Socialist Action (UK)
Encyclopedia
Socialist Action is a small Trotskyist
group in the United Kingdom
. From the mid-1980s Socialist Action became an entryist
organisation, attempting to take over other organisations, with members using code names and not revealing their affiliation.
The organisation was linked with the 2000 - 2008 Greater London mayoral administrations of Ken Livingstone
, although Livingstone was never a member. Four of Livingstone's key advisers were Socialist Action members; all made the "top 25" in the Evening Standard
's 2007 list of the most influential people in London.
entered the Labour Party and changed its name to the Socialist League. It became generally known by the name of its publication, Socialist Action, which first appeared on 16 March 1983. The group organised around the newspaper, but also had a bookshop The Other Bookshop, in Islington, as well as a printing press, Lithoprint Ltd, in Stoke Newington, which it still owns.
In September 1983, assuming that the Labour Party
's purge of the Militant Tendency
following the party's 1983 election defeat would extend to Socialist Action as well, the group decided to disappear from public view, closing down the bookshop, and taking other measures to guarantee invisibility. Members were assigned pen names, and after the closure of the bookshop met in an assortment of pubs. The group adopted an entryist
strategy "to protect members from any potential Militant-style purge".
By the mid-1980s, the group had around 500 members. Working with increasing secrecy in the Labour Party
, often under the auspices of other apparently independent organisations, its members became supporters of Ken Livingstone
and the Socialist Campaign Group
of Labour MPs.
The group's character changed in a wave of splits in the mid-1980s, beginning in 1985 when a minority, led by Phil Hearse, Dave Packer, Davy Jones, and Jane Kelly formed the International Group
, whose members were recognised by the International as remaining individual members. In 1987 the International Group
merged with the Socialist Group
to form the International Socialist Group
and publish Socialist Outlook
. The remaining majority of the Socialist League consisted of two currents. One, led by Brian Grogan, was part of the Pathfinder tendency
led by the Socialist Workers Party (United States)
. The Grogan current was expelled by the Central Committee which was led by John Ross
, which became the Communist League (UK, 1988)
.
The remainder of the group drew pessimistic conclusions from the fall of the Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe
. It continues to define itself as a Trotskyist
group. It considers the Soviet model to have been preferable to capitalism for the working class, but it has always criticised that model for its bureaucratic and undemocratic features, accepting Trotsky's definition of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state
. Socialist Action participated in the 1989 and 1990 Fourth International Youth Summer Camps but suffered another split after the 1991 World Congress. Small groups of Socialist Action members regularly resigned and joined the International Group, and its successor, the International Socialist Group
, between the original split in 1985 and the 1991. At the 1991 World Congress of the Fourth International, the group was given equal status within the International with the International Socialist Group
. At the 1995 world congress the ISG replaced Socialist Action as the British section.
. Its members have maintained leading positions in many campaigns - the National Abortion Campaign, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
, National Assembly Against Racism
and various coalitions against the wars against Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, for example. As a result, Socialist Action exert an influence beyond that which might be expected from so small a grouping.
In 2001 it stopped publishing its journal, also named Socialist Action, but continue to organise as a faction, for instance as the Student Broad Left
. Some of its activists played leading roles in organising the 2004 European Social Forum
. Additionally its members continue to publish occasional pamphlets and leaflets. It has recently relaunched its website, with an indepth analysis of the world economic situation following the economic crisis. The article applies the Marxist concept of the organic composition of capital to understand how the US economy is in a long-term decline and in turn how the non-capitalist character of China is helping it to emerge out of the crisis.http://www.socialistaction.net/Editorial/No-butter-just-guns.html
It is present on a small number of British university campuses, especially Goldsmiths College
. Its attempt to win key posts in the London School of Economics
Students Union has failed in recent years.
goes back to 1985, when the group's leader, John Ross
, became Livingstone's economic advisor. In the mid-1980s the group adopted Livingstone as something of a figurehead, regarding Arthur Scargill
and Tony Benn
as spent forces, and according to Atma Singh was "instrumental" in getting Livingstone elected to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee
in 1987 and 1988.
Running as an independent candidate for Mayor in 2000, Livingstone was supported by Socialist Action. His decision to appoint members of Socialist Action to his administration during his first term drew criticism in the media. When Livingstone re-appointed his administration in 2004, members of Socialist Action were described as his "stooges". In a January 2008 article that was subsequently spun as revealing a "secret Marxist cell" at the GLA, Atma Singh, a former member of Socialist Action who had been Policy Advisor on Asian Affairs to Ken Livingstone from 2001 to 2007, detailed some of the history and activities of Socialist Action, accusing members of planning a "bourgeois democratic revolution", trying to accumulate power and manipulating the Mayor. A subsequent episode of the Channel 4
documentary series Dispatches
, "The Court of Ken", presented by journalist Martin Bright
, featured Singh and others making these same allegations. The advisers named, including chief of staff Simon Fletcher, deputy chief of staff and director of public affairs and transport Redmond O'Neill
, economic adviser John Ross
, green adviser Mark Watts and culture adviser Jude Woodward, refused to state whether or not they are still active as Socialist Action, and a spokesman for Livingstone responded to the charges by referring to Singh's removal from his job for "failure to discharge his duties" and calling Singh "an embittered ex-employee". Livingstone referred to the claims in the Dispatches documentary as a hatchet job.
In 2007 Livingstone changed the GLA rules so that his eight key advisers, four associated with Socialist Action (including John Ross and the late Redmond O'Neill), who as temporary appointments would not normally have been entitled to severance pay, received an average of £200,000 each.
Pav Ahktar, former Black Students officer at NUS and current Lambeth councillor, and Denis Fernando of the National Assembly Against Racism are Socialist Action members.
Socialist Action has also participated in Respect - The Unity Coalition since the 2007 split in that partyhttp://www.workersliberty.org/node/9578. Several of its supporters became members of the party and one serves as its national treasurer.
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
group in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. From the mid-1980s Socialist Action became an entryist
Entryism
Entryism is a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely...
organisation, attempting to take over other organisations, with members using code names and not revealing their affiliation.
The organisation was linked with the 2000 - 2008 Greater London mayoral administrations of Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
, although Livingstone was never a member. Four of Livingstone's key advisers were Socialist Action members; all made the "top 25" in the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
's 2007 list of the most influential people in London.
History
The group was founded in 1982 when the International Marxist GroupInternational Marxist Group
The International Marxist Group was a Trotskyist group in Britain between 1968 and 1982. It was the British Section of the Fourth International. It and its youth organisation had had around 1,000 members and supporters in the late 1970s...
entered the Labour Party and changed its name to the Socialist League. It became generally known by the name of its publication, Socialist Action, which first appeared on 16 March 1983. The group organised around the newspaper, but also had a bookshop The Other Bookshop, in Islington, as well as a printing press, Lithoprint Ltd, in Stoke Newington, which it still owns.
In September 1983, assuming that the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
's purge of the Militant Tendency
Militant Tendency
The Militant tendency was an entrist group within the British Labour Party based around the Militant newspaper that was first published in 1964...
following the party's 1983 election defeat would extend to Socialist Action as well, the group decided to disappear from public view, closing down the bookshop, and taking other measures to guarantee invisibility. Members were assigned pen names, and after the closure of the bookshop met in an assortment of pubs. The group adopted an entryist
Entryism
Entryism is a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely...
strategy "to protect members from any potential Militant-style purge".
By the mid-1980s, the group had around 500 members. Working with increasing secrecy in the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
, often under the auspices of other apparently independent organisations, its members became supporters of Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
and the Socialist Campaign Group
Socialist Campaign Group
The Socialist Campaign Group is a left-wing democratic socialist grouping of Labour Party Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. It was formed in December 1982 as an alternative Parliamentary left-wing group to the Tribune Group...
of Labour MPs.
The group's character changed in a wave of splits in the mid-1980s, beginning in 1985 when a minority, led by Phil Hearse, Dave Packer, Davy Jones, and Jane Kelly formed the International Group
International Group
The International Group was the name taken by two groups of British supporters of the Fourth International.In both cases, the Group was formed as a public faction by members loyal to the International who felt that the then-current leadership of the British section of the Fourth International had...
, whose members were recognised by the International as remaining individual members. In 1987 the International Group
International Group
The International Group was the name taken by two groups of British supporters of the Fourth International.In both cases, the Group was formed as a public faction by members loyal to the International who felt that the then-current leadership of the British section of the Fourth International had...
merged with the Socialist Group
Socialist Group
The Socialist Group is a primarily social-democratic political grouping in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The group comprises of 180 members from 45 states of the Council of Europe. The Group is chaired by Andreas Gross of Switzerland....
to form the International Socialist Group
International Socialist Group
The International Socialist Group was a Trotskyist organisation in Britain. It was the British section of the Fourth International until July 2009 when it dissolved into Socialist Resistance.- Origin :...
and publish Socialist Outlook
Socialist Outlook
Socialist Outlook was either of two publications edited by supporters of the Fourth International in Britain.-The first Socialist Outlook:...
. The remaining majority of the Socialist League consisted of two currents. One, led by Brian Grogan, was part of the Pathfinder tendency
Pathfinder tendency
The Pathfinder tendency is the unofficial name of a group of historically Trotskyist organizations that are politically and organizationally allied with the Socialist Workers Party of the United States and its perspective of solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban Communist Party.The...
led by the Socialist Workers Party (United States)
Socialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...
. The Grogan current was expelled by the Central Committee which was led by John Ross
John Ross (socialist)
John Ross is a British academic, journalist, blogger, advisor to multinationals and economic commentator who previously was a socialist political activist and worked as an economic advisor to Ken Livingstone when he was Mayor of London. He writes regularly for China Daily, Shanghai Daily, and...
, which became the Communist League (UK, 1988)
Communist League (UK, 1988)
The Communist League was formed by a group of members expelled in 1988 from Socialist Action. Those members had joined the American Socialist Workers Party's Pathfinder tendency. It maintains a bookshop in London, originally in The Cut but now in Bethnal Green Road.The League's members sell The...
.
The remainder of the group drew pessimistic conclusions from the fall of the Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. It continues to define itself as a Trotskyist
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
group. It considers the Soviet model to have been preferable to capitalism for the working class, but it has always criticised that model for its bureaucratic and undemocratic features, accepting Trotsky's definition of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state
Degenerated workers' state
In Trotskyist political theory the term degenerated workers' state has been used since the 1930s to describe the state of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in or about 1924...
. Socialist Action participated in the 1989 and 1990 Fourth International Youth Summer Camps but suffered another split after the 1991 World Congress. Small groups of Socialist Action members regularly resigned and joined the International Group, and its successor, the International Socialist Group
International Socialist Group
The International Socialist Group was a Trotskyist organisation in Britain. It was the British section of the Fourth International until July 2009 when it dissolved into Socialist Resistance.- Origin :...
, between the original split in 1985 and the 1991. At the 1991 World Congress of the Fourth International, the group was given equal status within the International with the International Socialist Group
International Socialist Group
The International Socialist Group was a Trotskyist organisation in Britain. It was the British section of the Fourth International until July 2009 when it dissolved into Socialist Resistance.- Origin :...
. At the 1995 world congress the ISG replaced Socialist Action as the British section.
Current activity
It was heavily involved in the publication and editorial control of Socialist Campaign Group NewsSocialist Campaign Group
The Socialist Campaign Group is a left-wing democratic socialist grouping of Labour Party Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. It was formed in December 1982 as an alternative Parliamentary left-wing group to the Tribune Group...
. Its members have maintained leading positions in many campaigns - the National Abortion Campaign, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
, National Assembly Against Racism
National Assembly Against Racism
The National Assembly Against Racism is or was a British anti-racist and anti-fascist group.-External links:...
and various coalitions against the wars against Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, for example. As a result, Socialist Action exert an influence beyond that which might be expected from so small a grouping.
In 2001 it stopped publishing its journal, also named Socialist Action, but continue to organise as a faction, for instance as the Student Broad Left
Student Broad Left
Student Broad Left is a factional grouping operating within the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom.The group was formed in 1997 as a split from the Campaign for Free Education and first contested NUS elections in 1998...
. Some of its activists played leading roles in organising the 2004 European Social Forum
European Social Forum
The European Social Forum is a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement . In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but later it became biannual due to difficulties with finding host countries...
. Additionally its members continue to publish occasional pamphlets and leaflets. It has recently relaunched its website, with an indepth analysis of the world economic situation following the economic crisis. The article applies the Marxist concept of the organic composition of capital to understand how the US economy is in a long-term decline and in turn how the non-capitalist character of China is helping it to emerge out of the crisis.http://www.socialistaction.net/Editorial/No-butter-just-guns.html
It is present on a small number of British university campuses, especially Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom which specialises in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute...
. Its attempt to win key posts in the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
Students Union has failed in recent years.
Ken Livingstone
The group's association with Ken LivingstoneKen Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
goes back to 1985, when the group's leader, John Ross
John Ross (socialist)
John Ross is a British academic, journalist, blogger, advisor to multinationals and economic commentator who previously was a socialist political activist and worked as an economic advisor to Ken Livingstone when he was Mayor of London. He writes regularly for China Daily, Shanghai Daily, and...
, became Livingstone's economic advisor. In the mid-1980s the group adopted Livingstone as something of a figurehead, regarding Arthur Scargill
Arthur Scargill
Arthur Scargill is a British politician who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1982 to 2002, leading the union through the 1984–85 miners' strike, a key event in British labour and political history...
and Tony Benn
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...
as spent forces, and according to Atma Singh was "instrumental" in getting Livingstone elected to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee
National Executive Committee
The National Executive Committee or NEC is the chief administrative body of the UK Labour Party. Its composition has changed over the years, and includes representatives of affiliated trade unions, the Parliamentary Labour Party and European Parliamentary Labour Party, Constituency Labour Parties,...
in 1987 and 1988.
Running as an independent candidate for Mayor in 2000, Livingstone was supported by Socialist Action. His decision to appoint members of Socialist Action to his administration during his first term drew criticism in the media. When Livingstone re-appointed his administration in 2004, members of Socialist Action were described as his "stooges". In a January 2008 article that was subsequently spun as revealing a "secret Marxist cell" at the GLA, Atma Singh, a former member of Socialist Action who had been Policy Advisor on Asian Affairs to Ken Livingstone from 2001 to 2007, detailed some of the history and activities of Socialist Action, accusing members of planning a "bourgeois democratic revolution", trying to accumulate power and manipulating the Mayor. A subsequent episode of the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
documentary series Dispatches
Dispatches (TV series)
Dispatches is the British television current affairs documentary series on Channel 4, first transmitted in 1987. The programme covers issues about British society, politics, health, religion, international current affairs and the environment, usually featuring a mole in an organisation.-Awards:*...
, "The Court of Ken", presented by journalist Martin Bright
Martin Bright
Martin Bright is a British journalist. He worked for the BBC World Service and The Guardian before becoming The Observer's education correspondent and then home affairs editor...
, featured Singh and others making these same allegations. The advisers named, including chief of staff Simon Fletcher, deputy chief of staff and director of public affairs and transport Redmond O'Neill
Redmond O'Neill
Redmond O'Neill was a British political activist.Born in London to a family from Tipperary, O'Neill studied at Sussex University, where he joined the Trotskyist International Marxist Group . One faction in the IMG later became Socialist Action, and O'Neill was recognised as its leader...
, economic adviser John Ross
John Ross (socialist)
John Ross is a British academic, journalist, blogger, advisor to multinationals and economic commentator who previously was a socialist political activist and worked as an economic advisor to Ken Livingstone when he was Mayor of London. He writes regularly for China Daily, Shanghai Daily, and...
, green adviser Mark Watts and culture adviser Jude Woodward, refused to state whether or not they are still active as Socialist Action, and a spokesman for Livingstone responded to the charges by referring to Singh's removal from his job for "failure to discharge his duties" and calling Singh "an embittered ex-employee". Livingstone referred to the claims in the Dispatches documentary as a hatchet job.
In 2007 Livingstone changed the GLA rules so that his eight key advisers, four associated with Socialist Action (including John Ross and the late Redmond O'Neill), who as temporary appointments would not normally have been entitled to severance pay, received an average of £200,000 each.
Pav Ahktar, former Black Students officer at NUS and current Lambeth councillor, and Denis Fernando of the National Assembly Against Racism are Socialist Action members.
Socialist Action has also participated in Respect - The Unity Coalition since the 2007 split in that partyhttp://www.workersliberty.org/node/9578. Several of its supporters became members of the party and one serves as its national treasurer.