Weekly Worker 517 Thursday February 26 2004

You don’t steer a wheelbarrow by sitting in it

Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group gives his view of the decisions of the SA Democracy Platform

The Socialist Alliance is not dead. But it is certainly dying. The key issue for all Socialist Alliance members is whether we should fight to save the patient or whether we should turn the life support machine off to save the electricity. The Socialist Workers Party has been strangling the SA ever since they restricted it to the role of an electoral front. Now after the launch of Respect, the SWP sees no reason for two rival electoral fronts. The end of the SA is nigh.

If all SA members agreed to join Respect, then the SA could simply be left to die of natural causes. But a minority of SA members are refusing to join Respect. The ‘refuseniks’ will not leave the SA and give up the fight for a broad-based workers’ party around the SA’s (republican socialist) programme. Consequently the SWP and their allies are now trying to prevent SA members and various local alliances standing candidates.

The resistance of SA members has forced the SA task group, the leading inner body on the SA executive committee, to submit a motion to SA conference to clamp down on them. It says: “This conference welcomes the establishment of Respect - the Unity Coalition. The Socialist Alliance calls on all its members to support Respect - the Unity Coalition by activity and finance and to join it.” It goes on to call for a national conference at the end of 2004 to decide whether the SA will continue.

Meanwhile the rest of the motion, if passed, would end the rights of local alliances to take democratic decisions to stand, as the Socialist Alliance, in local council or parliamentary elections. Prospective candidates would be subject to approval of another organisation (Respect) and only permitted to stand in the name of Respect regardless of the democratic decisions of SA members.

The motion says that, “where a local branch of the Socialist Alliance, after discussion, decides that it wants to stand a candidate/candidates in the local elections the following procedure will be adopted:

a. The local Socialist Alliance branch will canvass the proposal with the local organisation of Respect - the Unity Coalition;
b. The local Socialist Alliance branch will inform the national executive committee of its decision along with an outline of the reasons for that decision;
c. The national executive committee will raise the wishes of the local SA branch and the reasons with the executive committee of Respect - the Unity Coalition for it to consider adopting the SA proposal to stand a candidate in the local elections under the banner of Respect - the Unity Coalition.”

Last Saturday the Democracy Platform of the Socialist Alliance, the main opposition to the liquidation of the SA, met in Birmingham to discuss this motion, together with the SA conference and the launching of the Respect Unity Coalition. By the end of the meeting the DPSA had voted overwhelmingly not to support or join Respect and to oppose the SA task group motion.

Martin Wicks, a member of the RMT union and Swindon SA, summed up the anger about the task group motion (email February 22). He says: “The task group resolution re SA candidates is nothing other than a ban on standing candidates. Even worse, given the fact that not all members of the SA are joining Respect, the resolution tells them that they can only stand candidates under the banner of Respect, and only then with the permission of the SA executive and the Respect executive. In Swindon there is no Respect group. To set one up in opposition to key members of the SA would simply destroy years of work.”

He goes on to say that “the SWP now seems to be denouncing anybody who opposes Respect, or is even sceptical, as sectarians. You cannot build anything lasting on the basis of such methods. The task group resolution is completely destructive, since it wants to enforce a split based on a disagreement on the issue of Respect. Anybody who opposes the ban on standing SA candidates should attend the SA conference and speak out against this proposal. Do not walk away. Challenge this sectarian and bureaucratic proposal.”

Martin is not a member of the DPSA and did not attend Saturday’s conference. Yet his message is a militant one. In fighting to defend socialism, he comes to exactly the same view as the DPSA meeting. No support for Respect. Go to SA conference and oppose this task group motion. “Do not walk away. Challenge this sectarian and bureaucratic proposal.”

The second major issue at the DPSA meeting was our attitude to Respect. Here there are real differences between a bloc comprised of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, the Stockport SA and the International Socialist League and, on the other hand, the Revolutionary Democratic Group and our allies from Birmingham and Liverpool. Both ‘factions’ are agreed not to join Respect. But the politics behind this are quite different.

The AWL starts from what Respect is not. Respect is not a workers’ party. It is not comprised just of workers. George Galloway is not a worker. Apparently he does not want to be paid a workers’ wage if he becomes a Respect MEP. The AWL line is anti-Galloway and anti-Respect. They will not support or join Respect. They will intervene in the trade union movement to try to prevent Respect getting any support. The AWL mirrors the SWP. It wants to liquidate Respect and build the SA rather than the other way round.

The RDG starts from what Respect is. It is the product of the massive anti-war movement which mobilised both the working class and the middle class. The anti-war movement was implicitly a pro-democracy movement. The role of Marxists is not to take this movement over, but rather assist its development or transformation into a democratic and social movement. The working class has nothing to fear from such a broad movement. On the contrary, the advanced part of the working class must organise itself into a republican socialist party and fight for the leadership.

The broad democratic movement and the workers’ party are complementary. To counterpoise the workers’ party to the democratic movement inevitably leads to left sectarian politics, whose ideological character is economistic and workerist. This means that Respect can only succeed in so far as it is built as a democratic movement. The SA can only succeed in so far as it is built as a broad workers’ party capable of leading the democratic movement. This is the only position inside the SA that does not logically demand the liquidation of either the SA or Respect. But it does require us to fight to change the political direction of both.

Respect is being built as an electoral front, not as a democratic movement, because of the confused politics and perspective of the SWP. When Respect rejected calls for a democratic republic at its founding conference, it made a fundamental and fatal political error. It defined itself dangerously against the democratic movement. It cannot therefore succeed. It will behave like a bull in a china shop. It is destined to blunder about crashing into the Green Party, dividing the Communist Party of Britain, creating problems in the Stop the War Coalition, wrecking the Socialist Alliance. The fact that George Monbiot did not join is a warning sign.

Oh lord, forgive the SWP, for they know not what they are doing. But if god forgives them, the working class should not. We have to say loud and clear - no to Respect. Do not go down the road the SWP are dragging you. We must not follow them. We must stand out against the populist tide which is flowing into Respect. We must have the political courage to say no. The unfortunate thing is that the CPGB have not had the politics to resist the pull of Respect. As Chris Jones reminded them, “You don’t steer a wheelbarrow by sitting in it”.

Therefore ‘not joining Respect’ comes from two sides. First is resistance to the liquidation of the SA. Second is the need for resistance and opposition to the false perspective that the SWP is imposing on the anti-war movement. But this is not enough. We have a responsibility to intervene in Respect and challenge its false perspective. With this in mind the DPSA debated the motion on Respect from comrades Chris Jones, Sue Blackwell, Steve Freeman and Rumy Hasan. This read:

1. This meeting recognises that there are a variety of views on Respect amongst individuals and groups which make up the Democracy Platform.
2. We recognise that the DPSA should take an official (majority) view on Respect which can be represented in our leaflets, etc. Individuals and groups will retain the right to act autonomously.
3. This meeting endorses the policy of critical engagement that informed our intervention at the Respect conference as follows:
   a. DPSA request to meet with Galloway before the conference;
   b. DPSA proposed an alternative strategy set out in ‘Britain at the crossroads’.
   c. DPSA amendments on (i) republicanism, (ii) immigration controls, (iii) worker’s wages for elected representatives.
4. The results of our intervention in Respect were as follows:
   a. we were unable to meet with Galloway;
   b. our alternative strategy and all amendments were defeated;
   c. the aims of Respect, whether as a democratic and social movement or a workers’ party were not clarified. No longer-term perspective was outlined beyond the forthcoming election campaign;
   d. despite Respect pointing to a “crisis of representation” and a “democratic deficit” in the UK, it failed to produce any democratic policies or solutions.
5. The Respect conference did not resolve any issues the DPSA raised. Therefore the DPSA resolves not to join or support Respect.
6. We will continue to build the SA and intervene in Respect as the SA or DPSA.
7. The DPSA intervention around Respect will:
   i. explain why we are not joining Respect on the basis of the policies we put forward to the Respect conference;
   ii. seek a meeting with George Galloway to put our concerns directly to him and report back;
   iii. seek discussions with other non-Respect socialists such as the CPB, Socialist Party and Alliance for Green Socialism to consider whether a joint policy is possible;
   iv. seek further clarification about what sort of organisation Respect is aiming to build.
8. We do not rule out at some time in the future either joining Respect or urging workers to vote for Respect candidates. However, we do rule this out now. This policy will not change until a general meeting of the DPSA makes a decision to the contrary.”

Naturally this motion came under heavy attack. The workerist ‘lefts’ were particularly annoyed that we should want to seek a meeting with Galloway. They will not touch Galloway with a bargepole, whereas we have no problem seeking a meeting with him, or anybody else, if we believe it is in the interest of the working class. Whether Galloway will meet with us is another matter. But there is no harm in asking. We are not joining Respect, but our attitude remains constructive.

A series of amendments were moved. At the end of the voting the motion was in tatters. Everything had been deleted except points 1, 2 and 5. The RDG comrades voted against the amended motion in protest. We can live with the result. But the consequence is that the DPSA has no agreed policy to intervene in Respect.

The worst aspect of this was that the CPGB walked out at the beginning of the DPSA meeting before any of these crucial issues were discussed or voted on.

At the start, the meeting quite wrongly voted to accept the right of non-SA members to vote. The RDG, our allies, the CPGB and John Pearson voted against this. We lost the vote. But it had no practical consequences for voting in the meeting, except the CPGB got up and left. This was a piece of theatrical stupidity, which simply helped the AWL, Stockport SA and ISL against the RDG.

Still, there is only one answer. We intend to fight on.

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