New Labour's continuing assault on public services and workers' rights, opened the possibility of convincing a wider layer of workers that a new party was a burning necessity. Q: What was your assessment of the RMT conference on political representation? A: The Socialist Party welcomed the conference as potentially an important step forward.
It is true that 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.
Nonetneless, Inis was the tirst occasion in modern times that a national trade union has called a conference to discuss the question of Party could be successful.
Bob Crow himself was very clear lnal a new party Is needed, but 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, I don't think it can be seen as a prerequisite before moving on to the creation of a new workers' party, as Bob seemed to suggest.
The shop stewards' movement in the 1970s arose out of the major class struggles that took place at the time. Today, 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 could help raise the confidence of potential shop stewards and therefore actually help to speed the process up. Q: You recently contacted Respect for discussions. What do you hope might come out of those discussions given your criticisms of Galloway and the SWP? A: Our attitude to any new party, or pre-party formation, is determined by whether we think it represents a step towards the working class establishing its own mass party.
As you point out we remain far from convinced that Respect will prove to be so. cuss our concerns on how Respect is developing and how we can collaborate to maximise the effectiveness of the left. Q: What do you hope and expect to come out of the March 19 conference? A: We see the March 19 conference as an initial opportunity for all those who wanted to take the struggle for a new party forward to come together and discuss how to do so.
We will be putting forward proposals on how to step up the campaign, and expect other organisations and individuals to do the same.
We will also propose the election of an initial steering committee in order to both effectively coordinate the campaign and to make sure that different points of view are heard.
We believe it would be premature to take decisions on the programme and structure of a future new party at 19 March - since it is a conference aimed a building momentum for a campaign for a new workers' party, not the launch of that party itself.
Nonetheless we strongly believe that for a future new party to be successful it is crucial that is open and welcoming to all those who want to work together against the neo-liberal onslaught on the working class.
This means adopting a federal approach, so that all groups and individuals, provided they are in agreement with the basic aims of the party, should have the right to democratically organise and argue for their point of view.