running is 'inadequatel and 'unrel- posing to it one based on the real Last October, 15 announced its intention of running an independent candidate in the Walsall by-election. The decision to run Jim McCullum - against the Labour candidate - opened up a wide-ranging debate on the left as to the correct attitude to take to candidates of the left.
The question is not merely a tactical one. The arguments forward by certain tendencies such as the IMG who offered full support to McCullum - carry them serious implications which challenge the traditional position adopted by 'revolutionaries' to It is for this reason that it is useful to explore the raised by the Walsall by-election and the broader implications that the stand by groups like the IMG In deferiding their position, the IMG pointed out that support for Labour candidates is by no means a 'principiel. That is correct. While not a principie, however, such support is ar extremely important tactic for socialists often too weak to run their own candidates in elections.
Support for Labour - a party based on the unions and retaining the allegiance of the majority of working people - allows them to insert a 'class' criteria into an election. It allows them to advance the concept of counterposing class against class, of drawing the line in the electoral arena between the working Support of Labour candidates, allied with stringent of the programme on which are running, allows socialists to the same time, to struggle within the mass organ¡sations of the class against their reformist leaders.
Support for candidates outside the Labour Party is not, in itself, unprincipled. Such support, however, to be meaningful, can only be given to a party running candidates on a clear programme which can inject clarity into the situation and which can stimulate the independent activity of the labour movement. It is possible, for example, that a party would run a candidate of its own or even arrange a 'united candidate! with another party in a limited programme which, at the least, achieved this clarity.
The decision by the IMG, however, to support McCulium can in no way be said to be based on the above considerations...The programme of IS did not offer a 'clear alternativel to the thousands of workers going to vote in Walsall. The perspective that IS offered was that of an ultra-left group attempting to turn workers struggle within their mass organisations around a programme which was confused and inadequate.
refused to support the Labour candidate - was forced to admit in Red Weekly that: "..the only concrete proposals has for the Walsall working class appeared to be to join the Socialist Workers campaign. Not once did (he) raise any socialist demands". On another occasion, Red Weekly pointed out that "the policies of IS are quite inadequJim McCullum (IScandidate)
The reasons given for supporting McCullum seem to fit into new category outside those used traditionally by revolutionaries in elections. Red Weekly argued that the policies of the Labour government have led to such a demoralisation within the ranks of the labour movement likelihood is of a hard-line government being returned at the next election with a growing ultra-right active on the streets.
In such a situation, it is argued, it is correct to support I5 (despite its programme) since it can at least open up a fighting altern- politics. ative to those forces who wish to struggle against the policies of the present Labour government.
Such an argument is, to say the least, contradictory. In what way can IS offer an 'alternative! if the programme on which McCullum is ated! to the real tasks facing the combat the racist offensive, i the high jobless total and cuts social services? Far from posing an 'alternative', support for such a candidate running on a confused and sectarian ticket could merely have helped spread confusion. Moreover, support for McCullum could only have created a diversion fro:; the key task; facing the labour movement at this critical time. The anti-working class policies of the government are slowly beginning to create - as the IMG itself now recognises - embryonic opposition currents in the unions and the Labour Party, seeking alternative policies. This opposition was to be clearly seen at the last Labour Party conference in the rejection of the government's cuts proposals & undemocratic methods.
To Suppür, nit 1o cardidate at that time was to divert attention away from the need to intervene in this process on a ciear programmatic basis. It was to forsake the real struggie opening up witni. the labour movement against the reformist leaders and participate i. a 'side-show'.
under cover of providing a realistic alternative to the Labour leaders, the IMG position merely reflected a get-rich-quick attempt to by-pass the real fight opening up in the labour movement against the government's policies.
Such a position stems, of course, from the IMG concept of trying to group together the 'new mass vanguard' which will then be able to Ibypass in action' the Labour leaders... Presumably, the IMG felt the I5 electoral campaign was going to group around it - however sectarian & confused it may have been - all those willing to fight the pro-capitalist policies of the Labour government.
The campaign may, indeed, have grouped around it a thin layer of militants - but that layer, while willing to struggle, was given an 'alternativel that led it into sectarian dead - end, away from the mainstream of the labour movement. All the IMG achieved by its support for McCullum was to cut itself off as well from this mainstream and, at the same time, to adapt to IS's ultra-left brand of.
Far from endorsing McCullum, a revolutionary position would have been to support the Labour candidate, combining such support with ruthless criticism (both inside & outside the Labour Party) of Labour's programme, counterinterests of working people.
by Bob Swart &