South London discusses three platforms

Stuart King from Lambeth Left Unity gives his impressions of a recent South London discussion of platforms being put to the November conference.

The joint meeting between Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham LU members to discuss platforms being put forward at the November conference was very useful in clarifying the views and positions of the various platform supporters. If the discussion is carried in the same comradely manner at the national conference we will be doing well.

How we discuss

Concern was expressed by two Lambeth comrades at the whole process of the sudden appearance of platforms at a national level without input or knowledge from branches. We should take this feeling seriously – it is a concern that “behind the scenes” groups are driving the agenda rather than grass roots branches. I think it was explained fairly well how, once one platform had appeared, response from others was somewhat inevitable.

At one level it is perfectly natural that comrades who have worked together in say the Socialist Alliance, Respect or in organised left groups get together to put forward their views on how LU should develop. But we should always remember that this gives an advantage over people joining who can be very new to left politics in an organised form and who find the LU national coordination and decision making structures hard to penetrate (as do I!).

What we should avoid (and I have recently signed my support for the Socialist Platform) is these platforms turning into organised “factions” with closed meetings, leaderships etc. This will alienate people not in any grouping even further and is really not needed at this early stage of discussion and amendment before a conference. We should be involved in a process of clarifying and trying to reach a common position first, not dividing along hard and fast lines even before our first conference.

What are the differences?

We should not exaggerate them. The three platforms discussed, Left Party Platform (LPP), Socialist Platform (SP) and Class Struggle Platform (CSP), are all trying to struggle with a similar problem. In the first phase of trying to build a loose, party type organisation on the left, what will we stand for, who is our audience and what type of party will people struggling against austerity, cuts and poverty be attracted to?

A related problem is that we are a coalition of revolutionaries and communists and people who, while not convinced revolutionaries, are convinced we need radical change to the existing system. How do we keep this coalition together without following the normal path of the British left of splitting at the first, or second, opportunity?

The LPP, as Alan Thornett explained it, has set its sights on an audience/membership coming from the Labour left, people who have left the LP, trade unionists and workers disgusted with its record on war, privatisations, cuts etc. They have put forward a platform that they think will appeal to this left reformist, “Old Labour” milieu. It is not very socialist, rather it is a vague, radical programme reminiscent of the Green Party or Respect. The German Left Party was mentioned as a model.

There are a number of problems with this perspective. As members pointed out why would people join us rather than the Greens, an already established “radical party”? Wouldn’t such a minimum platform, heavily dependent on Old Labour ideas (top-down, state capitalist re-nationalisation) be unattractive some of the most radical youth movements who have shaken up the left in the last period; the students storming of Millbank, Occupy the City, the UK Uncut tax occupations? All of these were based on militant direct action, a general anticapitalism and on libertarian ideas of organising, all very far from Old Labour or European Left Party politics. And how will Miliband’s step to the left, abolishing the bedroom tax, freezing energy bills, making cuts in living standards a key issue in the election, impact on such a strategy?

One could add that the analogy with the German Left Party, Front de Gauche or even Syriza is a weak one. All these parties emerged from splits in large reformist organisations, bringing leaders, whole branches and trade unions with them. We are starting from scratch, with a few hundred active members and facing the hostility of most of the bigger left groups (SWP, SP, CPB) and the left union leaderships (TUSC/RMT). In elections, unlike the left parties in Europe, we face “first past the post” where you need 20% or more support, not 5%, to get a significant parliamentary and national presence. We are in a different ball game.

The Socialist and Class Struggle Platforms

Nick Wrack made clear that the SP does not pretend to be a manifesto or programme, outlining policies in relation to the current set of Lib/Dem attacks, rather it is a set of aims and principles, a type of “Where we stand”. We assume the policy conference in March will aim to set out fighting policies we can organise around; on housing, trade unions, poverty, EU/Internationalism, fighting fascism/racism etc.

The SP importantly draws lessons from problems that have beset the left reformist parties in Germany (pro-cuts LP/Green coalition in Berlin), collapse of RC in Italy after supporting an austerity government, an uncontrolled and dominant parliamentary leader in Respect that blew the organisation apart. It embeds principles that would hopefully prevent such disasters befalling LU – no participation in or support bourgeois governments, accountable leaders on no more than a working wage.

It is an explicitly socialist and anticapitalist set of aims and principles. But it is not fully communist programme and could be broadly supported by socialists and anticapitalists of many different hues both revolutionary and left reformist. In its thrust and direction it has more in common with the revolutionary ideals of the French NPA (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) than the German Left Party and that I think is a good thing.

The CS platform put forward by Workers Power comrades suggests a different approach again. As explained by Dave Stockton it concentrates less on programme and principles and more on action, proposing a set of campaign priorities that we can unite and fight around and the policies we should argue for within them – an “action programme”.

There is certainly merit in this approach, in as far as in working and fighting together in the class struggle we will learn that, whatever the differences between us, we have a common goal in fighting the class enemy and defending our class against the Coalition’s attacks. It will create solidarity between us rather than division.

Yet this will only take us so far. Precisely in those campaigns different approaches will come to the surface; differences on how we approach the TU leaders, what we say about Europe in the elections, what sort of socialist propaganda we put out explaining our overall aims. It is a platform more suited to a united front for action than a party and would not hold LU together for long without adopting a more comprehensive set of principles.

Concerns about conference

While as I said the south London “aggregate” was useful and comradely in clarifying peoples ideas, members were I think worried about rushing to take a decision by November, or rather about any “winner takes all” position that would threaten to split LU before we have started. The stoking up of the polemical tone in debates on the website and elsewhere has not helped. We need to show LU can have a different approach to internal political discussion, where we listen to each other, take account of arguments honestly put, and continue working together in the struggle.

Maybe the conference in November should be a preliminary discussion on the platforms and amendments, where we take indicative votes to get the measure of conference opinions. We could even elect a “platform commission” in proportion to those votes to see if a composite platform could be produced taking in the concerns of the different sides. It might not work but it would be worth trying. A year from now we could have a different and larger membership who in any case would need to look again at our platform.

We are at the very start of a process we should not rush it. And we don’t need to. The branches can function relatively autonomously, developing actions together with others, locally and regionally, putting out our own leaflets, blogs etc. We can get to know each other at branch level and across branches, input what works into a national coordination that has plenty of branch delegates and gradually develop a national campaigning organisation. At the same time we can continue to discuss our platform, perspectives and strategy.

Stuart King

Lambeth LU