1. New Labour in power

New Labour's mantra about creating a 'wealthy economy' is one of their few strategic goals. They talk of a 'trickle down effect' but the idea that everyone will benefit from 'good times for capitalists' has never been sustainable. Only the rich get richer. An economic upturn will benefit some workers-and this may bring some welcome wage militancy. Overall our class faces only the guiding principles of wage slavery-get modern, be part of the team, knuckle down, shut up. For the working poor, poor pensioners and the jobless, life is getting worse. The inequality that New Labour's policies perpetuate permeates every area of social existence, causing only new areas of misery.

The populist noise of the Blairites-about fighting crime, dealing with noisy neighbours and making education work-further shows their lack of real political direction. The fact that they will not be able to deliver on the rhetoric makes them vulnerable. Right now they are in a mess on the health service. Such weakness could yet destabilise the Labour Party.

The Blairites' attitude to the labour movement mirrors their attitude to society. They want to grind the working-class down and drive it out of politics.

Future constitutional changes to the Party will increase the grip of Blair's faction in the Party. The aim of the 21st Century Party consultation was to do just that, but the repercussions of the Livingstone affair could lead to a new battle over labour democracy which the leadership could lose.

The Blairites see the trade unions' role as one of smoothing this 'modern way'.

The Blairites are, however, a fairly narrow faction within the labour movement. The rank and file of the trade unions and the Labour Party are by no means uniformly for privatisation, institutionalised low wages and curfews on children. Many workers have little time for the policies of the New Labour regime. The majority of Londoners oppose tube privatisation. Working-class parents do not want their schools to be 'given away' to private business.

Many workers will not support Labour at the general election and the 'non-voting' public will grow. Other sections of our class, young people in particular, are profoundly alienated by the political system. A small but quite stroppy layer of young people and activists are unhappy about the inequalities and injustices of global capitalism.

The organised working class in the trade unions is the only force that could unite the potential opposition and impose working-class answers: a properly funded health service, an extension of democracy, action against global capitalism. But the working-class organisations need to be built and ideologically rearmed; the rank-and-file needs to be organised.

Working-class political representation has been set back substantially. This has been effected by the incremental gutting of Labour Party democracy. It remains further eclipsed while the union leaders back up the anti-working class policies of the government. What do we say, how do we organise, how can we put our politics into practice?

2. Working-class politics are still in flux, focus on the unions

Marxists have worked within the Labour Party because:

• While an 'open valve' existed between the basic class organisations and Labour there was a potential for working-class demands to have influence-even when Labour was in government.

• We were free to fight for our ideas and thus could have an impact.

• We knew that we could not, at will, impose our political consciousness, our overall world-view, for the best hopes and aspirations or indeed illusions in our class. We could not say 'forget Labour, support the revolutionaries'.

The trade unions' constitutional political powers have been eclipsed but not, as we expected, smashed. Blair may be ready for a decisive strike on the trade union link, but right now he does not need to move. The union leaders use the link to smooth the path for Blair-in the Welsh leadership election for example. At other times they acquiesce to the attacks on the workers, their members. Moreover, they are doing everything in their power to stop union members pressing for real change. But a struggle for real change from below will occur in the future. The unions cannot be bypassed. It is the unions that will be the focus for our political efforts in the labour movement for some time in the future.

Scottish and Welsh devolution, and the London Mayor issue, have created the most serious Labour Party crisis since 1981. The possibility is raised of unions being pushed into confrontation with Blair, and of the New Labour leadership having to readjust in order to regain a grip on their electorate and the Labour ranks.

Whatever Livingstone decides to do, the issues of Labour democracy and the government's Tory policies will reverberate up and down the labour movement.

If Livingstone does stand, we should try and mobilise the broadest possible official trade union support for him, if appropriate under the heading of 'Stand down, Dobson!'.

The existence of the London Socialist Alliance slate will also make it possible to build a genuine, lively 'Socialist Campaign for Livingstone' through the LSA.

It is unlikely that the trade union bureaucracy will be able to hold the line for Dobson in the bulk of the London unions. We should adopt a high-risk strategy and be prepared to appeal to the ranks against any possible disciplinary action.

Aside from the individual votes for the Grass Roots Alliance NEC candidates and the ongoing battle around Livingstone, the organised left is extremely weak in the Labour Party. It is possible to make propaganda, organise campaigns, petitions and events among, within and for Labour Party members. It is possible, indeed it is becoming more urgent, to relate to the political structures of the unions. Indeed the chance of defeating the 21st Century Party initiative depends on getting major unions to oppose it actively.

3. After Livingstone

The text in italics and square brackets was remitted to the incoming National Committee.

As this document is written, Livingstone looks set to stand independently. We should advocate that he stand, avoiding using the term ''as an independent', and put clearly the case for such a candidature to be based upon a platform of labour representation, raising the issues we have flagged up through our discussion on the workers' government, and on structured accountability to the workers' movement. If our efforts, and the efforts of those others on the left who agree with us, bear some fruit, then the Livingstone campaign can be a first significant step towards the formation of a Labour Representation Committee.

If, as seems more likely, the Livingstone campaign is run as a cross-class rainbow alliance, it will nevertheless provide us with an opportunity to expose Livingstone's opportunism and at the same time raise again the question of an LRC amongst significant layers of the labour movement left in London.

We decided to get involved in the campaign to support Livingstone's selection as Mayoral candidate at our November NC meeting. Earlier in the year we had indicated (in Workers' Liberty 52 'Forum' section) that the campaign around Livingstone-at that time-was not sufficient reason to back him:

'We can support movements of working-class self-assertion, however limited, because the development and internal debate of the movement gives us a chance to promote our politics against the unreliable leaders. To support a mood of wishful thinking about Ken Livingstone as the coming champion of the left can only increase confusion.'

Although the movement around Livingstone has not to date developed into anything more substantial, it became clear that the question of political representation for the labour movement was being debated through the medium of the Labour Party's mayoral selection and to have abstained would have been to stand indifferent as the rank-and-file and the Blairite machine squared up to each other for the first time since the general election. It was also apparent that we had lost the argument that there ought to have been a viable left alternative on offer apart from Livingstone. His campaign has, despite all its limitations, become a genuine focus for workers and activists who opposed the Labour leadership's style, were unhappy about Tube privatisation and wanted an alternative to a hand-picked candidate in this important London election. As the campaign could be a major opportunity to force back the Blairites, it would have been wrong to abstain from the fight and not to try to intervene.

Should we have been quicker about getting involved? Yes. Our own legitimate concerns with his past record (which has had little resonance among his potential supporters outside the far left) led to us taking a narrow view of the possibilities of a Livingstone candidature and sitting on the fence until events had made this an untenable position.

Although the difficulties that we had with backing Livingstone (principally, his political fakery) have continued throughout the course of this campaign (where Livingstone has played the right faker), this in itself should not have stopped us from seeing the opportunities that the campaign generated. [If we had taken the decision to involve ourselves sooner, the Socialist Campaign for a Livingstone Victory could have played a role in securing Livingstone the Labour nomination. We now have the chance to develop it into an influential campaign for a genuinely labour movement-based independent candidature.

The vast media coverage and sizeable meetings across London have undoubtedly stirred up the labour movement and the Labour rank and file. However, the mood at the Livingstone support meetings has been quite passive. After years of political dumbing and dampening down in the party, it would have been very strange if the mood had been anything other than passive, quietist, not very ambitious. The meetings, thus far, have not amounted to a movement, but they are significant. No permanent campaign has coalesced and it will not do so under the sole direction of Livingstone, but will require the active guidance of our comrades and others on the left with our perspective. The Mayoral election and the GLA elections provide us with the best chance we are likely to see for some time to raise our conceptions of workers' representation in a concrete fashion. All our previous efforts have merely amounted to a propaganda campaign. Now, at last, we can argue for the practical implementation of our ideas, even if it is only in a small area.

We should be arguing now for the London trade unions to play a role in deciding where the campaign goes from here. Perhaps, to start with, it will have to be posed in terms of a 'Dobson Stand Down!' campaign, but it could quickly move on from there.

[Our policy of promoting the idea of the Socialist Campaign for a Livingstone Victory was the right approach.] Certainly, it did not alienate us from ordinary Labour members, however 'non-militant' they may have been. It was, unfortunately, at odds with the general approach of the rest of the left, who may have offered (private) sympathetic noises but were far busier striking false notes about the glory days of the GLC, calling the candidate 'Ken', etc. The situation has now moved into a new stage, and it may be that our ideas are received more openly by the left now. Certainly there are already the beginnings of a debate, and we should be actively intervening into them.

We need to relate to Livingstone objectively. The support he commands is based on the simple fact that he is the only prominent politician of his generation who defends bits of an elementary Labourite reformism. Whether we like it or not, he does speak for a very broad section of the politically conscious working class who want an alternative to New Labour's Tory policies.

Underestimating what Livingstone represents has meant that we have over-estimated the power of the Blairites. Yes, the Blair faction controls the commanding heights of the party, but events could very soon demonstrate the extent to which they are losing control over Labour's core supporters and a big proportion of party activists. We got a glimpse of this with Denis Canavan's success in standing for Scottish parliament. If Livingstone stands we are likely to see an even more spectacular revolt.

4. The role of the AWL

In this unstable situation the AWL must use every possible opportunity to put forward our programme. Standing independent working-class candidates is just one way in which we could do this. Taking campaigns into the labour movement is another, as is raising the issue of Labour Party democracy in a militant, active way in the unions, and linking it to the question of working-class representation.

For comrades in England and Wales, the Greater London Assembly elections probably provide the best opportunity we will get to experiment electorally. However, under no circumstances should this be used as an excuse not to investigate seriously and actively promote electoral challenges that are possible in other localities.

5. Experimentation in the electoral field

The choking off of the 'open valve' relationship between the unions and Labour must put the question of anti-Labour candidacies, protest candidacies and socialist candidacies in a new light for us.

The best thing the AWL can do for the labour movement of the future is to raise the profile of our politics. That is not to have a sectarian attitude to the labour movement-quite the opposite. We oppose New Labour's policies, we argue for the unions to oppose New Labour, we present a picture of what working-class political representation could mean, we describe real socialism: all of this understanding will be required by the working class in the near future. A limited strategy of standing in elections, while the opportunity for presenting working-class politics is so very limited through the Labour Party, can be a tool in raising the profile of these politics-our politics.

Elections are important events in political life. To forego all opportunity to make propaganda for independent working-class politics and for socialism during them does not make sense.

We recognise that the Blairites remain determined to manipulate the electoral process (eg, by high deposits and vote thresholds for keeping them, by the list system of PR and refusal of free postal facilities) precisely in order to prevent any challenge to New Labour from the left. In our electoral activity we should thus demand the right of those without large funds or existing party machines to a voice.

We mandate the incoming NC to organise a discussion over the coming six months on our position for and intervention into the forthcoming general election.

Of course, it is not only through standing independent candidates that we can intervene into an election, and even where we choose not to stand candidates comrades are expected to use the increased political awareness of election times to sell our publications, to increase door-to-door sales and to argue the need for independent working-class politics in order to produce candidates worth voting for.

Election campaigns only last a few weeks. They are not a substitute for permanent political campaigning inside and outside the Labour Party. It will be through such permanent campaigning on issues, such as the privatisation issue, that we can make the work of the AWL, as a whole, more coherent.

In the future we want substantial chunks of the labour movement to reassert their voice in politics and at election times in defiance of New Labour. Except for the opportunities presented in London, that is not yet a possibility.

For the medium term future, following the GLA elections, we should develop some general rules of thumb about the advisability of further electoral experiments. In elections, we try to organise the labour movement where we can and to unite the left in promoting the ideas of independent working class political representation. We raise our propaganda in the most fruitful way possible. This may mean standing as, or supporting, official Labour candidates, candidates of local labour movement based campaigns, candidates of a broad anti-cuts campaign or candidates of a united left slate. It may even mean in exceptional circumstances standing under our own banner, standing as the AWL, but that is not our starting point.

We do not present ourselves as a fully-fledged 'alternative to New Labour'-as much of the left still does-but we do argue, as we have always done, that the workers need a different kind of working-class party. We recognise that such a project is long-term and that it will involve splits in the labour movement as a whole including within the Labour Party. The propaganda produced in relation to the London elections can, of course, pursue this theme much more vigorously than our previous electoral candidates have been in a position to.

We further recognise that even the revolutionary left taken as a whole does not represent today a meaningful organisational challenge or alternative pole of attraction to New Labour. Accordingly, it remains true that we cannot impose our will over the existing political consciousness of our class by calling on it to 'join the socialists'.

Any future electoral initiatives should not be one-off sallies unconnected with our other work. On the contrary, their purpose is to make the politics implicit in all we do explicit in the electoral field. These electoral initiatives should be part of a consistent ongoing programme of work in the areas where we stand, with campaigning, coalition-building, workplace activity, paper sales, local bulletins, individual contact work, and educationals.

There's an obvious danger of scattering the AWL's efforts into a random splurge of small pockets of low-level bread and butter work in wards here and there, often in depressed inner-city areas which may concentrate the least confident sections of the working class. The Socialist Party gives some indication of this danger. We should guard against it. Nevertheless there is a general need for us to turn out beyond the narrow and often jaded circles of existing trade union, Labour and student activists to new people. The strategy of experimenting in election campaigns should be further reviewed in the light of the experience in London. In particular we should assess the success of our involvement in the LSA and Livingstone's campaign in bringing us into meaningful contact with new layers of activists.

The development of serious socialist candidates will be sporadic, in the first place confined to the large cities and towns where the left is organised. That further changes in the Labour Party do not, as yet, mean a change in its nature we restate that 'We vote Labour if, where and when it is the best form of working-class political representation available'. The option of abstention is tantamount to sectarianism on the national political stage implying conclusions about the nature of the Labour Party that we have not reached. The Labour Party, whilst it remains a bourgeois workers' party, will be superseded as a form of labour representation only as a result of our politics and activity, not moral judgements on the intentions of its leadership.

6. Independent working-class candidatures, what is sectarianism?

What may make independent working-class election candidates sectarian is not in essence them getting small votes, or carrying the name of this or that party rather than a broad alliance, or not personally being well-known activists in the area. Such things may be features of sectarian candidacies, and certainly they also involve practical issues of importance in deciding the where, when and how of candidacies. But they are not the political essence of the matter.

A candidacy may have a well-known candidate, fly a broad 'labour' banner, and get a sizeable vote, yet be sectarian (examples: Lesley Mahmoud of the Socialist Party, then Militant, in Walton in 1991, and, on a smaller scale, Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party in some recent contests). Another candidacy may have a not-very-well-known candidate, a politically distinctive banner, and a poor vote, yet not be sectarian. It may be ill-advised as a practical use of resources, but that is a different matter.

In general politics, what defines groups as sectarian is not essentially having small numbers, or being strident about their factional identity. Sectarian groups will tend to be small and strident, but the essence of the matter is politics. The same goes for candidacies.

Sectarian is a candidacy which means socialists wilfully counterposing themselves to the real, living processes in the labour movement. Where a broad, living labour movement has discussed and selected a candidate and a policy, and a socialist faction then stands a rival candidate saying: 'Ignore and boycott the broad labour movement processes, rally around us instead'-that's sectarian. What made Lesley Mahmoud's candidacy in Walton in 1991 sectarian was not any personal lack of repute in the area, or the banner ('Real Labour'), or the number of votes she got, but the fact that it was a keystone of the politics of the Militant/Socialist Party wilfully opting out of the Labour Party-long before Blair-on the perspective that self-proclamation would made them a mass party in the 'red '90s'.

If the New Labour machine has shut down the broad labour movement processes-to a large extent, anyway-and a socialist stands on the basis of offering local workers a chance which they would otherwise not have to vote for a candidate attuned to and responsive to their interests, that is not sectarian. If, in addition, the socialist candidate commits themselves to fighting for the trade unions to democratically enforce labour political representation, that is not sectarian. If the socialist candidate explains that they are standing to help blaze the way for a revived workers' party based on the trade unions-that is not sectarian. If the candidate strives to rally their supporters and voters to be active in the broad labour movement and to fight there for a revived workers' party based on the trade unions and with working-class policies, that is not sectarian.

However, a long-term perspective of transforming the labour movement and a correct political programme are no guarantee that a candidacy is not tactically misconceived or counterposed to the broader interests of the movement.

Such a candidacy is not sectarian even if the candidate has not much previous base and gets a low vote-whether through the protest vote being siphoned off by others, or just because of low political morale in the local working class. A low vote may be all that is possible at a particular stage. If large sections of the trade union movement were politically confident and assertive enough to promote broad-based working-class socialist candidates and get big votes for them, then we would be in a completely different situation-in the midst of a big battle in the Labour Party structures, or of the birth of a new workers' party. We have to be active in the reality as it is, not wait for it to become as we wish it to be.

Non-sectarian socialists will strive to build the broadest possible alliances around their candidacies, with other socialist factions, with trade unions and community organisations, etc. Nevertheless, we know that the only people the AWL can absolutely rely on to stand up for independent working-class politics are ourselves. If there were another group we could absolutely rely on, we would fuse with it. We still have a duty to promote our politics even if at some particular time no other group will ally with us. We must have the option of standing in our own name as the AWL. That may be inadvisable in practice, but it is not sectarian in principle.

A sectarian election campaign is one which takes into the electoral arena an overall policy which counterposes the self-proclamation of a faction to the real processes of the labour movement. At the present time, for example, it is one which says: 'Blair stands for 'modernisation'. We stand for socialism. Follow us and we'll see you right. We are the socialist alternative'.

Independent politics and organisation are not sectarian, but, on the contrary, essential for Marxists. If a Marxist faction pursuing non-sectarian but independent politics in the trade unions and the working class takes those politics into the electoral arena too, that is not sectarian. Whether it is well-advised as a practical use of resources may be open to debate, but that is a different question from sectarianism.

The Labour Party has suffered a qualitative decline in internal life and in the openness of the channels connecting it to the working class. That is our starting point for our whole consideration of the question of independent working-class election candidates standing against Labour. Not all life has vanished from the Labour Party. There are constituencies and council wards where it would be sectarian in the proper sense, as defined above, to stand against Labour. (Example: Islington North, if Jeremy Corbyn gets to stand again as Labour candidate.) We should seek out such areas of life and push there for working-class socialist Labour candidates to be adopted-and to run as independent local Labour candidates if barred by higher levels of the New Labour hierarchy. The evidence (for example, the widespread extreme weakness of reaction by Labour Parties to Labour councils pursuing sharply 'Tory' policies) suggests that these areas of life are very limited in number, and will remain very limited in number however zealous our activity.

We should investigate and agitate. What should not be an option is to continue with a passive support for Labour which combines not with any effective socialist intervention into Labour Party life but with a hope or desire that such an intervention would be possible if only more left-wingers would sign up for it. Electoral politics are important. We must find an active tactic for them.

The success or failure of an independent electoral campaign is measured in part, of course, by its ballot-box score, and by the number of recruits, close contacts, or literature sales it gets for us. There are also other considerations. Does it raise the idea of working-class political representation among substantial number of workers, give them the idea that they need not settle for Blair, and incite them to demand better? Does it draw some of them into the beginnings of political activity? Is it a constructive part of a longer-term programme of political action in the area? These are less easily quantifiable, but also important: politics is more than gate-receipts.

In terms of practical calculation, these considerations dictate a careful selection of areas to concentrate, where electoral efforts will be part of a continuing programme of political action; an appropriate balance, so that trade union work, campaigns, student work, and so on, do not suffer; and a systematic search for alliances, involving a continuous dialogue with other left factions.

However, to motivate electoral activity centrally on the possible gains for us as an organisation is sectarian in that it does put our own organisational position before that of the movement as a whole.

7. Asserting class politics and the workers' government

We try to make class centre stage in our political propaganda and interventions. We assert what our class needs in terms of individual policies and by way of an overall, general alternative-a workers' government. We explain how a workers' party would fight for working-class policies and interests. We should continue to explore ways of raising the idea of unions forming a Labour Representation Committee. The refusal of the trade union hierarchy to use what remains of the Labour/union link to press for internal Labour democracy and for their own unions' policies is at present vital to Blair's ability to hold back discontent within the party. In this context, we can no longer unconditionally defend the link against the growing mood for disaffiliation which is spreading among the trade union rank and file; nor, however, should we concede to that mood. We are for the radical destabilisation and shaking up of the trade union link.

In any union where we can influence events we should attempt to organise around the idea of the rank and file presenting an ultimatum to the union leadership: 'Fight for union policies and Labour democracy-or stop paying fees'. This could be popularised around the formula, 'No say, no pay'.

The basis of such an approach would be:

i. The right of unions and CLPs to change policy through conference resolutions and rule changes.

ii. The right of any individual Labour Party members to be selected as a candidate-no Millbank or Town Hall vetting.

iii. A new lay appeals court made up of the directly elected constituency reps on the NEC.

iv. An end to the MPs' veto-for a two-part electoral college with no MPs' section.

This democratic agenda must be fused with a political one which starts from the elementary demands of the trade union movement, eg:

i. Restore earnings link with pensions;

ii. £5 minimum wage;

iii. 35 hour week;

iv. New trade union rights Bill;

v. Tax the rich to rebuild services.

As part of this perspective we promote a series of specific and limited demands for democracy: in the labour movement; in relation to government, parliament and the state; in public services and industry. In other words, we present the matter of class and government in a more transitional form. In particular, we should look into launching a Charter for the 21st Century, on the themes of workers' rights, workers' control, workers' democracy, workers' representation and workers' government.

8. Asserting class: issues for campaigns

The key anti-working class policies of the government are the ones we should organise campaigns and initiatives around in the trade unions, among Labour members and as part of any electoral initiatives we are involved in.

These could be:

• the minimum wage and the huge and growing poverty in the UK;

• the privatisation programme, begun by the Tories, which has been stepped up in every area: housing benefit offices, social services, social housing, pensions, air traffic control, hospitals, schools, the Post Office, London Underground;

• defence of public services;

• union rights.

9. Fighting in the Labour Party, organising the fraction

Potential clashes in the unions and between the unions and Labour will occur in the future. The union link will become an issue, hopefully long before Blair decides to introduce the state funding of political parties. However, in the short term, we should operate on the basis that the potential for us to campaign in Labour, in the cities where we are represented, is limited. Everywhere real membership involvement is in decline. If we organise rationally, nothing we do now will exclude the possibility of turning back to work in the Labour Party in the future. Fraction work means the following:

1. Continue to investigate local Labour Parties for signs of life, willingness of wards/groups of individuals, etc., to oppose 21st Century Party, back Ken Livingstone, do something about local cuts, etc.

2. That 'investigation' may continue because it requires following through initiatives on 21st Century Party and so on but we should also be able to collate 'results' by the end of March. By then we should have agreement on which Labour Parties should be regularly attended, by whom, and which individuals in the Party should be kept in touch with, in keeping with the criteria drawn up by the NC on standing in elections/working in the Labour Party.

3. To push for and build the anti-privatisation campaign of the Socialist Campaign Group Network which will involve motions on PFI and an event on the issue which we can build in the trade unions as well. This kind of initiative is something that we could use to draw in the contacts we have made during the Livingstone campaign.

4. The membership of the fraction should include someone from every branch even if no one from an AWL branch can/does attend Labour Party meetings (this is the case where Parties have been closed down), ie, this person attends fraction meetings.

5. The fraction should meet 2 or 3 times a year timed to co-incide with group events.

6. Maintaining the work is no big pressure on an AWL branch, it is right that it should be the specialised activity of individuals. We ensure that it fits around other activity, and is maintained alongside building up paper sales in particular wards and preparing for electoral activity.

7. Everywhere all AWL members who have not been specifically excluded should continue to hold Labour Party cards (even if they do not attend meetings), and we should ensure that we keep in touch with Labour leftists whom we know through previous Labour Party work, through unions or through campaigns, to monitor what's happening to the Labour Party and to be alert to any signs of life, and make every opportunity to draw Labour Party members into campaigns.

This is limited activity-it will involve one or two members in each branch on a regular basis. The work of the fraction could either be slightly augmented or slightly diminished in each area and by the time of the next AGM. However, we aim for stability. The idea is to maintain a presence, keep a finger in the pie, gather some intelligence and push the campaign against privatisation.

10. Fighting in the trade unions

The top brass in the unions are opposed to any destabilisation of the relationship they have signed up to with the Government. Our job is to look for all kinds of revolt from below. The debacle around Livingstone provides us with a key opportunity to raise questions over the links with New Labour on our terms.

We should argue inside the trade unions for much more active involvement in deciding the basis upon which money is paid into the Labour Party's coffers. Since it is no longer possible for unions to amend the Party's constitution directly, now would possibly be a good point to begin raising inside the trade unions the demand that the Labour Party re-introduce the right of decision making on basic questions like policies and candidates for the membership of the Party and for the trade unions, and that the unions threaten to withhold funding for the party until their voice is restored. This could possibly be organised around the slogan 'No Say-No Pay'. This has the added bonus of providing a useful argument against the disaffiliation or withdrawal from politics-proposals that are becoming increasingly common inside some unions.

We should also be raising the following:

• Union-sponsored MPs should defend union policies. We could tie this to the relevant privatisation issues-PFI in the health service, for instance.

• Calling on the union leadership to make a public call for, and approach other unions with a view to organising, a conference of the trade union movement, with delegates from all levels, to discuss the issue of the unions in politics, eg, fighting for the unions' policies, getting trade unionists into parliaments, assemblies, etc., how to spend political funds, relationship with the Labour Party, whether to stand trade union candidates.

• Opposing Blair's privatisations, fighting for our class. We should circulate the forthcoming CWU booklet on why unions should oppose the 21st Century Party.

• Get union branches/regional structures to organise discussions and debates on Labour/working-class representation and working-class policies in the run up to the GLA and council elections.

• Push where we can for the setting up of a permanent 'campaign', a Labour Representation Committee, which would promote accountable representation of workers in politics. The Livingstone campaign may be a possible springboard to establish this. Whether we can get sufficient backing to set up such a campaign remains to be seen. It does not preclude us arguing for the idea.

• The Industrial Committee should draw up guidelines for comrades in particular unions to discuss ways in which we can (a) argue that political funds can be targeted and (b) get more involved in the political structures.

• We continue to explain our overall policy with union activists along the lines discussed at last year's AGM.

11. Elections and candidates: practical activity

Most branches have now had some discussion about the possibilities and these should be considered in the light of the 'criteria' which will soon be considered by the NC.

All things being equal this will be the main focus of practical election work for all AWL branches in the next year.

In general, election work should be seen as of secondary importance to the regular activity of the branch and should not be undertaken at the expense of regular trade union activity, or in such a way as to wildly distort the work of the branch long-term.

Inside London, Labour Party fraction members have a particularly important role to play in raising the demand from inside the Party for Dobson to stand down in favour of Livingstone. We should be pushing for a defiance of the Blair machine from as much of the London Party as we can hope to reach. Now, more than at any other time, we can hope to find Labour Party members who are prepared to take action against Blair.

The activity of Labour Party fraction members outside of London may be somewhat different and should at least mean having political arguments with Labour members about the record of the council/government and in the areas where there are left Labour MPs canvassing for those MPs. Where we are canvassing for independent candidates away from the Labour Parties in which they are involved (especially if it is in another town) then fraction members may safely be involved in the electoral work as well.

12. Revolutionary left unity

The response of the left to the genocidal attack on the Albanian people in Kosova served to make us understand, if we did not fully realise before, the irreplaceability of a group such as the AWL. We combat the residual Stalinism in the movement, we reassert the true traditions of our movement on the national question, we orientate to political situations with a proper respect for truth and rational debate.

Our dismay at the response of the left, particularly the SWP, and the collapse of the socialist unity over the Euro-elections, ensured that our drive to raise left unity receded somewhat in the last year. But we should not shy away from promoting revolutionary left unity in the long run. We do it because a more united left would impact more forcefully on the working class and its movement. This would be true even if we could not get agreement on, say, a broad policy for the labour movement such as the one we have argued for, and only had agreement on building a united campaign against privatisation, or on building an open and democratic trade union rank and file organisation.

We have seen a more united left around the electoral [sic]. The experience has been as mixed as we could have expected it to be-the saga of the CATP slate in London is one recent missed opportunity caused by narrow-minded factionalism. However in the Socialist Alliances we have broad agreements on policy issues. At the comparatively low level of anti-Blairism, it has appeared that the left is talking with one voice. We should not underestimate how welcome this is to many unaffiliated trade unionists. It can help to foster confidence. It will be an essential element in the future if workers are to found an alternative to New Labour's brand of political representation. And, finally, we should not underestimate the potential positive effect left unity has on working-class people, especially young people. We must continue to push for these alliances to 'reach out' to broader layers in the labour movement.

We nurture the 'low-level' unity, always promoting reasoned debate and the idea of the democratic, flexible revolutionary party. We work towards a higher level of 'left unity' and we are not scared to sponsor a whole range of ideological debates in this context of electoral collaboration.

We seek to give form and structure to any developing left regroupment. To this end we should contribute to the national and regional organisations of the Socialist Alliance. These can be the intermediate steps towards the creation of a LRC.

We must use these structures to invite trade unions and trade unionists into the formal work of realising the need for a new party of labour. History suggests that there will be a lag between the recognition of the need for labour representation by independent socialists and the Marxist left and the time it will take the trade unions to be won to such a view. Seeing no difference between the reactionary path of Blair and the conservatism of the trade union leadership can obscure this reality. The twin of sectarianism in politics is syndicalism in the unions.

The involvement of the unions in regenerating working-class political activity is our central goal not a secondary task to the development of an electoral machine. This has been a major weakness, to date, of the SSP.

13. Making new contacts for the AWL

Our general and concrete orientation-combining a policy for the broad labour movement with independent socialist propaganda and the struggle for left unity-is more or less unique on the left and it demands an increase in AWL profile. This is the only way to make new contacts-something that our branches continue to lack badly. The electoral initiatives make sense from all kinds of points of view, but even if they made sense only for the reason that they got our branches up, active, and meeting new people, it would almost be reason enough. AWL branches have made progress in some areas-we hold more public meetings for instance. But we have not properly implemented the last conference policy. Every branch could easily get a, say 80%, success rate on the following routines. And this way every branch can meet new people every week. These days it is, they say, necessary to kiss a lot more frogs before you find a prince. There are a lot of people interested in anti-capitalism, and a lot fewer willing to commit themselves to consistent activity. But we can only find the few by seeking to get talking to the many.

14. Six routines branches should strive to maintain

• A public meeting every month.

• A conscious effort to process contacts. Discuss contacts at branch meetings.

• Regularise public sales. Take magazines, petitions and leaflets for the next public meeting to the sale.

• Organise a regular FE sale with Bolshy and/or with the paper.

• Produce and distribute workplace bulletins along the lines proposed in the trade union document.

• Take magazines and papers to (a) work, (b) meetings.

Some comrades will never have the confidence to go out and to discuss political ideas with people on the doorstep without a little nervousness. But every comrade who has been through the minimum education programme of the AWL, and has read the Capital articles in the magazine, will be able to talk politically to the raw youth, disillusioned Labour supporters, disorientated leftists and angry trade unionists we will meet in the coming years. Branches must step up the AWL education drive. If it has fallen off, start by making it central to the branch meeting-using the magazine (especially the Capital articles which can never be discussed enough). And those who think of themselves as educated should take on the role of educators and thereby educate themselves some more!

Questions remitted to the National Committee

Dave B's amendments to Section 3 also remitted the question of the SCLV to the NC for further discussion.

An amendment to Section 3, by Janine Booth, was also remitted:

i. Delete the two sentences:

If we had taken the decision to involve ourselves sooner the Socialist Campaign for a Livingstone Victory could have played a role in securing Livingstone the Labour nomination. We now have the chance to develop it into an influential campaign for a genuinely labour movement-based independent candidature.

ii. In last para:

Replace first sentence with: The political approach of the SCLV was right.

At end of para add: However the use of the banner SCLV, based on a 20-year-old in-joke was inappropriate. We should drop it before it creates any further barriers to our ideas being heard or to possibilities of working with others.

=========================

Five rejected amendments to the AWL and Labour text:

1. Amendment from Kate A to Section 5:

Add to end of paragraph 4:

'We anticipate therefore, that the bulk of any electoral work done this year will be concentrated in London.'

2. Amendment from Kate A to Section 11:

Delete line at beginning of second paragraph, 'All things being equal' and insert:

It should be stressed that the main focus of practical election work for all AWL branches in the next year will be the London elections. It would take a local situation of a very particular nature to warrant the diversion of our limited resources into another election campaign running simultaneously. Comrades from outside London should involve themselves and their contacts in the election campaign around the GLA, rather than expending their efforts in smaller scale electoral experiments locally. This does not imply that election work should be the main focus of out of London branch activity, or the only focus for the London branches.

3. Amendment from Bruce R to Section 5:

[Both these points - voted on separately, to delete final paragraph (which begins 'The development of serious socialist candidates will be sporadic') and will be added after third paragraph .]

If the erosion of the organic links between Labour and the working class forces us to consider standing against Labour, it must also be grounds to reconsider a call for a blanket Labour vote in those areas where no left candidate is standing. Our position should be based on an election-by-election analysis of the type of election (e.g. local, Euro, general, regional), whether any independently-minded candidates have been allowed to stand by the Millbank machine, the dominant political issues and the likely level of working class participation.

In the current situation, we recognise that our weakness may mean that there are situations where we have to reluctantly call on voters to abstain as there is no viable alternative. This should not be ruled out in principle.

4. Amendment from Kate A, add to Section 6

If the erosion of the organic links between Labour and the working class forces us to consider standing against Labour, and has already resulted in London in a potential independent candidate who commands the support of a large portion of the labour movement, it must also be grounds to reconsider a call for a blanket Labour vote elsewhere. Our position should be to raise in all elections the question of Labour representativesâ accountability to the labour movement and therefore to demand that the labour movement question each official Labour candidate on their opinions, actions and political record. Electoral politics are important; we must find an active tactic for them.

5. Amendment from Kate A to Section 6. Delete all and insert

What may make independent working-class election candidates sectarian is not in essence them getting small votes, or carrying the name of this or that party rather than a broad alliance, or not personally being well-known activists in the area.

Such things may be features of sectarian candidacies, and certainly they also involve practical issues of importance in deciding the where, when and how of candidacies. But they are not the political essence of the matter.

A candidacy may have a well-known candidate, fly a broad 'labour' banner, and get a sizeable vote, yet be sectarian (examples: Lesley Mahmood of the Socialist Party, then Militant, in Walton in 1991, and, on a smaller scale, Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party in some recent contests). Another candidacy may have a not-very-well-known candidate, a politically distinctive banner, and a poor vote, yet not be sectarian. It may be ill-advised as a practical use of resources, but that is a different matter. In general politics, what defines groups as sectarian is not essentially having small numbers, or being strident about their factional identity.

Sectarian groups will tend to be small and strident, but the essence of the matter is politics. The same goes for candidacies. Sectarian is a candidacy which means socialists wilfully counterposing themselves to the real, living processes in the labour movement. Where a broad, living labour movement has discussed and selected a candidate and a policy, and a socialist faction then stands a rival candidate, saying: 'Ignore and boycott the broad labour movement processes, rally around us instead' -- that's sectarian. If a socialist faction stands a candidate having made no attempt to prompt any section of the labour movement into standing a socialist candidate on a working-class platform, then that too is sectarian - and an abrogation of the responsibility of a socialist group to offer leadership to the labour movement.

What made Lesley Mahmood's candidacy in Walton in 1991 sectarian was not any personal lack of repute in the area, or the banner ('Real Labour'), or the number of votes she got, but the fact that she declared herself the heir to the title of 'labour movement representative' without any genuine basis. In fact Mahmood had stood inside the Labour Party, and lost the selection ö not, as with Livingstone, due to bureaucratic interference, but simply by losing the vote. It was a sectarian feature of the perspective of the Militant/Socialist Party that self-proclamation would made them a mass party, and therefore led to them wilfully opting out of the Labour Party, even before Blair.

If the New Labour machine has shut down the broad labour movement processes and a socialist stands, committing themselves to fighting for the trade unions to democratically enforce labour political representation, explaining that they are standing to help blaze the way for a revived workers' party based on the trade unions, arguing with their supporters and voters to be active in the broad labour movement and to fight there for a revived workers' party based on the trade unions and with working-class policies, and seeks to make themselves accountable to the labour movement through the election campaign and beyond - then that candidacy is not sectarian.

Such a candidacy is not sectarian even if the candidate has not much previous base and gets a low vote - whether through the protest vote being siphoned off by others, or just because of low political morale in the local working class. A low vote may be all that is possible at a particular stage. If large sections of the trade union movement were politically confident and assertive enough to promote broad-based working-class socialist candidates and get big votes for them, then we would be in a completely different situation - in the midst of a big battle in the Labour Party structures, or of the birth of a new workers' party. We have to be active in the reality as it is, not wait for it to become as we wish it to be.

A sectarian election campaign is one that goes into the electoral arena giving more weight to the self-promotion of a faction than to the needs of the labour movement. At the present time, for example, a sectarian approach to elections would mean standing candidates in areas where we are simply frustrated by the reluctance of the Labour movement to break decisively with Blair. It would also be sectarian to stand an AWL candidate without having made any serious attempt to put together a broader coalition and/or to encourage sections of the labour movement to stand a socialist candidate on a working-class platform. It is not enough that we simply declare on leaflets that we are for working-class political representation - we must strive to create candidatures that actually represent the working class, as far as that is possible in the current situation. However, where a section of the labour movement is seeking some political expression, but is thwarted bureaucratically, independent candidates can play a pivotal role in reasserting the right of the working class to political representation.

There may be other circumstances in which small-scale independent election campaigns can be useful to a revolutionary organisation. Sectarianism lies not in the nature of such campaigns per se, but can arise if we ascribe more than a minor significance to them. Electoral work can never be more than an interesting side-line unless it is directly linked to the development of genuine labour movement representation.

The Labour Party has suffered a qualitative decline in internal life and in the openness of the channels connecting it to the working class. That is our starting point for our whole consideration of the question of independent working-class election candidates standing against Labour. But not all life has vanished from the Labour Party. There are constituencies and council wards where it would be sectarian in the proper sense, as defined above, to stand against Labour. (Example: Islington North, if Jeremy Corbyn gets to stand again as Labour candidate). We should seek out such areas of life and push there for working-class socialist Labour candidates to be adopted - and to run as independent local Labour candidates if barred by higher levels of the New Labour hierarchy. The evidence (for example, the widespread extreme weakness of reaction by Labour Parties to Labour councils pursuing sharply 'Tory' policies) suggests that these areas of life are very limited in number, and will remain very limited in number however zealous our activity.

We should investigate and agitate. What is not an option is passive support for Labour. Passive support is that which combines not with any effective socialist intervention into Labour Party life but with a hope or desire that such an intervention would be possible if only more left-wingers would sign up for it.

In particular, in London, we should be raising starkly the fact that it was the MPs votes that ultimately fixed the Mayoral selection vote.