How to relaunch the Alliance?

Submitted by Anon on 2 May, 2003 - 12:59

By Martin Thomas

Everyone wants a relaunch. Everyone is dissatisfied with the Socialist Alliance as it is, and thinks something brighter and better should be possible, given the ferment around the anti-war movement and in the trade unions.

That is the frame for the the debate at the annual conference of the Socialist Alliance, coming up on 10 May.
The Socialist Alliance in its present form emerged in the run-up to the May 2001 general election. It united almost all the activist left groups in England, and drew in some hundreds of unaffiliated socialists, to stand 98 candidates.

In our opinion, the results - an average of 1.62% - were generally poor, and (though some of the more hopeful predictions about Alliance success were always implausible) avoidably so. Still, enough of the results were respectable to give activists courage to continue.

The mere fact of so wide a spectrum of the activist left working together in a common cause was something to be built on - by developing a working-class orientation in which local Alliance groups would combine lively political debate with patient work to build roots in communities and workplaces.

In fact the local groups withered in the months following the election. The SWP, the biggest organised force in the Alliance, saw it as an "electoral united front" which outside elections would not have much to do but keep ticking over and support other "united fronts".

In December 2001 the Alliance's second-largest component, the Socialist Party, decamped. Evidently it felt that to stay in the Alliance would bring a risk of the SP's electoral profile (modest, but one of its bigger assets) being diluted, and SP members developing more allegiance to the Alliance than to the SP.

However, 2002 also saw the emergence of a cluster of unaffiliated Alliance activists willing to speak their minds. The Alliance provided space for some genuine debates, on Israel-Palestine for example, which were by no means ideal but represented more real political interaction between different currents on the left than for a long time.

A Socialist Alliance trade union conference in March 2002 drew large numbers; there were fair-sized Alliance fringe meetings at some union conferences in 2001 and 2002; and there were some decent Alliance results in the May 2002 local elections, notably in Hackney, east London.

A debate initiated by the SWP on our attitude to the euro gave life to many Alliance meetings in the autumn of 2002. The SWP apparently wanted to take the Alliance into a "Stop the Euro" coalition with the rump Communist Party of Britain and suchlike. Though it failed to convince the majority of the Alliance's "unaffiliated" activists - who tended more towards a stance of "neither pound nor euro but workers' unity" - it did carry the Alliance conference vote on the issue.

However, no "Stop the Euro" campaign ensued. (By the time of the conference it had already looked likely that a euro referendum would be years away). Nor any other campaign. Since last autumn the Alliance has failed to do anything in the FBU's industrial battle, or the big anti-war demonstrations, more than distributing a few placards and leaflets hastily drafted by the SWP.

One hundred and sixty Alliance candidates are standing in this May's local government elections, but local Alliance branches are uniformly stale or defunct. As for the trade unions - a recent meeting of the Alliance's trade union committee concluded that the best the Alliance could do at union conferences this summer was try to get its people in as chairs or additional speakers at fringe meetings called by George Galloway!

Thus the widespread feeling for a "relaunch". But how?

The SWP seems to look for a way out to figures such as Galloway and Bob Crow. leader of the RMT rail union. But Crow, firstly, did not have enough gumption to get the RMT member on the Labour Party executive even to vote against the war, and, secondly, is more interested in backing the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru than the Socialist Alliance. And Galloway as banner-bearer for a new socialist force, making a clean break from the cynicism, sleaze and deal-making of New Labour? Maybe not.

The SWP's proposal for 10 May is thus a vague "enabling" one, the effect of it being to keep the Alliance ticking over but give the SWP a mandate to sink it into some sort of looser pink-green coalition if they can see how.

Some other motions on the agenda focus on turning the Alliance itself into a "new socialist party".

That the Alliance, to progress, must develop more of the life and activity of an authentic party, is incontestable. But constitutional changes and "re-branding" alone cannot make it a party, In fact, over-hasty attempts to centralise the Alliance - which, given the balance of forces, for now means centralising it round the SWP - would simply kill it.

Workers' Liberty has proposed an open conference of the anti-war working-class left to discuss a "Campaign for a Workers' Party". Roughly similar ideas are proposed by Workers' Power and the CPGB (Weekly Worker).

Workers' Liberty also emphasises that this cannot be a substitute for work on the ground to develop local Alliances through patient work in workplaces and communities and a commitment to lively political debate.

A range of other issues are on the conference agenda - most important, probably, a balance-sheet on the Iraq war and the Alliance's stance on it.

Socialist Alliance conference, Saturday 10 May, 10am to 5pm,
Islington Green School, Prebend St, London N1, near Angel tube.
Click here for details of creche, registration, etc.

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.