Emancipation & Liberation

The challenge to the UK state and British Empire from 1879-95

Contents of forthcoming book

1. Introduction
2. The growing conflict between liberal and conservative unionism in the period of New Imperialism
3. Michael Davitt and the launching of the Irish Revolution in 1879
4. Davitt adopts an ‘internationalism from below’ strategy to spread the revolution
5. The struggle against coercion and for land triggers off a new movement in England and Scotland
6. Parnell’s ‘counter-revolution within the revolution’
7. Shifting the main focus of the ‘internationalism from below’ alliance to Scotland
8. The ending of the liberal consensus in the face of the rise of the New Imperialism
9. Davitt widens his ‘internationalism from below’ alliance, and brings in Wales
10. ‘Internationalism from below’ and the weaknesses of Irish nationalism and British Left radicalism
11. From land and labour struggles to the beginning of independent labour political organisation in Scotland
12. From land nationalisation to the eight hour day
13. Broadening the ‘internationalism from below’ alliance around the political demand for Home Rule
14. 1889-92 – the new industrial and political offensive
15. The rise and wider effects of New Unionism in Ireland
16. The limits of Davitt’s politics reached as the Irish Home Rule Movement splits
17. The thwarted hopes of New Unionism and the Home Rule Movement after the 1892 General Election
18. The employers’ offensive and the retreat of New Unionism
19. The final break-up of the ‘internationalism from below’ alliance
20. 1895 – High Imperialism triumphant and the emergence of Connolly’s Irish Socialist Republican Party

1. Introduction

Why should we spend time examining a period of history from over a hundred years ago? Perhaps the best reason is that, between 1879 and 1895, there are striking parallels to the situation we find ourselves in today. This was also a period of increasing inter-imperialist competition, as the previously dominant world power began to lose its leading position. In the late nineteenth century it was the UK that found itself in this new position in the world; today it is the USA, with the UK continuing to fall well down the global pecking order.

Furthermore, when we compare the situation in the UK, over the two periods, we can see the continuing significance of national democratic challenges to the unionist state. The Irish Revolution(1), which began in 1879, led to a questioning of the very existence of the UK, and to profound divisions amongst the British ruling class over how best to maintain its rule over these islands and their wider empire. The demands for national self-determination in Ireland, Scotland and Wales were linked to major social and economic struggles. Clearly, there are significant echoes of this situation today.

From 1875, under the impact of the New Imperialism(2), Disraeli’s Conservative government had begun to pursue increasingly aggressive colonial policies. These reflected the concerns of a British ruling class, now facing global competition from a larger number of European states. From 1879, however, a challenge developed to this recharged British imperialism. The new opposition drew its politics largely from the social republican tradition found in Ireland, and the radical tradition found in England, Scotland and Wales. It formed largely as result of the failure of traditional Gladstonian Liberals to uphold their earlier support for civil rights and opposition to colonial expansion.

Michael Davitt, migrant, former textile worker, Fenian and Irish Land League organiser, was the central figure involved. He attempted to unite land and labour struggles, across the four nations constituting the United Kingdom, and beyond into the British colonies and the USA. Davitt developed an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance to win wider support for the Irish National Land League (INLL), one of the biggest ‘lower orders’ movements in the nineteenth century UK. However, he deepened this alliance in England, Scotland and Wales, by contributing to the development of independent land and labour organisations in each of these nations.

The leader of the INLL, Charles Parnell, though, had other ideas. In 1882, he closed down the INLL in order to form a purely constitutional nationalist party, the National League, with the aim of winning Irish Home Rule. However, the first Irish Home Rule Bill, adopted by Gladstone’s Liberal government, was defeated in 1886, and a new government, led by the Conservative Lord Salisbury, took office.

Davitt now had to confront the thoroughly jingoist, racist and sectarian Unionist alliance. It would countenance no concession over Irish Home Rule, and revelled enthusiastically over every latest imperial exploit. This was the conservative unionist approach to maintaining British ruling class domination at home and abroad. It vehemently opposed the liberal unionist approach(3) with its support for home rule (devolution) for the constituent nations of the UK.

As New Imperialism increased its stranglehold on British politics, the Liberal Party, including many on its Radical wing, were drawn into its slipstream. A section of advanced Radicals, however, reacted against this and made the first tentative steps towards Socialism. Robert Cunningham-Graham and Keir Hardie were just two examples. However, many former Radicals (and Liberal Party members), who became Socialists, retained much of their earlier politics.

Furthermore, the Conservative Party, hitherto seen as a major impediment to any democratic advance, began to develop a Tory Democrat wing. Its supporters made appeals to the newly enfranchised workers. They were offered limited economic reforms in return for giving their support to British ruling class attempts to expand the Empire. Disraeli was one of the first to see the possibilities of harnessing the link between reform and Empire; but it was Randolph Churchill, who attempted to develop this further, by appealing directly to the working class. He also strongly linked expansion of the British Empire with the defence of the existing British Union. He looked to the local dignitary-led, Orange Order in Ulster, for inspiration in forming his pro-imperial, cross class alliance.

Many workers were drawn into Conservative Unionist and further Right populist organisations. They did hope to gain economically from the Empire, or to draw some psychological comfort by celebrating their racial or religious ‘superiority’. The growing number of wars directed against the peoples of the colonies took only a small number of British lives. The real cost was to come later, when the inevitable consequence of growing inter-imperialist competition led to the mass slaughter of the First World War. The leaders of the Conservative Unionists though, were then able to look with smug satisfaction as their Liberal, Irish constitutional nationalist, and some Labour and Socialist ‘opponents’, threw themselves into the promotion of the carnage.

However, back in the 1880’s, a few Tory Democrats, such as Henry Hyndman and Henry Champion, broke with the Conservative Party and became leading figures in the new Socialist movement. Like the former Radical Liberals, these individuals also retained aspects of their old politics, especially their lingering support for English/Anglo-Saxon/British supremacy and racism. Some of the clashes, which took place in the early Socialist movement, reflected this earlier division between Radical Liberals and Tory Democrats.

The infant Social Democratic Federation (SDF), formed in 1885, showed many of the characteristics which have plagued later attempts at Socialist agitation – whether to concentrate on direct action and socialist propaganda or to seek political office; and whether to seek constitutional change or economic reform. Failure to develop a coherent programme and an integrated strategy contributed to many of the setbacks and consequent splits amongst Socialists at the time, just as they continue to do today.

One of these breakaway organisations was the small but quite influential Socialist League (SL). It soon became divided between those who wanted to make propaganda for Socialism, and those, mainly in its affiliated Scottish Land and Labour League (SLLL), who wanted to orientate upon trade union, crofter and cottar struggles.

However, it was the launching of the Irish Land War, in 1879, and the formation of the INLL, which had largely inspired the formation of the SDF, as former advanced Radicals turned to Socialism. They joined the wider struggle against those forces, both Conservative and Liberal, either aggressively advancing the Empire and defending the Union, or meekly bowing before this new onslaught.

The social struggle was closely linked to the political battle for greater Irish self-determination. Furthermore, as new Land Leagues were formed in Scotland and Wales, the demand for Home Rule was taken up in these nations too. The majority of the independent Crofter candidates of 1885, and the new Scottish Labour Party, formed in 1888, supported both Irish and Scottish Home Rule.

Many key individuals, from the land and labour struggles of the 1880’s, contributed to the massive wave of ‘New (Trade) Unionism’, which burst out in 1889. They faced a similar situation to that faced by socialists and trade unionists today. Only then, socialists were up against the politics of Lib-Labism. Trade union leaders were still tied to an earlier Radical Liberal vision of a Free Trade Empire and a ‘fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.

Today we are up against the politics of New Labour, with trade union leaders locked into ‘Social Partnership’. Sometimes these misleaders may still hanker back to the disappearing vision of the post-war, Welfare State Empire, when workers in the UK were looked after ‘from the cradle to the grave’.

Furthermore, prior to 1889, the vast majority of unskilled and casual workers lay outside the Old Unions. Today, union membership has shrunk back to a minority, mostly concentrated in the public sector. This has left vast numbers of private sector workers, particularly women, migrant and part-time workers unorganised.

Today, the majority of the British Left is tied to a Broad Left strategy of recapturing the ‘old’ unions by replacing their existing leaders with new Left leaders (many of whom are earlier Broad Left leaders!) In contrast, any contemporary ‘New Unionism’ would aim to thoroughly democratise existing unions and bring them under rank and file workers’ control; or, where necessary, build completely new unions to organise those workers now completely unorganised.

Nor is the Left nationalist notion of breakaway unions much use against the global corporations, which workers confront today. Yes, national (and sectoral) union sections need more autonomy, but unions should be as extensive as possible. The key issue is not the existence of union HQ flying a national flag (e.g. the tricolour or saltire), but the necessity for union sovereignty to reside with workers at the workplace level, not in the union HQs. The independent Scottish teachers’ union, the EIS, is one of the most fervent upholders of the embrace of government and employers, not so much in social partnership, more a morganatic marriage(4).

Today, some may take comfort from the fact that the majority of the British ruling class has opted for the liberal, and not the conservative unionist option, in order to maintain its rule over the UK, and its continued, albeit now indirect, influence over Ireland. New Labour promotes ‘Devolution-all-round’ (i.e. for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) and the ‘Peace Process’ in Ireland, backed by the social partnerships of compliant trade union and demanding governments and employers.

Yet, the aims of today’s liberal unionists are the same as those of the conservative unionists of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They both want to create the best political environment for their principal class backers. Today this means allowing corporate capitalists to lower wages, attack working conditions and undermine pensions, through deregulation and privatisation. It means fawning before the requirements of finance capital.

The British ruling class may indeed have learned some political lessons from their one-time support for intransigent conservative unionism. When Conservative and Liberal Unionists tried to face down the rising demand for Irish Home Rule, in the 1880’s, ‘90s and first two decades of the twentieth century, this eventually proved to be a disastrous strategy for them. By 1922, direct rule over ‘the Twenty Six Counties’ had been ended, and the UK state had begun to break-up.

However, the post-1922 UK-Irish ‘settlement’, imposed after the threat of a renewed war on the Irish people, seemed so permanent, that this lesson appeared to be forgotten by the late 1960’s. This was when new national democratic movements confronted the British ruling class. Initially this ruling class did flirt with both liberal centralist(5) and devolution(6) measures to deal with these challenges, which coincided with major working class struggles. However, once the ruling class had reasserted its control, under the two post-1974 Labour governments, it returned to the old failed conservative unionist strategy of defence of the constitutional status quo, backed by threats and coercion. Meanwhile, anti-trade union laws soon tamed most union leaderships. The TUC and the Labour Party leaders left the miners isolated, when they defied these new laws. The NUM faced the full panoply of state power between 1984-5. The Labour/TUC’s acceptance of ‘New Realism’ was but the beginnings of the road back to the Lib-Lab ‘Old Unionism’ of the nineteenth century, and its complete acceptance of capitalist rule.

Thatcher’s British Unionist ‘No, No, No’ intransigence first began under Labour, in the late 70’s in Northern Ireland. The attempt by Labour Irish Secretary, Roy Mason, to criminalise any effective opposition had its parallels in Forster, Gladstone’s Liberal Irish Secretary, and his introduction of coercion to Ireland in 1881, long before Lord Salisbury’s Conservative Irish Secretary, ‘Bloody Balfour’ was given free rein in 1887.

The failure of the UK state to meet the constitutional and economic reform demands raised by the Civil Rights Movement in ‘the Six Counties’, produced another period of constitutional instability, lasting over a quarter of a century. An overt and determined republican challenge emerged within the UK’s frontiers. Thatcher’s later attempt to deny any political self-determination, for either Scotland or Wales, made the ‘National Question’ an even wider and more volatile political issue.

This is one reason why the majority of the British ruling class unceremoniously dumped Thatcher in 1990 and, under John Major’s government adopted The Downing Street Agreement. The Conservatives were now committed to a liberal unionist strategy to defend the Union. When this proved too limited to contain the wider challenge, the ruling class turned instead to New Labour’s policy of ‘Devolution-all-round’. This is, in effect, a return to the old nineteenth century Liberal Home Rule strategy.

However, as with the nineteenth century division between Conservatives and Liberals, there is little difference today in the real aims of the Tories and New Labour. Both are committed to maintaining a British imperial presence in the wider world. Both accept that the British ruling class can now only achieve this as a junior partner to US imperialism. This leads to continuous wars, attacks on civil rights, austerity welfare provision, and the scape-goating of migrant workers. There is now a tension between New Labour and the Tories’ liberal unionism and their increasingly conservative militaristic imperialism. And, under today’s prevailing political conditions it is the liberal unionism which is more likely to give.

New Labour soon falls back on the nastier traits, usually associated with conservative unionism and imperialism. Indeed, as international competition becomes more pronounced, in the wake of the current Credit Crunch and the deepening worldwide recession, New Labour is preparing the ground for even more jingoistic, racist and sectarian forces.

The Immigration Minister, Philip Woolas, has shown that it is not only conservatives, who will stoop to the gutter, when it comes to racist attacks to divert attention from the real causes of the economic crisis. Meanwhile, the rise of the BNP, and the continued presence of malevolent loyalist forces in ‘the Six Counties’, show that even more sinister forces are lurking not far below the surface in the UK. Events in Berlusconi’s Italy demonstrate that it is but a short step to government encouraged racist assaults and murders of migrants and ethnic minorities.

As we try to build a new socialist movement, an appreciation of the Left’s politics, between 1879 and 1895, provides us with useful insights. The Radicals were then the dominant force on the Left, from whom the infant socialist and labour movements inherited much of their politics. The Radicals wanted to return to the mid-century ‘glory days’ of free trade and international peace.

Today’s Left includes those ‘Marxist’ Radicals – the entrants and outriders of the British Labour Party – who hope to re-establish the welfare state and to prolong the long period since 1945 without a world war. This is often tied to their Broad Left strategy for reclaiming the trade unions for ‘real Labour’. However, just as the rise New Imperialism, at the end of the nineteenth century, spelled the end of the old international ‘free trade’ capitalist order, so the development of corporate capitalist imperialism today means that the post-1945 social democratic world has changed irrevocably. New answers and approaches are required.

‘Marxist’ Radicals in the SWP and Socialist Party(7), often defend the formation and continued existence of the UK as a ‘progressive’ achievement. They claim this historical gain needs to be defended against the attacks of the nationalists in Scotland and Wales, completely failing to see the wider democratic issues at stake. They take some consolation in the ‘Peace Process’ in ‘the Six Counties’, which appears, for the time being, to have reopened the road for ‘bread and butter’ issues, i.e. traditional labourist politics.

When ‘Marxist’ Radicals are forced to address the major democratic and constitutional issues, they tend to follow their nineteenth century Radical predecessors. They either see the ‘National Question’ as a diversion form the ‘real struggle’, or give support to liberal unionist options to defend the UK.

Some ‘Marxist’ Radicals go further, but still only end up tailing the more thoughtful sections of the British ruling class, when they call for more powers for the existing devolved assemblies. A few would go so far as to advocate a new federal arrangement between the constituent parts of the UK. This last ditch liberal option has a long pedigree, whenever the British union state is under threat from national democratic movements. Others, however, hide behind the formulation of support for the ‘right of national self-determination’. The political effect of this is to leave it to the various nationalist parties to take the lead formulating the politics of the national democratic movements.

By examining past history, we can see that the politics of those advocating various ‘British roads to socialism’ are but continuations of an older British Radical tradition, which dominated the Left in the UK, in the late nineteenth century. Radicals tended to leave the political initiative to the Liberal Party and their Irish nationalist allies. Today’s ‘Marxist’ Radicals also take their political lead over the UK constitution from the liberal wing of the British ruling class, or sometimes, if unwittingly, from the nationalist parties – Sinn Fein, SNP and Plaid Cymru.

Yet, between 1888 and 1894, an alternative tradition developed, which recognised some of the weaknesses of the ‘Marxist’ Radicals. The Scottish Socialist Federation (SSF) was formed, which brought together SDF and SL/SLLL members, as well as other socialists, to try and go beyond the politics of Radicalism and the subservience of Lib-Labism. In some respects the SSF anticipated the Scottish Socialist Alliance, (SSA) formed in 1996, in the aftermath of the Anti-Poll Tax Struggle, along with the continued failure of the Labour Party to meet workers’ needs.

In the end, just as Davitt’s social republicanism collapsed into populist nationalism in Ireland, so the SSF, along with the Scottish Labour Party, it had backed, collapsed into the hybrid Radical/Tory Democrat tradition of ‘the British road to socialism’ found in the Independent Labour Party or the SDF. Today, after a major internal crisis, the SSA’s successor organisation, the Scottish Socialist Party, faces powerful pulls, in the form of Left nationalism and Left unionism.

By 1895, the limitations of Davitt’s politics had become quite apparent, as the British ruling class regained the political initiative and derailed the Home Rule challenge. Furthermore, Socialists, at the time, were unable to take the vigorous post-1889 New (Trade) Unionism challenge forward. It also went into retreat, taking on some of the characteristics of ‘Old Unionism’ once more. A new politics was needed to unite the political and economic wings of a wider working class movement.

However, it was within the SSF milieu that a real alternative began to emerge, in the figure of James Connolly. Like Davitt, he was a member of an Irish migrant family. Connolly’s family had settled in Edinburgh. He received his initial political training within the Scottish Socialist Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. He was to make a quantum leap in his political approach, though, when he moved to Dublin and founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in 1896.

Connolly developed the socialist republican politics needed to take Davitt’s social republican and radical ‘internationalism from below’ alliance on to a higher level, during the heyday of High Imperialism from 1895. Connolly’s consistent anti-unionism and anti-imperialism offered a clear strategy, which opposed both the Irish constitutional nationalism and the ‘British road to socialism’, which was supported by most of the British Left of his day. Instead, Connolly promoted a ‘break-up of the UK and British Empire road to socialism’.

In today’s world, imperialism still calls the shots. The continued existence of the UK provides the British ruling class with a powerful bastion of support. This unionist and monarchist state is fundamentally undemocratic. It gives the British ruling class a whole host of draconian Crown Powers to maintain its rule. Even the formally independent Irish Republic has to bow to British ruling class needs. This was highlighted by Irish leaders’ recent reluctant acceptance of the liabilities of UK-owned banks in Ireland. Nor did the Irish government get many thanks for their pioneering bank rescue plan to save domestic capitalism, much of which Brown and Darling so quickly copied and took credit for.

However, the current financial crisis has also highlighted the close links between leading Scottish nationalists and the British banks. In panic, they have quietly rushed into the arms of the UK government to develop a common approach to address shared capitalist concerns. Meanwhile, in public, the SNP and New Labour continue their political squabbles, jockeying for position to gain relative advantages for their particular capitalist backers.

British politicians, whether they are Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, continue to argue with SNP politicians over the extent of power to be awarded to the devolved Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. However, they all agree that the monarchy and the ruling class’s Crown Powers have to remain in place, that the Bank of England will control the economy through the continued use of sterling, and that suitable arrangements have to be made to accommodate NATO and to protect US imperial interests. All these parties are wedded to neo-liberalism and are in hock to corporate capital.

The nationalist parties represented in the various devolved assemblies, in Holyrood, Cardiff Bay or Stormont, make no attempt to mount a joint challenge to continued British rule, or to the all pervading corporate capitalist power over these islands. Whilst Plaid Cymru leaders may be envious of the powers already devolved to the Scottish Parliament, it is pretty clear that, if parity were to be achieved, this would merely signal their intention to compete more effectively for inward corporate investment. When Donald Trump threatened to abandon his golfing complex project in Aberdeenshire, in stepped the then DUP Minister, Ian Paisley Junior, to offer an alternative site on the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland.

Just as Davitt and Connolly realised, in their day, that they faced the combined forces of British imperialism (whether it be Conservative or Liberal) and Irish nationalism (whether it be Parnell or his successors), so socialists face a similar combined opposition of Labour, Conservative and Lib-Dem unionists and nationalists today. By studying our class’s history, we gain the advantages of hindsight. This is why we need to look once more to rebuild an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance of republican socialists in Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.

Footnotes

• (1) ‘The Irish Revolution’ is the term given by Theodore Moody to describe the major period of social and political upheaval between 1879-82, initiated by the Irish National Land League and the ‘Land War’.
• (2) New Imperialism developed in Europe, the USA (and later Japan) in the 1870’s. This followed the defeats of the Paris Commune in 1871, and the overthrow of the Radical Reconstruction (the concerted state-backed attempt to bring about black emancipation in the USA, after the Civil War) by 1877.
• (3) Here, liberal unionism refers to one of the two overall approaches taken by the British ruling class to defend the Union. It is not to be confused with the Liberal Unionists, who were adherents of a conservative unionist strategy.
• (4) A morganatic marriage was an arrangement by which a king had a queen who was entitled to none of his property and whose children had no inheritance rights. In other words she only had the right to be screwed!
• (5) It was one of the ironies of history that Northern Ireland, ended up, in 1922, with the sole devolved parliament in the UK, in the form of Stormont, despite the Ulster Unionists’ earlier vehement opposition to Home Rule. This ‘Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People’, far from being liberal in inspiration, more resembled the old reactionary, pre-1801, Irish Parliament, in its attempt to exclude Catholics (or Irish nationalists) from any share of power. Thus, the Conservatives’ closure of Stormont in 1972 and resort to Direct Rule was initially a very weak liberal centralising political measure. However, responsibility for much of this ‘direct rule’ was undertaken by the British armed and security forces, negating any liberal intentions.
• (6) The proposals for Scottish and Welsh devolution enjoyed wider support, both from liberal unionists and constitutional nationalists. However, political support for a liberalised and reformed Stormont was much more narrowly based, and found primarily amongst constitutionalist nationalists.
• (7) Whilst the tradition of the Tory Democrats has virtually no remaining political purchase upon Socialists today in the UK today, it still perhaps enjoys a kind of afterlife in the Labour Unionism still found in the Socialist Party in ‘the Six Counties’. Here the SP has been known to flirt with plebian loyalism, particularly the Progressive Unionist Party, which is linked to the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force.

The Scottish Socialist Party site is carrying a report on the conference here.

As well as an overview of events there are some comments and feedback from attendees. These are reproduced below, visit the report on the conference for more details.

Brian Garvey, Fourthwrite, Independent Workers Union:

The space given to democratic discussion, the planning and facilitation of the event was impressive and I’m fairly confident that it was because people felt valued theat the exchanges were so constructive.

The honesty and will to learn from recent experience and experiences of others is a great example to us. So to is the acknowledgement that it requires our working alongside many other individuals and organisations to create a new society and on the bus home we talked of the inegrity and earnest of our Scottish friends and look forward to welcoming you to Ireland as we get things moving.

go raibh maith agat

Dan Finn, Irish Socialist Network:

Last Saturday’s conference in Edinburgh was an excellent day, well done to the SSP for organising it.

I learned a lot from the discussions as I’m sure everyone there did.

It was very encouraging to see left activists from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England who are all working towards similar goals and facing similar challenges come together to see where our work over-laps, what we can learn from eachother and how we can support each other’s efforts.

I hope this is just the beginning.

There is a http://www.scottishsocialistparty.co.uk/republicansocialist Section on the SSP website on the Republican Socialist Convention.

The agenda is still to be confirmed so watch that page for details. The page also contains links to the motion which led to the convention taking place and an article on it.

Link is now dead and does not appear to be archived

Following the Welsh Assembly elections, Bob Davies (CPGB, South Wales) details the compromises in the pursuit of power

Cross party, consensus politics currently appears in vogue at the moment. As I write, and perhaps encouraged by recent developments in Welsh politics, Gordon Brown has announced that Patrick Mercer and John Bercow, both Tory MPs, will be joined by Lib. Dem MP, Matthew Taylor to advise the government on certain policy matters with their expertise. It seems the Labour/Plaid coalition administration in Wales could yet provide the basis for thenew politics Brown hankers for – all in the interests of the country as a whole, of course.

One Wales

Somehow, I think not. The Welsh electorate experienced the same sort of empty, meaningless rhetoric following Welsh Labour’s predicament when it failed to secure an overall majority in y Senedd during elections to its’ Assembly on May 3rd this year. The eventual outcome of that were a Labour First Minister and a Plaid Cymru deputy First Minister with ‘One Wales’ being ratified as the policy document that now forms the basis for the country’s political direction until 2011. It is worth giving the period in question a quick résumé.

Events in the weeks subsequent to One Wales being approved may have bordered on the farcical, but they were hardly surprising. The Welsh Assembly has a very limited remit and this found its reflection in the nature of the election campaign generally leading up to May 3rd – the politics being exhibited by all mainstream parties were high on platitudes and low on concrete proposals. The battle for the ‘greenest’ politics and who could best manage the NHS took centre stage. Evidently, how each party imaged itself was more important than its politics.

As soon as it became clear that no single party had secured an overall majority in the Assembly, which of the party leaders could get their grubby hands on first ministerial power became the issue. Talk of deals, pacts and horse – trading in order that each of their respective parties could govern in the ‘best possible way for the people of Wales’ became the norm. Indeed, the Welsh First Minister, Rhodri Morgan’s repeated call to reach out to those in other parties with similar ideas typified the narrow political agenda on offer. Each party leader seemed prepared to make a deal with any of the others but, initially at least, could not quite pull it off.

All Wales Accord

Take the manoeuvrings around the ‘All Wales Accord’ – the first policy document being sold by the proposed coalition of Plaid, Liberal Democrats and Tory Assembly Members, the then infamously named Rainbow Alliance. That document contained such things as a commitment to work towards the improvement of transport links, the piloting of a laptop scheme for all schoolchildren, a trial of NHS walk-in centres and a vague promise to improve social housing. It also carried a commitment to hold a referendum on further powers for the Welsh assembly, bringing it in line with the Scottish parliament. Measures to bring about real democratic change or improve workers’ social and economic rights were absent.

One Wales hardly provides a substantial principled political shift from its predecessor – despite Morgan speaking about it as a new beginning or Plaid’s deputy First Minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones, (who had only recently been praising the All-Welsh accord when One Wales was introduced), bleating about it as a historical moment for the people of Wales.

True, but hardly inspiring, whilst One Wales contains anti-privatisation sound-bites about moving purposefully to end the internal market in the NHS, general commitments on, for example, education are hazy and range from providing extra assistance with student debt to initiating a pilot scheme for laptops for children. Indeed, ‘One Wales’ contains the platitudes people may expect from politics that are characterised by backroom deals between mainstream parties. As with the All Wales accord, principled proposals for real change were, unsurprisingly, not to be found.

The Left in Wales

So what of the Left in Wales during the period in question? Leaving aside the fact that there was a wide array of organisations contesting the five regional lists, at least two and as many as five left slates were vying for the same vote in every region. Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party and the Morning Star‘s Communist Party of Britain contested each one, while the Socialist Party (standing as Socialist Alternative) and Respect were also on the ballot in South Wales West and South Wales Central. In addition, one of the fragments of the former Workers Revolutionary Party, the Socialist Equality Party, stood in the last named region.

Thankfully, Forward Wales did not add to the confusion by contesting the regions, although its two most well known members at the time, Ron Davies and John Marek, were standing as independents in Caerphilly and Wrexham constituency seats. The average percentage vote for all of these groups combined was around a meagre 0.5%.

The campaigning efforts of those organisations hardly set the world alight either. Take Respect. This organisation in Wales had not conducted any public activities in the run-up to May 3 – thus personifying some of the criticisms George Galloway MP has recently raised about it. Indeed, the most up to date Respect national members’ bulletin at the time, whilst commenting on the 2008 mayoral election in London and the local council elections in England on May 3, had chosen not to even mention Wales in any shape or form.

The SLP too, lying dormant and unseen in the previous few years had done its best to let us know it still existed – if only on paper. Although its party political broadcast had already been screened, its manifesto was launched only on April 22, a little over a week before the election date. Meanwhile, the Socialist Equality Party parachuted its politics and candidates into South Wales Central (each of its candidates lived outside of the country).

Only the CPB and the SP seemed to be putting some effort into campaigning. No doubt buoyed by the first communist broadcast since the 1970s, the CPB had been holding a series of public meetings across Wales. The SP organised a smattering of events in south Wales and its website at least gave the impression of up-to-date campaigning activity.

But what were the political differences that separated all these groups and prevented them even discussing an electoral pact, not to mention a common campaign? For the most part, there was not that much. A look at the material available on their respective websites at the time and the literature handed out at public meetings said it all.

True, the SEP’s broader manifesto specifically questioned the nature of UK democracy, but the common themes promoted were defence of public services (particularly the NHS) and opposition to imperialist war. Of course, both of these are essential demands, but the question of how we are ruled, including the national question and the constitutional monarchy system, were, by and large, absent. The brand of politics being offered to the electorate, including in relation to imperialist war, was economism – albeit with a particular Trotskyist, Labourite, reformist or populist twist.

Furthermore, the fact that the electorate in South Wales Central region, for example, had a choice of five very similar slates typified the problem: that the organised left (particularly in Wales but in Britain generally) is, in fact, splintered and, actually, highly disorganised. The question of party is not considered. The glimpses of left unity seen in previous elections in Wales (the United Left in 1999 and the Welsh Socialist Alliance in the 2001 general election) has now long gone. The whole situation would have been amusing if it wasn’t so tragic.

Plaid Cymru’s left

The response by Plaid Cymru’s left to the twists and turns post May 3rd were more interesting and worth a mention.

From the onset, the prospect of the Rainbow Coalition sparked something of a minor rebellion amongst a small number of Plaid’s left Assembly Members, amongst whom Leanne Wood, AM for South Wales Central, was prominent.

Yet the effectiveness of that rebellion was always questionable. Triban Coch, the now inactive, if not defunct, left-wing grouping in Plaid, did not write a word about that Alliance since it was first mooted by Plaid’s leadership before elections to the Assembly even took place. Indeed, the reason why the Rainbow Alliance failed to become a living entity was actually due to the fact that the Liberal Democrats scuppered the idea – it had very little to do with Plaid’s left rebels.

The politics of that opposition too was always questionable. Speaking at the time of the proposed Rainbow Alliance, Wood stated

There is a clash of values and principles between Plaid and the Conservatives. That is why we believe an arrangement between us would be unsustainable in the long run and not deliver the stable government for which we all strive … We fought this election on a platform to deliver a proper parliament for our nation. A deal with the Conservatives would undermine the chance of delivering that goal.

The other left rebel AMs within Plaid also echoed
that idea. For example, Helen Mary Jones stated that she was against the Alliance because her Llanelli electorate did not want a real Welsh government called into question. Similar comments came from the other two Plaid AMs involved in the rebellion, Nerys Evans AM and Bethan Jenkins AM.

It is, of course, correct and fundamental to demand a parliament for Wales with full powers. But partisans of the working class place such a demand not within the context of Independence but within the context of workers unity on an all-Britain level by raising the importance of the need for a federal republic of Wales, England and Scotland. Fundamentally for Plaid’s left therefore it was not the interests of the working class, but those of a classless Welsh “nation”, which had to be protected from a lash-up with the Tories. On that question, Plaid’s rebels differed little from its leadership.

Indeed, having fought within their party to reject the ‘All-Welsh accord’ only three weeks earlier, it is unclear what precisely Plaid’s five AMs had initially seen when they voted to accept One Wales. For while they are yet to voice publicly their reasons for backing the document, we can only speculate that their thought processes may not be too dissimilar to those of their Westminster colleague, Plaid MP Adam Price (also formally a member of Triban Coch). From the onset, he sold the deal as a progressive political development. On June 28 – two days after Labour and Plaid AMs had formally agreed the new policy document – Price’s blog spoke of ‘One Wales’ in positive terms:

If we are what we say we are, a socialist party, a party of the left, then, all things being equal, when presented with a progressive programme in alliance with another party of the left or an alternative programme in alliance with the political right, then our natural tendency should be to choose left. If we embraced the rainbow under these circumstances, then the message we would send to the people of Wales is that our adoption of socialism in our party’s aims for 26 years was just for show. We would have appeared unprincipled, opportunistic and ideologically rudderless. In other words, we would have looked like the Liberal Democrats. And none of us would have wanted that

(Source).

Price’s socialism is revealed in some further comments. It seems that the programme contained in ‘One Wales’ will not only make Welsh-medium education a right at every level from the nursery to university, but will bring the right to a decent home within the grasp of every citizen too. To finance this, the Welsh government will cut business taxes to boost the economy, wrote the MP the following day. In other words, administering capitalism is, first and foremost, the priority.

Referendum

Whatever. Although the coalition government is now up and running, the fact remains that tensions between Plaid and Labour as well as amongst members of each party are very likely to be tested at some point in the near future. Indeed, there is already some ambiguity around the question of a referendum on the introduction of further powers for the Assembly – both parties will need to assess the levels of support for full law making powers necessary to trigger the referendum. Thus it appears that Plaid may yet find itself at the mercy of a Labour veto on the question – a fate which will cause political chaos between the two organisations.

So, despite the fact that, in June, each party conference overwhelmingly endorsed One Wales, it would be safe to say that the coalition can be described as anything but secure. Recent spats about identity and Britishness between Adam Price MP and Labour’s Huw Lewis AM for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney via their respective websites during July and August highlighted the underlying tension and fragility of what some see as an unlikely alliance. It must be noted that some Labour activists continue to feel uneasy about entering into government with the nationalists, while many Plaid members hate the thought of cosying up to British unionists.

For the Left in Wales (and Britain), whatever the outcome of the Labour/Plaid administration, the question of left unity, the need for a genuine working class party organised around the fight for a principled and radical working class programme must remain at the forefront of the political agenda.

Republican St. David’s Day Demonstration

10am Wednesday March 1st, Oval Basin, Cardiff Bay

Mrs Windsor will officially open the National Assembly for Wales’ new debating chamber on March 1st St. David’s Day.

Our National Assembly does not have the powers to meet the needs of the people of Wales. It has fewer powers than a council – it is little more than a talking shop. It cannot make laws and itcannot raise taxes.

A demonstration has been called by Cardiff Social Forum. We demand:

• the right of the National Assembly to decide for itself which powers it has and to determine its relationship with Britain and the rest of Europe
• powers for the Assembly to pursue policies for full employment, the expansion of public services and official status for the Welsh language
• constitutional rights not the ancient royal prerogative and the abolition of the expensive monarchy
• an equal Wales, free from prejudice and a political system free of patronage, deference and corruption

A Government of Wales Bill is on its way through Parliament. It will give greater powers to the Westminster-based Secretary of State for Wales to block any law the Assembly might wish to make. We oppose powers being taken from the Assembly to be given to a minister of the Crown. Wales should be able to decide its own legislation without interference from the crown via Westminster ministers. If it’s good enough for Scotland, it should be good enough for Wales.

For more information about this demonstration or Cardiff Social Forum’s other activities, contact: cardiffsocialforum@yahoo.co.uk

We are publishing the statement by Cymru Goch because it highlights some of the problems hampering the struggle for working class unity in Britain. Bob Goupillot outlines his personal reflections on these problems and suggests a possible way forward.

My view is that all individual socialists and socialist organisations should be inside the
SSP or the Socialist Alliances in England and Wales. As a member of the Republican Communist Platform within the SSP, I know how difficult it can be to operate as a minority faction inside a much larger organisation. It takes discipline and a clear eye on the strategic goal of working class unity. Hence, I believe that Cymru Goch should have stayed inside the Welsh Socialist Alliance, despite the frustrations that they have experienced. This is even more important given that Cymru Goch had taken a superb initiative in organising the best republican response to the Windsor jubilee in these islands. (This was a three day Stuff the Monarchy festival in Pontypridd, which was opened by a speech from Alan McCombes of the SSP.) This has given them a platform to challenge the opportunism of the SWP within the Welsh Socialist Alliance.

The Socialist Workers Party

At present the creation of a single, united, all-Britain working class party appears to be an unlikely prospect. The Socialist Alliances in England and Wales seem weak and disorganised. This is illustrated by some shocking by-election results and anecdotal evidence from Labour lefts in England and Wales who appear to be only vaguely aware of the SA’s existence. Even worse, the SWP, the largest organisation in the Sas, seems unwilling or unable to commit itself to seriously building the SAs or produce a strategy for class unity. Their characterisation of the Socialist Alliance as a united front of a special kind is a block to building a serious working class party (or parties). This is because it sees itself as already being The Party. It is just that the rest of us are too blind to see it.

In Scotland, with the already existing Scottish Socialist Party as an established political fact, such a claim is not credible. Here the SWP has evolved into a platform that never counter poses the independent socialist Scotland programmatic commitment of the
SSP with its own belief in organising on a British basis. As the largest socialist organisation in Britain, the SWP needs to recognise its responsibilities, stop its opportunism and explain to the wider working class (and I suspect its own members) where it stands on the national question and working class unity.

The Socialist Party

The Socialist Party of England and Wales has left the Socialist Alliances in England even though their co-thinkers, the CWI (Scotland), have remained in the SSP. The Socialist Party needs to bite the bullet and rejoin the SAs. A truly class conscious organisation would recognise this as a necessity. Blaming the SWP for everything is not a strategy for taking the class forward. If the SP did rejoin and proved itself serious about building the Socialist Alliances, this would be the strongest political challenge to the SWP that they could mount. Potentially it could win for them the leadership of the class conscious workers. They could repeatedly challenge the SWP on the grounds of Are you serious about working class unity? What’s your strategy? Of course, in order to pose these questions effectively they would have to produce credible answers of their own.

The Scottish Socialist Party

Inside the SSP, we have policies that trumpet our internationalism and we send representatives to conferences on European socialist unity. However, it is difficult to raise the issue of bringing about closer unity with comrades in England, Wales or Ireland. We have no concrete proposals for improving cooperation with socialists in England, Wales or Ireland and hence helping to unite the working class of these islands. There is simply an absence, a gap. Most, negative, responses refer to the weakness of the Socialist Alliances. However, the weakness of the
SAs makes it even more important that the
SSP, currently representing the most organised section of the working class in Britain, gives a lead in promoting unity amongst the working class. Given that the SSP is much further developed than the
SAs and, more importantly, has years of experience of making left unity work, I think that we have a political responsibility to aid pro-unity groupings out with Scotland. It seems to me that there are only three routes to political unity amongst the working class of Britain.

These are:

1. (A single united party for all socialists in England, Scotland and Wales.
2. A single party with a federal make-up based on separate sections based in Scotland, England and Wales with the SSP being the Scottish section.
3. The creation of separate parties in Scotland, England and Wales (or England plus Wales). These separate parties would then need to work together as closely as possible. I will use the term Confederation to describe this structure to distinguish it from the tighter, federal structure of option 2.

Under this scenario, overtures could be made to pro-unity groups in Ireland. [I support all-Ireland Alliances, not those that accept partition. There are opportunities opening on the left, as the Good Friday Agreement and government/employer/trade union partnership deals fail to deliver for the working class and Sinn Fein continues to move to the right.] This Confederation would in turn seek to be part of a wider European and ultimately worldwide Socialist grouping.

Those who declare that they are for the unity of the working class yet reject the single party options, 1 & 2 must, if they wish to remain credible, produce a strategy based on option 3. Those who argue against an all-Britain party must come up with an alternative, practical proposal/plan/strategy. An abstract phrase like through struggle (particularly in the absence of major struggles) will not suffice To comrades in the SSP and the leadership in particular, I would say, let’s be more ambitious and less parochial. We need to be outward looking, even a bit evangelical. Most working class people instinctively strive for class unity. It is that emotion and thought that we need to connect with. There have always been sectarians and narrow nationalists and part of our role will be to expose them by our non-sectarian, internationalist practice. We do not have forever. Let’s have confidence in our experience and ourselves and get on with it. Remember borders are man-made constructs; let’s not turn them into insurmountable barriers.

I think that the following suggestions would move the whole process forward:

1. That the SSP publicly declares, as one of its aims, that it will aid Socialist Unity in England, Wales and Ireland and to have a real debate within the SSP on how to do it.
2. That the SSP, whether in the form of branches, platforms or individuals, makes every attempt to communicate directly with SA members down south, much as we did during the Poll Tax, when again Scotland was in the lead. Again using the experience of the Poll Tax, SSP branches could twin with SA branches and build up personal and political relationships.
3. The SSP should take a lead in organising a conference of all those individuals and organisations that believe that building
   SSP – type parties in England, Wales and Ireland would be a step forward.

The important strategic goal is to bring about effective working class unity. The question of whether this is brought about by an all-Britain Party or cooperation between nationally based SSP type parties is a tactical one i.e. It depends on the circumstances in which we find ourselves and is not, repeat not, one of principle. At this point in history, I am not in favour of raising the slogan of an all- Britain party within the SSP. Our role is to help comrades down south and in Ireland to come together and then let us take it from there. Comrades, lets have a mature discussion without falling into the Brit left/Unionist vs nationalist slanging match (again). The rise of the BNP, Le Pen and the Anti-Agreement loyalist LVF/UDA shows that we have a responsibility to reflect soberly on the way forward. Without a credible and united Left the radical Right looks attractive to those desperate for change and those desperate to avoid change.

To Julian Goss, Welsh Socialist Alliance Secretary

Despite being a founder member of the Welsh Socialist Alliance, Cymru Goch will not be re-affiliating to the WSA for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the WSA has failed to develop as an alliance in terms of attracting non-aligned members who put the alliance before party affiliation. For the first four years of the WSA, Cymru Goch put the alliance first in terms of our priorities and have consistently pushed for a deeper, broader alliance to bring together the left in Wales. We have always supported calls to become a party on the Scottish model – one that united the majority of the Welsh left – but this has been resisted by others for what we feel are narrow, sectarian reasons. An opportunity has been missed.

Secondly, it remains little more than an electoral flag of convenience. The SWP, which is the largest grouping in the WSA, has been content to use the WSA for electoral purposes (alongside other front organisations, such as the Anti-Nazi League and Globalise Resistance), while neglecting to do the long – term local campaigning necessary to build a credible electoral force. Electoral results in the UK general election and subsequent by-elections demonstrate the importance of having a base in Welsh working class communities.

Thirdly, it has failed to understand the need for an independent socialist Wales. Any alliance has to involve compromises and we compromised on this issue, but we are unable to compromise our socialist republicanism indefinitely. We feel our politics are out of step with the majority of the present WSA members – in many ways we’re speaking a different language to most other WSA members.

Cymru Goch will therefore not be re-affiliating to the WSA as an organisation.

We will always be ready to work alongside comrades in the WSA on campaigns in a non-sectarian way and would hope to avoid any electoral clashes in the future. Individual Cymru Goch members may choose to continue as WSA members, which we have no problem with, as we are not a centralist organisation. We will continue to work for the maximum unity of the left in Wales to achieve a Welsh socialist republic and a socialist world.

Cymru Goch, May 26 2002

The following report comes for Y Faner Goch, issues no 134 and 135

More than 300 people attended the three day Stuff the Monarchy festival organised by Cymru Goch in Pontypridd’s Clwb y Bont over the Jubilee bank holiday. Those attending were a broad mix of republican, socialists and greens from across Wales and enjoyed a laid-back variety of debates, videos, music, poetry and drinking.

The event opened with a great speech by Alan McCombes of the Scottish Socialist Party. Alan spoke about the need for a Scottish Socialist Republic in his own country and the way the SSP was advancing that vision. He made it clear both during and after his talk that Welsh socialist republicans would be welcomed in future in Scotland.

The history of Welsh republicanism was explained in two separate sessions by Pedr Lewis and Tim Richards. Pedr outlined the history of the Welsh Republican Movement in the late 1940s and 1950s in a session that delighted many younger comrades and drew praise from IRSP speaker Terry Harkins.

The one notable absentee was Simon Brooks of Cymuned. He pulled out after the Welsh Mirror highlighted the fact that he was sharing a platform with an Irish republican socialist – which in the Mirror’s warped logic became the British leader of the INLA!

However, prominent Valleys socialist republican and member of Cymru Goch, Tim Richards, had his house raided and was charged before being given bail on condition he was banned from Trehafod where the Queen was going to visit! Tim went on to explain the reasons behind this.

Let’s not forget all police officers swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen and we were slagging off the monarchy. I think they were looking for an excuse to criminalise Welsh socialist republicans. The Special Branch is essentially political and its role is to monitor dissent, particularly socialists, greens, anarchists, anti-capitalists, etc. In my case they went one step further by trying to trump up a charge against me for political reasons but it has backfired badly on them.

The support has been great. My first worry was that it might affect my job, but support from my colleagues (Tim is an FE lecturer) has been 100%. In Abertridwr (Tim’s home village), once again the support has been magnificent and it has to be said that the political support has been surprisingly wide. One of the first people to support me was Dafydd Iwan and Welsh Assembly Members from Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal-Democrats, anarchists, greens and so on have been marvellous. It shows that while not everyone might agree with my republican views they feel the police vendetta is a massive overreaction.

It is an interesting reflection on what the establishment perceives as a threat. Unfortunately, they feel quite secure against socialist politics, but less so when it comes to Welsh republicanism. The English establishment are not used to having their Queen criticised by us Welsh peasants. Cymru Goch led the anti-Jubilee protests in the UK and that was not to be tolerated.

The wider implications are that we are going through a dark period in civil liberties. Even before September 11th, New Labour had shown itself as an authoritarian party more interested in law and order than justice. Tony Blair’s government is holding a number of Moslems in prison without trial and has already deported people without any legal justification. Internment is a direct attack on the civil liberties of all of s.

When Tim’s case finally came to Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court, it was revealed that two undercover police officers had attended Cymru Goch’s Stuff the Monarchy festival posing as would-be demonstrators. Socialists and republicans rallied in support of Tim with large noisy pickets outside the court hearing. There was also a positive outcome with excellent public meetings in both Pontypridd and Wrecsam on the arrest and its wider implications for free speeech in the wake of the war against terrorism.

After the case was dismissed, Tim said, I am relieved that this farcical case has been dropped, but I am angry that it should have happened in the first place.

In addition the success of the Pontypridd republican festival has prompted Cymru Goch to make it an annual event for the Mayday weekend.

Mike Davies reports on Welsh Republicans’ preparations for the Royal Visit: Jiwbili ych a fi!

Welsh Socialist Republicans have been at the forefront in building a coalition against the Queen’s Jubilee Jamboree in June. Cymru Goch, Earth First! activists, leading trade unionists and socialists have come together to form an ad hoc group called Stuff the Monarchy to oppose the event.

The weekend of the official celebrations will see a Republican Festival in a Welsh social club called Clwb y Bont, Pontypridd, which has been declared a people’s republic for the duration of the weekend. It’s going to be a vibrant exchange of ideas, debate, music, poetry and videos from struggles around Wales and the world. Speakers include socialist republicans from Scotland and Ireland as well as anti-globalisation campaigners, community activists, trade union militants and direct actionist greens.

The weekend will also be the final chance for campaigners opposing the Queen’s visit to Wales on June 11-13 to get organised. The Festival will also be an informal meeting place for like minded socialists committed to national liberation. We see this as a chance to break with the stale electoralism of the Welsh Socialist Alliance and build a real alliance of socialists, direct action campaigners, trade union militants and community activists who have not been enthused by the lukewarm reformism of the current WSA.

The traditions of republican resistance to the monarchy are well established in Wales. The traditional method for the monarchy to win over the rebellious Welsh was a subtle thing called the Investiture of the Prince of Wales. This imposition first happened soon after military conquest and was repeated whenever the natives got restless. In 1911 and most recently in 1969, there were protests from radicals opposed to British rule in Wales. This very crude symbol of Wales’ annexation by England (no-one seems to remember needing a referendum for that one) remains a live possibility for when Queenie pops off and Charles finally gets a day job. It’s possible that William will be made Prince of Wales, but much will depend on the kind of reception the royals get on their tour of Wales.

Our Stuff the Monarchy campaign isn’t just about the Jubilee – it’s about ensuring that Charles is the last Prince of Wales and urging his Divestiture. It will continue beyond the Jubilee frenzy being whipped up by the Palace media machine and loyal newspapers. They have a steep climb to convince an apathetic population – and a hostile youth – that Royalty means anything to Wales.

There are interesting developments beyond the orthodox (i.e. Brit) left – a new radical language movement called Cymuned (Community) has sprung up in Y Fro Gymraeg (the Welsh-speaking heartlands) with 1100 members in just 10 months. Its recent conference placed it firmly in the camp of non-violent civil disobedience with a commitment to oppose colonialism and racism. It stands up for the rights of a community – the Welsh language community of 500,000 people and specifically the 300,000 or so who live in majority Welsh speaking areas in the West – to exist. It pits that right against the right of an individual and freemarket forces to destroy a fragile community and culture. In these areas at least, it is becoming a mass movement against speculative housing developments that are far beyond the reach of low-paid young local people.

Similarly, campaigners against waste incinerators and further opencast mining in some our most deprived communities are taking new and novel forms of direct action and lobbying to get their message across. All are being ignored by the mainstream political parties.

These new movements are part of a trend against capitalist party politics, against globalisation and for an imaginative rethink on who controls our communities and world. The trend towards direct action rather than electoral success underlines the common consensus that if you vote for Tweedledee or Tweedledum, you end up with Tweedledummer.

Welsh Socialist Republicans who are casting off the tired old orthodoxies of the British left are well placed to take their part in this new alliance of rebel forces.

The Revolutionary Democratic Group give their analysis of the Socialist Alliance of England’s conference in December 2001

The Socialist Alliance conference on December 1st 2001 was an important moment to gauge the development of the new left emerging in England and throughout Britain. The SA movement has provided the greatest advance for left unity for many years. In Scotland it led to the SSP. In England and Wales it has not gone as far but much has been achieved.

This rapprochement on the left was reflected at the SA (England) conference in the six stem constitutions put forward by the SWP, Socialist Party, CPGB, Workers Power, the RDG and Pete McLaren. In addition to these options, the AWL and the ISG and many Indies (independent socialists) were also fully involved in the process.

The submission of the RDG, one of the smaller groups on the UK left, may be of particular interest to SSP comrades. The Group submitted the SSP constitution as one of the six stem constitutions on offer. At first site this might seem like an odd thing to do. But the RDG wanted to take the opportunity to point out that the SSP provided very important lessons for the left in England not just to follow, but hopefully improve upon.

The RDG argued that the SA must make the move to a broad based republican socialist party. This was a party that could unite comrades from both a socialist Labour and revolutionary communist tradition. It was a party that made democratic political change and in particular republicanism the cutting edge of its politics. The SSP is a concrete example of this type of party emerging during the final epoch of the British constitutional monarchy, even if it has so far given more emphasis to nationalism than republicanism.

Emphasis on real democracy & popular sovereignty

The RDG put forward an amended version of the SSP Constitution. We kept the amendments to a minimum, in order to keep within the general approach of the SSP. We obviously had to change the name. We could simply have changed the name of the SSP to the ESP. But we wanted to put the emphasis squarely on real democracy and popular sovereignty, and not nationality. We therefore changed the name to the Republican Socialist Party.

We dropped the call for Scottish independence. It makes no sense for England and in any case we don’t agree with it in current circumstances. So we amended the SSP constitution aims and objectives clause 5 to say as follows

The [SSP] RSP will campaign for [delete an independent socialist Scotland] a voluntary federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales and a united Ireland, with the aim of establishing a [delete Scottish] socialist republic in a broader alliance of democratic socialist states. Recognising that [delete in Scotland] sovereignty resides, and ought to reside in the people, the republic will fully recognise the right of the people of Ireland, Scotland, Wales to self determination and always seek the people’s prior consent to any transfer of powers outwith [delete Scotland.] the republic.

[our amendment to the SSP constitution are in bold and deletions in italics] Apart from a few other minor amendments such as changing the regions from Scottish to English we stuck faithfully to the SSP constitution. We put forward four concrete steps to move us towards a republican socialist party on the SSP model. First conference must include in its constitution the aim of becoming a party. Second it must decide to publish a regular SA newspaper. Third it must adopt a democratic federal constitution. Finally conference must recognise the importance of the experience of the Scottish Socialist Alliance and the success of its transformation into the Scottish Socialist Party.

Our comrades were able to make some important political points from the platform, not least of which was that we should follow the Scottish road. We called on conference to recognise the experience of the SSP and learn from it, rather than simply copy it. We are not, for example, in favour of encouraging English nationalism in order to copy the Scottish nationalism of the SSP. Our aims are internationalist. We want to win the class to the democratic, republican politics which can unite the English, Scottish and Welsh workers.

Three distinct blocs

For these proposals we secured twenty one first preference votes. Not many. So it is more useful to see where the SSP position fitted into the overall alignment at the conference. What was to emerge was three distinct positions. The first was the Democratic and Effective bloc, which stood for greater centralism. The second was the Democratic Federal Unity bloc which wanted the unity of the Alliance and believed that a democratic federal constitution was the only way to maintain unity. Thirdly was the Socialist Party which had a distinct position of its own.

The D&E bloc comprised of the SWP, ISG, CPGB and various independents most notably Mike Marqusee, John Nicholson, Declan O’Neill and Nick Wrack. After conference Socialist Worker (8 December 2001) claimed that the new constitution gives the SA a far more effective national organisation. The key feature of this bloc was that they voted for the SWP constitution, as either first or second preference. Estimates by Martin Thomas (Action for Solidarity 14 December) indicate this bloc had approximately 280 SWP, 50 pro-SWP independents, 35 CPGB and 15 ISG.

The DFU bloc comprised of AWL, Workers Power, RDG, and various independents, most notably Pete McLaren and Dave Church. This bloc supported a federal constitution with democratic majority decision making. A central concern was to maintain SA unity with a constitution that was democratic, but could keep everybody on board the project. The votes going to DFU were estimated to be about 60 AWL, 30 Independents, 29 Workers Power and 21 RDG.

The third position was a federal constitution based on consensus, with a right for a minority to veto decisions it did not agree with. This was proposed by the Socialist Party. Clause 1.4 of the SP’s draft constitution includes provision for a consensus vote to be taken when required. Here is the essential difference between democratic federalism based on majority decisions and consensus federalism which gives a veto to any minority.

This overview does not show up the contradictions within each of the three blocs. This requires further analysis. But if each bloc had voted in a consistent way, we would have had the following result

Party	Vote	Percent
D&E	387	59.00%
DFU	147	22.00%
Consensus federalism (minority veto)	122	19.00%

What was the politics of the D&E bloc? With 280 votes the SWP gave the bloc its overall political character. It was overwhelmingly opposed to adopting the aim of a party or an SA paper. It was opposed to a democratic federal constitution. It was opposed to following the SSP model.

The D&E bloc failed, whether by accident, negligence or design, to seek out a principled compromise with the Socialist Party and thus avoid a split. Consequently the official regrets emanating from the SA leadership were crocodile tears. Whilst some in the Socialist Party appeared ready to leave, the majority of the D&E bloc were happy to say goodbye. The conclusion is that the D&E bloc was overwhelmingly anti-party and pro-split. Of course the D&E bloc was not homogenous. It contained its own contradictions. Not least of these was the CPGB which found itself at odds with its D&E allies when promoting pro-party positions such as an SA paper.

Democratic Federal Unity was pro-unity. It was within this bloc that there was the greatest sympathy to the SSP model. If the key issue had become what type of party did we want instead of how to maintain unity it seems most likely that this bloc would have become clearly identified with the SSP model. Had this bloc taken a consistent position it would have produced 147 first preference for McLaren and 147 second preferences for the SSP. Quite clearly this is not what happened. The majority of the DFU bloc were in favour of making concessions to secure the unity of the SA. Whether it can be called a pro- party bloc is more contentious. There were clearly fifty pro-party votes.(WP 29 and RDG 21). The RDG also had 20 second preference votes for the SSP. Had we switched to second preferences we should have had at least 41 second preferences. Had the AWL given its sixty second preferences to the SSP, then 70% of the DFU bloc would have voted for an SSP type party. Although we did not achieve that we were not very far away. We did enough to suggest that the SSP model will become a major way forward in the future.

So what advances did conference make? First there is the creation of a unified national membership. Integrating the local membership into a single national membership is an obvious and relatively simple way of doing this. But it is not without its problems. Local members joined a local organisation. It is not necessarily the case that they want to join a national organisation, especially one that has just split. So we have a job to do to create a genuine national organisation.

Second the SA has adopted the principle of majority decision making. This was already in operation in many parts of the Alliance. We now have a more uniform system. Both constitutional reforms could have been achieved without the SWP constitution. They are both quite compatible with democratic federalism. So what did the SWP constitution actually achieve in addition to the above two points? Unfortunately it achieved the departure of the SP. There is some debate as to whether the SP jumped overboard or were pushed. Although they were ready to leave, the Democratic and Effective majority bloc was not looking for a compromise. Their attitude to the SP was take it or leave it. Unity cannot be imposed. It has to be won with steadfastness, patience and some concessions. The prize of left unity is worth persevering with because the unity of the class is at stake. The left is full of sectarian attitudes and traditions, in which splits and expulsions are easier than facing the difficulties of struggling for unity.

The departure of the SP was a set back. Perhaps the single greatest political asset of the Alliance was its capacity to overcome some of the historic divisions on the left. Advanced workers were attracted by an organisation that seemed capable of putting divisions into context, and able to unite in successful electoral and campaigning activity. An active minority of working class militants looking for a new political organisation found hope in the unity of the Alliance.

If we were to sum up the conference on balance we describe it in Lenin’s famous phrase, as one step forward and two steps back, a view not dissimilar to the AWL’s two steps back and one forward! (Action for Solidarity 14 December). What we hope we have achieved is to put down a marker for a Scottish republican road and a republican socialist party.