{"id":1469,"date":"2008-11-11T00:37:33","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T14:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=1469"},"modified":"2011-11-24T01:54:32","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T15:54:32","slug":"ram-respect-the-socialist-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=1469","title":{"rendered":"RAM, Respect & the Socialist Alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand: Broad left party strides ahead<\/a>
\nPeter Robson
\nlinks.org.au
\nMay 17, 2008<\/p>\n

The Residents\u2019 Action Movement has been growing rapidly in the last month (with around 100-300 people joining per week) as a result of the popularity of their key campaign \u2014 to remove the 12.5% goods and services tax on food… How did such a party that has the mainstream parties ducking for cover grow so quickly and achieve such success in so short a time?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Et cetera.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Australia, Aoteraoa\/New Zealand and the UK, the last few years has witnessed the emergence of left-wing electoral coalitions. In each case, after some initial success, they have largely collapsed. In each case, the coalition has dwindled to a front group for one of the ‘revolutionary’ socialist (neo-Trotskyist) parties who played a key role in their initiation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n

“An historic moment for the left in Australia\u201d<\/a> was the most common comment made by participants in the founding conference of the Socialist Alliance in Melbourne over the August 4-5 weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n

Launched in 2001, as a joint initiative of the Democratic Socialist Party<\/a> (nee<\/em> Socialist Workers Party) and the International Socialist Organisation<\/a> (nee<\/em> International Socialists), the Socialist Alliance<\/a> (SA) was joined in its initial stages by the Freedom Socialist Party<\/a> (FSP), Socialist Alternative<\/a> (SAlt), Socialist Democracy (SD) and Workers Power<\/a> (WP). (The somewhat mysterious Workers League and Worker Communist Party of Iraq (Australia) were also part of this historic occasion.)<\/p>\n

So much for the good news.<\/p>\n

As for the bad news: SAlt (wisely) left the Alliance in its initial stages; SD disbanded in December 2005; WP left in April 2006 (and has also since disbanded<\/a>); the ISO withdrew in January 2007 (and has since re-emerged<\/a> as Solidarity<\/a>); while the FSP left the Alliance just two months later. The status of several other groups affiliated to SA remains somewhat in doubt — thus the Alliance for Workers Liberty<\/a> (AWL) were there at the beginning, and have yet to formally announce their retirement, although nothing has been heard from them since 2004 — while the Workers League and the Worker Communist Party of Iraq<\/a> (Australia) have been keeping mum.<\/p>\n

SA has contested a number of elections over the intervening period, and a number of SA candidates will be contesting<\/a> the upcoming Victorian local council elections (November 29). To date, however, none have experienced any degree of real success, and nobody — outside of, perhaps, SA — believes that they will any time soon. Indeed, such has been the controversy surrounding SA, that the question of its utility as a vehicle for the promotion of socialist politics led earlier this year to a split in the DSP (its only remaining power). Thus while the decision by the DSP to submerge itself in SA — celebrated by its re-nomination in December 2003 as the Democratic Socialist Perspective<\/em>, “a Marxist tendency in the Socialist Alliance” — has had its benefits (the decimation of the ISO) it has also had its costs<\/a> (currently known as the Revolutionary Socialist Party<\/a>).<\/p>\n

On SA election results, see:<\/p>\n