REINSTATE THE CEC THREE!

The Socialist Federation condemns the decision of Your Party Central Executive Committee (CEC) chair Jenn Forbes to inform three elected members of the CEC that they are “suspended” pending a “hearing” on Monday night.

This act exceeds Jenn Forbes’ authority under Your Party rules, which gives the CEC chair no power to summarily suspend a fellow elected CEC member.

At a time when all across Britain socialist activists are campaigning against the incoming Burnham government’s impending attacks on disability benefits, hikes to military spending, support for Israel and attacks on migrants, trans rights and the right to protest, the CEC Chair instead chose to direct her fire against three renowned anti-racist and working class activists.

In the process, instead of helping to cohere the party after its slow and stuttering start, she has plunged Your Party into an even deeper crisis.

What happened?

They were suspended on the eve of what was to be a key meeting of the CEC scheduled for today, which was set to discuss anti-racist policy and activity. This alone gives a sense of the degree of malignancy and irresponsibility at the heart of the party apparatus.

It was only a tidal wave of outrage and indignation from members – including opposition from many different spaces within the party including not only the Socialist Federation, Connections, the Democratic Bloc and other established oppositional groupings in Your Party – that forced Jenn Forbes to back down last night, postponing today’s CEC pending the outcomes of the disciplinary ‘hearings’ on Monday 6 July.

What are the charges and how do they involve the Socialist Federation?

The Socialist Federation finds itself thrust against its will into the centre of this tawdry affair for one reason only: the attempt of Jenn Forbes to cite Mel, Solma and Naomi’s relationship with us as grounds for their suspension.

The three comrades have answered the allegations with characteristic clarity and energy.

Mel is accused of addressing the Socialist Federation’s national online conference on 28 June. She has replied accurately and passionately that there is no decision of the Your Party CEC or party conference to bar any CEC member from participating in or addressing a conference of the Socialist Federation, and that she did so in the spirit of solidarity. While she would have been wholly within her rights to criticise any decision of Your Party at our conference, she did not do so. Her brilliant solidarity address, delivered from Jamaica, can be viewed here.

Solma is accused merely of attendance at our conference. She has replied that this is not against any Your Party rule, and that the chair has no power to suspend them.

In their responses Mel and Solma highlight how provocative it was for Forbes to suspend a black woman and an Asian woman – both prominent antiracist activists – on the eve of an executive discussion of antiracism.

Naomi, by contrast, is not accused of attending the Socialist Federation conference, but merely of having her name in publicity for the event, as either a speaker or a participant. This fantastical claim has no grounding in reality. If anyone can find this supposed publicity anywhere in digital or hard copy form, we would be fascinated to see it, as it was not to our knowledge produced by the Socialist Federation or any of our volunteers.

So not only has Jenn Forbes no right to take this action, but the grounds she cites are not offences, let alone breaches of the rules serious enough to merit suspension of three elected members of the CEC.

What is the Socialist Federation?

Despite inaccurate and lazy media reporting in the New Statesman and the Guardian from reporters hostile to Your Party, it is 100% untrue to say that the Socialist Federation is a “split”.

The Socialist Federation brings together Your Party members with ex-members who have left in frustration at the leadership’s inactivity, its ban on certain socialist groups, and its failure to support the large and active proto-branches over the last 12 months. Its aim is to support branches and members working to realise the promise we all rallied to last year: a mass, working class, socialist party.

The Socialist Federation is open to all those who support the points of unity set out in Your Party’s political statement last year, plus opposition to NATO and Zionism.

We began as a petition to the CEC from over 600 members – called the Members’ Charter – to enact urgent democratic reforms. When the CEC spurned that request and instead chose to bar dual membership of Your Party to participating socialist groups like the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party, a meeting of Charter signatories voted to hold a conference which took place on 31 May and which reconvened on 28 June.

The conferences have been a model of democratic best-practice, with motions and amendments submitted in advance, debated democratically and voted on by participants. You can study the proceedings here: https://socialistfederation.org/conference/

A Founding Congress – to be a hybrid in-person and online event – will take place in September, with details to be announced shortly.

Until the Founding Congress, which will elect a national executive, the Socialist Federation is governed by its volunteers, who elect a smaller Admin Team to manage day-to-day activity and communications.

At present we have no formal membership, just supporters and volunteers.

The reason the Socialist Federation exists and is gaining traction is very simple and Jenn Forbes’ latest actions only underscore the need for it.

• We exist because the leadership group left Your Party members high and dry.
• They ignored the real proto branches and are setting up tiny failed "real" branches only now after a year of inactivity.
• They refused to share data and funds with the real campaigning protobranches that assembled last year and which were bigger and more dynamic than the tiny groups they are belatedly attempting to pull together now
• They failed to give serious support to our election campaigns, with no national templates for materials, no merchandise, no operational, legal, regulatory or campaigning support
• They did nothing to establish a serious national profile, with no investment in sustained profile building
• They refused to share membership details and left existing local groups abandoned while thousands upon thousands of good people left in despair

The Socialist Federation is trying to pull those people together.

We are creating a genuinely bottom-up democratic structure that people can engage in, which they can play a role in co-creating through a transparent democratic process, and where they can discuss and debate policy and ideas and contribute to a political programme for the party we have all pledged to build.

The status of the Socialist Federation

We are not a banned organisation, we have not been declared ineligible for dual membership, and it is not a breach of the Your Party rules to join us, attend our events, or speak at our events.

We appeal to all members and the whole socialist movement to defend us from any repressive measures that the Your Party chair may now be contemplating.

When we say we are committed to assembling the forces to build a working class and socialist party, this means nothing more than to deliver on the promise that was made last year but which the YP leadership have failed to deliver.

That we have been dragged into a dispute on the CEC and used as grounds for the suspension of three fantastic anti-racist activists looks like a little more than a pretext.

The way forward

Our goal remains what it has always been. We all rallied to Your Party last year because we want to help create that most urgently needed thing: a mass, socialist, working class party that can fight austerity, challenge Labour, and help defeat the far right.

We congratulate everybody who has rebelled against these suspensions and forced the postponement of today's CEC meeting until after the so-called disciplinary meetings on Monday evening.

Let's all add our voices to calls for all three suspensions to be lifted and for the officer Group to resign.

The Socialist Federation is willing to work with all forces on the socialist left - inside and outside Your Party- to help build that new party. We are just one of many initiatives working towards that end. Let’s unite and make the change we all still believe is possible!