The start of 1984 was, then, an intense period, even before the start of the Miners Strike. Yet, here was the soft left, essentially complying with Tory cuts, and arguing for the left to keep its head down, seeing only some future electoral victory as the basis of opposing them, rather than seeing that, by this passivity and compliance, it was simply acting to create a dynamic in which workers were demobilised, and the Tories were motivated to push forward even harder. And, reminiscent of Spain in the 1930's, when that soft left saw the real left continue that fight without them, they saw that real Left as their immediate enemy, more so than the Tories. At best, they sat on their hands as Kinnock undertook his witch hunt, at worst they were active proponents of it.
Within the space of a year, the NSLB, which had been created as the result of an initiative by me, to create a broad organisation of the Left, similar to what existed in other parts of the country, had become a rancid vehicle dominated by a soft left that had no intention of putting up any kind of fight on anything. And, when the Left, began to challenge them inside and out of its structures, they resorted to the typical kinds of bureaucratic manoeuvring, and undemocratic procedures that the Stalinists, and the Right are famous for, along with the spreading of lies.
In June 1984, this reached a stage at which the Stoke Socialist Organiser Alliance published an Open Letter to the North Staffs Left. It began,
“We are writing this letter because of attempts to smear Socialist Organiser, and to misrepresent our attitude to building Left Unity.
When the NSLB had been created, a co-op was created to control its publication, and I was elected on to the Co-op. But, as the divisions with the soft left opened up, the required meetings of the Co-op ceased to be called. Then, meetings were called, but I, and others on the Left, were not given notice of them. Eventually, an issue of the local Briefing came out that neither I nor others knew anything about!
In the Open Letter we wrote,
“We remain committed to the building of an active Broad left campaign, and to that end call on the officers of NSLB to convene the long overdue meeting of the NSLB Co-op.
In addition to building NSLB, we are also more than willing to support any left caucus at Branch, CLP or District Party level. In this respect we will support candidates even of the soft left against the right-wing. We will also support any Left grouping on any of the local Labour Groups that engage in a campaign against the right-wing, or which undertakes any action to prevent cuts, rate or rent rises, and other attacks on the working-class. What we will not do is refrain from openly and publicly criticising the, in our opinion, inadequate politics of the soft left. Again, in this respect, we differ from Militant, who in thoroughly opportunist manner, refrain from criticising the local soft left for fear of becoming unpopular. In short our position is:-
- We will support any Broad left body/campaign of the Left/soft left
- We will support any agreed candidate of such a Broad Left against right-wing candidates
- We refuse to subordinate our politics to those of the soft left. We will continue to publicly criticise the inadequate politics of the soft left.
In August of that year, I was led to write a further Open Letter to Briefing supporters. It said,
“At the inaugural meeting of NSLB last year I was democratically elected as a member of the NSLB Editorial Board. I had to complain at the meeting of the NSLB Co-op, in February this year about not being invited to Editorial Board Meetings for the production of NSLB3. That same meeting also decided to suspend all activity until future notice due to a financial crisis. As a paid up member of the Co-op, and a member of the Editorial Board, I have not since been informed of any NSLB meetings etc. I was still under the belief that activity was suspended. Imagine my astonishment, and disgust, therefore, when, today, I have just bought a copy of NSLB No4, from Kermase in Newcastle.”
The letter went on to detail that other SO supporters, who were members of Briefing had also not been advised of the production of this Briefing, or of the convening of a NSLB Co-op Meeting advertised in NSLB 4. It set out that this was clearly a witch-hunt by the soft left officers of NSLB against SO, and went on,
“It is interesting to note that when the preliminary discussions were taking place on the establishment of NSLB these same people were opposed to my suggestion that a platform should be adopted which would prevent right wingers like John Golding from taking over Briefing. Indeed, John Golding has been allowed to write for Briefing. It becomes clear therefore that whilst the officers of Briefing are prepared to allow right-wing witch hunters like John Golding to write for, and join Briefing (if he wished) they are not prepared to allow left wingers the same rights. Indeed, they have demonstrated that they are prepared to resort to exactly the same Stalinist, bureaucratic, witch hunting methods.”
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