Papers: Weekly Worker: Bread and butter

Click above to turn pageWhen the CPGB refused an invitation by the SADP to rejoin, I drafted the following reply, which was approved by the Red Platform. Ironically, the CPGB was eventually to implement almost all the demands of the Red Platform, including rejoining the SADP, though not until some or all of us had left!

Click here to download Weekly Worker issue 528.

Weekly Worker 528: 13 May 2004

We would like to thank Pete McLaren, convener of the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform, for his comradely letter inviting the CPGB to rejoin, and express our disappointment that the invitation was not accepted ('Damaged credibility' Weekly Worker May 6).

In declining it, comrade Peter Manson wrote that "the main site for ... struggle is at present within Respect" ('Sectarian delusions', same issue). We agree entirely: but main is not the same as only. As comrade McLaren made clear, there is no conflict between membership of the SADP and engagement with Respect. It is worth noting that comrade Dave Landau, who contributed his report of his work to raise the issue of abortion in Islington Respect, is also in the SADP ('SWP vote down women's rights', same issue).

Comrade Manson emphasises the differences between the partyist perspectives of the CPGB and that of some members of the SADP: "For some, the SA was an end in itself - a loose network was all that was needed. For others a federal structure ... was sufficient". But at Respect's founding conference, Paul Holborrow of the SWP, urging members to vote down the principle of workers' representation on a worker's wage, announced: "Respect is not a socialist organisation". We agree that we should be engaging with Respect, but if we can engage (and even recommend unconditional electoral support for) Respect despite such statements, what holds us back from simple membership the SADP, and support for its more modest campaign?

Ultimately, what it is seems to boil down to is that the SADP is rather smaller than Respect, and simply not worth the trouble. But this is a risky rationale. In quite properly attempting to engage with the central movements of the moment, we should be cautious of simply dropping, and needlessly alienating, those comrades we have cooperated with along the way. Rejoining the SADP is not a central plank of our position, but it is perhaps indicative of a greater emphasis we would like to see on the longer-term, gradual accumulation of respect and cooperation between socialist groups and comrades. A little bread and butter solidarity with an organisation which we helped to found, and which is also standing socialist candidates on June 10, whom even comrade Manson "wishes well", should not be left entirely neglected, as we chase the 'bigger fish' - particularly when it zigzags the way this particular fish does.

Red Platform
CPGB