The leadership of the rail union RMT, the Socialist Party, and the Alliance for Green Socialism, have been discussing with the Communist Party of Britain (Morning Star) about a joint slate at the General Election.
The four groups ran a joint slate - No2EU, initiated by people in the CPB - in the June Euro-elections. AWL did not back it. In our view, it combined non-socialist politics - blaming "Europe", rather than capitalism, for crisis-driven attacks on the working-class - with feebleness (1% of the vote).
They have been talking since then about a new joint slate, with a new platform, for the general election. Nothing has been made public about the talks yet, except that the RMT has called a "conference on the crisis in working-class representation" for 7 November.
The conference is billed as taking no motions or binding decisions, but might be a forum to announce the slate (over the heads of the RMT membership, who have had no part at all in the No2EU or the subsequent talks).
What role will the "People's Charter", promoted by the CPB since late 2008, play? An article by John Haylett in the Morning Star of 21 September, rejoicing at the TUC congress vote to endorse the Charter, compounds the obscurity.
"The main worry surrounding the charter", writes Haylett, "has been the concern that it is a stalking horse to set up a new left-wing or workers' party"
Haylett insists that neither the CPB nor RMT leader Bob Crow (who is close to the CPB) has any such intentions. Exactly what the general election slate talks are for thus becomes more obscure. Anyway, Haylett writes:
"Those of us who have been involved with the charter since its inception have been adamant that it cannot be restricted to such a narrow role. It was and is a distillation of policies already overwhelmingly backed by the trade union movement. It is presented as a coherent alternative to the neoliberal, anti-worker orthodoxy peddled by the parliamentary front benches.
"And it is clear that the Unite amendment to the RMT charter motion last week [at the TUC] was intended to flush out any underlying new party-building intentions.
"It mandated Congress 'to build support for the principles outlined in the charter in workplaces and communities to help promote progressive policies in the Labour Party and to assist in achieving a million UK signatures to demonstrate that the government must put people first'.
"Since there had never been such an intention, RMT general secretary Bob Crow had no difficulty in accepting it [the amendment]..."
