‘Communist Party of Britain’ splits over electoral alternative?

According to unconfirmed reports circulating on the internet, Communist Party of Britain general secretary Robert Griffiths has resigned from the organisation. The move, if such it is, was prompted by the CPB Executive Committee's decision to withdraw from negotiations to form a successor organisation to No2EU, which the CPB supported in the European elections. (One possibility is that the CPB's shift is a reflection of the increasing push from the soft-left union bureaucrats with whom it is intertwined to 'close ranks' around Labour, for example Tony Woodley's praise of Gordon Brown.)

Griffiths, who stood on the No2EU list in Wales, was a prominent feature of election meetings and rallies and contributed regular articles to the CPB’s Morning Star on the campaign. It is understood that he and his allies, some of whom are still considering their position, sharply disagree with a section of the party determined to maintain their traditional position of fielding small numbers of candidates against Labour but otherwise calling for a Labour vote. The European elections, where the CPB took the opportunity to peddle their contemptible left-nationalism as a leading element of No2EU, posed no real threat to Labour. The next general election is a very different matter, with the Tories looking almost certain to win.

If these reports are true – there has been no official confirmation or comment from the CPB itself – it is likely that further resignations will follow, with the intention of forming a new organisation. This new group will almost certainly support whatever Bob Crow, the Socialist Party and allies pull together for the 2010 general election.

A split in the CPB will not automatically reduce all tensions in any future coalition. Griffiths and his followers are still significantly at odds with the likes of the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (who now seem keen to be centrally involved). Writing in the Morning Star, Griffiths has used a variety of formulations, from a catch-all appeal for general “left unity” to calls for the left to stand candidates against only the most egregious of Labour candidates: the pro-war, pro-privatisation brigade. He has also warned against “ultra-left” elements – clearly referring to the SP and SWP (let alone other more critically minded Trotskyists!)

Contrast this view to the Socialist Party’s blanket condemnation of the Labour Party and the SWP’s weather-vane prognostications of mass extra-Labour movements and you can see the potential stumbling blocks.

Undoubtedly, the CPB was the ideological if not the organisational core of the No2EU campaign. Bob Crow’s sympathies to Stalinist left-nationalism, the enduring influence of the Morning Star inside the labour movement and the various CPB members and sympathisers scattered throughout the trade unions made the party an attractive proposition. The degree to which Griffiths and his supporters can maintain influence over the new initiative will depend on maintaining some relationship or control over the Morning Star and on how many of its union ‘place-men’ jump ship with them. Rumour has it that John Haylett – the Star's political editor – and his ally, editor Bill Benfield, are sympathetic to Griffiths. Any split could well mean war.

The history of socialist organisation is a history of splits and fusions. For some commentators – mainly those from the right wishing to deride our movement or those deeply ensconced in one of the larger and more tightly controlled groups – splits are always negative. In fact many splits are necessary and healthy; they are positive developments. Others are entirely negative, the damaging act of a small grouping without principled political differences. This possible split in the CPB doesn’t really fall into one neat category. In some ways it would be better for the political health our movement if Griffiths stays put and sticks it out with the withering rump of ‘official’ Stalinism rather than becoming an influential player in the broad left. On the other hand, any damage to the CPB is welcome. At the same time, it’s hard to see what damage – short of a battle for control of the paper – the departure of Griffiths could do to an increasingly geriatric group.

The best we can hope for is that if the split is an accomplished fact that Griffiths and his supporters either fail to coalesce into a new organisation or they simply disappear after the next elections.

Electoral regroupment

Despite the CPB's internal crisis, the post-No2EU attempt to organise a left challenge to Labour at the next general election, seem to be proceeding. On 19 September, Bob Crow was interviewed in the Times and claimed he had been meeting with union leaders, socialists and other campaigners to plan a "workers' alliance" for the election. We are also told that a public launch of the No2EU successor organisation is likely within the next few weeks.

On 7 November, the RMT is sponsoring a conference on working-class representation, with the small disadvantage that it will not feature motions, take binding decisions or decide anything much at all.

Meanwhile, the SWP, manoeuvring desperately for position, have called their own meeting to discuss left electoral challenges on 31 October, inviting the Socialist Party, Respect, the CPB and the Barrow Socialist People's Party (a left split from the local Labour Party, with some councillors) to participate.

What all these initiatives have in common is extreme murkiness. That flows naturally from their behind-the-scenes, bureaucratic, top-down nature. Whether or not socialists can critically support whatever eventually emerges from the morass, we need to argue for an open, democratic regroupment of socialist and working-class activists to build a new socialist alliance, as a step towards a united working-class socialist party.