The Left and The
General Election
Whilst the
bookies and the chattering classes
speculate on who will win the next
General Election it is already clear who
the losers will be. Pensioners, the sick,
the unemployed, the poor and working
class communities the length and breadth
of the country will find themselves under
increasing attack as the political
consensus of the main parties scapegoats
them for the financial crisis.
Many of those
on the left are currently arguing over
the degrees of how bad these attacks will
be. Would a Labour Government be the
lesser of two evils? Probably…but an
evil nonetheless. Yet to many the
argument to try and stop the Tories is a
compelling one. The polarisation that
will occur come May 6th will
see a squeeze on parties of the left, and
here in Scotland the SNP, as voters hold
their nose and back Labour in an attempt
to prevent a Conservative victory.
In such
circumstances it is important for the
left to be realistic. Results are likely
to be poor in the constituencies where we
choose to stand. Yet it is important that
the socialist banner is raised across the
country in order to keep the politics of
equality, justice, fairness and a vision
of a better world, a socialist world, on
the political agenda.
No one in
Solidarity needs any reminding that the
barriers to future left unity in Scotland
remain formidable. It is unlikely that
there will be any formal reconciliation
anytime soon. Yet in such trying and
difficult political conditions it is
surely vital that the left seeks, where
possible, to avoid making things even
harder by ensuring that we don’t
stand against each other and dilute our
impact further.
Solidarity is
currently involved in talks with the
Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist
Coalition (STUSC). The coalition has been
initiated to offer a left alternative to
the parties of big business in the
forthcoming General Election. It was also
established in the hope of avoiding
competing left parties on the ballot
paper. In Scotland and the rest of the UK
the coalition will see leading trade
unionists and the largest socialist
formations co-operating to provide an
alternative vision for voters.
An all members
meeting in early March will decide
Solidarity’s final election
strategy, but our involvement in STUSC is
part of a process that started at our
December 2008 National Steering
Committee. At that meeting we agreed that
the party should seek left unity in
elections or at least, where possible, to
look for the parties of the left to
achieve a left agreement not to stand
against one another. This approach was
ratified at a January 2009 All Members
Meeting where comrades discussed a report
of the RMT organised conference on “The
Crisis in Working Class
Representation.”
It was on this
basis that Solidarity entered into the
NO2EU-Yes to Democracy Coalition that
fought the June 2009 European Election.
Although many comrades had issue with
some aspects of the coalition, the party
became involved in a project, led by a
National Trade Union (The RMT), that
tried to provide a left alternative to
New Labour. The decision to participate
in No2EU was entirely consistent with our
position on left unity/agreement.
We also
attempted to make sure that a left unity
candidate could be sought for the recent
Glasgow North East by-election. In the
wake of the economic crisis and the fact
that working class communities the length
and breadth of the country were paying
the price of the bankers bail out, we
wrote to The Scottish Socialist Party and
contacted senior left trade unionists in
Scotland in an attempt to avoid the
situation of a number of left parties
competing for the vote. Unfortunately we
were unsuccessful in those attempts and
reluctantly we stood as one of three left
parties in that election. Solidarity
emerged with a vote several times larger
than those other parties put together but
yet another opportunity for a single
socialist alternative was lost.
Following on
the June European Election, the coalition
partners of No2EU met again to discuss
prospects for a General Election
coalition of socialists and trade
unionists. As a constituent part of
No2EU, Solidarity was involved in these
original steering group discussions. I
attended one such meeting in London in
September where the issue of left unity
and in particular left unity in Scotland
formed part of the discussion. Amongst
the coalition partners at the time were
The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) who
expressed concern that Solidarity’s
(and only Solidarity’s) continued
involvement in the process nationally
could be seen as a barrier to left unity
in Scotland.
In order to
remove this barrier I proposed that
Solidarity withdraw from the national
negotiations and instead invitations be
sent to the different left organisations
in Scotland on an equal basis. This was
entirely in line with our party policy
and my decision was ratified by the
September NSC of Solidarity.
It has therefore
been disappointing to learn that the CPB
had subsequently withdrawn from TUSC and
that the SSP and the SLP have indicated
they will not be participating in the
coalition.
It is surely to be
hoped that despite the fact no formal
electoral coalition involving the
different parties on the left in Scotland
could be established that we can at least
work together to avoid potential clashes.
This will require some patience,
compromise and negotiation rather than
lists of candidates being presented as
fait accompli.The left cannot afford to
spend time and valuable resources
fighting itself at a time when the main
parties are united in their attempts to
make the working class pay the price for
capitalisms failures.
Graeme McIverNational
SecretarySolidarity, Scotland’s
Socialist Movement
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