The urgents need to build a mass working class and socialist alternative to the big business establishment in Britain has been underlined once again following the recent party political conference season argues Philip Stott of the
International Socialists.
In unison, New Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems all reaffirmed their support for the capitalist free market, privatisation and neo-liberal policies. These policies have resulted in an ever growing gulf between the rich elite and the rest of society over the last 15 years.
A recent investigation by the Guardian newspaper found top bosses’ pay in Britain jumped by 28% in 2005. Over the last four years, boardroom executives have seen their income rocket by 80% while workers’ earnings have risen by a miserly 3.7% a year over the same period.
These disparities in wealth are a direct result of the implementation of savage attacks on workers’ pensions, conditions of employment and casualisation of work, including the exploitation of migrant workers.
This has resulted in a big increase in profitability for the top companies and an increased share of wealth going to the capitalist class. Supermarket giant Tesco has just announced a profit of £1.1 billion for the first six months of 2006. That’s £170,000 profit (before tax) for each full time Tesco worker.
Rocketing house prices and record levels of debt are increasing the pressure on working class families.
These conditions are creating enormous anger and discontent among the working class and sections of the middle class who face the consequences of these policies. Never before has there been a bigger gulf between the outlook of the majority of society and the cocooned bubble in which the main establishment parties live.
For example, privatisation of the NHS is supported by barely one in ten of the population, but New Labour has pledged to drive ahead with its policies. The New Labour health minister claimed there should be "no limit" to privatisation in the NHS. Yet private companies are draining million of pounds a week from the NHS budgets, leading directly to job cuts and hospital closures.
Tony Blair, in his speech to New Labour’s conference in September dismissed the view of 72% of people who believe that the invasions and occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people have made the world a more dangerous and unstable place.
While Blair has announced he is to stand down, his likely successor Gordon Brown is committed to pursuing the same anti-working class policies. As one commentator put it Brown as Prime Minister will be "Blairism with a Scottish accent".
The potential for a mass working class party is urgent and clear, not just in Scotland and Britain but in many countries internationally. A party that takes the side of the working class and helps articulate the burning anger that exists at the devastating impact of neo-liberal policies could make a major impact.
However, the objective need for such a party is not the only question. The forces necessary to ensure such a viable party can be launched and the party’s policy and approach are also decisive.
The building of mass working class parties, which the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) supports, is posed as a key task in many countries in Europe. It has however proved to be a protracted and drawn out process. In a number of countries there has been the emergence of new left or socialist parties that have had a certain impact. These include the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), the party of Communist Refoundation (PRC) in Italy and the recent formation of the WASG in Germany.
However, in all three of these examples, mistaken policies and political direction by the leadership of these parties has resulted in at least a weakening, and in the case of the SSP, the disintegration of a party.
No coalitions with pro-capitalist forces
The PRC emerged after a split in the Italian Communist Party in the early 90s. At its height, it had a membership of 100,000 and the potential, with the correct policy, to develop a mass base in Italy. However the PRC have, under the leadership of Faustino Bertinotti, joined a government coalition and have taken ministerial positions in the "centre-left" but pro-capitalist Unione led by Romano Prodi.
This very unstable government has announced its intention to cut the Italian budget deficit, under pressure from the IMF, from 4% to 3% of GDP. But it is clear it will be the workers and especially their pensions that will be the number one target for Prodi as the government prepares to unload the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class. Unless the PRC clearly come out against these neo-liberal attacks and pursue an independent working class policy in opposition to cuts and in support of working class interests, they will rapidly undermine their base. A major crisis is erupting in the PRC over these questions.
In Germany the emergence of the WASG (Election Alternative for Work and Social Justice) was as a direct result of the experience of eight years of the Red-Green government and an unprecedented assault on the working class and the unemployed. The CWI enthusiastically supported and helped to build this new party, launched by trade union officials and a layer who had broken with the German Social Democrats – SPD. However, the WASG leadership have since proposed a rapid merger with the Left Party – the ex - east German Communists who are taking part in coalitions with the SPD at a regional level in Germany, including Berlin. The Left Party have supported privatisation and attacks on workers’ bargaining rights and it is possible that if this merger goes ahead, then the WASG can lose the potential it had.
The forces of the CWI in Germany, who have a big influence in the Berlin WASG, won support among WASG members to stand independently of the Left Party in Berlin. This is because the Left Party are seen as attacking workers and supporting anti-working class policies. This anti-cuts stand in Berlin, opposed by the WASG leadership, was rewarded when 52,000 (3.8%) people voted for the Berlin WASG, which was standing for the first time in the recent regional elections.
In contrast, the Left Party which is in a cuts’ coalition with the SPD in Berlin, saw its vote plummet from 22.6% to 13.4% - a loss of 180,000 votes. If the merger between the Left Party and the WASG goes ahead on the basis of support for coalitions with the SPD, the Berlin WASG may have to stand alone. However, the courageous stand by the Berlin WASG, which had an impact across the whole of Germany, has put an important marker down for the future. They have shown that a principled anti-cuts and pro-working class alternative can be built.
The SSP
The SSP was launched in 1998 and the CWI welcomed all the steps forward that the SSP made in its early years. We participated and worked to build the SSP at all levels since its formation.
The election of Tommy Sheridan in 1999 to the Scottish Parliament and the drawing around the SSP of an important layer of workers, trade unionists and young people was a positive development. The electoral advances in 2003 when six MSP’s were elected and 130,000 people voted for the SSP, and the historic decision of the Rail Martime and Transport union (RMT) to affiliate to the party, which earned the union expulsion from the Labour Party, were all important steps forward.
These advances for the SSP underlined the potential to build a significant working class and socialist party in Scotland. With a genuine Marxist leadership these advances could have been built on and the SSP could have deepened its roots in the working class and society generally.
However, it was the need to maintain an organised Marxist force inside the SSP, based on the programme of the CWI, that formed the core of the disagreements between us and many of the leaders of the SSP who left the CWI in 2001.
The early successes for the SSP were accompanied by the political abandonment by the majority of the leadership of the SSP of Marxist ideas and the methods of the CWI. We warned this would have consequences for the ability of the SSP to sustain those early successes.
Increasingly the SSP leadership began to move away from a working class outlook and consistent socialist policies. Instead they argued for Scottish independence and the "break up of the UK" on a capitalist basis and downplayed the party’s founding policy of an independent socialist Scotland. This was done at the same time as the mood amongst the majority of the working class on the national question was receding following the establishment of the Scottish parliament in 1999.
The leadership declared a central plank of the SSP’s strategy would be the launch of an Independence Convention, a political bloc with the pro-capitalist SNP, without any possibility of it drawing in working class forces at that stage.
They also put forward support for alternative models of capitalism such as a "social" Europe rather than a socialist Europe and promoted the "Scandinavian" social-democratic model as an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism. This was done at the same time as successive Scandinavian governments were launching massive attacks on the working class, axing public sector spending and carrying out privatisations. This turn to reformist and left nationalist ideas was accompanied by an increasing emphasis on elections as a way of building support for the SSP.
These differences brought us into collision with our ex-members, which also included Tommy Sheridan.
Even before the collapse in support for the SSP following Tommy Sheridan’s resignation, the Party had suffered setbacks, including in the 2004 European elections. An important factor in this was the perception that the SSP was losing its "cutting edge" raising doubts and questions in the minds of its supporters.
However, despite our political differences with Tommy Sheridan, we recognised the catastrophic mistake the leadership made in their handling of events in November 2004. At a meeting of the SSP EC, they called for the resignation of Tommy Sheridan as national convenor over possible tabloid stories about his personal life.
A serious Marxist leadership would have never approached these issues in the way the SSP leadership did. To "protect" the Party they decided on a strategy of putting as much distance as possible between themselves and Tommy Sheridan. This led to his resignation as SSP convenor and had an immediate and dramatic effect on the SSP’s electoral position. For example in the 2005 general election, the SSP share of the national vote slumped by 40% compared to 2001 and was 60% lower than the 2003 elections. The most recent opinion poll, before the court case, had the SSP at 1%.
Despite our political differences we recognised Tommy Sheridan’s standing and authority among the working class. An overwhelming majority of SSP supporters identified with the SSP through Tommy Sheridan because of his role in the mass anti-poll tax struggle in the late 80s and early 90s when he was a member of the CWI. At its height 18 million people across Britain refused to pay the hated tax and it was eventually scrapped forcing the resignation of its architect Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Tommy Sheridan was sent to prison for his anti-poll tax activities and was elected from his jail cell to Glasgow Council in 1992.
The SSP leadership seem to have been completely blinded to that reality, which in itself is an important indication of how far they have become removed from the outlook of the working class. Their mistakes are rooted in their break from the CWI and principled Marxist methods.
Court case
Detailed "minutes" of that November 2004 EC meeting had been kept by the SSP leadership, including alleged admissions by Tommy Sheridan about his private life. They then admitted in the press that a minute existed. These minutes, deliberately and consciously kept, were clearly designed to force Sheridan to drop the defamation case or face the consequences in court.
11 SSP EC members, including three MSP’s, were called by the News of the World (NOW) to give evidence and confirm the accuracy of the minute of November 2004. Nevertheless, Tommy Sheridan, who had sacked his legal team half-way through the trial, won his libel action. The jury also awarded him the largest damages ever in a Scottish court for defamation – £200,000.
His court victory, against all the odds, was greeted with huge enthusiasm by the working class in Scotland. There have been dozens of stories of cheering and applause in the pubs on the Friday afternoon when Tommy Sheridan left the court with his fist clenched in victory. It was seen as a victory for the little guy against the Rupert Murdoch empire; for a socialist against an anti-trade union and anti-socialist rag.
The SSP leadership publicly accused Tommy Sheridan of lying and demanded an apology from him. Some SSP branches, controlled by the pro-leadership faction (United Left), called for Tommy Sheridan’s resignation. A campaign began in Glasgow among the United Left to have him deselected as an SSP candidate. The Party newspaper and the SSP website, controlled by the leadership, printed the November 2004 minutes and a diatribe entitled "the fight for the truth". Not a single word from Tommy Sheridan or those opposed to the SSP leadership was allowed in the Party newspaper, the website or the members’ bulletins produced after the court victory.
It was clear that the United Left faction of the SSP would never accept Tommy Sheridan’s victory. Instead they were involved in a policy of unprecedented attacks on him that was causing immense damage to the socialist movement in Scotland.
The CWI in Scotland therefore, along with MSP’s Tommy Sheridan, Rosemary Byrne and hundreds of other SSP members, supported the launching of a new socialist party.
Solidarity – Scotland’s Socialist Movement was launched at a 600-strong rally in Glasgow in September. The urgent need to break from the SSP leaders’ unacceptable methods and to rebuild the socialist movement on a principled basis necessitated the launch of a new party.
The campaign of denigration by the SSP leadership continued unabated. At the beginning of October, the News of the World (NoW) unleashed a new attack on Tommy Sheridan. The NoW claimed to have bought a video tape (reportedly for £20,000) from a member of the SSP and the United Left faction, which is the de facto leadership of the SSP.
The NoW claims that the video tape shows Tommy Sheridan admitting to an SSP member and former friend, George McNeilage, that he did visit a swingers’ club in Manchester, something he denied in court.
The pages of The Sun and the NoW have become more akin to the in-house journals of the SSP leadership since Tommy Sheridan’s victory. Page after page has been devoted to prominent SSP members demanding police enquiries, perjury investigations and now the resignations of Tommy Sheridan and fellow Solidarity MSP Rosemary Byrne from the Scottish parliament.
The NoW described the eleven SSP members, who gave evidence for the NoW in court, as "men and women of honour" and "decent and honest". The SSP leadership are dragging the name of socialism through the mud. While discrediting themselves, they seem to have no motivation other than to assist the bitterest enemies of socialism and the working class in their campaign against Tommy Sheridan.
The split in the Scottish Socialist Party was the responsibility of the SSP leadership and a direct result of their actions before, during and after Tommy Sheridan’s spectacular victory over the News of the World. Even at this early stage, a few weeks after its launch, Solidarity has outstripped the SSP in terms of the numbers of socialists now organised under its banner. Tommy Sheridan addressed a rally in Dundee in early October at which 250 attended in the biggest political meeting in Dundee for years.
What programme
It is vital that this new party turns to the working class with a bold campaigning programme. The CWI, who are playing a leading role in Solidarity, are arguing that the new Party should take up the day-today issues facing working class communities suffering the brunt of neo-liberal attacks. Solidarity must build its roots in campaigning branches in those communities and workplaces to offer a socialist alternative to these attacks. That includes, of course, opposition to the imperialist wars in the Middle East and the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
This strategy put forward by the CWI in Scotland, among others, has put us in opposition to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) who are opposed to Solidarity - SSM being a clearly socialist party.
The SWP have argued that the new party should overwhelmingly concentrate on anti-war work without linking this to an explanation of the need for a socialist solution to end war and imperialist inspired slaughter. The SWP believe that to argue for socialism and for a working class orientation for Solidarity will put people off joining. In practice, the opposite is the case. If the new Party bases itself on communities fighting NHS cuts and school closures and trade unionists in struggle, and fights for a decent minimum wage and an end to low pay and poverty as well as anti-war and anti-racist campaigning, then Solidarity can build a much bigger base, influence and membership.
The SWP’s extremely narrow prescription for building the "left" in Scotland reflects a lack of confidence in the ability of the working class to draw anti-capitalist and socialist conclusions. This has led them to no longer be prepared to explain the need to build a movement with socialist policies that stands for a complete break with capitalism. The rightward evolution of the SWP has led them to turn away from the working class as the main force in society to which Solidarity should appeal.
In practice, Solidarity – SSM can build rapidly by offering a socialist alternative to the pro-capitalist parties in Scotland, including the SNP.
Independence from capitalist parties
There will also be pressure on Solidarity – SSM, which supports an independent socialist Scotland and a referendum on independence, to call for a vote for "independence parties" in May next year. In practice to succumb to this pressure, (which the SSP may well do as they are moving in an even more nationalist direction since the split), means effectively advocating a vote for the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the constituency seats that Solidarity will not contest.
It is clear that the SNP will pursue pro-capitalist policies in power. Inevitably that will put them on a collision course with the working class in Scotland. Any policy that results in socialists advocating a vote for the SNP would, in the eyes of working class people, weaken the ability of a new party to fight to defend working class peoples’ interests. This would especially be the case on the basis of experiencing an SNP government in practice.
While supporting a referendum and the right of the Scottish people to independence should a majority support that in a referendum, the CWI will argue that Solidarity – SSM should take an independent working class position. That means opposition to the policies of the SNP and the other capitalist parties, while fighting for the democratic rights of the Scottish people.
The CWI in Scotland will continue to fight for an independent socialist Scotland, which, we would also advocate, should form a free and equal partnership in a voluntary socialist confederation with England, Wales and Ireland. In other words, we seek to defend the unity of the working class that already exists between workers in Scotland and other parts of Britain in the trade unions, and in common struggle; while at the same time waging an uncompromising struggle against capitalism in Scotland, Britain and internationally.
A key lesson to draw from the SSP crisis, and from the experiences of other left parties in Europe, is the need to build powerful Marxist forces in order to ensure these new parties can maintain a clear working class orientation and consistent socialist policies.
The CWI will work to help build the forces of Solidarity- SSM as a campaigning socialist party in the run up to the May elections next year. Provided the new party makes itself relevant to the working class and maintains its political independence from the pro-capitalist establishment, the forces of socialism in Scotland can rapidly advance in the months ahead.
