Oppositionists in the Socialist Alliance will be meeting in Birmingham on Saturday 8 November 2003 (11.30 to 3.30, United Services Club, Gough St) to discuss setting up a "Democracy Platform" in the SA.
Events since the meeting was called - the move by the Socialist Alliance leadership to swing the Alliance into a non-socialist, non-working-class electoral bloc figureheaded by George Galloway, George Monbiot and Salma Yaqoob - will demand a response. Below are the proposals which Workers' Liberty activists will put to the meeting.
A. Procedure
The decision by the Socialist Alliance Council on 18 October 2003 to seek to construct a "broad" electoral bloc, on the general lines of the Yaqoob-Monbiot initiative, in which the SA would participate as one element, is a major turn.
It raises questions on two levels.
Firstly, whether or not such a bloc is the right choice politically.
Secondly, SA democracy, in particular democratic control and accountability over SA negotiations now with Yaqoob-Monbiot and with other possible bloc partners.
This meeting therefore resolves to give over a first part of our meeting to discussing the new turn by the Alliance and our political responses to it.
We understand that there will be different views on this. However, the discussion may allow us to see where groups of comrades within the meeting do have some broad agreement on political responses.
The first part of the meeting will be followed by a recess - for refreshment, but also for groups of comrades who have found some broad agreement among themselves in the political discussion to discuss if they wish to collaborate and coordinate further.
The second part of the meeting will be given over to discussing the establishment of a "platform" in the SA which will unite SA members of different political views on the single issue of democracy in the SA.
B. Proposal for a political platform
We submit this for discussion in the first part of the meeting, under the terms described above.
We support the Stockport Socialist Alliance motion defeated at the 18 October 2003 Socialist Alliance Council: "that the Socialist Alliance will not dissolve itself into a new liberal or non-socialist electoral coalition, and that the manifesto of the Yaqoob-Monbiot initiative defines it as such a coalition". We seek to win a majority in the Alliance for this position.
To sink the Alliance in a popular-front-type pink-green bloc will contradict and abort what the Socialist Alliance started out to do: work to re-establish a working-class socialist presence in electoral politics. It will also block the development of a real political life in the Alliance, and movement towards it being a genuine party-type organisation.
We will work to organise a grouping within the Socialist Alliance which will.
a) advocate and propagandise in the labour movement for the principle of independent working-class political representation;
b) seek to encourage local labour movements to act on that principle, and look to taking direct local initiatives itself;
c) support and work with independent socialist/ Labour and left Labour candidates, including SP, SSP, and Socialist Alliance;
d) maintain comradely relations of discussion, debate, and collaboration where we have agreement, with other groupings in the Alliance
The following short statement should serve as a political basis.
1. New Labour is progressively depriving the working class of any independent political representation.
2. The working class needs to re-establish its own independent political representation.
3. No self-selected group can substitute for the working class in this. However, activists the organised sections of the working class, in the trade unions, and in the first place the socialist activists must play a leading role. We will fight for the trade unions to reassert themselves politically.
4. We will fight for the socialists to unite in a new socialist party, with ample rights of tendency on the model of Rifondazione Comunista or the Scottish Socialist Party, which can become the leading political force in the fight for a re-born mass workers' party, and within that re-born mass workers' party once formed.
5. In the fight for independent working-class political representation, a central task is to make the trade unions assert themselves politically against the Blair government.
6. This includes taking up the fight for a concerted trade-union struggle against Blairism and for trade-union and working-class interests inside the Labour structures, and the fight for accountability of the union reps in those structures. It would be short-sighted to sidestep that struggle by advocating that individual militant unions disaffiliate from Labour.
7. To play a positive role in the struggle to re-establish independent working-class political representation, independent socialist candidacies must be based on clear working-class principle and a consistent effort to develop working-class self-organisation. Inside the Socialist Alliance, that will be our basic measure by which to judge all proposals to support broader coalitions or candidacies.
8. Although we deplore the attacks on George Galloway by the Blairites in the Labour Party for his anti-war speeches, and the attempts to smear the anti-war movement by the bourgeois press, we note that Galloway has a history of relations with the Iraqi government and other anti-working class forces that any socialist would be ashamed of. In light of this, we oppose the decision to renounce Socialist Alliance fringe meetings at 2003 union conferences in favour of helping with Galloway fringe meetings. We will oppose sinking the Alliance into unprincipled electoral blocs, and consider that a bloc organised with George Galloway would not be principled.
C. Proposal for a coalition for SA democracy
We resolve to initiate a campaign to safeguard these founding principles of the SA: inclusivity, the rights of minorities, openness and democracy.
We will campaign in particular for democratic control and accountability over the negotiations being carried out by officers of the Socialist Alliance with prospective electoral bloc partners.
We will uphold the following clauses of the Socialist Alliance constitution:
A9.... balance and inclusiveness for political trends within the Socialist Alliance at all levels of the organisation. All local Socialist Alliances as well as individual members attending national conferences are encouraged to take this into account in electing officers, steering committees and selecting candidates.
C18: Membership of the Alliance carries an obligation not to obstruct campaigns decided on by the Alliance. We recognise, however, the right of minorities publicly to promote their views. In the event that an organised minority intends to take any action conflicting with a majority decision nationally or locally, that minority should inform the Alliance at the relevant level of its intention to do so.
Points 8 and 9 of Charter of Members' Rights:
8. The Socialist Alliance must be a model of civilised democracy, in contrast to the bureaucratism and control-freakery of New Labour. We need efficient decision-making on the Alliance's responses to political events; transparency and accountability in decision-making; maximum discussion before all important decisions; decision by consensus wherever possible; and autonomy for groups within the Alliance.
9. All important decisions should be taken through written resolutions of appropriate conferences or committees. All decision-making bodies of the Alliance must keep minutes of their proceedings which include the text of all proposals adopted, defeated or remitted, and details of votes. These minutes must be circulated promptly to all Socialist Alliance members who request them, either free by email, or, on payment of an extra subscription sufficient to cover costs, by ordinary mail.
Specifically, we will campaign:
1. For arrangements to guarantee that Socialist Alliance committees at all levels are inclusive of the different political trends in the Alliance.
2. Against the expulsion of Danny Thompson and Jane Clarke, and against any similar measures against political minorities.
3. For the main principles of "People before Profit" to be preconditions for any electoral coalitions. This includes the following clauses, agreed unanimously by the March 2001 conference as a preamble to the SA's "priority pledges": "Our candidates offer a working-class alternative. If elected they will be workers' MPs on a worker's wage... We propose an emergency plan to meet the demands and needs of workers and the jobless, and to defend and extend democracy".
4. For the whole SA membership to be notified in advance of the agenda of SA Executive and Council meetings, and of the proposals submitted to those meetings, so that local Socialist Alliances can submit their own amendments or counter-proposals if necessary.
More.
