Saturday’s meeting: A view from Rugby
Pete McClaren is a member of Rugby Left Unity Group
![Mike Scott and Liz Silver [Nottingham], Cetia Frietas [Surrey] and Iram Awan [High Wycombe] at the meeting yesterday](http://leftunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/lumeeting6-300x217.jpg)
Mike Scott and Liz Silver [Nottingham], Cetia Frietas [Surrey] and Iram Awan [High Wycombe] at the meeting yesterday
Bianca Todd from Northampton chaired the first session, which rather bizarrely began with a debate about whether or not minutes should be taken. Kate Hudson then made an introduction and explained why there was a need for a new Left Party. Reports and general comment were requested from local groups, and there was a clear divide between those of us who wanted to welcome left organisations as part of the project, and those who clearly didn’t. Everyone who spoke was positive about the Left Unity project. I was eventually able to explain, as part of my contribution from Rugby LU, that TUSC had approached Ken Loach and was now formally writing to the Organising Committee to call for collaboration, despite having been informed prior to the meeting I could not speak for TUSC! The following were amongst other points made in the discussion:
- The SP and SWP were already involved in local Left Unity groups, and we need to find a way of all working together
- LU must make sure it is not controlled by left groups – we must avoid being taken over as happened with the Socialist Alliance
- We should allow left groups to affiliate, and we must respect their traditions. We need to allow factions or platforms to form
- It was vital to offer supporters membership
- We must be campaigning and not only work around elections
- We must quickly become an individual membership organisation whilst allowing left groups on board.
- If we have large numbers of individual members, including individuals from left groups, left groups would not be in a position to take over
- Accessible language was important
- Our class is being battered, with no real opposition, hence the need for a new left party
- Democracy and openness are vital within a new party, which must also be inclusive
- We should welcome all on the left as individuals, not as representatives of parties
- We need to open up dialogue with all left groups to establish ways of working together whilst encouraging them to become a full part of LU – with safeguards/mechanisms in place to prevent groups dominating or taking over
- LU has already moved left organisations to discuss its presence
- We must discuss ways of encouraging trade unions, tenants and community groups to become part of LU. We want One Party of the Left
- The Organising Committee should be congratulated for the start that has been with over 8,000 supporters and nearly 100 local LU groups in less than 2 months
The afternoon session began with Andrew Burgin describing the process and importance of setting up local LU groups. The following were amongst points made in the discussion which followed:
- Our attitude to the SP and SWP is crucial – it must be a positive one
- A One Member One Vote (OMOV) organisation would give people the confidence to join
- We will need to negotiate with TUSC over elections
- We are agreed about the need to set up a new left party: we must differentiate ourselves from the Labour Party and the Green Party
- There is lots of student support for LU, but caution about parties
At this point Nick Wrack motivated his Procedural Motion not to take decisions today on most of the Statement sent out by the Organising Committee, any amendments to it, or other resolutions submitted, as they had mostly/entirely not been available to local LU groups.
The only parts of that Statement kept in by the Procedural Motion were the election of a new Organising Committee, the process of debate, and need for another national meeting and a Founding conference for a new Party. In motivation, he outlined how most of the 23 motions and amendments had been seen for the first time that day. Few local LU groups would have had any discussion on them, or on amendments to the Statement sent out by the Committee.
During the debate, it became clear there had been a divide within the Committee. The following were amongst additional points made:
- We need a statement of intent – something must come out of this meeting
- The danger of rushing is we could undo the achievements so far
- Some local LU reps present were unelected local organisers with no mandate
- The Organising Committee had decided by a two thirds majority to send out its Statement: it was ‘sour grapes’ not to want to put it to the meeting
- The Organising Committee did not discuss the content of the statement, let alone take a view on it
An amendment was moved that a commitment to the principle of One Member One Vote within Left Unity be added to the Procedural Motion. Nick Wrack accepted the amendment
In reply to the debate, Simon Hardy confirmed the Organising committee had not endorsed the Statement.
The amended Procedural Motion was put to the vote, and after two counts, was agreed by 51 votes to 36 with 12 abstentions and a few not voting at all. What was agreed was as follows:
This meeting resolves not to take any votes on any of the statements, resolutions or amendments except for those, or those parts, which deal with 1) the election of the new national co-ordinating group [to be dissolved and replaced with a properly elected body at the first conference] 2) the process of debate and discussion 3) the dates of the next national meeting and the founding conference and 4) the principle that the new organisation should be based on ‘One Member, One Vote’.
The session ended with an address by Ken Loach. He joked that it had been good to see democracy in action. It was vital to get our act together to combat UKIP, he continued. We did not need another Social Democratic party. The new Left party must be anti-capitalist, socialist and democratic – adopting OMOV was vital- and it did not want charismatic leaders. We needed to become experts on all social issues such as housing, education and health. We needed words, organisation and agitation, he concluded – it would be a colossal project.
The meeting then proceeded to vote for the national Organising Committee that will organise the next national meeting and plan for the Founding Conference. ISN members Will McMahon, Pete McLaren and Ally Macgregor were amongst those nominated. After some discussion the following proposal on the composition of the new Group was agreed:
- Local group reps elected by the local groups, one per group, where the group has at least 5 members and has had at least one minuted meeting. As groups develop they will be added.
- 10 people elected by the meeting
- Those 10 to comprise at least 50% women
A proposal to delete point 3 was rejected. There were 30 nominations
Those elected were: Andrew Burgin (M), Terry Conway (F), Merry Cross (F), Felicity Dowling (F), Guy Harper (M), Kate Hudson (F), Chris Hurley (F), Salman Shaheen (M), Bianca Todd (F), Tom Walker (M)
Tina Becker, CPGB, proposed that the socialist groups that support the Left Unity project have non-voting observers on the Organising Committee. This was defeated.
In conclusion, I felt the positives outweighed the negatives, but it was hard going at times. There is a real dislike, in some quarters, of left organisations, and it is interesting that only one of the ten elected to the Organising Cttee is a member of a left group as far as I am aware (Tom Walker – ex SWP now ISN). At times, the meeting was more like a convention of youth workers (no disrespect to youth workers – I have been one and my brother still is!) in the sense that it was a little jolly, twee and somewhat bourgeois – one of the chairs referred to all men who spoke as “Sir”! However, what mattered was that a general degree of unity was shown and some positive decisions made. In many ways being there felt like a breath of fresh air. A relatively positive start has been made, but there is a long way to go.
(Although Pete attended Saturday’s meeting as a delegate from the Rugby group, he has also submitted this report to the Independent Socialist Network/TUSC.)
7 comments
7 responses to “Saturday’s meeting: A view from Rugby”
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“There is a real dislike, in some quarters, of left organisations…”
As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
A recently ex member of the SWP explained openly at the meeting what the role of these organisations is. Enter, try to dominate, recruit, destroy, turn out the lights on the way out. His words, not mine, and he should know. What a disgusting, cynical, anti-human approach. Is the meeting’s attitude to this what is meant by “twee and bourgeois”? If so, we could do with more of it, and less aggressive, shouty, sweary, blokey speeches from the wannabe Bolsheviks, barking at the meeting as if from the back of a horse cart in Moscow, 1917. They think we’re all ignorant peasants. Actually, we’ve heard it all before. We’re bored by it. And we rejected it.
Good. In that, there’s hope. Let’s try something new.
Finally two, more, thorough reports on the days events, without fluffiness. were minutes taken? i know you said there was discussion about not taking them. if there are minutes, are they going to be put up? thanks to micheline for her report too. it is hard to get to understand all that went on and some of the stuff about other socialist group.
Did someone really suggest:
We should allow left groups to affiliate, and we must respect their traditions. We need to allow factions or platforms to form.
I’m hoping it’s a typo
Unfortunately not Andrew.
Agreed Stuart.
The jury is still out on whether this will all be worth it, but as Bazza says: there is hope! And as Mark P, Ray G and others say: let’s take the risk – if it works it certainly will be worth the struggle of being born.
certainly thought that another is a member of a group too! perhaps people would prefer members of groups to resign from their groups and join as individuals?
the trotskyists have performed such operations before.
left unity members need to work with each other in the class struggle and see the strengths of our collective contributions.
we would hope that the process of making left unity a success starts to shift all the members of left unity.
democratic decision making, including the rights to form platforms, and for those minotlrities to have their points heard is important if we are to be inclusive.
marxists will compete in putting forward alternative positions for left unity, members will have rights to vote and to put their own positions.
individualism versus collectivity seems to be an issue.
we need the experiance of working together in the class struggle to settle down and root a debate on the way forward.
my one concern is that there isnt yet agreement to work together in the campaigns, the unions etc
LETs debate some joint action in the class struggle!
peter b
Clearly we need to gauge LU members by the criterion, are they for the people of this country’s needs, or are they for promoting their own faction?
Well it seem to me that some pick out a sentence or a phrase from what appears to be an honest report, to then rant on about excluding groups that they themselves clearly don’t like. Then, completely disregard the rest of what seems to me, to be a pretty balanced report.
Judging by these reactions, at the inaugural meeting, already people are jockeying to get into positions of control from the top. What happened to allowing/encouraging ideas to flow up?
I quite agree, that LU is an attempt at forming ‘new party to the left of Labour’. Quite what that means isn’t so clear cut in my opinion. If we are being asked simply to form something that when/if it gains any power, to manage Capitalism (as the Gov’t of ’45 did, very much against the prevailing “Spirit”) and just as every Gov’t since has done, then we may as well go home or back to our single issue campaigns, small groups or whatever, because the result will be the same. The failing and the letting down of ordinary working people. If we are going to move toward a centralist ‘democratic’ structure ( I use the word democratic very advisedly here) then already at the first hurdle, we are repeating history and mimicking these groups that some so despise.
Personally, I agree that groups at this stage, should not be affiliated to LU and I mean any groups not just the ones that Stuart and the others above appear not to like. I think we need to sit down and debate earnestly, what kind of structure that it is we want and more importantly, need. If we truly want to be inclusive, then we must include everyone that expresses a left viewpoint of any kind and all sit down together as individuals working in a collective. In the end, we are actually working toward freeing the individual through collective action.
As well as stating our oppositions to the Tories and their allies and to Capitalism in general terms, we should also be talking of progressive politics of the left. We should be defending the NHS, the welfare state, and a whole host of other issues. We should also be saying what we want to do, to share out the things that we produce, to share out the work required to produce those things, how we will share out the resources required for a good decent life, such as food and water, how we will sustain production, protect the environment that we live in, etc, et al.
We have much to discuss, there is so little time so we shouldn’t be wasting it trying to think of ways to exclude left thinking people from being included in the debate as to whether or not we will form a party of Left Unity, if so, how will we form it and how will we maintain it…
We have to understand also, that further down the line, if indeed, we form a party, that it is inevitable that we will have to have affiliations with other groups, there is no escaping this. So let’s get on with it, let’s broaden out the structure, let’s devolve power within the project throughout the whole collective, such that no group or coalition of groups can take control.
Simply being ‘Left of Labour’ will not in itself, be enough.
Regards
Ally