, 17-1-04 Alan Thornett
The National Council opened with a tribute, by John Rees, to Cecilia Prosper who died last week. Cecilia was a vice chair of theAlliance, a member of the executive, and severala times an Alliance candidate. She also appeared in the Alliance election broadcastdduring the general election. She was elected to the executive last May, but was only able to attend two meeting before being diagnosed with cancer.
There is a full tribute in Socialist Workers along with details of the family funeral and memorial meeting.
The main business of the meeting was to receive a report on the Respect project, adopt an attitude to it, and take tactical decisions in relation tothe Convention of the Left which will launch Respect on January 25 th and what amendments to the Respect statement we propose there. It was a well attended meeting with 65 voting delegates plus some none-voting observers.
Alliance Chair Nick Wrack opened the main debate with a report of his involvement on behalf of the SA on the ad-hoc organising group of Respect. He presented iRespect as a major opportunity for the left, that the statement was a very good start, and that we need to have an attitude of constructive engagement with Respect.
It was a good debate, in my view, and there was a good outcome from it. I moved the EC resolution welcoming Respect along with the three amendments which the task group was proposing theAlliance submit to the Respect statement: tax the rich, a rise in the minimum wage to £7.40, and freedom for Palestine. I argued that we should have a constructive approach to the development of Respect, see its political development as a longer term project, and recognise that not everything can be done on January 25th. The main resolution and the amendments for the Convention were adopted with only 4 against.
The issue at stake was whether we should attempt to get as many amendments (from the Alliance pamphlet People Not Profit) through the Respect convention as possible or whether we should propose some carefully selected amendments, which strengthen the statement and take it forward, but would not change the current character of the statement, or risk fracturing the unity around it at this stage. At the SA EC meeting on January 3rd the Democracy Platform had proposed proposing the bulk of the demands from people not profit as amendments to the statement - trebling its length and changing its character.
This approach was rejected at the EC. but came up again at the NationalCouncil. It came up in a slightly different form, however, since it was now known thateach organisation can present only one amendment on the 25th. The DPtherefore proposed that the Council adopt all the demands from people notprofit and support them on the 25th if any organisation gets them on theagenda. We could assume they will get on the agenda since all individuals and organisations can propose one amendment. This therefore raised the same issue in a slightly different way. It would mean that we would be taking a negative attitude, seeking simply to get as many amendments though as possible.
The demand which the DP made their central demand, and the one they willprioritise on Sunday is the 'workers MP on a workers wage'. Of courseeveryone in the room (I suspect) supporters this demand, but Respect is anew organisation in which there are people who do not support that demand, and to insist from the outset that this was adopted is the surest way to fracture the process of the formation of Respect. That is why the AWL are so enthusiastic about supporting it, since they have no intention of joining Respect. They simply want to do as much damage to it as possible while they have the chance. I argued that we have to win this in Respect over a longer period of time and not insist on it at this stage as an ultimatum.
Some DP speakers argued that putting such resolutions were not an ultimatum to Respect, since the Convention could either reject them or accept them. But that does not resolve the problem. We should not be taking an oppositionist stance at Respect's founding meeting, and we would not want to get anything through which would split the current unity or narrow the Respect project down if it was agreed. We should only propose things which we think would be positive if adopted. The resolution to table the workers wage proposal at the Convention was defeated 14 in favor 40 against and 8 abstentions.
The other debate was over whether the Respect statement is a socialist project or not. Nick Wrack argued that it is implicitly socialist (with which I agree), since the word is not mentioned in the statement itself. He backed this up, reasonably enough, by quoting a phrase from the statement which calls for "a society based on need not profit". He asked what kind of capitalist society is based on need not profit? We were told by one CPGB speaker that this was rubbish and that Michael Howard and the Tories could support such a call.
There were a number of suggestions that there is an undercover plan to close down the SA at its March conference. This was knocked on the head when there was a unanimous vote that it would not be. In fact everyone at the last EC were in favor of maintaining the Alliance until at least the second Respect conference in October and the assess the situation.