On February 5, the English Socialist Alliance was wound up as a national organisation at a conference called for that purpose. The alliance, which drew to its banner all the main English far-left organisations, had been a viable left unity project for almost 12 years. Dave Riley interviewed Andy Newman of the Socialist Unity Network about the closure.
Newman was a national executive member of the Socialist Alliance. He is a candidate in the forthcoming general election backed by the Socialist Alliance branch in his town, which has continued despite closure of the national organisation. Newman is also member of the national steering committee of the Stop the War Coalition.
What is the Socialist Unity Network?
We are a network of socialists committed to left unity. This [was formed by] non-aligned members of the Socialist Alliance national executive, but some others have joined, including some prominent members of the Socialist Alliance from a left Labour background. We seek to provide a forum for friendly debate through our website, but we also try to coordinate activity where appropriate. We do not seek to be a group competing with other left groups, and we have no democratic centralist discipline.
What was the promise and achievements of the English Socialist Alliance?
The context is the drive towards neoliberalism by the Labour Party over the last decade that has left many thousands who used to argue a left social-democratic agenda within that party without a natural home. Good evidence of this potential is that Ron Davies, a former Labour cabinet minister, and John Marek, a former Labour MP, have collaborated with some members of the far left to create Forward Wales — the Welsh Socialist Party, which is broadly modelled on the Scottish Socialist Party.
At one stage it looked like the Socialist Alliance would realise this potential, for example when Liz Davies — a hard left member of the Labour Party's national executive — resigned from the LP and joined us.
At the 2001 general election we enjoyed the participation of almost the whole of the English left, and contested nearly 100 constituencies. In many towns we really did break down the old futile barriers between the left groups and comrades started very fruitful cooperative work.
As recently as January 2004 we organised an excellent trade union conference. Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the civil servants union PCS, was a member of the Socialist Alliance, and Matt Wrack who just won assistant general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), was a Socialist Alliance member.
What impact has the determined commitment of the British Labour Party to the Iraq occupation had on the course of left unity in England? Has there also been a growth of support for the Greens as a consequence?
Some individuals left the Labour Party over the Iraq war, but very few. The main establishment parties, both Tories and Labour, agree on the issue of the war, so it is less of a political issue for the mainstream media than it should be. Unfortunately, the Tories seem to be making race and immigration the main election issue, and over this issue Respect and the other left candidates are correctly taking a very hard anti-racist line, but that is hardly electorally popular.
Actually, it is not the Greens, but the Liberal Democrats who have been the main electoral beneficiaries of the anti-war vote. My own contacts with the Greens suggest that they are hardly better off than the left. They are only marginally more successful electorally than us, and suffer tiredness and ageing membership, having failed to make any breakthrough. As they are only an electoral party they don't have much else to sustain them.
How successful — or not — was the Socialist Alliance in regard to its potential?
We came nowhere close to our potential. The Scottish Socialist Party has about 3000 members today in a country of just 5 million. If we had the same impact in England we would have had nearly 30,000 members, comparable to the Communist Party at its height of influence. Four years ago, there was a mood that we were going in the right direction, whereas the last 18 months has been bad, and some good people who have dropped out or become very bitter may be hard to win back.
What were the factors bearing down on the Socialist Alliance that limited its success?
There was a big cultural gap between some comrades from the Labour Party, and those in the Leninist organisations that caused some problems.
The Socialist Party simply walked out in 2001 when they didn't get their own way over a constitution, which was the start of the loss of innocence. But the Socialist Workers Party, as the largest single component party, tended to blow hot and cold, partly because there is a poorly concealed but not publicly expressed disagreement amongst the leadership. I believe the [SWP's] ambiguous theoretical formulations such as "united front of a special type" paper over the cracks.
In particular, the SWP put the Socialist Alliance completely to one side in the lead up to the Iraq war. I was in the SWP at the time, and I was instructed in no uncertain terms that I should prevent the Socialist Alliance having a profile in the local anti-war movement — which I ignored. At the same time, other leading SWP comrades praised the way our local Socialist alliance branch kept its profile high
What impact did the formation of Respect, the Unity Coalition, have on the Socialist Alliance?
Respect has caused considerable damage to the left. This was not inevitable, but the SWP acted as if anyone who was not immediately convinced about Respect was an enemy. My observation is that very few members of the Socialist Alliance have joined Respect. Although Respect has a nominally higher membership than the Socialist Alliance had, it has far fewer activists, and minimal branch structure.
Respect has made considerable progress in some areas, particularly with Muslims, who (more than the rest of the population) perceive the war as the big issue. It is an achievement that some prominent members of Muslim organisations have publicly associated themselves with the far left.
In particular in Tower Hamlets, in London, Respect does seem like a vibrant organisation, and there are forces in Respect there who understand it needs to be more than an electoral coalition. And because Respect is the only far-left challenge to New Labour nationally, it has also gained some support from Fire Brigades Union branches and regions, because that union has broken from Labour. So whether it is fruitful to participate in Respect depends where you live.
What sort of unity are we talking about?
I think most of the ideological and organisational barriers between socialists today are historical baggage. We should work together to solve the day-to-day problems that the movement and the struggle throw up, this can best be done with the organisational form of a broad socialist party, but the existence of such a party is not a precondition for cooperation.
Is Respect a socialist project? Do you think that left unity should be built or can it be done much more generally?
In my opinion, Respect presents what is objectively a minimal socialist program. The problem is not its program, but the social content of the organisation, and its trajectory towards being merely a front organisation for the SWP. The SWP would love Respect to have a mass membership, but are not prepared to loosen their control to empower that to happen.
More generally I believe left unity can only be built through long term practical cooperation between socialists over concrete issues; and that inevitably means also working with non-socialists. It is not possible simply to proclaim a socialist party; people need to be patiently won to the idea.
What is the Socialist Greens Unity Coalition?
For the forthcoming general election a number of socialist organisations and individuals who are putting forward socialist candidates have agreed on some minimal cooperation, for example, avoiding seat clashes, and publicity. We have also sought to collectively negotiate with the Greens and Respect about possible seat clashes. We will see what happens in the longer term.
You yourself moved for the dissolution of the Socialist Alliance at its recent final conference. Why did you do that?
It was controversial, but over the last year the Socialist Alliance branches had been effectively demobilised. In some cases, comrades have just become demoralised by the uncertainty caused leading up to the launch of Respect. In other cases, SWP members have packed meetings and voted branches out of existence. There is no realistic prospect of reviving the Socialist Alliance as a grassroots organisation in face of hostility from the SWP, and remember the SWP are past masters of the false polarization "you are either with us or against us"; so there was a real danger that continuation of the SA as a rump national organisation would simply unite people on the basis of opposition to the SWP — which makes left unity harder.
So where does left unity go to now in England?
The objective need for a broad socialist party exists whether or not any particular initiative succeeds. We need to build left unity from the bottom up, by working in our own communities and unions: there is no shortage of issues to campaign over. Until the general election is over most comrades are going to be in their entrenched positions, but afterwards there will be a possibility of opening up a debate.
[The Socialist Unity Network website is at .]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, March 9, 2005.
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