less Hurd/rebortdipital.co.uk Alliance must reach out to Muslim community elements radicalised by war er, we should support them. We are in favour of fighting Blairism at every level even if we think this is far from the best terThis shift did, however, have a direct impact on the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), which had been actively discussing (as a result of its positive experience in the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) a change from its traditional policy of overall support for Labour (with a few token CPB candidates) to the possibility of joining a broader
This was rejected by a majority decision at their July executive on the grounds that joining a wider alliance against Labour at the present time would send out the wrong sig nals. Whilst predictable, this decision is negative, and alters to some extent the framework in which the decisions of the Alliance
Then there is the situation inside the Alliance itself. The Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL) have turned partially back towards the Labour Party and de-prioritised the Alliance. Workers Power have left the Alliance, in an ultra-left turn away from broad alliances which don't have a full revoThe main controversy, however, centres around the actions of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Birmingham (though not
It is not surprising that the debate centres on the SWP. It is one of the biggest revolutionary parties in the world, and overwhelmingly the biggest in England. It is the biggest single factor in the development of a new left in Britain in the foreseeable future. It comes from an isolationist past and now works (leaving aside the current controversy) with the rest of the left in a number of campaigns and is inside the SA and the Scottish Socialist Party. This is a major gain for the left (including for the SWP itself) and one which we squander at our collective
It is not easy to build the Alliance with the SWP having such overwhelming numerical superiority. But it would be a lot more difficult if not impossible to build the Allance without it. An important aspect of the unity proposals from the AGM, therefore, is to tackle this problem by bringing in significant new forces, which would alter that relationship in a positive way and open up the Alliance to a new stage of development.
The SWP appears to have made two important decisions about its role in the SA
On the positive side it decided to increase its involvement and resources in the Alliance. The SWP supported the main resolution that was agreed at the AGM Resistance supporters, because it wanted to turn the Alliance outwards towards sections of the anti-war movement that can be won to a left political alternative. It knows that this cannot be done through the StWC itself. It needs some kind of expanded those it considered hostile to the new policy. Leading members of the SWP have strongly denied this, and there may not have been a formal decision. But what seems undeniable is that this attitude was behind their actions in taking control of the Birmingham Socialist Alliance by packing its AGM and taking all the officer posiJohn Rees said as much in his speech at Marxism in the session on "Revolutionaries
"Yes, I think the war has created an absolutely new political condition on the left in this country and I do believe that it is possible out of the anti-war movement to build a bigger a broader alternative to new Labour than we have at the moment, and that it is possible but it is not automatic. This is an act of imagination and that is always dif"This is to see something which is only partially existent and we need to labour to bring it into full existence and that means that people who are stuck in the past, who cannot see it, who will not'work with it,