Jerry Hicks, long time shop steward in the skilled trades, and a member of Respect, plans to contest the election for the General Secretary of the Unite super union this summer. Hicks got almost 40,000 votes against Simpson entirely outside the bureaucratic structures of the union itself and the usual suspects of the SWP and Socialist party backed 'United Left'. The candidacy has mustered all manner of bluster and wondrous imaginings from the permanent labourites of what passes for a Trotskyist left. Gerry downing, of the two man Socialist Fight group has this to say about Hicks candidacy:
"His election would strike a real blow to the bureaucracy and would enable us to begin to develop the basis of a real rank-and-file movemnent in the Buses and in other industries if we go about it the right way. The Manchester Right To Work meeting called for a rank-and-file movement and those of us who know what that should look like - no bureaucrats or union employees voting, workers wage for officials, standing for all electable positions against the bureaucracy answarable to the R+F movement, direct and participatory democratic structures, etc - have an opportunity to start fighting for it in a wider context, The SWP has not yet committed to Hicks, but it is difficult to see them not doing so after Manchester, the SP seems committed to McCluskey (although Jerry says after a meeting with them that he is "hopeful"), the AWL and Workers Power will surely back him so a real fight is in the offing. Sectarians will use the Lindsey excuse to abandon the class yet again....Many of us had difference with Jerry over Lindsey and I am not saying that we put those aside in any way but it would be criminal to allow these differences to balck participation in this campaign rather than fighting them out whenever we think they are holding the campaign back."(mistakes in original)
The capitulation to lesser evilism is strong on the labourite Trot left, and this is only a particularly shameless example. The most obvious absurdity is to base support on the number of votes won in an election. 40k is a drop in the ocean when compared to the vote for Simpson or Woodley, both of whom would trounce Hicks in an election. Secondly, what was this vote based on? Hicks postured a a left supporter of the reactionary Lindsey strikes, giving four square support for the racist verbal attacks and job thefts against international workers, whilst advising that perhaps it was best not to use reactionary slogans in the next round of strikes, which he then supported! He received such a surprise vote because the chauvinist wave, understandable given the reactionary politics of the pro Labour union tops, created an anti leadership mood based on the misguided perception that the union leadership were not doing enough to defend British workers exclusive rights to jobs and bailouts-precisely at the time when their union leaders were signing up to state sponsored and bosses funded campaigns to 'defend British manufacturing'! The bluster from Gerry Downing regarding people using Hicks support for anti working class strikes as 'excuses' for allegedly 'abandoning the class' would carry more weight if they did not come at a time when Downing and his comrade were urging Marxists to call for a vote to the viciously and openly anti working class Labour Party, surely the definition of abandoning the class.
Oh, he may have a dodgy record of backing the labour aristocracy over the class, but he is gonna build a rank and file movement, he even promised to do so at the Right to Work Conference. If Gerry were able to think a point through to the end then he may see the contradiction in that point. A person with a reactionary record standing for the leadership of a union-the arch bureaucrats position-claims he is going to build a grouping which will undermine his own power? Come of it Ger, if Hicks were committed to a rank and file then he would use his position and stable employment as a very skilled worker at Rolls Royce to build such a rank and file.
The Socialist Party are most likely to support the United Left candidate as part of their fealty drive towards the Stalinists who control large swathes of the union structures in Britain, and who are crucial to win the support of in the battle to form a new-old Labour Party. Support for Hicks is a diversion from the struggle against such politics-the politics of class collaboration-which define workers organisations today. Gerry makes no mention of why Hicks would be suspect in this war against class collaboration, the small matter of his membership of George Galloway's Respect Party, a party established to unite the classes, laid out clearly at the founding conference: "The national politicisation of the anti-war movement is now a necessary next stage in our own bloodless war of national liberation. The reality of the movement means that what we create must operate at two levels.‘The first level requires steps towards a mass unifying movement of grassroots radicals to hobble the State, bring it under popular control and complete an unfinished radical democratic revolution. This level will unite Muslims, Christians and Jews, socialists, liberal and conservatives, men, women and the disadvantaged of all types in one movement of democratic liberation.
(http://english.aljazeera.net).
How any consistent Marxist can support such a reactionary and house broken class collaborator is beyond the comprehension of this blogger.
Downing could cling to the concept that this is all just smart tactics and the united front? 'We don't think he will do as he says, but the leading sections of the class do, and for this reason we must expose him'? Except this is not what Gerry and his ilk do. No, they instead take Hicks, paint him red, then pop a cherry on top and call it progress. Gerry actually thinks this popular frontist will do as he says, is progress, and will lead forward the class struggle! He supports Hicks not because he seeks to expose him, after all the layer who support him is small and proven reactionaries.No, Gerry supports Hicks because he views a man who supports reactionary strikes and wishes to continue using union monies to fund the racist and Imperialist Labour Party because he has stagist view of clas struggle. First we support anything/body who is less worse than an alternative; then, later we start the actual class struggle against such half way houses. For now it is best to keep stum and be polite.
This may well be Gerry Downing's approach. It certainly is not Trotskyist tactics. With this in mind it is perhaps advisable that Downing remove the Trotsky quote from his paper, lest he fool anybody with this epigone Marxism.
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