Alliance gains strength and confidence
The Socialist Alliance has continued to make remarkable strides forward over recent weeks. No wonder the BBC has decided we are the foremost of the minor parties.
While the Alliance was ready for expected election on May 3, the postponement until June 7 will undoubtedly allow these processes to continue still further. This increasing strength can be measured at a number of levels:
New Socialist Alliances are being formed in places were we didn’t previously exist.
Candidates are being selected in areas where activists were not confident that we had the capacity to stand. 88 are in place as we go to press, and the list is still growing.
Liz Davies’ decision to leave the Labour Party and support the Alliance is causing many others to think about following her.
Local alliances are working better. pulling in new activists.
At a national level, meetings have been extremely constructive and practical with an amazing degree of consensus.
As a result of all of this we have achieved a relatively high degree of media coverage both nationally and locally, which itself reinforces the positive dynamics.
The Birmingham conference at which the manifesto was adopted was a watershed. Sharp political debate took place over a wide range of policy areas, but in the end there was one question at the heart of most disagreements. The issue that needed to be settled was what kind of organisation are we trying to build.
Some comrades, particularly members of Workers’ Power, the CPGB and RDG, argued that the Socialist Alliance should adopt a full revolutionary programme.
The majority, including the International Socialist Group, SWP and AWL argued that to take this road at this time would cut us off from our potential audience .
It was a difficult issue to grapple with, given the fact that undoubtedly the majority of those present at Birmingham – indeed probably the majority of those currently active in the Alliance at any level – are revolutionary socialists.
The point is not at all that we want to hide our politics, but that the exciting potential of the project lies in our ability to win those breaking from new Labour to become involved in building a socialist alternative. Many of these people still hold reformist ideas, while many others have not had the opportunity to discuss how the sort of society they want to see can best be achieved.
This is the crucial audience that the Alliance has to reach out to and this needs to be done on the basis of campaigning work as well as electoral profile.
Maturity
Given that the stakes were so high, and the long history of sectarianism on the British left, the degree of maturity and calmness with which the Birmingham conference managed to address these questions was remarkable.
The commitment of those who had argued for a different approach to the Socialist Alliance itself was also shown by the fact that when the full manifesto was put to the vote at the end of the day only one comrade voted against.
The only negative factor within all these processes is the increasing absence of the Socialist Party, which had less than 20 comrades at the Birmingham conference.
While Socialist Party member and national chair of the Alliance Dave Nellist has played a full and positive role, at the last two national meetings he has been the only member of his organisation present. This pattern is replicated in most local areas, where Socialist Party branches effectively boycott Alliance activities and meetings.
We have argued many times in these pages that it will be the Socialist Party itself that will pay the price for their sectarianism. As the Socialist Alliance grows ever stronger, this will be even more the case than previously.
Meanwhile the Socialist Alliance is making plans to ensure that the best use is made of the extra time given to us by Blair.
We will be working round a number of key political focuses including :
Building the CND demonstration outside Downing Street on April 14
Organising a national day of action against PFI to coincide with the next strike of the Dudley hospital workers
Campaigning against New Labour’s outrageous support for so called "intellectual property rights" of the drug companies.
Mobilising for the UNISON low pay demonstration in Manchester on April 28
The election broadcast that Ken Loach is putting together will bring to people’s living rooms a picture of the breadth of experience, talent and ideas represented by our candidates up and down the country.
In addition we will be preparing to launch our manifesto as a pamphlet which can be sold by activists on the door steps, in campaigns and workplaces and from stalls.
This will give us the opportunity to get across the breadth of issues on which we have something to say and present a vision of a society which is fundamentally different from the profit hungry, poverty ridden Britain which New Labour presides over.