The Future of the Socialist Alliance
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The Socialist Alliance in England and Wales and the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) are crucial to the future of the left in Britain. They are part of a larger political development taking place across Europe in response to the reshaping of the traditional parties of the working class. A hugely positive initiative, the Socialist Alliance has come a long way.
Here Socialist Alliance National Executive members Alan Thornett and Mandy Baker look at how has it developed and where it needs to go.
The collapse of Stalinism was followed, during the 1990s, by the collapse of European social democracy into neo-liberalism. The traditional parties of the working class began to jump ship, becoming ardent enforcers of the Maastricht neo-liberal agenda.
In Britain, where the trade unions suffered heavy defeats in the 1980s, Blairism captured control of the Labour Party and took it further to the right, abolishing Clause 4 and demolishing its internal democracy. The Labour left went into steep decline.
The result was a crisis of working class representation which was reflected in a partial collapse of support for Labour in its traditional areas and a shift of the Labour vote into traditional Tory constituencies. A gap was opening up to the left of Labour which the left has been challenged to fill. Blairism disillusioned millions and thousands of former Labour supporters were looking for a new political home.
At the same time there was a growing radicalisation of young people enthused by Seattle and the rise of the anti-globalisation movement. This new movement has survived the war drive that followed September 11 and been further radicalised by these events.
These developments created a new political landscape. Previously revolutionaries could provide an alternative to social democracy and Stalinism in the labour movement by a class struggle stance.
The task today is different. Whilst fighting for revolutionary change we need to create a vehicle that can give real political expression to those disenfranchised to the left of New Labour. This means the creation of new, broad, pluralist, democratic and socialist parties.
The left began to take up this challenge at the European level during the 1990s. Communist Refoundation emerged in Italy from the break-up of the CP, the United Left in Spain, the Left Bloc in Portugal, and the Red Green Alliance in Denmark. The expression of this in Britain was the Socialist Alliances in England and Wales and the SSP in Scotland.
The SSP has rapidly emerged as a significant force in Scottish politics, and is set to improve its position at the forthcoming Scottish Parliamentary elections. Opinion polls over the last three months have constantly shown support for the party at around 8 per cent.
Today the way forward is through such parties. Revolutionaries must work to build them in a pluralist and democratic framework.
In this context, the far left is changing. Isolationist attitudes are receding as members of organisations long antagonistic to one another collaborate in a range of campaigns. They are working side by side against the war, against neoliberal globalisation, against racism and in defence of the Palestinians, and most significantly in the new broad political organisations themselves.
Old divisions are disappearing. The fault lines that have divided the far left for over 60 years - the class nature of the USSR and entrism into the Labour party - have evaporated. The USSR no longer exists and entrism is no longer a mainstream debate.
Although a debate continues on the character of the remaining Stalinists states and the process of transition to capitalism, it is no longer a key dividing line. The SWP no longer defines itself on the basis of state capitalism, although it defends it as a theory. This is a sea change from the time when the two big far left organisations, the Militant and the SWP, contemplated each other from inside and outside of the LP respectively.
The breakthrough for the SA in England was the decision of the SWP to come into it fully at the time of the London elections. Soon afterwards the SWP took the decision to join the Scottish Socialist Party as a platform. This was an event of major significance. It opened up a new situation on the left in Britain.
Since then the Alliance in England has established itself as an organisation. It has held a successful constitutional conference, gained some credible election results and organised a very successful trade union conference. It has intervened into the unions on the political fund - an issue that goes to the heart of the relationship between the unions and new Labour. It has also been in the forefront of campaigning against the war drive and in defence of the Palestinians. Momentum has been maintained despite the walkout of the Socialist Party from the conference.
Despite these successes and the ongoing commitment to it of the organisations involved, including the SWP, there is no common view as to how the Alliance should develop beyond its present stage. This leaves an uncertainty of perspective that will repeatedly emerge.
At the moment the Socialist Alliance has a constitution akin to a party constitution, and it established an extensive political platform for the general election. It is therefore not - as the SWP argues - a united front in any meaningful since of the term. It is a political organisation with the responsibility to address the full range of political issues and with the objective of creating a political alternative to Blairism and all it represents. It cannot therefore continue indefinitely at this intermediate stage.
At the Alliance Annual General Meeting due to take place in February 2003, the debate will reopen as to how the SA develops into its next stage. The SWP does not rule out a move to a full party structure and method of functioning in the indefinite future, but is extremely reluctant to contemplate such a move at the present time.
It is true that the basis does not exist now to complete the move towards a party. There needs to be agreement, however, on the conditions which would be necessary and what needs to be done to bring them into existence. The Alliance needs new successes and a new intake of recruits breaking from new Labour and emerging from the new radical layers, to complete this process.
But this must be clearly understood and discussed in advance if the move is to be made successfully even when the conditions are right.
The nature of such a party needs to be clearly understood as well. We are not talking about a revolutionary party. That is for the future. Those who advocate it risk reducing the Alliance to its revolutionary components. At this stage in the struggle we are talking about a radical left party based on a programme of action in defence of the working class, and with the aim of creating a new broad-based alternative to Blairism.
While the conditions for such a party are not likely to exist by the time of the AGM, which is only a few months away, the AGM could set the move to full party functioning as a medium-term objective. This would give shape and perspective to the development of the Alliance.
Functioning as a party of the SSP/Communist Refoundation type means moving towards a situation where the agitational work of all those in it, including the far left groups existing as platforms within it, is channeled through the party itself. This is the nettle that has to be grasped. The SWP continues to argue that there are certain times when only a far left party like the SWP can take the necessary initiative. They point to the launching of the antiwar movement, which was carried out by the SWP, as an example.
But why should the elected leadership of a broad party, which was acting as a party on a wide range of issues and developing collective experience, not be able to take such an initiative? It learns how to do so by functioning as a party. The anti-war movement has been highly successful, and the SWP have played a crucial role, but it would not have been less successful if the original initiative had come from the Socialist Alliance.
Closely connected to these debates is the issue of Alliance publications. Producing a broadsheet for the anti-war demonstration on September 28 is a step in the right direction.
The debate on publications straddles the practical and the political. At the moment there are not the resources or organisational structures for a regular well produced publication (not necessarily a paper) and its effective distribution. But how do we get there? The importance of a publication in the political development of the SA towards becoming a party must be recognised.
The Scottish Socialist Party, of course, cannot be an exact model for such a party in England. The relationship of forces between the revolutionary organisations within it are very different. We don't have the equivalent of the Scottish Parliament in England around which to construct a public profile. But attacks on workers and communities here are just as real and there are many opportunities to sink roots and build support between elections. We also have a radicalising political situation around the US war drive and its consequences. These can give us openings and can bring new people into the Alliance.
The Alliance is beginning to address this audience with the conference at the end of November on the new imperialism, and it is participating in the European Social Forum in Florence. SA representatives have also attended conferences of the European left designed to co-ordinate broad parties and organisations across the continent.
These positive developments, however, need to have an objective and a framework, and that must be the aim of developing toward a party. At a certain stage the Alliance will either go forward or it will go backwards. We have to ensure that it goes in the right way. Timing is key but moving too late poses as big a danger as moving too early.
The far-left in Britain has a unique opportunity. The demise of Stalinism, the decline of the Labour left, and the crisis of working class representation, bring it closer to centre stage than at any time since the 1920s.
It is able to mount initiatives that were previously outside of its preserve, for example taking the leadership of the anti-war movement. The way it responds over the next few years to the building of broad and inclusive left parties will determine the future and role of the left for a long time to come.