|
So the former councillors approached us with a view to both groups
getting together to try and analyse the state of the political system
within the United Kingdom. Was there any chance of the Labour Party
reforming itself to actually represent the working class? There
was also the point of view from the dockers - we’ve got our
own building right in the city centre, which houses a number of
trade union and political meetings. In all those meetings there
arises this one common complaint: no matter how we proceed in terms
of coming up with good policies in the interests of working class
men, women and children, there is no organisation taking up their
case and providing a political voice - where it really matters,
in the chamber of parliament. There had also been a massive sea
change in the way the trade union movement had taken up the fight
of working class people.
We were only too glad to get involved in that discussion with the
47 surcharged councillors to try and work out where it had gone
wrong and, more importantly, what can be done to re-enact a real
working class party, with the main emphasis being on a movement
to try and unite the different factions within the left.
There was also the point of view that both the Liverpool councillors
in the 80s and the Merseyside dockers in the mid-90s had run campaigns
which had started off on a local issue but had mushroomed out on
a national and international basis. They had gained prominence in
the UK and other countries, not just in Liverpool.
Both organisations had the experience of running mass campaigns
and winning support from all quarters in the labour and trade union
movement. So the thing was, if anyone can get things going again,
surely we can. Like us the surcharged councillors are an ageing
group of people - all around the 50 mark, but if there is anything
we can put back to try and set up a new and vibrant, more youthful
movement to challenge the established parties, then we are only
too willing to do that.
How many of the 47 and how many ex-dockers are still active?
There are 15-20 councillors still active, I would say. As for the
dockers, well, our membership base is still 200. We set up a workers’
cooperative at the end of the dispute - the Initiative Factory.
Everything in the building and the property itself belongs to the
sacked dockers, who elect a committee to run it.
We hoped initially that the cooperative would see us back on the
docks. But unfortunately, because of political reasons and because
individuals were being blacklisted, etc, we were never able to achieve
that. There were background manoeuvres conducted by the port authority
to make sure we never got back in the industry where we had spent
all our lives.
So we had to look at ways of retraining, because in 1998, when the
dispute ended, there were a lot of people with no money to support
their families. We tried to find them other jobs, but no-one was
going to do that for us - we could only look to ourselves. We were
able to provide IT training and a good number of people found alternative
employment.
We got a grant from the European Social Fund, so that the sacked
dockers could write the history of their own dispute - a CD, a web
page and in time a book. That helped provide the computers we needed.
Now we are self-financing through some works programmes, although
we do get core funding for the essential workers from Liverpool
council.
As you say, your dispute ended in 1998 and the councillors were
surcharged in the 80s. Tony Blair has been Labour leader for 10
years. So why form a new organisation in 2004? Some might ask, what
took you so long?
We’ve had enough battles of our own - for example, to democratise
the Transport and General Workers Union, which is still ongoing.
Also people in the movement that came together to support the dockers
have moved on to take up other battles - Reclaim the Streets, the
Stop the War Coalition.
We never went away. We were heavily involved in running benefit
gigs, attending solidarity demonstrations for other workers in struggle.
But you can never escape the big picture - the political scene has
shifted in a massive way over to the right.
We had to determine what was the best way forward. Was it to move
away from the parliamentary system altogether, maybe joining the
Reclaim the Streets and anti-globalisation forces? Or should we
try and reclaim the Labour Party? In my view, and the view of a
number of people, Labour is beyond reclaim. If that was the opinion
of the majority, which it turned out to be, the only other alternative
was to try and unite the left with its different factions to set
up a new, democratic socialist party.
Should it be like old Labour or something different?
When you say ‘old Labour’, you have to be specific. It
would be a party that would have a lot of the aims and objectives
of, say, Clem Attlee’s manifesto in 1945 or Harold Wilson’s
in 1964 - without the attacks on the trade union movement, of course.
But it would contain many of the policies for social change. It
would have nothing to do with the manifesto of 1997 or 2001.
A few of the dockers joined Arthur Scargill’s Socialist
Labour Party in 1996. Were you one of those?
Yes, a good number of us joined and I did too. The SLP came right
at the end of our dispute, and what a breath of fresh air that was.
Certainly I remember in Liverpool there wasn’t enough room
in Central Hall to accommodate us all. That should have provided
the catalyst for all of us, but you know yourself what happened.
There were that many splits - people are blaming the leadership
for being too dogmatic when it came to bringing in other parties
and leaving no room for manoeuvre. Unfortunately it fragmented and
many people that joined have now left, including some of the leading
lights. For me it was a crying shame. I left in about 2001.
My view is that the SLP failed because Scargill wanted to control
everything and refused to tolerate views other than his own. He
didn’t try to bring the existing left groups together.
I don’t entirely disagree, but I think that in the first instance
the likes of Arthur Scargill needed to be really firm. I went to
all the founding meetings in Liverpool and there were a number of
groups who joined that were using it for their own ends. But the
leadership might have gone over the top. The left needs to start
trusting one another.
The only point I could never be reconciled with was Arthur Scargill’s
dogmatic attitude - join and dissolve your own party. To me that
was asking a hell of a lot, when you think that people have spent
20 or 25 years within their own party and they have a tremendous
belief in what they’ve been doing. A certain period of time
could have been allowed where dual membership was accepted. But
that’s all in the past.
The Campaign for a Mass Party of the Working Class is proposing
that all the groups close down their publications within a year
of its founding. Do you think those who publish the left’s
three weeklies, the fortnightly and all the monthlies and quarterlies
will agree to shut down and instead send the odd article to Unite?
It doesn’t seem likely to happen.
It most probably won’t, but you’re not facing up the reality
of what’s going on. In the June council elections, there was
the Socialist Party, Respect, the Socialist Alliance, the International
Socialist League and various other leftwing groups. They all stood
on good platforms with their own publications. But if you add all
their votes together, they still wouldn’t have touched the
BNP. People might want to pat themselves on the back, but meanwhile
the far right is growing and they don’t want to face up to
this fact.
You can say all you like, ‘My paper’s better than yours
and we’re going to keep it going’, but I’ll tell
you what - there’s a massive movement now from the far right
and it’s going to smack people in the face: not just the BNP,
but the United Kingdom Independence Party - some of their policies
are extreme, to say the least.
All we’ve said - and it’s only a draft document to try
and get debate going - is that you do need to put a time limit on
it, because at some point, instead of me speaking for the dockers
and the Socialist Party speaking for themselves and so on, there’s
got to be a united voice. We need a common identity. So that’s
why we said, ‘Let them all come in, maintain dual membership,
but only for a certain time.’ But that 12 months could well
be amended.
When it comes to fighting elections, what’s the point of one
left party getting 100 votes and another 250? We have to show everybody
we are united, with one publication going out in every ward, not
all coming out with different messages. The far right goes onto
the big estates with the one message and no infighting about ideology:
the reason why your sons and daughters are not working is because
there are too many immigrants, they say. Sadly they’re getting
support and I’m not going to sit back and let that happen.
If people don’t want to unite to fight that, they’ll never
unite to fight anything.
You’re expressing a very healthy desire for unity within a
single party, which we in the CPGB share. But I don’t think
it’ll be done through ultimatums. What’s wrong with the
different groups coming together behind the paper of the party,
while at the same time being able to publish their own particular
viewpoints as well? That’s what we proposed in the Socialist
Alliance.
That might be the case. We’re in the middle of a series of
sub-committee meetings and the initial discussion paper has already
incorporated lots of amendments.
We’ve now agreed on the name, which is the United Socialist
Party, and when we do go back to the mass meeting, we’ll be
putting that name forward. Most of our inspiration came from when
Tommy Sheridan came down to address us. I know the Scottish Socialist
Party has been going for five years, but they were able to bring
the forces of the left together and we want to take a leaf from
their book. All the groups came in and were allowed to a certain
extent to form platforms.
So it’s not by diktat. We’ve put down a document and people
can agree, delete, amend and change it. Our next full meeting should
be in September - we’ll send you an invite. We’re hoping
to have at least a starting constitution, which could cover everything
up to branch structures. But we’re not going to get involved
in national structures, because first of all we need to set up on
Merseyside. We’re only talking about Merseyside, but at least
we’re doing something.
We’ve got contacts in Wales, where there have also been moves
to start a left organisation, and the London support group want
to get meetings going down there. We’ve also been invited to
Bristol, where the RMT have started something rolling. We need to
set up a group in Merseyside with a clear identity and at some point
a manifesto.
Surely what we need is a national structure from the beginning?
I just don’t think that would take off and that’s the
view of the majority. The Socialist Alliance fragmented into the
Democracy Platform and so on because it was too big a step to start
off with - certain areas of the country fell in line almost immediately,
but …
Actually the SA contested 98 seats across England and Wales in
the 2001 general election. It certainly did work out on a national
level, but it was closed down by the Socialist Workers Party because
they wanted to move on to Respect.
All we’re saying is that on Merseyside the fragmentation is
leading to disillusionment. We need to get our own house in order
first. If we get sorted out here, we can go out around the country
like Tommy Sheridan does.
So you’re asking the national groups that are involved to
close down their publications for a party that will only operate
in Merseyside?
No, we couldn’t ask, say, the Socialist Party to dissolve nationally
- that would be impossible. But what you can say is that on Merseyside
we’re going to take on the battle against the far right and
stand people in elections. But we don’t want five or six different
publications representing our candidates. We want one clear line
and one publication.
After all, it’s happened before. The Merseyside branch of the
SP did dissolve itself when they split with Peter Taaffe. The same
thing happened in Scotland, so we know it can be done.
All we can do is start something and only time will tell. If we
speak again in 12 months I might say, ‘You’re dead right’.
On the other hand, if we take off, I am absolutely certain that
there’ll be a benefit not just in Merseyside, but in a lot
of areas in the country.
Plus the fact that many of the so-called leftwing groups have never
met the working class. They never go to workplace or trade union
meetings. They should come to one of our dockers’ meetings
- it’s no good having all the highfalutin political theory
if you can’t bring those people with you. It’s going to
be a hard enough job doing that here in Liverpool, but to try and
do it on a national basis will be absolutely impossible.
But our meetings will start to grow and grow. It won’t be just
shop stewards - we’re starting to see some factory workers.
I think we’ve got to aim at them and what’s left of the
industrial base within Merseyside.
|
