Socialism 2007, the Socialist Party's weekend of discussion and debate, took place on 17-18 November and attracted around 900 members. The weekend was organised into three sessions of two hour debates or talks and a rally on the Saturday and Sunday. Having worked with Socialist Students in Oxford before recently joining the AWL I had bought a ticket some time ago. Furthermore, having never been at one of these events before I had no idea what to expect.

In each session there were eleven or twelve different debates, discussions or forums to go to; the choice was an incredibly wide one spread over contemporary issues to topics of class struggle throughout history. Though one discussion entitled 'Che Guevara: Forty years after his death, what lesson can we draw from his life and struggle' was very tempting (especially after a discussion I had with a Flemish Socialist in which we agreed on some of the problems of a fetishisation of Guevara), I attended a forum on NHS privatization and a debate on Venezuela as well as the rally on the Saturday evening.

The NHS forum began the lumping together of the general theme of the weekend; small scale activism connecting with wider struggles and from this the building of the New Workers' Party. The forum took the form of a number of laments about the state of the NHS and the threat of privatisation alongside speakers calling for greater activity from already existing national movements like 'Keep Our NHS Public', but also the need for organisers to be held accountable to the rank and file of these movements and beyond this the need for NHS strikes to be linked to the Campaign for a New Workers' Party. Indeed, above everything else this weekend the central thrust of events seems to have been towards a promotion of this campaign.

The debate on Venezuela asked 'What way forward for the Venezuelan revolution' and placed Karl Debbaut from the 'Committee for a Workers' International' against Jorge Martin. Martin was listed as being from Hands off Venezuela, but began with an attempt to dodge the bullet in insisting that he was appearing as a member of the International Marxist Tendency. The mood in the room and the majority of questions from the floor were largely directed against him. The debate itself seemed largely pointless as both speakers took the same stance, arguing for the necessity for the revolution to be led by the workers and for Venezuela to become a worker run state; it all seemed like fairly bread and butter Socialism to me. Martin argued with a few examples of progressive moves made by the regime of Hugo Chávez, but generally stayed away from praising the regime; as one questioner from the floor commented, he knew who it was that he was addressing. Fortunately, attendees were not unprepared and pushed Jorge Martin through continual questioning of the pro-Chávez stance of Hands Off Venezuela.

The rally on the Saturday evening was, by and large, a massive celebration for the Socialist Party. The Campaign for a New Workers' Party was brought up numerous times and its necessity, validity and importance stressed by a whole host of speakers. Dotted about amongst this was a success story from Mel Mills of Huddersfield who stood in local elections in order to save a local council ursery system and a reference to an ongoing campaigns Sadiq Abakar spoke about the threat to himself of deportation to Darfur. Peter Taaffe's speech was notable for its especially strong emphasis on the importance of the Campaign for a New Workers' Party and a new mass workers' international (which he commented on in relation to the Socialist Party's work in Brazil). This contrasted sharply with the joy he seemed to take in dancing on the grave of the SWP. I know that our stance towards the SWP and Respect is currently an ongoing debate within the AWL, but by Taaffe's comments it would seem that the Socialist Party has already settled on an opinion and is happy to stand at a distance from the SWP.

Events within the Socialist Party like Socialism 2007 cannot be disregarded by the AWL, the sheer scale of the event was such that on my own I was unable to see more than a fraction of what was going on. I would argue that we need a stronger presence at large scale events like these so as to argue our own points both alongside and against those of the Socialist Party. It would be pointless and stupid to enter into a petty squabble with the Socialist Party and this is not what I am suggesting, however, I believe events such as Socialism 2007 are important forums which the AWL must enter into.