Workers' Liberty

AWL GLASGOW PRE-CONFERENCE MEETING 12/05/07

PUBLIC SECTOR PAY

Martin: Chickens coming home to roost. For several years the Blairites increased public spending a lot in order to finance and smooth through their privatisations and marketisations.

Now they are still pushing the privatisations and marketisations, but they've decided they can't afford to increase spending further. So: cuts in NHS, etc.: and the squeeze on public sector pay. Creates big potential for a united fight back.

Problems to tackle: mostly so far the talk is at general secretary level. The pay issue plays quite differently in different bits of the public sector. Health workers quite riled about the 2.5% (though the staging of that increase has not been imposed in Scotland). Local government: low level of awareness of the union's claim, and the issue overshadowed in many areas by single-status. Teachers in England and Wales: in the middle of a two-year settlement; union has requested settlement be reopened because of inflation; Government likely to refuse; but still a low level of awareness on this in schools, issue overshadowed by workload and performance-related pay.

The "official left" on the union Execs - focused on getting local rallies on the general issue. We should focus on (a) within each union, pushing for it to "move first" and activating the general pledges of unity in action; (b) local organising committees; (c) turning out into the schools, hospitals, offices, etc.

Stan: Scottish teachers are in a five-year deal expiring September 2008.

Pauline: Single-status is a big issue in local government in Scotland. Some councils have made deals, some are still negotiating. Not clear what's happening on the general pay settlement; not clear whether it is negotiated separately in Scotland from England and Wales.

Stan: In Glasgow the outcome on single status is not clear. SSP trade union committee could make a move?

Pauline: SSP TU committee has only met once, last October or November. That was all about the Glasgow Unison industrial action which didn't happen. And it wasn't actually a common meeting, but one meeting with Unison people and another with PCS people.

Agreed: at SSP National Council (Pauline and Darcy attending) raise SSP TU committee meeting and initiating a campaign on this. Ask for Unison health, EIS, and GMB people to be invited. Talk about SSP initiating local public sector union organising meetings and committees, etc.

SSP/ ELECTIONS

Stan: Big step forward for SNP compared to 2003. But their situation now is not as rosy as some say. SNP is only marginally ahead of Labour, and it secured only 16% of the electorate.

SNP is not a left-wing party. It wants an independent capitalist Scotland because it thinks that would yield bigger profits.

Surprising thing about the Labour Party is that its vote held up relatively well, despite SSP claims that "Labour vote is in meltdown".

SNP government will be a weak government. Should not go along with SSP hints of semi-supporting it because of the independence.

SSP vote went down from 6.7% in 2003 to 0.6%. Only one councillor elected. Rosie Kane is a sitting MSP and a well-known figure in Govanhill, but she still got a poor vote for the council there.

Why SSP vote down? You can't explain it all from Sheridan. SSP vote was in decline even before the split. Nor from the idea that SSP vote "squeezed" between Labour and SNP.

SSP paved the way for a collapse in its vote by presenting 2007 election as really about independence.

What do we do? Some sections of SSP reluctant to draw a thorough balance-sheet. McCoombes statement tries to pre-empt discussion in SSP and dismiss the issue by saying "it's Sheridan's fault". Though the disunity in SSP did damage the vote. We should argue at least for unity in action between SSP and Solidarity.

We need to focus on serious SSP work in the trade unions, and not restricted to SSP trade unionists.

And some SSP attention to the Labour Party, e.g. John McDonnell campaign.

Reassert the centrality of class politics, as against the Scottish populism (albeit favourable to working-class struggles) which you find in SSP. Now you have the SSP proposing to approach Lib-Dems and SNP for a joint campaign on council tax.

We should also take up the populism as it is reflected on international issues, e.g. Scotland.

I'm not too optimistic about SSP fundamentally reconsidering. SSP is a political mish-mash; only a minority attuned to class politics.

Sandy: I think the SSP project is finished. It has been dealt some crushing blows. It has had left nationalism built into it from day one. That perspective has been exposed by events, and by SNP's increasingly open embrace of free-market capitalism.

Now the left is at each others' throats in Scotland in a way I haven't seen for years - physical attacks, too.

However, I don't want to see the whole thing collapsing in demoralisation.

Elaine: Is this going to mean an organisational collapse, e.g. paper and office collapsing because SSP will not have the money coming in from MSPs? If so, that will not be a good thing.

I think the independence orientation has been shown to be a big mistake. However, there is not much taste for reconsidering that.

We should call for SSP to put more effort into education. SSY has experimented with new educational methods, which is good, but there is also a question of content.

Darcy: I don't think SSP members lack an understanding of what socialism is; it's that they have a different understanding of socialism.

Pauline: The problem is the strategy towards socialism rather than the idea of what socialism is.

Stan: Left commentary about SSP result is like vultures circling around a corpse. That has produced a defensive reaction. We want to try to avoid provoking that defensive reaction, as far as we can.

SSP did not have a project of an independent capitalist Scotland, rather, an illusory project of an independent socialist Scotland which then mutated into seeing independent capitalist Scotland as at least a first stage. There has been a political degeneration.

The question now is, what do we say to the good people in the SSP? We should not pose it in terms of a post-mortem.

Elaine: The ex-Militant core in SSP is now quite small, and most SSP members are new compared to that.

Sandy: New people have been co-opted into the core tendency, and in the meantime it has degenerated politically.

Stan: There are a lot of ex-Militant people in the apparatus of the SSP. The other factor is a lot of ex-SNPers coming over to the SSP. E.g. you get people in the SSP Discussion Forum saying that the SNP should be congratulated on its election result.

Sandy: You have to deal with the independence strategy. That the SSP has been ineffective in the unions is actually a good thing. Otherwise you would have more Make The Break rubbish, more stuff about committing the unions to independence. What we need is a British socialist party.

I'm not saying that the SSP members are nationalists. But they are badly educated. You have to explain that the break-up of Britain is not at all necessarily a good thing; can mean a rise of chauvinism.

Can't talk about workplace organising and education in technicalities, without dealing with the independence stuff.

Pauline: We should argue specifically for Marxist education, Capital classes and so on.

I'm proud that the SSP took Sheridan on about his behaviour. But I suspect he was tolerated in the past, and it's new SSP women with a feminist background who pushed the issue.

AWL socialist-feminist material could help here.

Keir: I'm not a supporter of independence, but I don't think it's as central to SSP as Sandy makes out. Our SSP branch does regular stalls, but never about independence.

Campaigning? SSP does not campaign on independence.

Hadn't heard about approach to Lib Dems and SNP on council tax. That seems to me a break from SSP tradition.

Elaine: McCoombes statement in SSV basically says the SSP has done nothing wrong and only needs to carry on along the same lines.

I think you have to recognise that if SSP tells people that independence is the big thing, then it is natural that they will drift towards SNP.

In reply to Sandy, yes, we need a British-wide Marxist party. But what is the sense of calling for it in the abstract?

Keir: I don't think there's much we could done to change the vote significantly. But a better workplace orientation is key.

Martin: Keir, why did you think the vote fell?

Keir: It's mostly Labour-SNP squeeze. People voting SNP to have a go at Labour. Also the Sheridan business, and Sheridan's name-recognition.

Sandy: What will the election do to Solidarity-Scotland? We have to be clear against the talk about violence against Solidarity-Scotland? I think the SWP and CWI are under real stress now. Maybe there is a possibility of a real regroupment.

Keir: We've re-recruited a few young people back to SSP from SWP since the election.

Stan: Since the election there have also been people leaving SSP to join Solidarity. The story is going round that Sheridan will be arrested and charged with perjury. I'm not convinced that will have a big impact on Solidarity-Scotland. Solidarity-Scotland people think he's guilty but also that it is a good thing that he got away with it. And Solidarity-Scotland will have a boost because they did better on 3 May than SSP.

Martin: The practical point: in SSP we should be calling for systematic approaches for united action to Solidarity-Scotland.

Keir: All the Solidarity-Scotland activists in Glasgow are SWP. They did a lot for the election campaign, but I can't see them doing a lot of work for Solidarity-Scotland now.

Stan: Respect in England has got a profile, despite a low membership. And I think Solidarity-Scotland may be able to do the same thing. It may have a strength beyond its individual membership and even beyond its day-to-day activity.

*** We worked out bullet-point proposals for SSP National Council. Stan was to write it up properly (see below).

HOUSEKEEPING

£16 paid by Darcy for AWL conference.

Forthcoming AWL Scotland meetings:

17 June and 14 July: two sessions on class

15 September: socialist feminism

Possibility also of a socialist feminist school in Edinburgh

BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

Elaine: NUJ has voted for a boycott of Israel. Much furore.

The big argument: "we've got to do something about Israeli violence in the Occupied Territories". But the choice is not either silence or boycott. There is a third alternative: solidarity.

South Africa is used as a model. Argument equates Israel with apartheid South Africa before 1994. Actually, it's different. Israel was given its character by the Zionist drive to build up an autonomous Jewish economy, including a Jewish working class, whereas in South Africa you had a privileged white caste on top of a black working class.

"Smash the apartheid state" in South Africa meant, abolish minority rule. "Smash the apartheid state" in Israel means conquer the entire Jewish population, including the working class.

The boycott of South Africa, also, was just a tactic adopted by the ANC and South African CP after 1960, and a tactic used by ANC and CP to seek a monopoly on solidarity. Boycotts may sometimes be useful to highlight injustices, but they are not a general principle or the universal best method of solidarity.

Zionism? It originated as an ideological current among Jews over a hundred years ago. Marxists argued against it for the alternative of Jewish workers staying where they were and uniting with other workers.

But now Israel is a fact, there is a Jewish nation there, and it enjoys instinctive identification from Jews worldwide. "Zionism" is used to mean any recognition of Israel's right to exist, but that definition makes anti-Zionism a radical hostility to all Jews.

This sort of anti-Zionism has roots in Stalinist campaigns of the early 1950s. As late as 1968-9 there was a large anti-Jewish purge in Poland.

The Stalinist propaganda created a whole culture on the left, and it was picked up widely after 1967 among leftists sympathetic to the apparently-radical Arab-nationalist states.

That meant a break with Lenin's approach to the national question.

That is rationalised in terms that opposing Israel means opposing racism. There are racist laws in Israel. But it is no worse than a lot of other states. To identify Israel totally with racism is to fall into chauvinism.

"Smash the Israeli state" could only happen through conquest by chauvinist Arab states. It would not really be anti-imperialist. The slogan is used as a diversion by Arab bourgeois politics.

A lot of the denunciation of Israel rests on double standards. In fact an attempt to conquer Israel would only mean vast bloodshed and destruction of prospects of working-class unity.

Another argument is raised about the "right of return". People complain that Jews have rights to come and stay in Israel, and argue for Palestinian refugees to have the "right to return" to what is now Israel. A mass collective "return" of that sort is only possible with the conquest of Israel by external force.

Instead we should argue for two states, Arab-Jewish workers' unity, etc.

Stan: How to take up the boycott issue in the unions? You get plenty of people who vote for boycott motions who just feel something should be done and don't at all want the destruction of Israel.

I think the NUJ motion will be reversed quickly. Anyway, how could it work with e.g. journalists in Israel?

We should also distinguish ourselves from people who oppose a boycott because they support the occupation of the Territories.

Keir: SSP conference voted for boycott without serious debate. It should be quite easy to overturn.

Pauline: I get confused about this issue. What does Zionism mean? I've heard that it's an expansionist ideology.

Academic boycott? Wasn't part of that to do with a university in the Occupied Territories?

Elaine: "Zionism" has different meanings. Now the Israeli state has become a reality. Some "Zionists" are expansionists and some "Zionists" are just defenders of Israel's right to exist.

APPENDIX

REBUILDING THE SSP

OPEN UP DEBATE AMONGST THE MEMBERSHIP

If the SSP is to rebuild after the elections, then it needs more than an open discussion throughout the membership about the causes of its electoral collapse. Just as much, it needs a proper discussion about what political initiatives and projects the SSP should be focussing on in the immediate future.

And let’s be clear: engaging in a full discussion about the causes of the SSP’s electoral debacle and about ideas for future political campaigning is not the same as what this week’s “Scottish Socialist Voice” refers to as “imploding for months on end to indulge in self-recrimination and doubt before tentatively hitting the streets again.”

AGAINST AN SNP GOVERNMENT

The minority SNP government which is now likely to be formed will be a straightforward pro-capitalist government. A pro-capitalist and pro-independence SNP government is no advance on a pro-capitalist and pro-Union Labour (or Labour-Lib Dem) government.

From a socialist point of view, the attitude of ‘anyone but Labour’ is politically bankrupt. Despite the Blairite project of driving the organised working class out of politics, Labour remains based, in part, on the trade unions. The SNP, on the other hand, is completely independent of the working class.

The SNP has slightly more than a third of the seats in the Scottish Parliament. It won just under a third of the votes in the elections. Taking into account the turnout in the elections (52%), only 16% of the Scottish electorate voted for the SNP. The weakness of the SNP government should make it an easy target. The SSP should help to mobilise trade union and working class opposition to the SNP minority government.

TURN TO THE TRADE UNIONS

The SSP needs to make a turn to systematic workplace and trade union activity, and to helping build rank-and-file groups in the different unions. The immediate focus for reviving trade union work is to try to build for strike action against the government’s two-year 2% pay limit for public sector pay rises (although how that will be applied in Scotland is likely to differ from in England).

All public sector unions (apart from the EIS, as Scottish teachers pay is covered by a separate agreement) have policy in favour of industrial action against the pay limits. But putting those policies into action will require sustained campaigning at rank-and-file level. SSP trade unionists should take the lead in initiating local alliances of public sector unions.

The SSP also needs to formally abandon the long defunct ‘Make the Break’ campaign. What’s needed instead is to organise in Labour-affiliated unions for them to fight for their policies inside (as well as outside) the Labour Party. The most obvious recent opportunity for this was the John McDonnell for Leader campaign – something not even covered in the pages of “Scottish Socialist Voice”, despite the divisions this opened up in the TGWU in particular.

LABOUR MOVEMENT CAMPAIGNING

According to this week’s issue of “Scottish Socialist Voice”: “As agreed at the Executive Committee on Sunday, we are going to draw together the disparate forces, including the SNP and Lib Dems, and representing the majority of the population of Scotland, calling for a local income tax to replace the Council Tax.”

This points in exactly the wrong direction. What’s needed is an orientation to organising specifically working-class and trade union campaigns – not working with the likes of the SNP in the cross-party Independence Convention, or allowing the SSP to be dragged into the Independence First campaign (as is current SSP policy), or, still less so, a joint SSP-SNP-Lib Dem campaign against the Council Tax.

LEFT UNITY IN CAMPAIGNING

Whatever the causes of the collapse of the SSP vote a fortnight ago, one thing is clear from the election results: it can no longer be said that the Left in Scotland equals the SSP.

Left re-unification in Scotland is not a realistic prospect in the short term. The political trajectory for nearly a year has been in the opposite direction. What does remain possible, and necessary, however, is joint campaigning by the different sections of the Left.

This means genuine attempts by the SSP to build ‘united front’ campaigns with other socialist and working-class forces in Scotland, such as the Scottish Campaign for Socialism, left Constituency Labour Parties, other forces who have come out in support of John McDonnell’s attempt to stand for Labour Party leader, and also Solidarity and (insofar as it exists) the SLP.

The “disparate forces” to which the SSP should be reaching out are not “the SNP and the Lib Dems” but the scattered forces of the Left in Scotland, and in Britain as a whole.

A CLASS APPROACH TO INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGNING

The SSP needs to sharpen the political profile of its campaigning around international issues. Sometimes it looks as if the SSP has nothing to say about Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, other than ‘troops out’ or ‘troops out now’.

In fact, in relation to Iraq, SSP policy is not just to oppose the occupation of the country but also to build support for the new trade unions emerging in post-Saddam Iraq. A similar class approach needs to be extended to other international issues as well: the enemies of American imperialism can be every bit as much the enemies of the working class.

SSP policy of supporting Maoists in Nepal, Stalinists in Cuba, and a boycott of Israeli goods likewise has nothing to do with socialist internationalism. The SSP needs to begin a process of reassessing its overall approach to international issues.

DEFINING SOCIALISM & SOCIALIST STRATEGY

Socialism is the self-emancipation of the working class. It is not a ‘mixed economy’ (i.e. a capitalist economy with some nationalised industries) plus a welfare state. It is not something to be achieved through a series of parliamentary reforms. And it certainly is not something to be achieved by voting for the SNP in the first-past-the-post constituencies a fortnight ago.

With some local exceptions, political education in the SSP has generally been a long way down the agenda. In recent months it has tended to fall off the agenda completely. Alongside of campaigning and organised intervention into the labour movement, the SSP needs to develop and promote at branch level an educational programme which equips its members with an understanding of class-struggle socialism, which, for us, means the Marxist tradition.