The committee of the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform met in Birmingham on 6 December, with a number of observers also joining the meeting.
It decided:
- To defend the independence and seek to preserve the identity of the Socialist Alliance. (As I understand it, this implies working for local Socialist Alliances to continue activity on working-class socialist lines, rather than dissolving formally or de facto into the new "Respect" coalition).
- To pose a series of pointed questions to George Galloway, to the SA's "negotiators", and to the SA Council on 17 January, about the direction and structure of the coalition. To send a delegation to meet George Galloway.
- To argue within the process of setting up the new coalition for definite policies:
- For a clearly working-class stance. For workers' control and public ownership. For workers' MPs on a worker's wage.
- For democracy, including the right of the activists and organisations in the coalition to amend the platform and debate alternatives, not just vote yes or no to the negotiators' text.
- To propose the basic politics from the SA's manifesto. This would include opposition to immigration controls and support for a democratic and federal Europe.
Two proposals were defeated. Pete Radcliff (AWL) proposed that the Platform demand a break from Galloway. Charlie Pottins (unaffiliated) proposed that the Platform oppose the "Respect" coalition. Both were defeated by one vote (Pete Radcliff's) to six (Charlie Pottins, as an observer, having no vote).
There will be another open committee meeting on 10 January, and a general meeting of the Platform in February.
The meeting also ratified a summary of the decisions of the Platform meeting on 8 November, elected officers, and decided to set up a website.
Some personal thoughts on this: exactly where it leaves the Platform is unclear. The policies decided put the Platform in sharp opposition to the coalition architects.
Over the months, the coalition has been constructed entirely behind closed doors. For example, Lesley Mahmood, vice-chair of the SA, is a member of the SA Executive's Task Group formally charged with dealing with coalition negotiations. She has never been informed about them.
She knows about the conclave on 30 November which which produced the coalition's draft platform (distributed - in limited circles - under the heading "final draft", but probably in fact final-but-one) only through unofficial leaks and a short report in Socialist Worker.
No official information has been given to the Task Group, let alone the whole SA membership or indeed the SA Executive.
It is very unlikely that the coalition architects will make a sudden turn to democratic procedure in the next few weeks as they finalise their plans; much more likely that they will present a "take it or leave it" package. The SWP, in particular, have made no secret of it that they positively want to slough off the "awkward squad" of the SA.
We should not make it easy for them to marginalise us. However, tactics will be difficult, both for the Platform and for ourselves in AWL.
Over the months since May 2003, the AWL has argued for the SA not to go for the sort of coalition now in train, and instead to try to broaden out around the principle of independent working-class representation. Most of the other adherents of the Platform have adopted a more "wait and see" attitude on that basic political question, while opposing the SA leadership's disregard of internal SA democracy.
Now four things have changed:
- The coalition is definitively in train;
- Other possibilities have ebbed. The Labour Representation Committee movement proceeds at a snail's pace, one of its leading figures saying privately that it is a task "for generations". The Socialist Party is unlikely to make any stand for working-class politics against the coalition. These things could have been different if the SA, or a large chunk of it, had oriented differently; but they are as they are.
- The coalition therefore figures as "the only show in town".
- Platform adherents are heading for a sharp clash between sticking by their politics and paying a price of marginalisation or exclusion from the new coalition but resolving to step out publicly with independent working-class politics (not just intra-SA complaints), or knuckling under.
Lots of people can see that the new coalition is shallow and unstable. That will not cancel out the attraction of its big meetings. It will require political clarity and fortitude to maintain an active independent stance, neither being dragged along with the bandwagon nor retiring hurt.
That is why it is a serious weakness that the Platform rejected fighting for a break with George Galloway.
I don't think many of the Platform's adherents share the Weekly Worker's warmth towards "comrade Galloway" (as the WW calls him). But many do seem to think that to argue about the coalition's lining-up behind Galloway is unnecessary "arguing about personalities", and it is better, more dignified, to argue about texts and procedures.
What good is a text if it does not mark off the authentic socialists from Galloway, who says that he "needs" £150,000 a year to "function properly as a leading figure"; whose reputation as a leftist rests mainly on the Iraq issue, but who is actually right-wing on precisely that issue (friendship with Tariq Aziz, money from Saudi and the Emirates)?
Serious working-class politics is not just about warm words on paper, but about accountable representatives of proven loyalty to the working class, and a democratic grass-roots organisation that makes them accountable.
To accept George Galloway as a credible representative, and then to quibble about this or that clause in the policy text that Galloway is going to pretend to stand by, is to substitute literary criticism for real politics.
