Weekly Worker 497 Thursday September 25 2003

Learn the lessons

The dismal inability of the Socialist Alliance to take advantage of New Labour’s difficulties was well and truly exposed by the September 18 Brent East parliamentary by-election.

True, Tony Blair’s Labour Party was given, in the words of home secretary David Blunkett, a “bloody nose” in what was supposed to be one of its safest seats. As a result Liberal Democrat candidate Sarah Teather romped home. Labour’s share of the vote fell from over 63% in the 2001 general election to just 33.76% last week, while the Lib Dems - who did not get a single councillor elected in Brent East and have hardly any activists in the constituency - almost quadrupled their percentage of the poll.

Despite an energetic campaign and a good candidate in Brian Butterworth of the Socialist Workers Party, the SA could only pick up 361 votes (1.73%). This compares to the 383 managed by the Socialist Labour Party’s Iris Cremer in 2001 (admittedly on a bigger turnout) and the 466 notched up by Stan Keable (a CPGB member standing for the SLP) in the 1997 general election. Comrade Keable, it should be noted, stood against ‘red’ Ken Livingstone and on an openly revolutionary platform. He was also publicly disowned by SLP president Arthur Scargill. This time, of course, he supported and worked for Brian Butterworth.

According to SA national secretary Rob Hoveman, “With two major parties pouring resources into the election and with the election being conducted under first past the post, the Socialist Alliance was bound to have an uphill struggle to register a vote, and so it turned out” (SA e-bulletin, September 23).

But, asks Stan Keable, “Why such fatalism? Although we could not match the resources of the mainstream parties in terms of finance, we certainly made up for this when it came to enthusiasm.” The SA had fewer canvassers than the Liberal Democrats and Labour (even London mayor Ken Livingstone joined the 200 or so MPs who flooded into the constituency to back defeated candidate Robert Evans). But with 150 campaign workers we were not that far behind the Tories and certainly ahead of the Greens.

The SA’s inability to make an impact results from its lack of any national profile or sense of purpose. “Every time I spoke to someone,” explains comrade Keable, “I had to start from scratch”. They “usually don’t know who we are or what we stand for”. As for the SWP leadership, it “doesn’t appear to have a clue about where to take us”. The SA is an officially registered party, but at the last AGM the SWP voted down the aim of campaigning for a new workers’ party - “that leaves the SA as neither fish nor fowl.” And, concludes comrade Keable, “People vote for parties, not on-off SWP united fronts of a special type”.

In the past the SA had done much better in similar circumstances. In the very first by-election contested by the SA in June 2000, the SWP’s Weyman Bennett gained 885 votes, saving his deposit with 5.4%. This was in Tottenham, a seat which, like Brent East, has a high proportion of ethnic minority voters, and where of course the mainstream parties were also able to concentrate their resources.

Comrade Hoveman argues: “What was a very difficult position was made far worse by a number of left candidates standing with very similar policies.” Obviously, not untrue. Apart from the Greens, who cannot necessarily be described as a left party, the SA was in competition with at least three other anti-war candidates. And then there was Kelly McBride, standing for justice for her brother, murdered by British troops, and a candidate standing against a post office closure. Despite the efforts of the SA through Brent’s convention of the left, we failed to produce a single left candidate. That undoubtedly cost. The array of candidates lessened the impact of the SA.

However, we must seriously ask ourselves why the SA did not have the credibility to attract to itself at least some of these “leftish fringe candidates” (we can exclude Scargill’s ultra-sectarian SLP). For example, Fawzi Ibrahim (Public Services Not War) is not only a leftwing Iraqi exile, but a trade union activist, who spoke as a delegate of the lecturers’ union, Natfhe, at the recent TUC congress. Neil Walsh, who stood against post office closures, is a Communication Workers Union member employed by Royal Mail, while Harold Immanuel, a dissident member of Brent East Labour Party, preferred to stand as Independent Labour.

The truth is, the circumstances of the by-election ought to have been very favourable for the Socialist Alliance. In a constituency with an 11% muslim population and over 50% from ethnic minorities, it is generally agreed that opposition to the war on Iraq played a significant part in the outcome. The left - mostly in the shape of the SWP - was at the helm in the Stop the War Coalition, which had a major role in organising and mobilising for the anti-war actions, not least the magnificent, two-million-strong February 15 demonstration.

But the Socialist Alliance was deliberately sidelined by the SWP in the anti-war upsurge. There were no SA speakers on any major STWC platforms, while SA banners, placards and leaflets hardly featured. SWP comrades, including leading members of the alliance, did speak on numerous occasions, but never wearing their SA hats. SWP members were instructed not to do SA work.

What is more, the STWC leaders made a huge tactical blunder by permitting Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy to appear on the February 15 Hyde Park platform. He was allowed to pose as the leader of the only mainstream party claiming to be against the war - although, of course, within a few weeks he was marching his troops behind Blair, insisting, as everyone knew he would, that it was essential to ‘support our boys and girls’ once the conflict actually started.

Stopping Kennedy speaking on February 15 would have run against the grain of the SWP’s numbers strategy. Yet a public clash with Kennedy would have hardly effected the turnout. More to the point, it would have been politically astute. A sharp line of demarcation would have been drawn between the anti-war party and the Liberal Democrats. We should have seized that opportunity and faced down the criticisms and brickbats. Instead the SWP shrank back, craving respectability and fearing a split. Timing was left for Kennedy to calculate. As a consequence, in Brent East the Liberal Democrats claim the anti-war mantle - thanks in no small measure to February 15 and the short-sighted generosity of the SWP and their allies in the STWC.

Another organisation given an undeserved helping hand by the SWP is the Muslim Association of Britain. Although it was probably tactically correct for the STWC to agree to merge its September 28 2002 demonstration with an MAB march which had been called on the same day, there was no reason whatsoever to continually promote this reactionary and largely unrepresentative body as a joint sponsor of STWC demonstrations ever since. MAB is the British branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and tends to organise Arab muslims, certainly not the entire so-called ‘muslim community’.

The MAB repaid the SWP’s generosity in Brent East by declaring that the treacherous Liberal Democrats were the “best choice for muslims” and afterwards even tried to claim credit for the result: “… the muslim community has once again proved its profound influence on the outcome of elections, as well as its agreement with the sentiments of the British people” (statement, September 19).

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee was another group spreading illusions in Kennedy’s gang that had an over-inflated sense of its own importance: “MPAC made history in the UK, as the first ever candidate was defeated by a muslim bloc vote. The ummah [believers] had taken up a political jihad and delivered a bloody nose to the government that attacked Iraq” (MPAC UK website).

But just how damaged is Blair by this shock defeat? Obviously, the Labour leadership would have rather held onto their seat but, if they had to lose out, then how much more preferable was going down to the Liberal Democrats than to the Conservatives? In fact, while there was a 29% swing from Labour to Lib Dem, there was a 15% swing from the Tories, whose vote was also slashed.

Blair knows full well that only the Conservatives can defeat him at the next general election, but, on this showing, the Lib Dems are more likely to inflict losses on them than on the Labour Party - after all, 75 out of Kennedy’s top 100 target seats are held by the Tories. Kennedy himself made it clear that he has no hope of defeating Blair nationwide: “The Tories are the big losers from this contest. It blows a hole in the idea that the Conservatives’ recovery is underway. We’re now on course to overtake the Tories as the principal party of opposition.”

Thus, while Blair is still in deep trouble - his front men are weaving their pathetic lies before the Hutton enquiry, the ‘big four’ unions are joining forces to oppose him at the Labour conference, his MPs are rebelling over foundation hospitals and his spin doctors thought he was so much of a liability in Brent East that they advised him to stay away - his party nevertheless looks a safe bet for the next general election.

Many Labour activists refused to campaign in Brent, and a good number of traditional Labour voters, seeing no viable alternative, stayed at home on polling day. Blair will not be bothered by the low turnout - he showed in 2001 that he can win despite a large number of abstentions (disillusioned or otherwise).

The Socialist Alliance must learn the lessons. Discontent and anger with New Labour does not automatically translate into SA votes.

Peter Manson

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