallying working-class people to defend a council which is privatising their homes, massacring their services, and - for many local workers - acting as an appalling employer.

Jack is right that we should advocate the unity of the workers' movement. But not its unity behind the very council and government that are attacking it.

In towns like Burnley, the labour movement should be rallying people against the council - against service cuts, in support of the council unions etc. It needs to put the leg-work in around the estates. It needs to show that it is not just the BNP that cares when old people's homes are closed - quite the reverse, only the labour movement genuinely cares and genuinely has the power to do anything about it.

That means a massive effort to turn the council round 180 degrees towards building new housing and facilities, huge investment in communities, job creation, education, etc etc. And into confronting the Government for resources to do all this. If the local Labour Party's policy can't be changed that way in time for the next election, then at least get as many pro-working-class, no-cuts Labour candidates as possible selected. At the election, vote for them, and for any Labour candidate standing in a seat where there is no better alternative.

But there is a problem. Labour council candidates are selected from shortlists from which potential rebels are excluded by the regional office. And if the labour movement campaign is not successful, and we go into the next Council with more-of-the-same, carry-on-cutting Labour candidates, then what?

What if, in a few wards, there were potential (non-Labour) candidates with a base in local working-class communities, trustworthy socialists, trade unionists, anti-racists, part of and accountable to the labour movement? Then, I think, if the labour movement failed to back them and instead said, in every ward, 'OK, the Labour Council is attacking you, but vote for them anyway', not only would its campaign collapse, but the BNP would romp home.

Obviously, you would make a tactical judgement about how the vote was likely to divide between the various candidates. (If you had been out in the community running the sort of campaign I've described, you would be in a good position to judge this.) You might back even a Blairite. But not just by doing a sum that says 'left candidates take votes from Labour, thereby letting BNP in'. A credible candidature could take more votes from the BNP than from Labour. There are plenty of people out there who will not vote for the council which trashed their estate, made them redundant, or closed their local community group. Where are their votes going to go?

We have a responsibility to get the labour movement to organise working-class people to fight in their own interests. 'Defend the Labour council' does not do that.

Janine Booth, Hackney

Changes to the political fund? It's a sectarian scam!

This debate is not about independent working class candidates. Livingstone's independent candidacy was supported by all sides. It is about a coalition of small 'left' organisations trying to preserve their sectarian interests by building anti-working-class communalist coalitions and attempting to hi-jack union money to fund them.

There is no sense in which those who know the Socialist Alliance and know what the words mean could call the SA candidates working class. This is almost as bad as those who claimed that supporting the reactionary petit bourgeois candidature of Nader was the way forward for American workers.

The political funds debate is nothing but a clumsy attempt by the SA/SWP to get their hands on unions' money. The only position we should adopt is for the repeal of the 1913 Trades Union Act that requires a separation of the political from the economic/industrial functions of trade unions. The entire sectarian scam is contrary to every political belief I've ever held.

Ian Callaghan, Surbiton

CPGB: they're not all crazies

Just to clarify. It seems people believe I wrote the article 'Crazies of the world unite' (Solidarity 3/30). It dealt substantially with my argument with Ian Donovan in Weekly Worker and on the SA discussion list.

I didn't write it and it is not my view that the CPGB are, barring one or two sane people (who's the other one?), are all mad.

I think Jack Conrad's seven-part series was long-winded and revealed a laughably inflated sense of his own importance. But he is hardly unique on the left in that.

I think Ian Donovan's polemics are grossly offensive, lunatically exaggerated and actually counterproductive to his cause. But I don't think they represent the views of the CPGB. I received a mealy-mouthed semi-apology over the paedophile issue: 'It is not the view of the entire CPGB that Gerry Byrne is a Nazi or wants to set up death camps for paedophiles'. In the circumstances, I reckoned it was worth settling for that and considered the issue closed.

On the issue of the AWL 'not liking Arabs very much' and being motivated by anti-Arab chauvinism, CPGB members (though not the editor or the PCC) dissociated themselves from that accusation.

Weekly Worker has consistently maintained that signed articles represent only the views of the author not the CPGB. We may consider this a cynical 'deniability' ploy, allowing them to trail extreme views and then protest their innocence, but you have to concede that's their story and they stick to it.

I wouldn't normally be bothered to make this point, and I've certainly written inflammatory stuff myself, but it seems to me that stirring up animosity at this point is part of a quest for martyrdom and that's really not the way we want to go.

Gerry Byrne, Tooting

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.