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BY A DELEGATE TO THE SILLARS CONFERENCE. On January 15th, the group around Jim Sillars toconsened the SEP conterence in the Lesser City Hali, Glasgow"
The conference was by uny standards a subdued affair and, for the leadership's purposes exceedingly well-organised. There were some one bundred delegates; only delegates and pressmen being allowed to attend. In arder to be clected a delegate one had to be a paid up member for 1977.
Most branches only received their con- Terence materials and delegates' cards the day before the conference, so attendance was limited to members in good'standing with branch leaderships.
Entire branches were disenfranchised. Delegates from the Grenock branch tried in vain to get in. Their branch, according to party reneral secretary, Alex Neil, was not
recognised'. In Edinburgh South branch, right-wingers mancouvred to have Sillars" opponents ousted from the branch delegation.
One member of Glasgow South branch, who had voted against the expulsions at Stirling was turned away at the door because he had not rejoined for 1977. Other members of the same branch with a "more reliable voting record arrived to find their 1977 membership cards, ready, signed and prepaid, waiting at the door. They confirmed that no branch meeting had taken place since November and that the 'delegates! had been appointed by phone by branch secretary, John McMillan on the previous day.
Perhaps it is not so surprising that it was a subdued affair!
Despite all this, there was a great deal of left-wing rhetoric at the conference, both from the floor and from the platform party. Delegates talked of removing the god of profit from Scottish economic life. Sillars, himself, in a widely-reported speech which was the centrepiece of the conference, condemned the TUC bureaucrats for policing their members in the name of the Social Contract, and complained of the IMF running the country-
Several good socialist motions were passed. One called for the unionisation of all oil-related industry; another for the nationalisation of the banks, insurance companies and building societies. (Sillars even added from the platform that this would be real socialist nationalisation and not the "state capitalism' of successive Labour governments). A motion attacking incomes policy was also passed.
Another commendable motion, from Tillicoultry, called for self-determination for all oppressed nations and equal status for the Gaidhlig language. An emergency resolution from Ayr branch attacked the proposed dumping of nuclear waste at Mullwharcher in the Galloway hills.
Opposition to Sillars from the left, such as it was, was muted and, although sincere.
was the kind of opposition Stilars is prepared to tolerate for the present. Should he find it, at any time in the fature, a threat to his hegemony over the party, he will, no doubt, respond as he did at Stirling, where he and his cohorts expelled five branches.
On this occasion, delegates to the left of Sillars went out of their way to redefine their opposition so it would not be seen to conflict with Sillars policies The motions on the economy were all seen as amendments to the "Jobs and Industry' document prepared by a drafting committee around John Robertson MP. Among other proposals, this policy document would give the multinationals a statutory say in the running of the Scottish cconomy.
Tobs and Industry does not even understand that in order to prevent unemployment it is necessary to destroy the capitalist system which breeds it; that capitalism is based on production for protit, and that in times of crisis it is profitable to make workers redundant.
It sees the economic crisis as one of inder-investment and mismanagement, and provides no perspective for the nationalisation of the economy under workers" control which could break the power of capital and open the way to production for need rather than profit.
The Sillars SIP is an improvement on the Jim Callaghans and Dickson Mabon's of this world, but it has backed away from its real task, What Scotland needs is a real socialist party to replace the class-collaboration. corruption and blindness to Scotland's needs of the Labour Party.
A year ago, the SLP was formed for this purpose. Today, those who still want to fight for such a party have been thrown out of Sillars" Party. It was not the expelled branches who split the SIP, it was Sillars, Neil, Farrell, Robertson and co., in theit desperation to retain the party as their own personal property. It was they who turned their back on socialism and ruled out the possibility of reunification of the party.
The Sillars SUP is no longer adequate for the needs of Scottish workers and socialists. We must not make the same mistakes again. We need a really democratic party, a really socialist party; not just a new party, but rather a party of a new type. The founding and building of that party is now the task of the expelled branches and members who now form the "democratic wing' of the SLP.
ED ROBERTSON