Special post-election conference on the party and its future
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gnome wrote:a majority took the view that persistent failure by the two branches to comply with democratic decisions constituted action detrimental to the interests of the party.
Is this sufficient grounds for expulsion? After all, conference resolutions are being ignored now. There is a level of importance, did they support the labour party? Or refuse to us PG Tips? I believe they continued to refer to themselves as The Socialist Party of Great Britain? Against conference decisions.And as for attacking the party, they may have felt that they were victims of an 'injustice'. It can make you angry.
I thought this was a discussion about the future not the past !The election review meeting has now been fixed for 1pm on Saturday 23 May at Head Office.This from an account of one hustings is the sort of the thing we will/should be discussing as it is one example of how others see us and of the difficulties of putting our case across alongside the conventional politicians:
Quote:The Socialist: The contrast between the clarity, tactical calculation, local passion and pure politics of Moran and Mike Foster the Socialist candidate was almost painful. Even before he spoke Foster had created an amusing moment. The chairman announced that he had been asked to make it clear that Foster was not the candidate of the Socialist Workers Party, as he had mistakenly announced, but of the Socialist Party. The audience chuckled quietly and I'm quite sure that hundreds immediately recalled as I did the Life of Brian and his introduction to the difference between the People’s Judean Front and the People’s Front of Judea!Foster seemed to be a good guy but he was quite out of it and had nothing to say to the actual circumstances of Botley. Only the common ownership of everything would make things better, meanwhile everyone including MPs are powerless. “What would you be able to offer Oxford West and Abingdon that other candidates can’t?” he was asked by The Oxford Student (I am quoting from a printed source so that you do not think I am making it up): “I’m not standing in this election to make promises about what I would do if I was elected…. The state, and the very way that our society is put together, can’t be made to work in the interests of the vast majority of people… If you vote for the Socialist Party, you wouldn’t be voting to put me in that position, thankfully. Instead, you’d be making the point that the whole system which we live under has to be replaced.”It is not utopian to have a great vision – provided you also have an argument about how we get from here to there. But the Socialist party had nothing practical to offer. Foster works to help homeless people but he was not campaigning to help the people of Botley in any concrete way. This brought him the funniest point of the evening. When it was his turn to answer the question, with whom would he not go in to coalition?, he shrugged his shoulders with a smile as the audience laughed. He wouldn't go into coalition with anyone nor, he admitted, would any other party want to go into coalition with his.The great financial crash that started in August 2007 has thrown millions of people out of work and set back the standard of living of countless more while the super-rich get even richer. Yet this is the first time such a crisis of capitalism has not been met by even the spectre of socialism. The Occupy movement is broadly anarchist, the indignados do not define their populism in terms of left and right, the green movement has appropriated the politics of the totality from Marxism. I'm quite confident that a politics which challenges the neoliberal order will emerge. Its name will not be socialism. The futility of the Socialist Party, not to speak of the complete absence of the "world socialist movement" it proclaims, signals the historic end of this form of anti-capitalism. It was noted with a benign tolerance by the people of Botley, a further indication of its irrelevance.This chimes with my experience, more of after hustings discussions with some people who liked what I said, but who were going to vote Labour for immediate practical reasons (of course, I was facing Jeremy Corbyn, and several times, when I followed huim, had little to say, because he was able to advance the same sorts of arguments and alaysis as us (much different to Emily thornberry) — except one opccaision, where we were asked to pick a song that defines our campaign: I choose "Imagine" (not my own choice, but I know the party well enough) and he said that would have been his choice as well.A couple of times I used the 'People's front of Judea' joke when attacking the various factions of the capitalist party on the platform. We need to spike that one early. I'l also add that the Tory candidate was astounded when I accused the other parties of offering the moon on a stick, when I'm talking about abolishing the wages system. He must have missed the opart of the earlier hustings where I accused the otehr parties of being hopeless utopians.
Vin wrote:gnome wrote:a majority took the view that persistent failure by the two branches to comply with democratic decisions constituted action detrimental to the interests of the party.Is this sufficient grounds for expulsion?
A majority of party members thought so. It was the correct decision. Democracy is inseparable from the struggle for socialism.
Quote:After all, conference resolutions are being ignored now.Two wrongs don't make a right.
Quote:And as for attacking the party, they may have felt that they were victims of an 'injustice'. It can make you angry.Tough. Once a majority has made a decision it is onerous upon the minority to accept that decision, whilst at the same time, if thought important enough, to attempt to convince the majority otherwise. After almost three years the two branches failed to do that and so were expelled. That's democracy.
I didn't mean to raise old issues and rake over things, nothing to be gained by that. Just thought the group may have moved on with new members who may be interested in joining us.
Quote:The chairman announced that he had been asked to make it clear that Foster was not the candidate of the Socialist Workers Party, as he had mistakenly announced, but of the Socialist Party. The audience chuckled quietly and I'm quite sure that hundreds immediately recalled as I did the Life of Brian and his introduction to the difference between the People’s Judean Front and the People’s Front of Judea!I know we laugh at this but there is a serious side to it, in fact it could be THE problem.
Vin wrote:I didn't mean to raise old issues and rake over things, nothing to be gained by that. Just thought the group may have moved on with new members who may be interested in joining us.Don't think there's any new members, just a handful left – they're slowly dying out…
Vin wrote:I know we laugh at this but there is a serious side to it, in fact it could be THE problem.if it is, then we'd have to drop "socialist" from our name. Which is not going to happen of course. So we'll have to face it. I agree with Bill that the best way is to pre-empt it by bringing it up first and answering the question by beginning "Yes, we're the People's Front of Judea and they're the Judean People's Front" and then answer seriously.. Anyway, an item for discussion at the post-mortem on 23 May and maybe also at ADM.
When Andrew Neil asked the same sort of question, i thought Howard did well by turning it into a positive thing and that he welcomed the existence of all those other "socialist" parties.But this got me thinking about if we are considering a mega public event for the future, we should hire a venue like Conway Hall and with the authority and legitimacy as the "oldest" existing socialist party, the undeniable "grandfathers" of the movement, so to speak, and confident of the validity of our own case, we invite every socialist/left party, and i do mean the lot of them, to a hustings-style forum.Each party representative given 5/10 minutes to set out their key points (the speaking order picked by lot) and then a lengthy Q and A from the audience, even breaking for lunch and dinner and resuming later in the afternoon and evening to make it a truly all-day affair (maybe that is being overly ambitious, we do have a problem with our own members nodding off).Perhaps get Russel Brand (or even Andrew Neil but i'd opt for Charlotte Church , myself) to chair as the neutral…or all sharing the task switching at the refreshment intervals), if they are willing to do so at no-fee/no expenses.Perhaps we can title it …"The War of the Words, The Battle of Ideas" and present it as a gladiatorial arena of Britain's socialist parties fighting it out (people love a political blood-bath, metaphorically speaking) …But i'm sure other members have better suggestions on actual presentation.The whole thing videoed by ourselves. We may well see the ridiculousness of the Trotskyists arguing obscure theory to differentiate themselves from one another and others trying to score debating points over one another for the "right" to lead the working class.We may even uncover common areas of agreement with some groups on what socialism means.I see a number of advantages for ourselves because of our content and more importantly in how we approach and treat political opposition to capitalism.As organisers , of course, we get the advantage of the best pitch for our lit-table and the best place to view of our banners…We're paying the rent and for the advertising, after all. Fair's fair.Even the proposal itself and the issuing of invitations in a way that draws attention to the socialist principles we support…debate and democracy and potential interest it may arouse may well will be a success in publicity and propaganda on its own for us even if nothing else works out and it never ever materialised , at least, in the original concept Perhaps it is all a bit too grand for the campaigns committee to organise on its own without added volunteers.Anyways, i'm told i never come up with anything constructive and only offer gloom and doom …so here is one thing i think may well accomplish something for us, if we got the will to carry it out. Maybe someone else through the branches can officially propose or submit the idea to the EC and/or Campaigns.
In preparation for the famous meeting on 23 May to carry out a post-mortem on the elections campaign, I've transcribed the various questions that were put in three 5-minute video interviews we had.Here's Andrew Neil's questions on BBC2's Daily Politics Show:
Quote:It's a bit confusing isn't it? You're the Socialist Party of Great Britain. What makes you different from the other socialist parties?Are you a bit anarchist?You're like the one on the train in Dr Zhivago just after the Bolshevik revolution who was being shipped off because the Bolsheviks didn't want anything to do with them?You are the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We've got the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Alliance, the Trade Union and Socialist party, Left Unity, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism, the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party. You can see the problem there? It's a bit like the scene in Monty Python's the Life of Brian, isn't it? Shouldn't you all get together and have a proper Left Marxist Alternative?In my obviously failing bid to encourage left unity here, can I just suggest that you would do better if you were a bit more [united]? It's the perennial problem of the far left. You seem to to hate each other more than you hate the Tories or the Labour Party. I suggest that it is not helped by your rulebook which says: “A member shall not belong to any other political organisation or write or speak for any other political party except in opposition, or otherwise assist any other political party.”Neil was nothing if not persistent (I didn't see the interviews he did with the other parties he mentions: was he so persistent with them on the same subject?) Compared with his the questions the other interviewers put were gifts.
Quote:For BBC News 24 and BBC Parliament channel: What do you mean by socialism?Why do you want to “abolish the wages system”?You only have 10 candidates, why would you say people should vote for you?If you were elected to parliament what would be the top policies you would implement?What's wrong with the other parties? Cherwell (Oxford student newspaper) You are not connected to the Socialist Workers Party, are you?So, this is what has been called the battle between the “impossiblists” and the “reformists”?Do you want to be an MP?What do you say to people who agree with your ideas and give you a few votes but recognise that this isn't the main focus of the Socialist Party of Great Britain? What should they do to bring about the revolution?"In preparation for the famous meeting on 23 May to carry out a post-mortem on the elections campaign"How will its findings be passed on?A formal written report to the EC to review and circulate to the branches?Or a statement of its conclusions issued, asap, through the discussion lists for members to comment upon?
The secret is to learn how to avoid their questions and prevent them controlling the agenda.Anyway is this thread all about elections? Or is it as the OP says "Special post-election conference on the party and its future"?Many of us will be unable to attend the conference and therefore unable to influence the direction of the Party. Modern means of communication?What are the alternatives to election activity. Or possible additional activities? Why have new groups become well known without standing at elections?I'm sure I will be told to take the matter up with my branch.
No, it's a meeting about the elections, formally of the Outreach Dept together with the candidates, election agents and branches involved. Obviously there will be a report to the party via the EC. Admitting religious people, changing the party name or getting involved in social activism are not on the agenda. The title of this thread is silly anyway as the future of the party is not an issue or in doubt.Those who can't attend have been invited to contribute in writing.
Aahh! Don't know where I have got that idea from, then. I think we need one, tho'
Vin, it's not a conference, it's a meeting of the Outreach dept. I copied you in with a copy of my suggested election activity form, so filling that in and sending it in to the meeting would help, along with any comments you want the meeting to consider. The meeting will report to the EC, and doubtless the results of these discussions will be relayed to ADM and then to conference, where, yes, you will be able to take it up via your branch.I have suggested that HO makes sure it has a proper speaker phone so people can join such meetings via phone call (better yet would be conference calling). Last time someone tried to Skype to an outreach meeting it went SNAFU.
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