Time for a new mass workers’ party


Ken Smith, Socialist Party Executive Committee, looks at the way
forward after the RMT conference held in London on 21 January.

RMT General secretary addresses the conference
THE POTENTIAL for beginning to build a new mass working-class party
in England and Wales was glimpsed in outline at the RMT rail union
discussion conference on the crisis of working-class political
representation.

RMT General secretary Bob Crow addresses the conference

The leadership of the RMT had made it clear that the conference was
not going to found a new party, or take any concrete steps in that
direction.

 Nonetheless, this was the first time that a national trade
union has called a conference to discuss the question of working-class
political representation. The Socialist Party welcomed the conference as
potentially an important step forward.

Although there was a very limited trade union mobilisation for the
conference, including from the RMT, the turnout could have filled the
hall twice over, and most speakers said a bigger hall should have been
booked, as some RMT members who hoped to attend were turned away.

However, it showed that even though it is only the beginning of a
process, there is a significant layer of trade unionists and socialists
who would enthusiastically take part in any moves towards a new mass
workers’ party.

Contribution after contribution at the conference agreed with Bob
Crow, general secretary of the RMT’s, statement that "the Labour Party
can’t be changed" and that a new party was needed.

Even speakers who are still members of the Labour Party, such as John
McDonnell MP, did not attempt to argue that Labour could be reclaimed
and said that he did not know if the Labour Representation Committee
(which campaigns to reclaim the Labour Party) was the best way forward.

Speakers graphically showed, in their descriptions of the everyday
horror of conditions after eight years of Labour government, why such a
new mass party to the left of all the establishment political parties is
objectively necessary for working people.

However, the key question that came out of the conference is what is
the next step in building such a new formation?

The lessons of the false starts of the 1990s, such as Arthur
Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party and the wrecking of the Socialist
Alliance by the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), were clearly present in
the minds of many attending the conference.

Federal Approach

Contributors to the conference showed that a new political party
could not be grafted onto the working class or any other sector in
struggle from above. Instead, a new party would have to be forged out of
campaigning and building together in struggle a unity based on an
inclusive and democratic approach – in short a federal approach as the
Socialist Party argued for at the conference. Unfortunately this has not
been the approach taken by Respect, the project led by the SWP and
George Galloway MP. Respect was viewed with scepticism by many of those
attending this conference.

Even one of Respect’s leading supporters, Greg Tucker a member of the
RMT, said that we "needed something bigger and better" than Respect.

A speaker from Respect who lectured the delegates that they should
get on board the Respect ship for the May elections "which had already
left the port" created a self-inflicted hole below the waterline of the
Respect ship as his speech was heckled for its arrogance.

A process of clarification of how the first steps towards forming a
new party can be achieved could begin from the RMT conference. The
Socialist Party-initiated Campaign for a New Workers’ Party conference
in London on 19 March, will be an important stage in pushing this
process forward.

Bob Crow said at the conference that he felt sometimes as if people
blamed the RMT for the fact that there is no longer a mass working-class
party.

No one at the conference argued that but a number of contributors,
including RMT members, pointed out that having called this conference
the RMT had a special responsibility for taking matters forward.

Having correctly argued that trade union struggle was not sufficient
and that a political alternative, a generalised struggle, was necessary,
Bob Crow failed to draw the obvious conclusion that a new party is
needed and that the RMT should initiate concrete steps towards founding
one.

He put the main emphasis in his contribution to the conference on
rebuilding a mass shop stewards’ movement such as existed in the 1970s.

Whilst this is a good objective its achievement cannot be seen as a
prerequisite before moving on to the creation of a new workers’ party,
as Bob Crow seemed to suggest. The shop stewards’ movement in the 1970s
arose out of the major class struggles that took place at the time.

Rob Williams (pictured left) a car workers' convenor and Socialist Party member from South WalesToday,
after the retreats of the 1990s, the layer of activists in the trade
unions is still much thinner than it was then. It is being rebuilt as a
new generation is drawn into struggle, and this is taking place more
quickly in left-led unions, such as the PCS.

However, it will take time to develop, and the existence of a new
party or pre-party formation, as Rob Williams (pictured above) a car
workers’ convenor and Socialist Party member from South Wales explained,
would help raise the confidence of potential shop stewards and therefore
actually help to speed the process up.

Immediate practical steps have to flow from this conference. Firstly
we have to ensure the widest publicity and turnout for the Campaign for
a New Workers’ Party conference on 19 March. The CNWP declaration for a
new party can also play an important role in galvanising support. And,
secondly, there is a need to call upon the RMT leadership to follow up
from its own conference and energetically drive for the building of a
new workers’ party from amongst the trade unions and the working-class
at large, with another conference and other practical initiatives.