The proposal by John Marek AM and others to establish a new Welsh socialist
party is understandable - but it is the wrong kind of initiative, on the wrong
basis and at the wrong time.
The spring round of trade union conferences has sharpened the struggle to defeat
New Labour and reclaim the Labour Party for the labour movement.
This is either the beginning of the end of New Labour, which the Communist Party
characterised some years ago as a pro-big business, pro-imperialist and anti-labour
movement trend in the Labour Party. Or we are entering a period which will see
the end of the Labour Party as a potential force for peace, democracy and social
progress.
At conference after conference, the vast majority of delegates have opposed
Blair's policies of privatisation, privilege and war. They have demanded the
defence of public services and manufacturing industry, called for public ownership
of key industries and services, challenged racism and fascism and demanded the
extension of employment, trade union and democratic rights.
Most delegates also reaffirmed their union's affiliation to the Labour Party.
Indeed, they and their leaders went further and expressed a renewed determination
to fight many New Labour policies, utilising the union-Labour link to take on
the Blair clique with unprecedented vigour.
At the Unison conference, ultra-left attempts to fragment the union's political
affiliation were defeated by a margin of at least eight to one. In other big
unions such as the TGWU, GMB and Amicus-AEEU, there was not even the basis for
such attempts.
Since then, left trade union leaders and the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour
MPs have organised a large conference to map out a comprehensive challenge to
government policies.
The Communist Party has been fighting for years for just such a perspective
in the labour movement, working closely with our allies on the left. The Morning
Star daily paper has also played an indispensible role, giving daily voice to
the arguments and activities of what was once the left minority - and is now
becoming the left majority.
It has not been easy or popular to persuade trades unionists and socialists
to stay in the Labour Party in order to fight the New Labour clique. As the
Marxist party of the British labour movement, our own Communist ranks share
the anger and disgust that many working class people feel towards the privateers
and war criminals who have hijacked the leadership of the Labour Party.
But last year's Communist Party congress achieved near unanimity around the
position 'Defeat New Labour, unite the labour movement'. We were clear that
the battle against the Blair clique inside the Labour Party was too important
to be abandoned by the trade union movement - and instead should be intensified,
even though the erosion of Labour Party democracy makes the prospects of victory
uncertain.
Thus Britain's Communists have carried the arguments into the movement on a
substantial scale over the past 12 months, in union meetings and on the conference
floor, selling hundreds of Andrew Murray's pamphlet and distributing thousands
of copies of our Unity! bulletins.
Morning Star conference sales have reached their highest point in 25 years,
and the paper is seen by many as the spearhead of the anti-New Labour offensive
in the labour movement.
Objective developments have fertilised the battle-ground. State pensioner poverty
and the collapse of workers' pensions schemes, the export of jobs to labour
colonies overseas, clogged roads and a railway system bled white by pirates,
plans for foundation hospitals, top-up college fees and then the lying, predatory
assault on Iraq - these and other policies have turned people off the New Labour
government and the Labour Party in their millions.
This was the context in which the Socialist Workers Party recently approached
the Communist Party with proposals for building a broad 'peace and justice'
alliance to contest the Greater London Authority and European Parliament elections
in 2004.
Such an alliance could draw in people who have participated in the huge anti-war
movement, including progressive Muslims and youth who have been alienated by
establishment politics in general and by New Labour policies in particular.
A peace and justice alliance could provide an electoral focus for widespread
anti-New Labour sentiment.
But the CP executive came overwhelmingly to the view that such an alliance would
be likely to create confusion and disunity in the labour movement at a crucial
time, when the maximum clarity and unity are required. Why so?
Firstly, an anti-New Labour electoral alliance would inevitably come to be seen
as an anti-Labour Party alliance. Ironically, this impression would be all the
greater the broader the alliance and the more seats it contests.
Such a perception would be reinforced by the well-known and perfectly legitimate
aspiration of the SWP and its other partners in the Socialist Alliance to build
a mass alternative to the Labour Party. Because they regard the Scottish Socialist
Party as just such an alternative north of the border, the proposed alliance
would not contest seats in Scotland.
These perspectives are fundamentally different to those of the Communist Party.
We regard the fight against New Labour within the labour movement - and therefore
within the Labour Party also - as the primary political task in the current
period. Therefore Communists could not enter into electoral arrangements which
would imply that the Labour Party should be written off, that a mass alternative
can or should be constructed at the very time that unions and socialists are
striving to reclaim it.
Nor could we implicitly endorse the Scottish Socialist Party's current political
line. Its blanket electoral opposition to almost all Labour candidates is sectarian
and divisive, while its separatist stance would be disastrous for the unity
of the British labour movement should the people of Scotland ever embrace it.
Our objections to the SWP'a proposal apply even more strongly to the formation
of a Welsh socialist party. Firstly, what could be the political basis for a
separate Welsh party other than it supporting full Welsh independence from England
or Britain?
Yet there is little support in Wales for such a position. What there is largely
accrues to Plaid Cymru, which already takes a progressive or left-wing position
on many issues, from imperialist war to public ownership.
Previous attempts to set up left-wing separatist movements or parties have ended
in failure, most recently in the case of Cymru Goch - the Welsh Socialist Party.
Secondly, the electoral space for Marek's initiative is far narrower in Wales
than in Scotland or even England. Welsh Labour has successfully positioned itself
to the left of New Labour in England, while Plaid still provides a viable and
progressive alternative to Labour.
For all these reasons, the Communist Party in Wales will continue along its
present and increasingly influential trajectory in the labour, peace, anti-fascist
and anti-euro movements. We will also continue to contest Welsh local and parliamentary
elections, as we have done as a party since 1921, to project our programme which
urges the labour movement to fight for an alternative economic and political
strategy.
We also understand that there will be no fundamental changes in the political
situation in Britain, including in the Labour Party, without higher levels of
mass activity on the anti-war, industrial and other fronts. On these and many
other issues, the Communist Party will continue to work closely and in a non-sectarian
way with other socialist and progressive organisations, including any new Welsh
socialist party.