Oh Sweet Irony

The Alliance For Workers Liberty have reprinted an interview from 1979 about the Socialist Campaign for A Labour Victory. The article comes with no comment other than to clarify some of the historical details. But, the purpose of the article is clear. In the election the AWL began by trying to build an electoral alternative to voting Labour. It failed, and was excluded by the other sectarian ventures. In the end, it settled for standing its own candidate, and at the very last minute declared the setting up of a "Socialist Campaign To Stop The Tories and Fascists".

The irony of that can be discerned by the scorn poured upon the SWP, and IMG for pursuing an almost identical course of action back in 1979. The AWL declared in standing a candidate that it was part of their commitment to building a revolutionary party. In the article, they write, however,

"Proclaiming the revolutionary party — a ‘revolutionary party' which like the SWP in Lambeth can get 200 votes - doesn't actually build the party."

In fact, the AWL would have felt they had done well to have scored 200 votes in Peckham, where their candidate stood and secured a derisory 75 votes! The irony in the article when compared with the AWL's politics and practices today would be side splittingly funny, were it not for the fact that some of us were members of this organisation back in 1979, when it was capable of acting in a rational manner. On that matter too, a look at what it has to say about the progress of the SLL/WRP is instructive.

For the young members of the AWL who will only get to know what zig-zag their organisation is about to perform next after the leadership tell them about it, the meaning of the article is that the AWL fucked up in the election by standing a candidate. It fucked up by first telling you that the LP was dead and trying to lead you into a deal with the SWP/left List,as part of a "Unity Offensive" against an SWP in internal turmoil, and then having to try to deny it had ever said anything like that. It is saying that you are about to collapse into the LP, because you have nowhere else to go, and that you will, however, follow the same "Party Building" sectarian politics you have followed outside the LP. In other wordds you are about to do exactly what I said you would do several months before the election.