KATY TYRRELL, a member of British Militant Labour and leader in UNISON, the biggest trade union in Europe, visited Australia in May. Green Left Weekly's LISA MACDONALD interviewed her in Sydney.
Question: What will the election of a Blair-led Labour Party at the next election mean for the British working class?
For eight years, workers have been told by the trade union officials that everything will be all right once there is a Labour government. But Blair has taken Labour further to the right even than the Australian Labor Party. The Liberals now seem more radical than Labour in lots of areas.
It is also a party in crisis. Many branches simply don't meet any more, and people are leaving it in waves.
A lot of people in the Labour left wing think that if Labour gets elected, then sells out workers, the trade unions will push it back to the left. We think it's gone too far for that to happen.
The radical left are looking forward to a Labour government, because this is when we come into our own. It is also when the really hard work starts for us, but we will grow. In large part this is because the Labour Party's traditional links with the unions will go, and workers will be freed from the union bureaucracy.
Question: What is the state of the left in the trade unions?
Since the 1986 Wapping dispute, there has been no major struggle to teach workers about fighting organisations, democratic control and the like. The trade union leaderships and the Trade Union Congress have constrained the memberships, and young people have stopped coming up through the unions.
Because of the betrayals, many union members have become disillusioned. They are wondering whether it's worth fighting, or even worth being a member of the union. Radical left members have to argue with them that deserting the struggle is not the way forward.
The good news is that broad lefts have now formed in each of the 14 major unions. The broad lefts bring together all the left and non-aligned groups and individuals in the unions except the old Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party [the International Socialists in Australia].
The broad lefts form on a regional level, but we are now also starting to get unification across the movement. In March, the broad left of the teachers' union, the Socialist Teachers Alliance, approached all the other broad lefts with the message that we need to get on and fight as one. We've now had two meetings of every broad left. It's really promising.
Question: How does the formation of the Socialist Labour Party (SLP) affect prosects for the left?
The formation of a left breakaway party has been possible because we've had labour leaders like Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner who have continued to march under the banner of socialism. Scargill was one of the best trade union leaders of the 1980s in Europe. He was the only one who could have launched a new workers' party in Britain.
The SLP has massive potential to realign and regroup the left around a common program, and begin creating a mass workers' party. It is a huge step forward.
But it could also die on its feet. The SLP's constitution doesn't really unite the left. You can only be a member of the SLP if you give up membership of all other political organisations. This indicates that the SLP leaders are still trying to rehash the Labour Party left.
Militant Labour members are not prepared to resign; I was the first member of Militant Labour to be expelled from the SLP for this. Militant Labour is arguing that, if it is to survive and grow, the SLP needs to be opened out along the lines of the United Left in Spain or the Party of Communist Refoundation in Italy. It should be a broad alliance of socialists. There are lots of people inside the SLP fighting for the same goal.
Another problem is that you must be a British citizen for a year or more before you can join. That is racist. There are many people who claim political exile in Britain who are socialists but who will not be allowed into the SLP. We are hopeful that this clause will be withdrawn.
There are other problems, including that the party needs to get out and campaign on the ground much more than it's doing, but the SLP is still the right road to go down.
Not many left organisations have welcomed the SLP. Militant Labour has been at the forefront of welcoming it. We think that if the constitution is changed it will join workers. It is already rejuvenating activists — I saw people I hadn't seen in political activity for 12 years at the first SLP meetings.
The SLP is still a left reformist party, but there are hundreds of serious revolutionaries in it who can turn it around. Half of the SLP executive committee are ex-members of organisations with a revolutionary program.
Also, the SLP will attract a lot of people who don't consider themselves revolutionaries, but once they are actively involved in left politics, anything is possible.
Militant Labour wants to show the SLP how many members it could have if the party was broadened. So we have set up Socialist Alliances which bring together broad bases of people who would have joined the SLP if not for its constraining constitution. In Scotland especially, these alliances have been very successful.
We are not setting up in opposition to the SLP. Militant Labour welcomes the SLP standing candidates in the next election even though we too will contest that election, in some places in alliance with other leftists.
Question: What role are young people playing in left politics?
Youth unemployment is 25% now — 50-60% if you're black or Asian. Young people in the '90s are very radical, but they don't trust any of the established political parties, whether Marxist, Green or whatever. Instead, they are going into single issue campaigns — anti-roads, anti-fox hunting, environmental, feminist, anti-homophobic and anti-racism campaigns.
Young Labour is now just a career path for aspiring MPs, but there are not many young people at the SLP meetings either, because Scargill too is seen as part of the establishment. Also, although the SLP wants the environmental protesters and so on to join it, these young people see themselves as members of political organisations already and feel a loyalty to them. Again, the SLP's constitutional requirements are blocking its growth.
Also, Scargill says you have to be a member of a trade union to be a member of the SLP. A lot of young people who might be interested are not part of the trade union movement — they are often unemployed or just not interested in trade unions. So that's another blockage.
Question: What youth campaigns is Militant Labour involved in?
Alongside our campaign work around gay and lesbian, disability and domestic violence issues, Militant Labour was at the forefront of forming Youth Against Racism in Europe. It has been a marvellous campaign; the YARE has now formed in 14 countries and mobilised tens of thousands of young people.
It now needs to be broadened out, so we have just launched a new socialist youth organisation which will also take up the environment, gay rights and so on, as well as racism. It's called Young Socialist Resistance, and various movement organisations have submitted statements for its manifesto.