The Workers’ Party Decision Not to Stand in the UK General Election

CLR regular Left At The Cross has asked me if there is anything I can add on The Workers’ Party’s decision not to stand in the forthcoming UK General Election. Rather than bury the discussion in another thread, I thought it might be worth a thread of its own, partly because of the issues it raises about the position of the left as a whole in Northern Ireland. Needless to say, these are my own thoughts, giving the reasons as to why I think the Party has reached this decision. As noted in the statement announcing the decision (linked above), this was not an easy decision for WP members.

This was a difficult decision given our past commitment and long history of providing the people of Northern Ireland with a socialist alternative to the established sectarian political camps.

In the period of my own involvement in politics, this has seemed to me to be the primary reason why The Workers’ Party should be standing in Westminister elections – the importance of flying the (red) flag for secular, progressive, class politics that rejects the division of the working class into two sectarian all-class blocs, and holds out the prospect of a different type of society. Or, as a phrase we used in the late 1990s that I liked put it, to offer a socialist alternative to the perverted, polluted, poisonous politics of unionism and nationalism. And while the existence of the various local assemblies was precarious, and Westminister elections were perhaps the major focus of what passed for politics in NI, the Party’s electoral strategy had to reflect that. Council elections did not offer the same opportunity to get the socialist message across. Even at a crude but practical level, the free postal drop offered by a Westminister election was a simple means of getting the Party’s message to the largest number of people possible, when it was of the utmost importance that we did so given the static nature of political life in NI.

A further consideration, and one which was of pivotal importance in reaching our decision, is the relative diminution in importance of Westminster in the day to day lives of citizens at a time when Devolved Government is firmly embedded in Northern Ireland. This is not to gainsay our many criticisms of the actual implementation of government by the Assembly and Executive … It must also be noted that the Assembly elections, and also the elections to the reorganised Local Councils are scheduled to take place in May / June 2011

The situation has, however, changed since 2005, now that the Assembly and Executive are bedded in. There is no doubt that the issues that fall under the devolved powers of the Assembly are the main focus for what now passes for political life in NI. Although the overall budget is still determined in negotiations with London, and there are no tax raising powers, spending on health, education, and other public services is determined at a local level. The decision on whether to implement water charges and privatise Northern Ireland Water will be made at a local level, and the (currently laughable) strategy for building a shared future and combatting sectarianism also lies in local hands. In short, Westminister elections are now not the main electoral game in town, and, as with European elections, the general public is not as focused on them as it once was. Given that there are local and Assembly elections within about 12 months, it seems to me sensible to husband precious resources for those elections, when people’s attention will likely be more fully focused and when the message of a socialist alternative is more likely to get people’s attention and win further support. Not standing in Westminister elections that are of diminished importance both practically and symbolically allows the Party extra time and space to dedicate to building the Party organisationally and to concentrate its electoral strategy on the most important elections for the people of Northern Ireland.

The party has striven for a number of years to build a left anti-sectarian platform which could put forward an agreed platform of candidates. No later that last October we dedicated our Northern Ireland Regional Conference to this topic and invited a broad range of speakers. However, for various reasons it was not possible to make any progress with this project at this time … given the current challenges facing the party and the Left in general, the conclusion was reached that contesting these elections would be counter-productive.

So what of these elections and the left in general? I think it is worth bearing in mind just how weak the left in NI is. As far as I know, there is not a single one of Northern Ireland’s 582 councillors in its 26 councils whose primary political identification is as a socialist. Whatever about the left credentials of individual councillors within certain political parties, the reality is that those elected are almost entirely unionist, nationalist, Alliance, or Green. Parties that present or presented themselves as primarily of the left in the south, do not do so in NI. There was no left candidate at the last European election. When the number of local councils falls to 11 next year, things will become still more difficult for the left to make any electoral breakthrough. As things stand, in the General Election, I expect there to be two PBP candidates in Derry and West Belfast (and there seems to have been a split in the SWP in Belfast over that). Perhaps the PBP are standing in Derry to build momentum for the Assembly election in the hope that McCann might sneak into the Assembly at the next election, but I doubt that this is possible. I think that in their last results, the two candidates benefited from dissident nationalist votes, and there is more likely to be more attractive candidates for that element this time out. I don’t know if any of the other left parties and groups are planning on standing any candidates. But this is the harsh reality. In these circumstances, it makes sense for The WP to concentrate on the council and local elections, and for the left as a whole to explore more seriously the possibility of agreed candidates.

The future focus for the Party is clear, rebuilding a strong and relevant socialist party, which will be in a position to contest, and register significant progress in, the Northern Ireland Assembly arid Local Government Elections in 2011.

Elections for The Workers’ Party are not an end in themselves, but a means to an end. In current circumstances in NI, they should be about not only promoting the socialist alternative to sectarian politics, but also about what will be most effective in building The Workers’ Party and the left generally. After a long period of difficulty, The WP has made unspectacular but significant progress, both at the last local elections in the south and in terms of re-organisation, whether in the creation of new branches, the re-establishment of the Research Section and an expanding range of new publications (including a recent one on the 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis) or the rejuvenation of Look Left as a publication dedicated to engaging with the broad left and promoting left co-operation. While in an ideal world, there would be a strong WP and left presence in the general election in NI, the real opportunity for both The WP and the left generally in NI seems to me to lie in strengthening our organisations and getting our message across to the people, choosing the electoral and other strategies best suited to our doing so.