THE LABOUR Party purge in Leeds, launched over the Liz Davies affair, is far from over.
Following the expulsion of Mike Davies and Celia Foote, three of the branches in Leeds North East have been reinstated, but the Constituency Party and the largest, most active and most socialist of the branches remain in limbo.
Individual members in Leeds North East also remain suspended, including Councillor Garth Frankland, whose main crime seems to have been calling Gordon Brown a bastard in a pub conversation.
The Labour Party machine is now rumoured to be casting its net wider. The latest victim in the Regional Office's unending search for witches is apparently Leeds Campaign Group. The Group has nearly fifty members, many of them active branch, constituency or district party officers.
This layer of people, at least in Leeds, is not prepared to let the Blair juggernaut crush them entirely, without putting up a spirited res srince I he party machine's control is not yet finally established, in spite of their 'victory' in Leeds North-East - hence the need to renew the purge. At the recent District Party AGM, a Campaign Group member was only narrowly defeated for the post of Chair The basis of the charges against the Campaign Group, which nas not yet been officially advised of the investigation, is rumoured to be that it is a 'cross-party' grouping, with links to the Socialist Party (SP) and the Socialist Labour Party.
The foundation for this absurd allegation is thought to be a public debate organised by the Campaign Group well over a year ago, on the way forward for socialists.
Although both the SP and the SLP were invited, only the ex-Militant grouping turned up. The speaker for the Campaign Group argued, not surprisingly, for socialists to continue in Labour Party membership.
The overwhelming majority of speakers from the floor supported this, while voicing their concerns over the direction the party was taking.
The only party that any member• of Leeds Campaign Group belongs to is the Labour Party. The accusation of 'cross-party' activity is a little strange coming from a leadership that is busy forming a close alliance with the Liberal Democrats.
It is likely that the Group will remain in solidarity with those who have already been unjustly expelled from the party, and with those who may be expelled in the future. It will continue to debate and campaign with others on the left.
As long as it is able, it will surely resist the attempt to turn the party of labour into just another party of capital. individual recruitment, or just founded in one go, but can only develop through a process of debate and clash of ideas, linked to experience and recomposition.
Nor do we think that the first attempts to build a new alternative left party in Britain will create a revolutionary party, but we are prepared to loyally build a new left or class struggle party, if it allows democratic discussion, the right of tendency and. separate publications.
A new party which includes forces from the Labour Party, ex-CP forces and trade union lefts, which is essential if it is to be credible, is unlikely to be a revolutionary party in the first instance.
This is one reason why the revolutionaries must remain organised to fight for their ideas, and that includes currents like Socialist Perspectives who would surely not like to hand over a new workers' party to another Arthur Scargill.
Principled politics, the right to organise for all tendencies, transparency and full accountability will be essential ingredients in any new workers' party.