Weekly Worker 512 Thursday January 22 2004

Respect

Fight for a party

The Convention of the Left promises to found an alternative to New Labour this Sunday at Friends Meeting House in central London. In an attempt to unite those mobilised by the anti-war movement with trade unionists, socialists, environmentalists and “faith communities”, it promises to be all things to all left-minded people.

Communists will work within it to shape it into something of value to our class. If the Respect coalition can cohere into a socialist organisation, superseding the modest gains of the Socialist Alliance, and sink roots throughout British society, then it can play a central role in the fight for the main political task facing our movement - the formation of a working class party prepared to challenge for political power. To this end, communists critically engage with its formation, coming as it does out of an  anti-war movement that produced an upsurge of anti-imperialist sentiment among wide sections of the population.

It is, however, a contradictory development. Highly positive in the attempt to channel the anti-war upsurge into a democratic movement for political change. However, it also reflects the failure of the Socialist Alliance to emerge from the mass protests as the consistent democratic and socialist voice capable of carrying this through. Its birth is a recognition that the SA failed the test of the war.

In order to keep a disparate political alliance together, the Socialist Workers Party, which will surely make up the bulk of the convention, and its allies are junking principle after principle to launch Respect. Open borders and opposition to immigration controls? No thanks. “Too advanced,” says Alan Thornett of the International Socialist Group, an SWP ally. Our elected representatives taking a worker’s wage? Not for us. Might scare Campaign Group MPs away, says Rob Hoveman, the SWP secretary of the Socialist Alliance. Democratic and transparent selection of candidates? Not today, says the SWP. Let’s try to get the Muslim Association of Britain on board instead.

The SWP is definitely taking steps backwards, as it gambles on highly risky and unlikely organisational gains for itself. The optimist in me wishes the convention the best of luck, but I fear that if the Respect ship sinks, the small advance that the Socialist Alliance represents may be dashed against the opportunist rocks.

As we go to print, there is no agenda available. From what I know there are a handful of ‘delete all and insert’ motions for the convention declaration. The Revolutionary Democratic Group, backed by the SA Democracy Platform, is moving one: ‘Britain at the crossroads’ (see p9). Workers Power is moving another. Both are improvements on the draft. I have been told these will be taken first, with the successful substantive motion then open to the amendments received.

I do not know what amendments will emerge on the day. But I do know those being supported by the Democracy Platform (SADP) and they all deserve communist support. On the day, the SWP and its ISG ally will act as political policeman. They will speak left, vote right. We were told at the SA national council that these amendments were acceptable - in the right circumstances, but not this Sunday. Nick Wrack, SA chair and member of the Unity Coalition interim committee, has said that he may support some of these, come the autumn reconvening of the Unity Coalition, but now is not the right time.

Motions supported by the SADP (most of which are drawn directly from People before profit) include: for working class representation on a workers’ wage; for open borders and opposition to immigration controls; what we mean by socialism; for democratic selection of candidates; for republicanism. I understand there is also a motion amending opposition to the euro and calling for an active boycott to any referendum on it. The Communist Party will be moving an amendment for the ‘r’ in Respect to stand for republicanism.

The SA itself is moving three amendments in one to the draft: for a minimum wage of £7.40 an hour, for taxing the rich and freedom for Palestine. While all are supportable, they would not alter the essentially left populist character of the declaration.

Workers Power is also putting forward a motion calling for the formation of a working class party. I see no harm in voting for it, although it is the concrete success or otherwise of the coalition that will place this on the political agenda rather than such a motion at this stage. Its likely defeat could well see WP walk out, as it did from the SA.

The Socialist Party in England and Wales will be attending on Sunday, though I am told it will not move any amendments. Cut out from the initial organisation of the convention, SP representatives were due to attend an 11th-hour meeting with the Unity Coalition interim committee in Coventry on January 23. My soundings suggest that the SP will critically support the Respect coalition from the outside. The Muslim Association of Britain has said it will support the coalition in a similar way.

It seems that there may be less organisational support for the coalition than currently exists for the Socialist Alliance - it is certainly a blow to Galloway that the Communist Party of Britain is staying out, along with, less unpredictably, the Green Party. So just who will be in the coalition? How viable is it? Will it just be the SA plus a few more?

The SWP has been very exercised and excited about the size of the ‘Britain at the crossroads’ meetings held around England and Wales. It is true they have been excellent. But we ought to keep things in perspective. There was much wider interest and enthusiasm around the launch of the Socialist Labour Party than we are now witnessing. The meetings featuring Scargill were generally bigger than what the current road show is attracting.

There are no guarantees in politics. No predetermined outcomes. Those who are adopting an ‘I couldn’t possibly join Respect’ pose are not engaging with reality as it develops. Communists would not have proposed this coalition, but, given its appearance, we will engage with it to continue the fight for the reforged Communist Party our class needs. Respect is obviously not the only site where we carry out that struggle. Those who take their eyes off developments in the trade unions and foolishly dismiss the Labour left as merely an obstacle will be making a big mistake.

Marcus Ström

Convention of the left

Sunday January 25, 10am, Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London

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