Ban stands

The most recent letter from the registrar of political parties - one John Holden, based in Cardiff's Companies House - indicates that he and his team of bureaucrats intend to dig in on the ban on the CPGB using its own name in forthcoming elections.

Nevertheless, the fact that the home office has now conceded that it cannot prevent us from using 'CPGB' in our electoral material - and from explaining the reason why we have been forced to stand under the title 'Weekly Worker' - means that we will be able to mount an effective electoral campaign, through which we present and and win support for communist politics.

Naturally, our organisation remains committed to overturning the ban. Along with the Socialist Party - another organisation Holden has decided will no longer exist for the British electorate - we will campaign in the workers' movement and beyond against this Blairite attack on democracy.

We have been excluded, as regular readers will know, under the provisions of the Registration of Political Parties (Prohibited Words and Expression) Order, an act introduced to weed out candidates from spoiling groups such as the 'Literal Democrats'. We are told that the proximity of our name to that of the pro-Labour Communist Party of Britain would cause similar "confusion". Thus - after taking 'advice' from a parliamentary committee packed with anti-socialist Blairites like Gerald Kaufman and Gwyneth Dunwoody - this Cardiff pen-pusher "determined that only one of the two communist parties could be registered" (all Holden quotes from letter of April 7).

Some of his criteria for ruling our organisation out are interesting. First, on the "confusion" danger.

In reaching his decision, Holden says he "made reference to scope for confusion in the mind of ordinary voters; the oft-quoted 'man on the Clapham omnibus' ... the legislation makes no reference to, nor is it capable of being interpreted to imply, selection of 'a discrete group of knowledgeable voters' to which to apply the test". Furthermore, "differences between the various parties registered with 'socialist' in their name ... do not stand comparison with the fine distinction between the two would-be communist party names".

This is imbecilic. By definition, 'ordinary voters' are such because they vote for the mainstream parties. Unfortunately, communist and socialist organisations are mostly on the fringe of present-day politics. But this means they are supported by voters who have a conscious identification with them. Yet the implication is that your 'ordinary voter' will be able to clearly differentiate between the Socialist Alliance, Socialist Worker, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the Socialist Alternative (SP's fallback name) or the United Socialists.

Similarly, perhaps some 'ordinary' voters will be "confused" by the Scottish National Party, the Scottish Socialist Party and the Scottish Unionist Party? Will some people not get into a dither over the United Kingdom Independence Party and the United Kingdom Unionist Party? Does he not think it likely that the Liberal Party or the Pro-Euro Conservative Party will get votes intended for their bigger rivals?

Then we have Holden's justifications for choosing the CPB rather than us. He cites the fact that "in 1991 ... the leadership of the CPGB dissolved ... This appeared sufficiently dramatic in its context to qualify as a break in continuity". The icing on the cake for him is the fact that the CPB "enjoys wide 'fraternal relations' and support from communist parties overseas" and "this represented a significant pointer towards standing ... in a movement that has made much play of its internationalism throughout its history".

The implosion of the Euro leadership of the Party was widely trumpeted as the 'death' of the CPGB by the bourgeois media because of the "context" in which it happened - the collapse of eastern Europe and the USSR and the triumph of capitalism over bureaucratic socialism. Our organisation was an integral element of the Party in 1991 and with the self-destruction of the opportunist leadership, we took the banner of the Party as a whole. Certainly, one could therefore argue that there was a political "break in continuity" when Leninists assumed the leadership. But then the first such break in our history occurred much earlier when the reformism replaced revolutionism. We claimed our Party back.

Lastly, the idea that the brand of diplomatic protocol that exists between the CPB and the wretched rag-tag remnants of official 'world communism' bears any relation to "internationalism" is a sick joke. According to Lenin, "There is one, and only one, kind of internationalism, and that is working wholeheartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and revolutionary struggle in one's own country, and supporting ... this struggle, this and only this line in every country without exception" (VI Lenin CW Moscow 1977, Vol 24, p74).

Now, we ask readers - does this sound like the CPB? It seems that it is Mr Holden who is "confused".

We still urgently need support both for legal expenses incurred so far and to defray the heavy future costs of a challenge in the courts. Send cheques and postal orders payable to CPGB. For copies of the petition against the ban, write to us at BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX.

Mark Fischer
national organiser