SR: Unite the fightback to divide and defeat the ConDem cuts

Socialist Resistance is adding its voice to those opposing the Socialist Party’s move to divide the anti-cuts movement. The SP is calling for the National Shop Stewards Network to become an “all-Britain anti-cuts campaign”. It will increase the fragmentation of the resistance to the cuts, at exactly the time when all the other anti-cuts organisations have agreed to recognise each other and unite their efforts.

The SP's proposal goes in the opposite direction, towards its isolation. Socialist Resistance and many NSSN supporters, including those in the Socialist Workers' Party, oppose it. Such an initiative will continue the decline of the NSSN into a sectarian tool for the SP. We do not need the SP to withdraw to the fringes of the movement. We need it in the heart of the struggle, working within one anti-cuts groundswell.

In the opinion of the SP, at http://bit.ly/SPNSSN, the "main question facing the anti-cuts movement is not whether there will be mass opposition but whether it will be inchoate or organised around a fighting programme and clear strategy that can defeat the government."

In fact, the one of the main questions for the SP seems to be how to obstruct the the new Coalition of Resistance (CoR). It writes that CoR “has the support of some high-profile figures but this does not give it the authority to claim to be the leadership of the anti-cuts movement. Such a leadership will only be created by bringing together representatives of militant trade unionists and the anti-cuts unions that have sprung up across the country in open and democratic debate.”

Of course, CoR does not claim to be the leadership of the anti-cuts movement. It publicly states the opposite: its conference agreed that "The Coalition of Resistance will collaborate with other national campaigns, and supports the creation of a national united anti-cuts movement which is able to mobilize millions of people against the ConDem government." Furthermore, the plenary speakers at CoR’s conference included representatives of other campaigns including The Peoples’ Charter and the Right to Work campaign.

As we understand it, the NSSN was also invited to participate but chose not to - with the non-Socialist Party members voting it should do.   The three other campaigns recognise each other and have agreed to work together: the NSSN has not.

The SP argues that movements like CoR are weakened by the involvement of Labour and Green Party councillors who have sometimes taken different tactics from the SP. The SP’s editorial falsely accuses CoR of being confused about opposing cuts, and suggests that CoR therefore may stay silent on cuts carried out  which are imposed on councils by the Tories. The statement adopted at the conference is absolutely clear: "CoR is committed to opposing all cuts and privatisation (our emphasis). That's why it made no specific mention of locally imposed cuts. We do not need to divide the anti-cuts movement on what party to support in elections, provided the movement campaigns against all cuts. But, fundamentally, elections loom large in the SP’s thinking.

In a contradictory article, at http://bit.ly/SPonCuts, the SP argues that the trade unions are the best-placed body to bring together the anti-cuts movement. Needless to say, if CoR is too broad for the SP then the union bureaucracy, which reflects the politics of the Labour party leadership, is broader still. The SP tries to square the circle: since the unions will not lead, the NSSN should: it cannot take the place of the unions, but it can hope to galvanise the struggle.

The contradictions of the SP’s position go further. It claims that "The Socialist Party will work with other organisations fighting the cuts but we cannot accept a 'top-down' approach." Maybe they would like to explain their approach to TUSC (the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition) and No2EU? "Top down" is the very essence of TUSC, No2EU and a host of other SP projects. Local TUSC groups and supportive national organisations like Socialist Resistance (which asked to take part in TUSC’s steering committee and even stood a TUSC candidate) have no place - not even as observers - in TUSC’s national structures, and certainly no ability to make policy or elect leaders. CoR, for example, shows how pluralistic the movement can be. Its national steering committee is open to all and an open policy congress will be organised which will be open to delegates from every supportive organisation.

The SP's hypocrisy would take both the anti-cuts movement and the NSSN in the wrong direction. The key task for socialists is to help build unity in action across the fragmented anti-cuts movement. There are numerous national movements including the NSSN, CoR, the Right to Work campaign created by the SWP and the Peoples' Charter supported by the TUC. All of them have been able to develop initiatives that have won serious support. However, the hundreds of local anti-cuts organisations are not seriously led by any of these national initiatives. The NSSN has the opportunity to work with activists at both the national and local levels to develop unity and actions to build the momentum and self-confidence of the movement.

The SP's approach would be the opposite. If the NSSN focussed on advancing the sort of "fighting programme and clear strategy" which it says CoR does not have, then it would divide the movement. The SP editorial also falsely claims CoR has no strategy. The conference agreed "CoR supports the 2010 TUC Congress resolution for united and co-ordinated industrial action against the cuts, and will organise solidarity with those taking action in the front line across the public sector. We support militant and audacious actions against the cuts, including strikes, occupations and civil disobedience. We will seek to connect community with trade union campaigns, and support co-ordinated industrial action to the highest level necessary." Normally, we would expect the SP and NSSN to speak in the same way. Instead, it has shifted in a sectarian direction.

The SP’s article makes the surprising and divisive suggestion that the anti-cuts movement should not include people and organisations which do not share its approach. For example, it singled out Romayne Phoenix, an advisory editor of Socialist Resistance and former Lewisham councilor. She chaired the CoR conference and has spoken at anti-cuts movement across the country. In our opinion, Romayne is important asset for the anticuts movement.

The reality is that today there are very few elected representatives at local level who have committed themselves to vote against all cuts. A key task for the anti-cuts movement is to change this situation. However the way to do this includes developing a relationship of forces where those councillors who want to do so have the confidence that the movement will support them and expects this of them. Socialist Resistance believes that in order for the anti-cuts movement to succeed it will also need to win people who are currently elected representatives - including some of those who are currently Labour councillors - to have the political determination and confidence to vote against all cuts. This is a hard task, but so is the task of fighting for industrial action in many workplaces where there is no tradition of organisation or militancy. They are hard tasks, but they are real ones with which the movement as a whole needs to engage if we are to beat back the unprecedented attacks of the Con-Dems.

For the NSSN to erect itself as an alternative leadership for a movement which is neither unified nor built would further reduce the credibility of NSSN, which is already widely seen as another vehicle that expresses the views of the SP alone.

The SP's approach is quite inconsistent with its general approach in the trade unions. Rather than propose 'sectarian' divisions, the SP is known for going at the speed of the mainstream in the unions. Ironically the SP, which often chides the SWP for ignoring the real movement, is being criticised by the SWP in similar terms. The SP article cites an NSSN officer who is in the SWP (quoted in the Socialist Worker of 27 November 2010) saying: "At the moment no single organisation has any mandate or wide enough support to set itself up as the sole national organisation against the cuts. An attempt by the Socialist Party to railroad the NSSN into proclaiming itself as this national body is a recipe for division and disaster."

Why has the SP proposed this sectarian move? One clue is the SP's laser-like focus on the involvement of elected representatives from the left like Phoenix. The SP says it is preparing to relaunch its other key project, the Campaign for a New Workers' Party. The CNWP aims for a federal bloc of socialist parties, on the model of blocs like TUSC and NO2EU. Those electoral projects have helped increase the number of socialist candidates at the national level. However,  they mistakenly ran against better-placed left candidates in a few seats. If the SP is able to use the NSSN to build an sectarian pole in the anti-cuts movement, then that would also lay a foundation for a sectarian pole in the elections.

Socialist Resistance joins with the SWP in repeating the obvious: None of the existing movements reflects the power and diversity of the movement at the base. We need to build united actions now, at the base and nationally, to generate national organisational unity in the future.

Socialist Resistance continues to argue that the anti-cuts movements, including NSSN, CoR, Right to Work and the Peoples' Charter, must work together. On December 5 those organisations have been invited by the SWP to a unity meeting which hopes to chart a common road forward. The NSSN can either go to that meeting, or not. The same choices will arise all through 2011, especially because of the need for a European-wide struggle and the mobilisations around the G8 & G20 summit in France during November 2011.

The Socialist Resistance executive committee published this statement on December 3, 2010.