A meeting in London on 6 November 2004 provided the only opportunity since the Socialist Alliance's special conference in March 2004 for SA members to challenge and question the SA Executive which has effectively shut the Alliance down.
At the March 2004 conference a majority voted for the SA to support Respect and not to stand its own candidates in the June 2004 elections. That vote solidified a change of direction started at the May 2003 conference.
However, in March 2004 the pro-Respect people were indignant at any suggestion that they were shutting down the SA. The SA would continue, they insisted. It would review prospects at an annual conference in December 2004.
In fact, within a few weeks of the March conference, the members and friends of the Socialist Workers' Party who ran the national machinery of the SA had shut it down. The SA's office worker left and was not replaced. The office was shut down. No communications of any sort were sent to SA members other than three emails urging them to support Respect.
The SA website ceased to be updated, and for some months stopped functioning altogether. (It is now back online at http://socialistalliance.org, but still not being updated). The SA no longer even had a mailing address that members could write to: when challenged on this at the 6 November meeting, the Executive could only say that a new mailing address would be sent out in due course!
The Executive apparently met in May, but the broader National Council was not convened.
The 6 November Executive meeting - the first since May - was publicised unofficially, by email, by Exec member Andy Newman, who is close to but not a member of the SWP. A dozen SA members turned up to question the Executive, and six Exec members were presented out of the 30-odd elected in May 2003: Nick Wrack, Rob Hoveman, John Rees, Jeanie Robinson, Glynn Robbins, and Jim Jepps.
The meeting opened with Jim Jepps proposing that Mark Fischer of the Weekly Worker be co-opted to the Executive in place of Marcus Ström of the same group, who has moved to Australia. Past practice in the SA has been to co-opt replacements in such cases, for example when Dave Packer of the International Socialist Group became unable to attend Exec meetings through ill-health. Jim's motion was defeated five to one without debate.
John Rees then proposed that the Exec reschedule the SA conference from December 2004 to February 2005.
Nick Wrack, in the chair, was about to take a vote on that proposal with little more ado, but complaints from the floor forced to concede some discussion.
Dave Church said that the SWP had every right to decide that it wanted to go with Respect rather than the Socialist Alliance; but if so it should withdraw from the SA, step aside, and let those who wanted to continue with it do so. The SWP should not disregard the rights of activists who looked on the SA as their movement. Besides, the Democratic Labour Party in Walsall is owed more than £3000 by the SA.
Steve Freeman and Pete McLaren said that the SWP should agree to negotiations about the future of the SA to allow an amicable divorce.
I asked several questions. Why had the Exec shut down the SA at a national level, in contradiction to the March conference decision? Where has the membership subscription money gone? (The SA had budgets allowing for an office, a full-time worker, and a modest amount of campaigning, up to March 2004. Since a lot of the subscriptions are paid annually, or by bank standing order, it is implausible that income suddenly ceased in March.)
Given that it is practically impossible to renew SA membership - there is no current address to send cheques to, and cheques sent to the old address have not been cashed - on what basis would SA membership be assessed for the February 2005 conference? What does the Exec intend to do between now and February 2005? Another three months of inactivity, following on eight months of effective shutdown, will ensure that the conference is a charade.
And what reply would the Exec give to the letter sent to them by Pete McLaren, on behalf of the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform, on 22 October 2004, with 28 specific questions about the effective shut-down of the SA?
We got answers to some of these questions.
John Rees made it clear that he wants the February 2005 conference to decide to keep the Socialist Alliance in deep freeze - inactive, but not formally wound up. He "doesn't want the reputation of the Socialist Alliance used for purposes which could damage Respect".
After some to-ing and fro-ing, John Rees and Rob Hoveman proposed, and the Exec agreed, that anyone who had been an SA member in good standing in 2004 or 2003 will be accepted as a member for the purposes of the February 2005 conference.
Rob Hoveman said that the SA had had to pay off debts to British Telecom and East End Offset (the SWP's print shop). Since it is unlikely that anyone has made any phone calls on behalf of the SA in the last six months, it must be that most of the SA members' money has gone to East End Offset. The SA had long operated with a large outstanding debt to East End Offset, built up during the 2001 election campaign, but with an arrangement before March 2004 that repayments would be gradual so as not to cripple the SA.
A mailing will be sent out to all 2003 and 2004 SA members with details of the February conference, "whatever financial reports are available", and a new mailing address for the SA.