Pyrrhus remains an inspiration
None of the contributors to this site were able to make it to yesterday’s meeting of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN). Reasons for our absence included there being something half decent on the telly, needing to buy new socks and a sense that life is quite short and best not wasted on pointless charades. However we knew a few people who were there and they all agree that, even by the exacting standards of the British far left, it set a new benchmark for disconnected sectarian practice.
At issue was the insistence of the Socialist Party (SP) that the NSSN set up another anti-cuts movement. This can be variously theorised as evidence of a tendency towards over-production in capitalism or, more prosaically, the SP lacking its own anti-cuts group. The important point, and one which is missed by all those sectarians on the fringes of the labour movement being, that if it’s not controlled by the SP, it’s utterly useless and a sure-fire route to capitulation.
That was pretty much their argument on the day. Despite being told repeatedly by representatives of the Right to Work Campaign and the Coalition of Resistance that they are opposed to all cuts this was just not good enough for the SP. They adduced what someone said in a pub, the presence of Labour councillors at meetings and a twinge in their dodgy knee as irrefutable evidence that RTW, COR and everything else they did not control was on a clear path to class treason.
If they had tried to win their argument on politics alone that would not have been so bad. But that is not the way of the vanguard. The SP had long had around fifty percent of the NSSN’s leadership, something which led the cynical to see it as little more than a wholly owned party front. In fact when the SP raised their proposal at a meeting of the NSSN leadership they failed to convince a single other person of the good sense of their brainstorm. They opted to publicly denounce as liars people who disagreed with them e.g. “Dave Chapple also accuses us of not wanting unity. This is a lie.” That’s one way to build bridges.
By all accounts that was the bridge building strategy that was adopted yesterday. The SP won its proposal to set up its very own anti-cuts campaign despite the existence of two others which would welcome its involvement with open arms. Virtually everyone who was not one of their members walked out. This probably counts as win-win by some definitions. They now don’t have to deal with the inconvenience of other political ideas in the NSSN and they have their weird front organisation. Now there is only the small matter of winning hegemony over the working class. Maybe they can force a split with it too.
The last paragraph points to the nub of the problem and that its not just the SP that is behaving badly: “The SP won its proposal to set up its very own anti-cuts campaign despite the existence of two others which would welcome its involvement with open arms”.
So which one should the SP (or anyone else) be involved in? Why are their two already? I tend to veer towards COR as it has less chance of being dominating by by one political organisation, however, we need to start knocking heads together. I think we need to start again. The various political organisations, anti-cuts cuts groups, trades councils etc. need to organise ONE conference out of which we can set up a truly representative and democratic anti-cuts coalition dominated by no one organisation and owned by all. For a start RTW should give up the franchise on their People’s assembly and open up the planning to all reducing SWP involvement to a minimum to alleviate the justified suspicion that we all have when the SWP intiates something. RTW and COR should dissolve themselves in favour of a new united organisation.
I was there and this article is about right, I’m afraid. What was on the telly was one of the lesser-regarded Star Wars movies. Hmmm….tough call….
I’ll blog a report later.
I’m personally less concerned about which national ‘coalition’ people are members of but whether they are supporting their anti-cuts groups set up around specific closures of nurseries, libraries, etc. These umbrellas only have meaning if they have a relationship with those groups, because these are the ones with social weight.
They’ll never be an authentic expression of them, but as long as they don’t pretend they are that’s ok with me.
However, I don’t feel angry at this particular decision simply because it revolves around an organisation that has never made an significant contribution making a decision to be even less relevant. I can see why people who hoped it might develop into something are angry, don’t me wrong, but NSSN, like the CNWP, seems to be more about posturing than politics.
A fairly accurate report. Even having bveen around the left far too long, I’ve rarely had to sit through so many lying and distorting speeches.
What was at stake was not just the issue of the SP wanting their own anti-cuts campaign, but also making it as cear as can be that from now on participation in the NSSN by non-SPers is only with their approval. They have gone from having a (narrow) majority on the NSSN steering committee to setting up an anti-cuts campaign on which they have an inbuilt majority from the start.
What was heartending at the end of a pretty awful day, was that around 70 people gathered afterwards to discuss what it meant and what to do, including political tendencies which normally wouldn’t be seen together in the same room. Discussion on that continues.
We really do have to put pressure on for the national anti-cuts campaigns to work together and move to one national organisation.
Just a point in response to CP’s comment on the 12th February conference – the SWP have already given up the franchise and are having open planning meetings and nearly every workshop is being run by other organisations.
Interestingly, in Ireland, the SP and SWP (in the form of ‘People not Profits’) are working together in the United Left Alliance to stand candidates in the upcoming election. Their platform seems pretty good to me – especially in the Irish context. So UK SP and Irish SP seem to be on different wave lengths. No doubt someone on this site will be able to explain this. Or is it the result of the much worse situation in Ireland?
I know that the SP dragged all their full timers down for the day, under bogus mandates to ensure the vote was won. People may not be aware that this is because the UK is in a civil war;
“THE NET RESULT of all this means a colossal polarisation of the classes not seen for 20 years and possibly exceeding the near civil war situation during the miners’ strike of 1984/85.”
Peter Taaffe Socialism Today
http://www.socialismtoday.org/144/students.html
Actually Pyrrhus managed to lead several coalition armies to narrow victories over the emerging might of Rome. In contrast it’s hard to imagine the SP leadership managing to pull anyone along with them but their own general staff and a handfull of their less imaginative hard-core cadres. I’d opt for Pyrrhus every time given the choice ;o)
Brief (and comradely) reply to Jane Kelly.
Re the SP and the SWP being in the same electoral coalition in Ireland (great news!) standing together as the United Left Alliance.
The same is happening in England. The SWP and SP are both in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
I was at the TUSC national conference yesterday (Sat 22 Jan 2011) … the SWP (in the speeches of Michael Lavalette (from the platform) and Jenny Sutton (from the floor) were very explicit indeed that they are fully in support of TUSC and will be standing candidates.
I made a speech, part of which was calling for greater organisational democracy, and part calling for TUSC to welcome the whole of the Marxist Left, including Socialist Resistance, the AWL and the CPGB and other groups wishing to work for the devcelopment of a socialist party to the left of Labour. Ah.. a final part was welcoming TUSC and hoping that we (TUSC) can stand a thousand candidates in England!
So half an hour after the big falling out over the creation of a front anti-cuts organisation everyone agrees to set up an electoral vehicle. That might work.
And what do you do if you are not in a left group?
You do the same as everyone else. Ignore it.
I think there is something of a major flaw in the thinking of all four so-called national anti-cuts campaigns, for even if they were all working together they would still neither constitute the anti-cuts movement as a whole nor the political leadership of it. However, if they did all decide to do that, it would be a step in the right direction, and in achieving the task required which is the building of mass movement capable of breaking the Coalition Government and their public sector cuts and privatisation programme.
The TUC Resolution on Defending Public Services passed unanimously at the 2010 Congress calls for all affiliates to work together to build a broad solidarity alliance of trades unions and communities to fight the cuts not for the building of the RTW, CoR or the NSSN’s new Anti-Cuts campaigns. Rather than any or all of these ‘national campaigns’ trying to organisationally impose themselves on the movement, they should all be working alongside local trades councils (helping to set them up where they don’t exist), trades union branches, all existing anti-cuts organisations, community groups, pensioners’ groups, student and youth organisations in their own respective local authority areas and seeking to unite and build the broadest possible anti-cuts movement as a whole at all levels, across all sectors of society.
If they’re aren’t wanting to do that then what’s the point of ‘em? Do they or do they not have the interests of the movement as a whole at heart, or are they driven by some other ulterior motive?
A majority of those opposed to, and wanting to fight the cuts right now have in reality probably never heard of any if these campaigns let alone support one or other of them. The onus falls on this majority and all those who are opposed to this ‘Life of Brian’ approach to building the anti-cuts movement, to organise themselves via their own already existing organisations and networks so as to counter this ridiculous state of affairs, and to politically whip these people into line. Alternatively, to see them isolate themselves from everyone else as the struggle unfolds.
We don’t need any of them ffs, to organise ourselves on the ground, and should be demanding that everyone involved in them cease their sectarian squabbling and pretensions to be the leadership of the anti-cuts movement, when the movement as yet barely exists and they are far from anything of the sort.
The Greater Manchester Against Cuts: Unions & Communities Fighting Together Conference held in Manchester on Saturday, organised by Greater Manchester Association of Trades Councils represents a positive step forwards in this regard. It was attended by supporters (though not many) of the RTW, CoR and the People Charter campaigns in addition to other activists from local anti-cuts groups, the unions and community sector across Greater Manchester.
It endorsed the call by the 2010 TUC for a ‘Broad solidarity alliance of Trades Unions and communities” to oppose these attacks, which are based on a false ‘free market’ ideology, and to fight for an alternative strategy based on tax justice and making the Bankers, big corporations and the mega rich pay for the crisis that their system has created.
Everyone committed themselves to work in all sectors of their respective communities to:
Support the building, better organisation and co-ordination of all campaigns & initiatives against the cuts and privatisation, at a workplace, local, Greater Manchester, national and international level.
Oppose any attempt to use racism and Islamophobia to divide opposition to the cuts.
Mobilise the largest possible number of people to attend the TUC demonstration on Saturday 26 March.
Support and build the re-convening of the Greater Manchester Against Cuts Conference soon after the May elections.
The Conference organised by Manchester Trades Council this Saturday will hopefully proceed in the same vein.
This is the way forwards for the anti-cuts movement locally, regionally and nationally not the building of any one of these individual campaigns or even merging of them altogether.
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