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Unite the socialists for the general election!
Some union leaders are claiming that they have won significant concessions from Blair and reshaped New Labour's manifesto for 2005. But even they cannot seriously deny that John Cridland of the bosses' federation, the CBI, was basically right when he said that New Labour's deal with the unions at its 23-25 July Policy Forum "left things roughly where they were".
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The Socialist Alliance, the Respect Unity Coalition and the future of the left
On 25 January, short of a political miracle, a tarpaulin will be pulled over much of working-class socialist politics in England. The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and a large part of the activist left will sign up the "Respect" coalition as their political vehicle for the coming months.
Its politics: a bland collation of sops for various constituencies (peace, green, Muslim, trade-union). Its figurehead: George "I need £150,000 a year" Galloway.
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The right wing of Labour Students and its allies have run NUS for more than 20 years, resulting in defeat after defeat for the student movement. Since 1998, however, they have faced increasing opposition, with a united left slate challenging the Labour/"independent" leadership in the elections at every NUS conference.
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This article is from Hackney Solidarity, the local Workers' Liberty newsletter. It was published in an edition produced for a Socialist Alliance public meeting at which Tommy Sheridan and Michael Lavalette spoke, the title of which was 'The Left Strikes Back'.
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Martin Thomas
To "campaign for a workers' party" means three things:
1. Setting out and grouping people round basic working-class political objectives-independent working-class political representation, a workers' government, a working-class "Third Camp" in international politics.
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In June the Socialist Workers Party packed a meeting of Birmingham Socialist Alliance with newly signed-up SWP members to remove the entire executive of the local Alliance - including the chair, victimised FBU militant Steve Godward - and replace them with SWP members and fellow travellers. In Birmingham the SWP want to see a "Peace and Justice" candidate - mounted jointly with the leaders of local mosques - that is an alliance with a religious hierarchy. Comrades in Birmingham rightly fear that such an alliance would be a betrayal of independent working-class politics and full civil equality for lesbian and gay people and for women. Those comrades had to go.
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A plea for unity in action
A bother, upset and disappointment I have is to see the continuing 'spat' between the many 'left'/Marxist groups. All seem to concentrate not on a main enemy, capitalism, but on each other.
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Bolshy supports the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, but the AWL is just one of many socialist groups in Britain. Why is the left so divided? How can it be united? And, in the meantime, how do you choose?
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Two comments on Alan Johnson's discussion of how to unite the left ("Left Unity with the movement of movements", Solidarity 3/28) - one positive and one negative. The negative one is that I think he spins fantasies about the SWP.
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You are not the only true socialists
Re Solidarity 28 editorial. You seem to behave very much like the SWP - "we are the only true socialists", etc. That is arrogant. How can you be sure that every left group was on a different side in the war and did not agree with you?
