SWP and the alliances - ISG Response to Lindsey German's "Third Way" -
Why not make it a real party?
Terry Conway and Alan Thornett
It is positive that Socialist Worker has set out its views on the future of the Socialist Alliance, in an article by Lindsey German in its May 5 edition
German’s article marks the long road that the SWP have travelled since committing itself to the Alliance eighteen months ago. The article proposes that the Alliance be restructured after the General Election more on the lines of a party – a proposal with which we would broadly agree. But it then rejects the idea that this should be a stage towards the Alliance becoming a political party as such.
A year ago the London Socialist Alliance stood in the elections for the Greater London Assembly. Livingstone’s decision to stand for Mayor as an independent after he was robbed of the Labour nomination, convinced the SWP that a new space was opening up to the left of Labour.
But at this point they had only committed themselves to serious involvement in London. It was only after the positive results in London that the SWP moved towards making a national commitment to the Alliance and in so doing began to reshape its structures and contribute to its dynamism.
By the autumn the question of a general election challenge was an issue of debate within the Alliance, with the SWP arguing for this and helping to make its implementation a reality.
Throughout this process the Alliance itself was beginning to develop an identity, a personality.
In town after town Alliance supporters were meeting on a regular basis, campaigning on the streets and debating through ideas and strategies.
Particularly in the wake of Liz Davies’ decision to join the Alliance, a whole host of Labour Party members, many with decades of membership, have become involved. And as several interviews in the May edition of the SWP’s Socialist Review make clear, what most of these people wanted from the Socialist Alliance was a political home.
The Alliance is an almost unique phenomenon in British politics. (almost because of course there are parallels as well as differences with the evolution of the Scottish Socialist Party). For the majority of those involved – and certainly for those who are not aligned to any of the left groups involved, this is a ongoing project.
This reality has been increasingly recognised by the SWP. The major article by John Rees in the current issue of the SWP’s theoretical journal International Socialism, in setting out the political parameters within which the Alliance has developed, strongly indicates that the SWP is involved in the Alliance for the long term. But he doesn’t state it explicitly in the way German does.
There has clearly been debate within the organisation on these issues. As Greg Tucker argues in SO 44, Rees analyses the shift in the objective situation which, in the opinion of the SWP leadership, has necessitated a break with past practice.
But German’s article goes further. It explicitly rejects the idea that after the General Election the organisation should return to its old ways of organising and treat the Alliance as just another arena in which to sell papers or make a few recruits.
She mentions the elections that will need to be fought over the next two years and argues that the Alliance needs to prepare now for those campaigns. She asserts that the Alliance needs to campaign publicly on the key issues on which its pledges have been agreed and build a leadership and infrastructure that will enable it to do so.
All this is excellent – a step forward both for the SWP and for the Alliance.
But unlike many other individuals and groups in the Alliance, the SWP still draws the line at calling for the Alliance to become a party as the next stage beyond this.
Unfortunately German distorts the argument by polemicising against what she calls a "new mass working class party". This is an idea which the Socialist Party calls for at this stage, but which others, including ourselves certainly do not support.
She argues (rightly) that today the bulk of the organised working class have not broken with Labourism and that the movement behind the Alliance is relatively small. She indicates that this cannot change by more effort of will – it will be objective conditions that determine our ability to make this transformation into a new mass party.
All these things are true. A new mass party is not on the cards without higher levels of class struggle and bigger ruptures in the existing labour movement.
But they miss the point. The choice is not between a new mass party and an Alliance. The question we will face in the medium term is whether to maintain the Alliance or move towards a small but significant new left party along the lines of the SSP. This could start the development towards a future new mass party when political conditions make that possible.
Current developments on the left do make an SSP-type party feasible. The political conditions do exist if the left can respond.
Lindsey German partly recognises this in arguing for what she calls a ‘third way’ – the restructuring of the Alliance along the lines of a party without calling it one. This would create something she correctly says would be "short of a full party".
The danger in calling it a party, German says, is that it could degenerate into factional arguments and may founder on new political developments over which there may be sharp differences.
But this is a potential problem within the Alliance anyway – either as it is currently structured or under her third way proposals. Either the left can find a way of containing such differences or it can’t. If it can’t the project will be in danger whatever the structure.
In fact this very point is a compelling argument to moving towards a party structure in the future. A party can have a more politically structured way to deal both with sharp discussion and the democratic resolution of disagreements.
Independent socialists within the alliance, in particular, will at a certain point want it to move towards a party in order that they can participate in a fully structured way, have their say and have their democratic rights guaranteed.
We welcome Lindsey German’s concern about the dangers of forming a party in which the SWP dominates. But we think those dangers will need to be addressed in the Alliance itself, whether or not in becomes a party.
The Socialist Worker article states that the SWP will continue to put forward and support proposals within the Alliance which ensure political pluralism. This is also welcome. What is less clear, either from the article or from practice on the ground is to what extent it has a formed attitude on the question of political debate.
German is worried that in present political conditions discussion could easily be dominated by the existing far left groups. The solution to this problem – which is a real one – is not to stifle debate – which has sometimes been the reaction of comrades on the ground.
The more the Alliance succeeds in winning non-aligned activists, the greater the thirst for discussion will become. After all, those of us in revolutionary organisations already have a forum for discussion within our own groups and publications. If the Alliance is to be the political home that disillusioned Labour party members want, it must be a place for debate.
Of course we all have to learn new ways of having such exchanges. We have to differentiate between discussion where it is important to come to decisions – on issues where we need to act together as an Alliance in public, and those where we can exchange ideas but agree to disagree.
We have to resolve this as part of building the Alliance we need, whatever name we give it.
The final hurdle which German erects is perhaps the most controversial. While she can conceive of a situation where it would be right to build "a party that encompassed people holding quite different views", she again asserts that this would "most likely come out of a mass movement of struggle involving much bigger forces than ourselves, including large groups of workers who had only partially broken with Labourism and reformism."
Leave aside the fact that some of the small groups of workers we are already winning are certainly not conscious revolutionaries, the spectre which she raises is that uniting a new party on minimal demands would lead to either splits or fudges in times of crisis.
But the Alliance today is not, and should not be constructed on a minimum programme. In some senses the key pledges that we have adopted could be seen in this way – but even then the idea that there would be disagreements of a principled nature on how to react to "a controversial strike or a real racist backlash" seems pretty far fetched. Sure there might well be different views about the best tactics to adopt in such a situation – but that is a different question.
But it is not just the pledges that the Alliance has agreed. It has adopted an extensive manifesto agreed at the Birmingham conference in March. What is contained in that document goes far beyond any minimum programme, while at the same time it rightly is not a blueprint for a revolutionary transformation of society.
The Manifesto at least partially adopts a transitional approach and can act as a bridge between the current consciousness of workers breaking from the policies and approach of new Labour. And while adherence to every dot and comma of the document is not a condition of membership of the Alliance, there was an great deal of consensus behind its adoption – including amongst those not from a revolutionary tradition.
The SWP have moved in an positive direction over the last year. Lindsey German’s article commits her organisation to continue on that road, and this augurs well for building a fighting opposition to Blair’s Tory policies.
The ISG hopes that with further debate and dialogue, through the structures of the Alliance, in the pages of the left press and elsewhere, it will eventually be possible to win a convinced majority for taking another step down that road – through the creation of a new left party in England on the lines of the SSP in Scotland.
That way we can reorganise the left on a new basis and build a lasting alternative to the betrayals of Blairism.