The decision to ban members of other national political parties from joining Your Party has now been taken. Jen Forbes, the Chair of Your Party, wrote to Your Party members on the day this decision was taken: Sunday 12th April. The letter failed to name any party directly but attempted to justify the decision. Forbes points out that when members joined Your Party, they were asked to declare that they were not a member of another national political party. This may well be true now but when comrades joined the Zarah Sultana initiative there was no such provision – this was added later. In any case, the current decision to proscribe dual membership means that members of other political parties are now forbidden to join Your Party.
Forbes goes on to say…” Every current member of Your Party affirmed they were not a member of another national political party when they signed up. The issue is therefore one of eligibility for membership, rather than a disciplinary matter. Those who knowingly broke this condition while signing up are simply ineligible for membership, and we wish them well.” This then is surely a disciplinary matter.
It is also the case that there was a tremendous lack of clarity around the dual membership issue. Members of other political parties, many who signed up to the Zarah Sultana initiative did attend the conference and were allowed to vote at it. If retrospectively, they are told that they were in breach of a rule stipulated by an unelected team, that team had not communicated this particularly effectively and they should be allowed an appeal against the decision at the very least. In addition, on a matter as crucial as eligibility for membership a small unelected team should not carry the authority to make such a judgement, especially when a clear majority of members were in favour of dual membership – a fact that was confirmed by the first conference.
The Your Party conference voted 69.8% to 31.2% to allow dual membership, subject to the organisation sharing common values with Your Party. This is a mandate chosen by the rank and file of Your Party by more than two to one.
The justification of the CEC for excluding members of other political parties is not built around a perspective on core values but on organisational considerations. Forbes talks about openness and transparency but beyond this rather abstract formulation offers nothing on the political values that really matter to members. Forbes argues that democratic centralist parties compel their members to vote according to a particular mandate… “trust cannot be built when some members—their identities not always known—vote according to a line set elsewhere, for the benefit of another party”. Forbes appears to be confusing democratic centralism with block voting. The block vote system was one deployed by organisations in the Labour Party. Democratic centralism allows for maximum openness of debate and voting but maximum unity in action. A good example of this was during the Brexit debate. Members of the Socialist Party for example had wide-ranging discussions in branches and nationally on the issue of leave or remain. Some comrades voted to leave others to remain. The Socialist Party’s public was position was to leave and its political campaigns supported this position but comrades who differed from this, majority position were not expelled from the Party for openly voting remain.
In any event, it would not be possible to determine in a national ballot who voted one way or the other. This is also true of Your Party, where votes are on-line and it would be simple to protect voters’ identities, if they are not already so protected.
Forbe’s letter is designed in such away as to ensure Trotskyist trends are prevented from influencing the political direction of your party. Forbe’s letter also did not indicate opposition to this move on the CEC. Grassroots Left CEC members and at least two of the three independents opposed this move. Niall Christie, the Scottish member of the CEC has already resigned – citing the dual membership issue as one of his reasons alongside positions held in Scotland that clash with those held by the Corbyn bureaucrats. The entire Interim Scottish Executive has also resigned. The list of proscribed organisations currently includes: The Socialist Party, Socialist Worker’s Party, Scottish Socialist Party, Socialist Equality Party, Revolutionary Communist Party, Alliance for Worker’s Liberty, Socialist Equality Party and The Communist Party of Great Britian. Of the eight parties listed above, seven could be characterised as broadly Trotskyist. The current list looks almost certain to grow and include other parties that are not on the list so far. Counterfire – another broadly Trotskyist party has resigned from the project, but The Trades Unionist and Socialist coalition, although initially proscribed has not been included in the list as independents and Grassroots Left CEC members correctly argued that it could not be described as democratic centralist.
The effect of the decision to ignore the wishes of the membership on the issue of dual membership is having significant repercussions. Meetings are taking place of left groups that have evolved since the setting up of YP including: Connections, Member’s Charter, Democratic Bloc, Campaign for a Mass Worker’s Party and Grassroots Left. There are discussions around mass resignations and building a new party from the wreckage created by the Corbyn group. Where these discussions lead is hard to say. Connections and Member’s Charter are calling for a face-to-face conference in June, but some kind of united approach needs to be taken before then.
Since the announcement of the banning of dual membership there has been a series of meetings of left groups to discuss the situation and to begin to plan a way forward. In a meeting on 14th April – Sophie Wilson, one of the GL CEC members said that she would remain as a CEC rep and attempt to influence events in a positive way. She said that she felt it her duty to report back to members in Yorkshire and Humberside. However, Sophie’s description of the meeting where this crucial decision was taken reads like the most undemocratic of processes. It is no longer possible for CEC members to see which way different comrades have voted and results of votes are announced without numbers being allocated. On one occasion the Chair insisted on a re-vote when an amendment went through that the Chair didn’t support. The meeting was suspended for five minutes, presumably to instruct the Corbyn block on which way to vote. The vote was then re-taken and the decision reversed. It seems as though the voting patterns of the Corbyn block are pre-determined. At the same meeting any attempt to raise a point of order was met by the person requesting the point of order being muted by the Chair. The Chair also refused to give an update on membership numbers. Also, at Sunday’s meeting the Complaints Procedure was approved. This procedure, incredibly, puts complaints under the jurisdiction of the Officers group – with no independent complaints panel. Sharing of documents and minutes has also been prohibited so that ordinary members cannot scrutinise the workings of the CEC.
What appears clear is that Corbyn has been revealed as an operator intent on the crushing of any mass party of the working class. He appears to have joined the Sultana initiative principally to undermine it and prevent Sultana becoming the figurehead of such a party. Your Party is now in rapid decline and it is unclear what the membership numbers currently are. Many members are leaving – others are waiting to leave, hoping for a lead from Grassroots Left or for something to grow out of the new initiatives. What is clear is that the various left groups need to combine their forces and group together, rather than run separate campaigns. A conference in June could be the catalyst for this and on-line meetings before then should target this objective.
Proto-branches should continue to meet in direct opposition to the dictates of the Corbyn elite and welcome any and all socialists into their meetings. However, many proto-branches were in terminal decline already and this announcement has only accelerated that process. In my own proto-branch there is a growing list of resignations from YP since the announcement and this list will probably grow. Proto-branches should call meetings and allow those comrades still inclined to attend the right to express their opinions and decide on what steps to take. In my own branch, the organising committee is shrinking and the spirit to fight on is declining. Numbers attending meetings are falling and it remains to be seen how many will attend our next meeting. A similar picture is emerging in other proto-branches. Many good comrades have decided that enough is enough and removed themselves completely from this project. Others will wait and see and it seems likely that a minority will continue for a time in anticipation of a split. There are a few who insist the next conference in the Autumn could be a time to fight for change but others feel that the Corbyn elite has such an iron grip on all the processes involved in such a conference that it will be impossible to challenge the existing leadership, as was the case with the Labour Party.
The campaign for a Mass Worker’s Party, which was set up three years prior to YP has work to do. The other groups that have emerged since the inception of YP need to agree to work together towards this objective. How much longer the GL comrades can hang on inside YP remains to be seen. There is a long history of comrades in the Labour Party over-staying their welcome and being addicted to the possibility of some kind of transformation; a weird form of Stockholm syndrome. If Corbyn has taught us nothing else it is that he and his elitist group are opposed to socialists and in particular Trotskyists. There is a nucleus of radical left comrades, mostly outside the traditional Trotskyist left who have been brought together by this. Many of the comrades most active in this project are members of the proscribed parties and therefore at least marginalised. Comrades both proscribed and not need to work together to build a mass anti-capitalist party that challenges all elites, including the Corbyn one.
