Nous sommes internationalistes

CONTRE LE G8

Depuis 1975 les Chefs d'Etat et de gouvernements des 8 pays les plus riches (1) se réunissent pour évoquer des questions politiques et économiques. On pourrait croire que c'est dans le but de venir en aide aux PPTE (2), PMA (3) ou PVD (4) mais il n'en est rien !

Si de certains sujets préoccupants sont prévus au menu de ces Grands, comme les menaces climatiques ou les guerres. L'OCDE (5) vient de révéler que les engagements pris par le G8 en 2005 en faveur des pays africains sont restés lettre morte. Pire même, ces Chefs d'Etat ont imposé  aux pays pauvres des privatisations massives ainsi que la levée des mesures visant à protéger leur économie !

Cette année le sommet se réunit du 6 au 8 juin en Allemagne à Heiligendamm près de Rostock.

Aujourd'hui, plus que tout autre, le sujet brûlant est celui de la Précarité.

De nombreuses initiatives seront prises du 2 au 8 juin pour dénoncer la politique impérialiste de ces pays, pour contester la légitimité du G8, le droit de cette poignée de Chefs d'Etat de décider du sort du monde.

 Pour connaître ces initiatives (assemblée des précaires et des sans papiers,  journée de l'immigration pour la liberté de circulation, blocus antimilitariste, concerts) voici  2 sites incontournables : http://anti-g8.effraie.org et http://euromarches.org

1 Etats-Unis, Japon, Allemagne, France, Royaume-Uni, Italie, Canada et Russie

2 Pays pauvres très endettés

3 Pays les moins avancés

4 Pays en voie de développement

5 Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques

Changing Times for the Left in Scotland

By Gary Fraser (Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement)

Introduction

2006 will be remembered as a turning point in the fight for socialism in Scotland. Whichever way you look at it, and from whatever side of the fence you sit, the political milieu of Scotland’s radical left has undergone a qualitative change. The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), perhaps the most successful left unity project in Europe has split in two. Undoubtedly, the process of left regroupment has suffered a haemorrhaging blow. There now stands side-by-side, two parties of the left in Scotland, both claiming to be socialist and both fighting for the allegiance of the Scottish working class. So how did this come about? The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of what happened. Attention will be given to the formation of the SSP and its success years and subsequent decline. Moving on, the article will discuss the events that led to the SSP splitting, and the launch of a new breakaway party called Solidarity. 

The Origins of the SSP: Left Regroupment in the 1998-2001

The formation of the SSP represented a huge step forward for the radical left in Scotland. The forerunner of the SSP was the Scottish Socialist Alliance (SSA), a coalition of various left groupings with a Marxist core forming its leadership (Scottish Militant Labour, SML). By the late 1990s, the SSA had matured into a political party, which constituted a major development. The left in Scotland, similar to their counterparts elsewhere, had been plagued by sectarianism and archaic dogma. At a time when neo-liberal hegemony had triumphed across the planet, and the old parties of social democracy had changed political direction in a rightwards trajectory, socialism had become engulfed by its own ‘isms’. There were Marxist Socialists, Trotskyite Socialists and Marxist-Leninist Socialists to name but a few. However you defined your socialism resulted in which socialist schism you were part of. What most of these groups had in common was that a, they were small, and b, marginalised within the working class. There was a tendency to hate one another more than they hated capitalism. When socialists laugh at Monty Python’s People’s Front of Judea/Judean People’s Front sketch, they laugh because it is all so true. To use Labour veteran Tony Benn’s famous quote, there existed too many socialist parties and not enough socialists.

In Scotland, the SSP changed all that, proving that socialists, from whatever persuasion, could work together. This shift in attitude towards a politics of inclusion and unity was influenced by events in the real world, particularly the anti-Poll Tax campaign. The defeat of the hated Poll Tax was one of the factors which led to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher as British Prime Minister. The success of the Poll Tax campaign created a platform for the radical left to work together. It was during the Poll Tax struggle that SML member Tommy Sheridan (jailed for preventing a warrant sale during the campaign) was launched as a national political figure. The Poll Tax struggle radically altered the politics of SML. Being part of a mass movement encouraged them to look outwards beyond their ranks and to begin building alliances that would lay the foundations of what would become the SSP.  

The Scottish Socialist Party 1998-2003: Early Years of Success

The above years can be described as the glory years for the SSP. In 1997, the people of Scotland voted overwhelmingly for a Scottish Parliament. Unlike its British counterpart, the Scottish Parliament was elected on the basis of proportional representation (PR). The more democratic PR system created an opportunity for the radical left to achieve electoral representation. In the first ever election to the new parliament, Tommy Sheridan, at the time SSP Convenor, became the SSP’s sole MSP. (I will discuss the unique role of Tommy Sheridan in the next section). It was during this period that the SSP established itself as a credible force in Scottish politics. The party took its unique socialist message to every corner of Scotland, and within a few short years had achieved branches throughout the country.

Internally, the SSP was for a time one of the most democratic political organisations in Europe. ‘Democratic Centralism’ was abandoned, as a discredited method and anachronistic dogma. In its place emerged a structure that emphasised ‘grassroots’ and ‘bottom up’ approaches to party building. The lifeblood of the SSP would be the local branch. The SSP encouraged factions and tendencies to form, provided they comply with the party programme, which was democratically agreed at annual conference. Furthermore, various groupings and tendencies were allowed to coalesce, for example a youth and women’s network. However, it should be noted that the concept of a party within a party, alongside well-organised and disciplined networks is problematic. Some of the networks suffered from a ‘group think’ and trench mentality, which resulted in block votes and backroom deals. Despite the inherent tensions, the model, for a time, appeared to work. More important was the ways that the SSP looked out beyond its ranks and recruited into the organisation many people who had never before been part of the organised left. 

The party’s principal slogan was that it stood for an independent socialist Scotland. For the old revolutionary left this was problematic, and internally independence was arguably the SSP’s most controversial demand. The policy of independence, and the slogan ‘an independent socialist Scotland’ was a major rallying factor in the SSP achieving success at the ballot box. In terms of strategy, the policy meant the SSP could win votes from the two major political parties in Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Labour Party. Voters to the left of Labour liked the SSP because it raised the banner of socialism, whilst at the same time ‘Left Nationalists’ were drawn into the party’s orbit because the SSP stood for Scottish independence. Alongside a commitment to independence, the SSP was united around a basic programme, which consisted of various demands in the Scottish Parliament, which were linked to broader socialist aspirations. Again, the SSP was breaking new grounds for the far left. Embracing a costed and detailed social policy agenda meant that the SSP was able to shift away from the anti-programmic tendencies of some far left organisations. Furthermore, the success of the SSP was also determined by the way in which it embraced electoralism. For a time, the party successfully linked the work of the parliament to extra parliamentary activity. In practice, the SSP had developed beyond the reformist/revolutionary debates which had caused massive harm to the far left in the past. It was this type of crude posturing which had been the root cause of much of the left’s inherent sectarianism. Theory sometimes lags behind practice, and there was a tendency for the SSP to be ‘anti-theory’ and ‘anti-intellectual’. However, the move beyond revolutionary/reformist debates, the unity behind a coherent programme and the abandonment of shibboleths such as a ‘democratic centralism’, constituted a qualitative break from tradition that should have been analysed in greater detail.

It is important to note that the SSP was more than just an electoral party. The party was at the forefront of the anti-war movement, with many of its leading activists forming the core of the Stop the War Coalition. 2003 represented a high point for the party and the left in Scotland. In February of that year, an estimated one hundred thousand people took to the streets of Glasgow to protest against the war in Iraq. A few months later, over one hundred and twenty thousand people elected six SSP MSPs to the Scottish Parliament. It was the biggest breakthrough for the far left in a generation. Shortly after the breakthrough, the RMT (Rail and Maritime Workers Trade Union) in Scotland, announced that it was affiliating to the SSP. The SSP’s policy of encouraging the trade union movement to disaffiliate from the Labour party was beginning to make headway. Within less than a decade the SSP was pioneering new grounds for the left in Scotland, and was held up as a beacon across Europe of what could be achieved if the left united into a single party.  During the success years 1998-2003 the SSP had reinvented socialism and made it applicable to the twenty first century.

The Role of Tommy Sheridan

Before examining the decline of the SSP it is necessary to touch on the role of Tommy Sheridan. During the success years 1998-2003, Sheridan was elevated to the status of the public face of the SSP, something that was fully encouraged by the SSP leadership. He was by far the most recognisable socialist face in Scotland, and perhaps even the highest profile MSP in the parliament. Remembered for his role in the Poll Tax Campaign, Sheridan was widely conceived of as an anti-establishment figure, a genuine ‘man of the people’. In addition, he was an excellent public speaker, perhaps one of the finest orators of his generation. He was highly effective in communicating with the mass media and was at the forefront of exploiting the media in pursuit of the SSP’s agenda. In an age when the public regard politicians with cynicism, Sheridan had the unique gift of being able to inspire his audience. Following on from his election to the parliament, he travelled to every part of Scotland speaking to packed out town halls and community centres across the country. Behind the scenes, an experienced and disciplined team of organisers were responsible for recruitment and consolidation of the membership, which began to experience a steady growth.

When describing Sheridan, people have spoken of his ‘charisma’ and ‘star status’. Without doubt he played a major part in building the SSP. In particular, he had a talent for communicating socialist ideas to a mass audience and recruiting into the party those who learned their socialism more from the ‘shop floor’ than from the textbook. Moreover, Sheridan was able to speak to that layer of the working class most susceptible to the influences of fame and celebrity culture. And this was something that was rightfully exploited. Furthermore, the SSP always recognised that a fully formed socialist consciousness was not a pre-condition of party membership. Although it was never a one-man band, Sheridan’s role in the SSP was pivotal in taking the party to a broad audience. It should come as no surprise therefore, that when he became the victim of a smear campaign by the News of the World, the SSP would not escape unharmed from the carnage.

The Scottish Socialist Party 2003-2006: The Decline

There were other factors which contributed towards the decline of the SSP beyond the leadership response to the Tommy Sheridan case. Recently the party has begun an internal examination, which has documented the mounting problems faced by the SSP. Two main problems, which I want to highlight here, are in regards to membership and the relationship between the parliament and the party.

Membership

The SSP liked to boast that it had over three thousand members. This claim is questionable and highly problematic. The active layer of the party (by active I mean those who attended branch meetings and participated in campaigning) was much smaller. Moreover, a serious audit concerning national membership was never conducted. The auditing system that did exist would be best described as ‘chaotic’. Members would be audited at branch, regional and national level without any structural coherence. This meant that different levels of the party had different figures in regards to official membership. Coupled with the fact that there was a tendency to include on the membership list people who had left the organisation accurate membership data was non-existent.

The SSP faced difficulties in sustaining and consolidating membership. The vast majority of the membership was passive and rarely participated in the democratic structures of the party. Although discussed at length, a programme of socialist adult education was never fully implemented. First and foremost, the SSP saw itself as a campaigning organisation. Bereft of a curriculum of adult education there existed a divide between activism and theory. I would argue that its lack of programmatic education led to the bulk of the SSP membership remaining passive. There are a number of consequences to be faced in an organisation with this type of membership. Firstly, due to a lack of political education, a rounded socialist consciousness is never fully developed by the rank and file. As a consequence, a division of knowledge emerges within the party. The existence of a division of knowledge creates the fertile soil for hierarchies to grow. The hierarchal structures in the SSP were based on cliques forming around powerful personalities. Whichever clique you tended to be part of was more a question of geography than politics. What the cliques had in common was a docile adherence to the ‘party line’. The political consequence was the establishment of a bureaucracy out of touch with the membership.  

Parliament and Party

After the electoral breakthrough in 2003 the SSP underwent a period of stagnation. Internally, the attitude was along the lines of, “well we have six MSPs, now what?” Many of the activists from 1998-2003 disappeared from party activity. The relationship between the parliamentary team and party was never made clear. The leadership gravitated towards the parliamentary side of the party, and became immersed in the media goldfish bowl that exists around the Scottish Parliament. Emerging out of all of this was an organisational divide between the party and the parliament, which created the foundations for cliques to form in high places. It is worth emphasising that at ‘grassroots’ level the SSP was never split. It was in fact the SSP parliamentary team that was ‘split’. The parliamentary split was personal and not political or ideological. It was office politics and not much else. The Sheridan case shone a mammoth spotlight on the parliamentary team and brought to the attention of the membership the powerful cliques that had formed at leadership level. It was these cliques, consisting of forceful personalities, some in full time positions and not elected by the party, who were to play a major role in the implosion of the SSP.   

By the time of the split, the SSP faced political problems which stemmed from the centre. Active members went off and did their own thing. For some that meant fighting for Scottish independence. For others it was protesting against the war or the G8 (the G8 summit was held in Scotland in 2005). Bereft of leadership and guidance from the centre, the SSP suffered from a lack of co-ordination and coherence. Whilst the membership was off doing its own thing, some of the parliamentarians went off and did theirs: this included a churlish stunt by four MSPs, which resulted in their exclusion from parliament. A major event for the left in the summer of 2005 was the G8 summit which was hosted in Scotland. In the Scottish Parliament the SSP held a protest in which they claimed that the ruling party (Labour) and the police were preventing protesters from marching against the summit. The only problem was that the police had already ceded that demonstrators could march. The SSP were right to exploit the parliament and the media, particularly to highlight an issue such as the protests against the G8. However on this occasion they picked the wrong issue. It showed a massive error of political judgement which exposed the four MSP’s as opportunistic and desperate for publicity. The stunt completely backfired and as a consequence, the party received a damaging fine that was billed directly to the membership. Following on from the Sheridan resignation, there was a feeling that the SSPs political message was becoming lost. For some, extra-parliamentary activity meant media stunts. There was naivety and immaturity which existed right at the top of the party. In some circles, particularly after Sheridan’s departure as convenor, the Scottish Socialist Party began to be looked upon as a bit of a joke. Even before the events of the summer of 2006, there was some in the leadership preparing for defeat at the polls, amidst talks of how to plan an organised retreat. 

A Crisis in Leadership: The SSP and Tommy Sheridan

In November 2004 Tommy Sheridan was forced to resign as SSP National Convenor. Sheridan had been falsely accused by the News of the World (NOTW) of being, in their term, an adulterer. Worried by bad publicity and a perception that the allegations had damaged him politically, the National Executive (NE) voted unanimously for Sheridan to resign. The reason for Sheridan’s departure was never properly explained to the membership. At an emergency National Council meeting held in the days following the resignation, delegates, deprived of information and warned of the danger of the party splitting, voted for the minutes of the NE meeting to remain confidential. In the interests of party unity, Sheridan himself remained quiet, which was with hindsight a tactical mistake. In response to the allegations he had announced that he would take a libel action against the NOTW. 

In February 2005, the SSP elected Colin Fox as its new national convenor. Colin’s mantra throughout the election was “the best days of the SSP are ahead of us”. The problem was very few people believed him. Rank and file activists recognised that Fox was convenor by default. With the minutes of the NC meeting shrouded in secrecy and reports of the Sheridan resignation meeting raising more questions than they answered, a view developed that the leadership mistreated Sheridan. The contest to replace Sheridan was between Fox and the party’s media and policy co-ordinator, Allan McCombes. McCombes was widely seen as the leadership candidate. This, coupled with the fact that Sheridan had announced he was backing McCombes’ opponent, resulted in a comfortable victory for Fox. A few months after the convenorship contest, the SSP suffered heavy losses at the polls. In the British wide general election of 2005, the party lost almost half of its vote, compared to its last standing in 2001.

Tommy Sheridan versus the News of the World

The SSP should have declared from the start that it backed Sheridan. Publicly, it should have condemned the standard of journalism represented by the NOTW. Instead the leadership had the SSP say nothing. From a position of neutrality, the leadership then changed its mind and attempted to pass a motion at the SSP’s National Council for Sheridan to abandon the case. Sheridan had only one choice and that was to come out fighting. In May 2006, for the first time he turned on the party leadership. He admitted he should have done it sooner. Upon hearing the arguments, the NC voted to give ‘Tommy Sheridan full political backing in his case against the NOTW”.  When Tommy Sheridan walked into court to face the might of the NOTW he had the full backing of his party: SSP policy as agreed at the crucial NC meeting was to support its former convenor. Sadly the leadership ignored party policy.

For a whole month the Sheridan libel case dominated the Scottish news. With wild stories of five in a bed romps coupled with allegations of champagne and cocaine taking, the tabloids went into overdrive. The strategy of the NOTW was clear; to throw as much mud as possible and see it any of it would stick. None of it did and on Friday 4^th August Tommy Sheridan won his libel action against the NOTW.

The leadership of the SSP now had to face the consequences of their actions. Not only had they refused to back one of their own, they had actively colluded against him. There was a small core in the party intent on destroying Sheridan. During the case eleven SSP members testified in court on behalf of the NOTW. In so doing they committed a massive breach of socialist solidarity. How do we explain their actions? I believe that some in the leadership felt that Sheridan had little chance in winning. Faced with imminent defeat they calculated that his political career would be over. Why back a dead duck? I believe that it was this line of thinking which influenced some to testify against their former comrade in court. For them, it was a question of tactics rather than principle. It backfired because they underestimated the class instincts of the jury. Moreover, they had failed to grasp the extent to which Rupert Murdoch and his media empire are hated and despised. According to one left newspaper, ‘any working class juror with even a modicum of class consciousness will instinctively side with Scotland’s most prominent and tenacious working class fighter against a widely despised gutter rag’.     

A Crisis in Leadership

Sheridan’s victory should have drawn a line in the sand. The party should have a, respected that the decision taken by the NC had been vindicated and b, agreed to move on, focus on building the SSP and getting ready for the all important Scottish parliament elections, at the time, less than a year away. On the day of Sheridan’s victory, convenor Colin Fox (despite testifying for NOTW) was one of the first to congratulate him, telling journalists that every socialist would rejoice in the jury’s rejection of the NOTW’s journalism. However, there were some in the SSP leadership who were not rejoicing. On the very day of the victory they began to demand a perjury investigation, which was nothing more than a desperate attempt to overturn the jury’s verdict. One of them even had the audacity to hand in internal documents to the police. Class lines were now being crossed. The democratically agreed decision was being completely undermined by those in the SSP leadership who by now had declared themselves a faction called the United Left (UL). Without any consultation of the members, and bereft of any democratic vote the UL began to make up party policy as they saw fit.

Making the Break from the SSP

The decision taken by the UL to undermine the verdict of the jury began a course of events which led to the SSP splitting in two. Moreover, a powerful core began to organise to deselect Sheridan as an MSP in Glasgow. An organised witch hunt was now in place. There stood two opposing sides in the party, one the UL and the other the bulk of the party membership who had signed an online statement in support of the NC decision under the name of SSP Majority. The so-called middle ground, typified by the current convenor Colin Fox was in reality more of a ‘muddled ground’. Fox attempted to play to both sides of the party in the interests of consolidating his own position. Whilst SSP Majority remained in the party, Fox was the first to congratulate Sheridan and the first to condemn the NOTW. In private he talked of how to limit the influence of the UL and anti-Sheridan factions such as the youth network. When the bulk of the membership left, he changed tact. He now played to the UL, attacking his former comrades and describing Sheridan’s case as a colossal mistake. It is an old truism that some politicians are signposts and others are wind vanes. Typical of the career politician, Fox went whichever direction the wind was blowing. Surrounded by sycophants in the party bureaucracy, his only interest was the convenorship.

The SSP faced an ongoing civil war with no end in sight. The political enemies, consisting of the Scottish press and rival political parties would have declared open season, as socialist openly fought socialist. The real loser would have been socialism. It was in this context that it was agreed that the time had come to make the break from the SSP.

Solidarity Forever

At a packed rally in Glasgow, Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement was launched. Making the break from the SSP included half of the SSP’s ruling Executive Committee, three out of five regional organisers, two prominent platforms (Committee for a Workers International and Socialist Worker) and many grassroots activists. There are now entire regions in Scotland where the SSP is virtually non-existent. The SSP has suffered a haemorrhaging blow. In October, the RMT (Rail and Maritime Workers Union) voted to disaffiliate from the SSP. Their strategy of attempting to win the organised working class away from the British Labour Party to the SSP is now in ruins. It has become an inward looking and bitterly divided sect which faces annihilation at the 2007 Scottish elections. As for Solidarity, it will continue the attempt to unite the left in Scotland. Its strategy of refusing to engage in a public war with the SSP has won it respect and admiration. Tommy Sheridan has just completed a speaking tour of the country in which he has spoken to packed out town halls. His reputation intact, he remains the most influential and instantly recognisable politician in Scotland.

There is no room for two socialist parties in Scotland. No one could deny that the left has taken a backward step. Yet sometimes you have to go backwards before you can move forwards. Solidarity needs to consolidate its support, reflect on what happened and move on. There is a mistake in socialist politics, which is to obfuscate the party and socialism. The two become one. In its extreme manifestation we reach Stalinism: the adherence to the party at all costs. Yet the party is only important so long as it is the vehicle for socialism; when it no longer meets those criteria, it is time to start again. And that is what is happening in Scotland. The left is in a period of transition. To me, and countless others, Solidarity best represents the way forward for socialists in Scotland.

Gary Fraser