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Who Can Live On Poverty Pay?

ADAIR TURNER, the new chair of the Low Pay Commission, the body which decides how low to set the national minimum wage, has admitted that he "couldn't possibly envisage" surviving on the national minimum wage level of £4.10 an hour - £164 a week.

We bet he couldn't! Turner's a rich man. He is also chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe, the London-based wing of the Wall Street investment bank. He earns around £250,000 a year plus a nice bonus from that.

He also moonlights on lucrative non-executive directorships such as one at Labour millionaire Lord Hollick's United News and Media. He used to be director-general of the bosses' Confederation of British Industry, where he pontificated at length on the horrors of a minimum wage before it came in three years ago.

He defended the low level as setting the "key balance" between too low pay and "too high" where profits suffer and jobs are lost. But, Mr Turner, the minimum wage rate has been set so low, it has little impact either on the working poor's living standards or on big business profits.

That's even more the case with young people, where the minimum rate for 18- to 21-year-olds is a pathetic £3.60 an hour. Under-18s are barred from the minimum wage totally.

The minimum wage doesn't even lift low-paid workers out of the poverty trap. If the rate rises, many working families find most of the increase is taken away by reductions in benefit.

The European Union has a decency threshold, the minimum level needed to live decently. That's £7.50 an hour. It's not until you earn over this threshold that low-paid working families keep most of any wage rise.

Even a fat-cat boss like Turner can see that the low level of the national minimum wage is making low-paid workers very angry.

We say:

The trade unions should campaign for a minimum wage of at least £5 an hour as a step towards the European decency threshold of £7.50 an hour. For a minimum income of £300 a week.

No exemptions. For an annual rise in the minimum wage rate, linked to average earnings.

 

 

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Hands Off Comprehensive Education

ESTELLE MORRIS, New Labour education secretary, has threatened that the "comprehensive ideals" prevailing since the 1960s would "wither and die" if schools did not embrace New Labour's agenda for change.

Teachers however point out that comprehensive education, despite underfunding, has narrowed the education gap between children from working-class and middle-class backgrounds.

In 1970, 47% of students left secondary school with no qualifications. By 2000 this had dropped to 5.4% and three times more 16 year olds are getting five or more A to C grades at GCSE.

Pupils do far less well where selection has continued. But selection is a key part of New Labour's "agenda for change", says Bob Sulatycki from Kensington and Chelsea NUT.

"From day one this government has undermined comprehensives and supported selection. Blair even sent a son to London Oratory, which is notorious for selecting students.

"New Labour attack the schools but they've been in power for over five years and carried on with Tory policies. And by going further down that route, they'll have an even more divided education system.

"They talk about offering extra money to schools that comply with their views. It's another step towards a two-tier system. Some schools will get more money and can select more. You might as well start calling then grammar schools and secondary moderns.

"These bribes will mean schools opt to go for "specialist" status - or see themselves pushed to the bottom of the pile. Morris said she wouldn't touch some schools with a bargepole - a very insulting comment.

"But all her policies will do is to create even more sink schools. They'll simply concentrate those with the greatest needs in the lowest tier of "sink" schooling - making it even harder to meet their needs.

"Children need individual attention in the schools. What we haven't had is truly comprehensive education where needs are properly assessed and met. Education also needs to be properly funded. There's a division in quality between areas and schools within areas.

"We need much more democratic control of the curriculum - of what actually goes on in schools - without the national curriculum straitjacket. All of these are designed to meet the needs of the system not the children.

"At present demoralisation is leading a flight out of teaching. The teachers' union needs to take action to make Blair, Morris and Co. realise that to meet individual needs you need more resources and smaller class sizes."

 

 

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Israel's Re-Occupation Doomed To Failure

As the spiral of violence in the Middle East escalates, possibly towards a wider war drawing in the surrounding Arab countries, US President Bush continues to show the incapacity of the leading imperialist power on the planet to offer any solution to the conflict.

Judy Beishon

His recent speech, demonstrating breathtaking arrogance in calling for the removal of Palestinian leader Arafat, will in fact contribute to worsening the situation. It gives a green light to Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to continue the brutal invasions and re-occupation of Palestinian Authority (PA) areas, and the destruction of the existing PA.

Bush's reference to a Palestinian 'state' is meaningless, with no timetable for it and no proposals on crucial issues such as its borders, the fate of Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

The 'state' would be conditional on an end to Palestinian terror attacks and on 'reform' of the PA. Representatives of the Israeli capitalist class are applauding Bush's speech, knowing full well that it provides no incentive for Palestinian militias to end their attacks, so the issue of a Palestinian state will not be on the agenda.

Bush's speech followed a week in which 36 Israeli people were killed by Palestinian suicide bombers and gunmen, the highest Israeli death toll in one week since the start of the second Palestinian Intifada.

Iron heel

The Israeli government responded with a new spate of re-occupations of Palestinian towns in the West Bank. They announced that the incursions would be of longer duration than before, with more PA land being occupied after each Palestinian attack.

The Director General of the Israeli Defence Ministry, Amos Yaron, said that the recent 'Operation Defensive Shield' did not go far enough and that the military is preparing a "crushing and decisive" response to suicide attacks.

Sharon has announced that there will be "massive action" against the Palestinian Muslim organisation Hamas in the Gaza strip. Israeli government ministers have also decided in principle to deport from the occupied territories suspected Palestinian militia leaders and to forcibly move the families of West Bank suicide bombers to the Gaza strip.

Over 1,400 Palestinian people have already been killed by Israeli troops during the last 21 months. This brutal slaughter is continuing with these latest invasions. Suspected Palestinian activists are assassinated on the spot or are rounded up for interrogation.

Many thousands who have no involvement with the militias are suffering curfews and the destruction of basic necessities such as water and electricity supplies. Many have had their homes destroyed and been killed or maimed in atrocities such as the recent machine gunning of a market place in Jenin in which three children and a teacher were killed and 24 injured.

Israeli coalition government ministers are united over the stepping up of military action, but divided over how to portray it. For instance, Foreign Secretary Peres pressured Prime Minister Ariel Sharon into announcing that Israeli troops would not "occupy" PA territory, but would "remain there in accordance with operational needs". This is mainly just semantic manoeuvring to try to satisfy their own party power bases and be seen to be exerting influence.

New 'Berlin Wall'

A period of even partial re-occupation will be fraught with major problems for the Israeli ruling class. It means the call up of extra reservists and huge additional expenditure. Outrage from people world-wide will hit their pockets through direct and indirect effects on tourism and trade.

The economy is already in recession and crisis, made worse by the recent increases in military spending. Swingeing public expenditure cuts and tax increases are being made to try to reduce a large budget deficit. Poverty among working and middle class Israelis is increasing and there is massive anger at the government's economic policy as a result.

Most Israeli people supported Operation Defensive Shield because they were presented with no alternative to assuage their fear and thought it might create a temporary lull in Palestinian attacks, as it did for a three-week period. They are still offered no alternative by any of the capitalist political parties in government and feelings of insecurity are high.

But re-occupation, bringing a combination of increased financial cost and increased loss of life of young Israeli soldiers, together with a likely continuation of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, would inevitably lead to growing opposition to the government's military strategy.

Sharon is presently pursuing a dual strategy, on the one hand continuing destruction of the PA and re-occupying PA territory, and on the other hand building fences and ditches between PA towns and Israeli settlements, and Israel proper. Work has begun on a 75-mile fence to try to stop suicide bombers from travelling from the West Bank into Israel.

This will be a further death knell to the jobs of the 120,000 Palestinians who travelled to work in Israel before the Intifada. Unemployment has tripled in the West Bank and Gaza since September 2000. And it won't prevent bombers and gunmen from carrying out attacks. There have been many instances of fences being penetrated in order to carry out attacks on Jewish settlements, but even if the new fencing is more impenetrable, it cannot stop Israeli Palestinians from turning towards carrying out attacks from inside Israel.

The hardline right wing parties oppose the fence as they see it as leading to the exclusion of Israelis from territory that they regard as theirs, and as cutting off and isolating many Jewish settlements.

Many on the right support a policy of 'transfers', that is the eventual removal of Palestinians from the occupied territories, a form of the horrific 'ethnic cleansing' experienced in the Balkans.

Capitalist failure

The personal authority of Palestinian leader Arafat has plummeted amongst Palestinians, along with that of his corrupt associates, following many betrayals and his failure to advance the Palestinian struggle. His failings now include his recent announcement that he is prepared to accept the Taba peace plan put forward 18 months ago by US President Bill Clinton, which paid lip service to a Palestinian state and did not include the right of return of refugees. Incredibly, he also described Bush's latest speech as "a serious effort to push the peace process forward".

However, despite their falling support for Arafat and anger at the corruption and failings of the PA, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza will be outraged at US attempts to dictate who should be their leader, as well as at Bush's backing for Sharon's brutality and his mere lip-service to a Palestinian state.

In any case, any kind of Palestinian 'state' put forward by capitalist representatives in the Middle East or worldwide will not solve Palestinian aspirations. It would be too starved of funding to provide decent living standards and would be seen as too great a security threat by the Israeli ruling class to be given real independence and undivided territory.

Only a socialist Palestine and a socialist Israel as part of a socialist confederation in the Middle East could offer decent living standards, peace and security for the workers of the region. This is the only real and viable alternative that can gain the allegiance of both Israeli and Palestinian workers both now and in the future.

 

 

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Trotsky's Transitional Programme

Winning Support For Socialism

IN THE second article in an occasional series on Marxist classics, DAVE REID looks at Leon Trotsky's pamphlet, The Transitional Programme and how to win mass support for socialist change.

 

LEON TROTSKY'S Transitional Programme is more than just a political programme. It is in essence a whole method for socialists to use in the struggle to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism.

The working class is the only force that can perform this task. But how do we convince the majority of working-class people of the need for socialist ideas and of the correct methods to change society?

In the Transitional Programme Trotsky shows how the problems of working-class people should be approached in a socialist way.

Transitional demands

Socialists fight for immediate reforms (minimal demands) but the day-to-day problems, unemployment, low pay etc. are linked to the socialist transformation of society by a series of intermediate demands (transitional demands).

The world that Trotsky was addressing when he wrote this pamphlet in 1938 was a very different one to today. In 1938 the world was just one year away from being engulfed in World War Two.

Fascism had crushed the workers' movements in Germany and Italy and was triumphant in Spain.

In the Soviet Union, where capitalism had been overthrown, a vicious dictatorship led by Stalin was wiping out the last remnants of workers' influence in a mass purge of millions of people.

However it was not only a period of brutal counter-revolution. Time and again in the 1930s the working class in most countries in Europe had conducted mass struggles against capitalism and fascism only to be thwarted by timorous or treacherous leadership. As Trotsky explained: "The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership".

Trotsky proposed The Transitional Programme as the programme for the new world party of the working class, the Fourth International to replace the Stalinised third International.

It is a document of its time dealing with the main issues that faced the working class of the day. Many of the programme's points are no longer completely applicable today, but the method that Trotsky outlines is timeless.

The Transitional Programme demonstrates the method that Marxists have used to point the way to socialism from Marx himself to the Socialist Party and its sister parties organised around the Committee for a Workers' International today.

A bridge to change

WHILE THERE is a different world situation today from the 1930s there are still similar features. Today working-class people around the world are also throwing themselves into struggle to defend their conditions.

In recent months in Argentina, in Italy and in Venezuela the working class has used revolutionary methods to confront the forces of capitalism. In all these countries the ruling class has been shaken by the power of the masses as they stirred into action, but capitalism has escaped due to the inaction of the leaders of the working class.

Virtually all the political, economic and social problems that we face are caused by capitalism: low pay, unemployment, expensive and inadequate housing, bad health, racism and war all flow from this system.

This basic truth is obscured by the media, the politicians and the capitalist system itself. It is not enough, therefore, for socialist organisations to simply proclaim socialism and wait for the workers to support it.

Marxists must link the struggles of the working class on "bread and butter issues" to the wider struggle to change society.

We propose demands that help to alleviate the basic problems that the working class face but also point in the direction of fundamentally changing society through the working class taking over, replacing capitalism with a democratically planned economy.

These demands, transitional demands as Trotsky refers to them, act as a bridge between answering the immediate problems of working people and the socialist transformation of society, the ultimate solution to all the separate issues.

Transitional demands advocated by Marxists are always met with howls of opposition from the right wing of the labour movement and much of the left.

Neil Kinnock, the Labour Party's leader in the 1980s denounced the Socialist Party (or the Militant Tendency as we were called at the time) as 'impossibilists' putting forward impossible demands that could never be realised.

The Militant, The Socialist's predecessor, had the temerity to demand the reversal of all the public spending cuts implemented by the Tory government.

But Kinnock was wrong. The Militant supporters who led Liverpool city council did succeed in leading a mass struggle of working-class people in the city to temporarily reverse the Tory cutbacks, implement huge reforms and raise the possibility of going much further in transforming society.

It was only the treacherous role of Kinnock himself and the isolation of Liverpool that allowed the Tories to strike back, undemocratically remove the Militant-led council and reverse many of the advances that Liverpool's working class had made.

The Liverpool council struggle showed that transitional demands are not 'impossible', they can be fought for here and now by the working class, through mass struggle. But if gains made by struggle are to be held onto, society must be changed to put them beyond the grasp of capitalist counter-reforms.

End capitalism

ONE OF the British working class's great achievements was the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948 when for the first time anyone, regardless of their income or wealth, could receive free healthcare when they needed it.

But from the very beginnings of the NHS British capitalism has sought to undermine it, chipping away at its foundations so that it has nearly reached a point of collapse.

The Socialist Party calls for an immediate injection of funds to save the health service. But we also call for the removal of the privatised elements of the NHS, the abolition of private health that feeds off the service and the nationalisation of the pharmaceutical and other supplying companies that bleed the health service of funds.

These transitional demands lead on to the idea of removing capitalism in society as a whole.

The Transitional Programme is a programme for socialist change which is rooted in the current consciousness of the working class. That is why the method that Trotsky describes is more important than the actual demands he put forward in 1938.

Many small groups have rigidly tried to apply The Transitional Programme today by merely repeating demands from it which do not apply today. Workers on strike have been amused by strange people appearing on their picket lines demanding "workers' defence guards" ripped out of the context of The Transitional Programme of 1938.

If the transitional programme is a bridge from today's level of consciousness to the prospect of changing society the most important step on that bridge is the first one. The first demands have to reach the actual experience of working-class people to make the rest of the demands relevant.

It is no good having the purest programme for socialist revolution if the mass of working people do not bother to read it because it is out of touch with the reality of their lives.

As The Transitional Programme points out, leaders of the labour movement (and some left groups today) focus on immediate issues, separating them from the need for socialist change whilst talking about socialism maybe in the dim and distant future.

Transitional demands link the two together, starting from today's solutions and pointing to a future where society is run by working-class people to meet the needs of all.

 

 

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Spain - 10 Million Strike For Workers' Rights

"CERRADA" - SHUT down - was the only way to describe Sevilla on 20 June, day of the first general strike in Spain since 1994. The city was at a standstill.

It wasn't just the factories and major workplaces that were shut. There were no buses, no taxis and even the small bars and shops were closed.

At eight o'clock in the morning, government Minister Pio Cabanillas announced to the world, "There has not been a general strike." A few hours later, Minister of the Interior Mariano Rajoy, tried to qualify this, saying "The strike has been partial, generally fairly small." As the day unfolded, the Spanish working class gave its own verdict on events, shattering the complacency and arrogance of Aznar's right wing Popular Party (PP) government.

Half a million took to the streets of Madrid, the biggest workers' demo since the death of Franco in 1975. Riot police in vans were forced to back away from angry workers. Some banners called Aznar a "bastard", others said: "We are poor, not stupid".

Another half a million marched in Barcelona, 150,000 in Vigo, 100,000 in Zaragoza, 80,000 in Castilla y Leon, 50,000 in both the Canary Islands and in Coruna and 120,000 in Valencia. According to the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, there were 88 major demos taking place.

In all, over 2 million workers took to the streets. The two main trade union federations, UGT and CCOO claim 10 million workers were on strike, 84% of the Spanish workforce.

El Pais reported that industry, construction and transport were at a standstill. This in a country where only two million workers are organised in trade unions.

The government figures were laughable. They said that only 17% participated in the strike. In Sevilla, they estimated only 9,300 people demonstrated, when in fact nearly 200,000 marched to the Plaza de Espana.

Spain's electricity consumption was officially down 20.5%. At lunchtime the consumption level was equal to that of a Sunday. The government claimed that this was less than the previous general strike in 1994. What they omitted to say, was that the previous general strike took place in January!

El Pais called the government statistics "provocative", insulting the intelligence of ordinary Spaniards. As they explained, the Spanish workforce has increased from 12.6 million to 16 million since 1996. The government arrogantly thought that it could take on the workers in the interests of the bosses and win.

Several banners on the demo in Sevilla read: "Spaniards, Franco has returned". The PP originally had its roots in the Franco dictatorship. Now Aznar is behaving like an arrogant dictator in his attitude towards the Spanish working class.

Aznar didn't believe that the unions would be capable of mobilising opposition to his plans. 10 million workers proved him wrong.

"Decretazo"

THE "DECRETAZO" which sparked the general strike is a major attack on workers' rights. It is an unemployment law, which if passed, would drastically cut unemployment benefit and penalise workers who refused to take any kind of job within a certain radius of their home.

The "decretazo" has become symbolic of the right-wing, anti-working class agenda of the PP government in Spain, in the same way that article 18 on labour reform was a catalyst for the 13 million strong general strike in Italy earlier this year.

As José, a college lecturer in Sevilla explained: "This law is about rolling back all the gains which workers have won in the past 100 years. That's why the strike has been so solid. Its part of the neo-liberal offensive that's taking place throughout Europe by right-wing governments such as Berlusconi in Italy, Blair in Britain and now Chirac in France".

It's not clear what will happen next. The government has said that amendments can now be put to the law through parliament and has hinted that it might be prepared to talk to the unions.

The union leaders have said that it is the framework of the law that is at issue, not the detail. Initially they refused to say whether they would call another general strike. At the end of the demonstration in Sevilla, union speakers made agitational speeches but gave no way forward for the thousands of workers present.

However, under pressure they have now said they will call a second general strike in the autumn.

PSOE leaders (the opposition party, which has socialist in its name but also supports a pro-market, anti-working class agenda) are hoping to benefit politically from the situation.

PSOE leaders marched in Madrid and other areas, the first time they had been present on a workers' demonstration for 20 years. In Andalucia, they have said that they will not implement the unemployment law, if it is passed.

CWI members are calling for a 48-hour general strike as part of a plan for further mobilisation in preparation for an indefinite general strike to defeat the "decretazo" and the PP government.

Committees of action need to be organised in the workplaces to build for such action and to fight for a workers' government on a socialist programme.

 

Portugal - National Action Day

ON THE same day as the general strike that rocked Spain, Portuguese workers took to the streets all over the country saying, "No to attacks on our class".

Postal workers, transport workers, public sector workers, teachers, nurses, metal workers, textile and garment workers, pensioners, disabled people - hundreds of thousands went to the demos, rallies and others activities on the 'National Action Day', called by the CGTP trade union federation.

This was a huge response to the vicious attacks that the right wing government started after the collapse of the social democrat government of Antonio Guterres.

The new government has increased the IVA (VAT) to 19%, housing subsidies to young people, and are set to give insurance companies the cream of welfare contributions. They are also preparing to approve a new discriminatory anti-immigration law, want to change the labour and union laws to the detriment of working class people, fire around 50,000 public servants and privatise public services and utilities.

The National Action Day was an impressive response by the working class to these attacks. It was far beyond the expectations of the trade union leaderships. They argued that mobilising workers is very difficult to organise. For the first time in years, the CGTP and UGT union federations are talking about a joint action against the privatisation of welfare services.

But it is obvious that we need more. Alternativa Socialista (CWI section in Portugal), in a statement and leaflet sent to the trade unions and Left parties in Lisbon, called on the unions and the rank and file of workers' organisations to set up a 'United Commission' to build for a general strike to stop the bosses and the government's offensive.

Francisco, Lisbon

 

A Socialist World Is Possible

AFTER THE hugely successful general strike of 20 June, nobody quite knew what was going to happen at the anti-EU summit protest on the 22nd in Sevilla.

We couldn't see very many posters advertising the demo and nobody seemed to know where it was going to start from. The campsite organised by the Social Forum, had less campers than the organisers were expecting and there was very little interest in the Social Forum discussions.

But Spanish workers and young people have a history of spontaneity. As if from nowhere 250,000 protesters assembled at 8pm in temperatures of 40 degrees! It was so hot that local people responded to protesters pleas for water by turning on hoses and throwing water out of their flats to try and cool everyone down.

Despite the gruelling heat, the demo was lively and spectacular throughout the 3 km route. Demonstrators included environmental protesters, youth groups, anarchists and workers. It was clear that many workers who had been on the general strike demo on the Thursday also came back to protest on the Saturday.

One of the main issues ministers were discussing at the EU summit was a crackdown on illegal immigrants. "No person is illegal" declared several banners on the march.

The main theme of the demo was "Another world is possible". Members of the CWI contingent chanted "A socialist world is possible". With a samba band in front of us we had one of the liveliest contingents, shouting slogans in several different languages.

At one point, our part of the demo was turning into an impromptu street party with hundreds of passers-by joining in.

We completely ran out of leaflets and bulletins and had to rely on slogans and our banners to explain who we were and what we stood for.

The size of this demonstration, coming just two days after the general strike, shows the potential that exists to unite workers, youth and social protesters in a new mass party which could offer a socialist alternative to the anti-working class policies of the main political parties in Spain.

 

Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism

THIRTY-FIVE CWI members from seven different countries made their way to Sevilla to protest at the EU summit and to help our Spanish comrades intervene in the general strike of 20 June.

We had a great response to our material, selling out of every leaflet and bulletin we had. On the general strike demo in Sevilla alone, 50 people were interested in joining the CWI.

The campsite where ourselves and several thousand other protesters were staying, was swarming with TV, radio and newspaper reporters. CWI members did countless interviews appearing in the local press and on TV.

Our banners with the slogans "Against capitalism, war and terrorism - for a socialist world" and "For workers' unity" had an impact on both the general strike demonstration and the anti-globalisation/anti-EU protest on 22 June, corresponding with the mood of the best workers and young people.

 

Eye-Witness Reports From CWI Members

Sharon, Pete and Andy, travelled from Stoke to Sevilla to take part in the massive strike demonstration.

"I was really impressed by the vast size of the demo and by how many had come from other countries to show their support. It was also good to see banners from many campaigns which are currently being fought in Spain. "

Sharon

 

"The demo was predominantly local working class Sevillians.

Many smaller towns and villages in outlying areas were having their own demos and marches. There was a sea of UGT and CCOO flags and banners. Whole families came to protest together." -

Andy

 

Els from Belgium commented

"On the streets there was clearly a very political mood. There were discussions about politics and the Saturday protest against the EU summit and the right-wing policies of the Aznar government"

 

"I was amazed to see many UGT and CCOO members together in one place in spite of the weak union leadership."

Pete

 

 

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An Appeal For Socialist Unity

IN THE light of the success of a range of Left candidates in the last local elections, the Socialist Party wrote the following letter to the Socialist Alliance

We are writing to the Socialist Alliance (SA) to propose that our two organisations begin talks on the possibility of re-establishing a broad, inclusive alliance of the Left.

The recent local elections once again showed the vacuum of working class political representation that exists in Britain today.

While, ominously, the neo-Nazi BNP made an electoral breakthrough for the first time since 1993, still the overwhelming feature was the widescale disenchantment the local elections revealed with all the establishment parties and therefore the possibilities that exist for building an alternative to New Labour from the Left.

These elections were important in that respect for the socialist Left. We believe they vindicated the Socialist Party's perspective that, in absence of an authoritative alternative to New Labour - a new mass workers' party - or a resurgent mass socialist consciousness, opposition on the electoral plane would develop in many variegated forms.

Thus we saw the Greens winning their best ever result since the European elections of 1989; the victory of the Kidderminster Health Concern group in Wyre Forest; and the respectable scores recorded by other independent tenants and community campaigners - from the WATT anti-housing transfer campaign in Southwark, the Community Action Party in Wigan, the Save Our Services trades council-backed candidate in Wandsworth, to the Local Education Action by Parents (LEAP) group which won a seat in Lewisham (campaigning alongside the Socialist Party there).

Although we would argue that such organisations cannot offer a clear way forward, in ensuring the political representation of the working class or promoting the necessary socialist programme to achieve the transformation of society, the vote they recorded is symptomatic of a broader search for an alternative which the socialist Left must relate to.

Many of these groups and campaigns could and should be involved in a democratic socialist alliance if the right approach is adopted to them.

We would also in this context point to the re-election of the independent socialist councillors in Preston's Deepdale ward - former members of the Socialist Alliance - and the votes achieved by the Independent Working Class Association (IWCA), which won a seat in Oxford and polled well in the five other wards where they stood, in Hackney, Islington and Havering.

While we disagree with the approach of the IWCA, which deliberately restricts its campaigning to local community issues, we should acknowledge that the main initiators of this group are also former members of the Socialist Alliance.

It was, as you will recall, precisely this issue - how to relate to the disparate forces which will emerge in the absence of an authoritative mass alternative to New Labour - that lay behind our decision to leave the Socialist Alliance in December last year, despite being a founding organisation of the Alliance.

At the SA conference then, the Socialist Party argued for a 'federal' Alliance that could bring together different socialist organisations, individuals, community campaigners and trade unionists - without them having to give up their own independent organisations, activities and views - as a step towards a new workers' party.

Unfortunately, however, the conference rejected this approach and voted for a structure that gave control over any groups that join the Socialist Alliance to the numerically dominant group in it, namely, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

So how then does the SA assess the local election results, the first electoral test since the December conference? It is a fact that the Socialist Party remains as the only socialist organisation in England and Wales with elected councillors, polling 10,078 votes with 34 candidates, an average vote of 296 (11.48%) per candidate.

In comparison the Socialist Alliance's 204 candidates polled an average of 138 (5.8%) per candidate, 28,071 votes in total, with unfortunately not a single councillor elected.

In the 'top twenty' socialist results, not only do Socialist Party candidates dominate the top of the list but there also feature candidates from the Leeds Left Alliance and the Socialist Labour Party, also not currently participants in the Socialist Alliance. And even in areas where you polled respectably or claim your greatest numerical strength, such as Hackney or Southwark, your candidates were consistently outpolled by the Greens or community campaigners.

Surely now you would no longer defend the conception that the SA will be the only vehicle for building working class political representation, to which all other groups and organisations should defer?

Of course, we would not expect to reach full agreement on the issues raised by the local election results or on all the broader questions posed on how the struggle for socialism can be advanced. But we would hope at the very least that the comrades are now prepared to re-visit with us the question of how an inclusive socialist alliance that can unite the Left could be built.

Yours comradely,

Clive Heemskerk, on behalf of the Socialist Party executive committee

 

Liz Davies and Rob Hoveman have responded for the Socialist Alliance, saying their next executive meeting is 14 July, when they will discuss the letter. "In the meantime, as you know, we continue to be committed to avoiding electoral conflicts with other socialists wherever possible"

 

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