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We'd like to thank the organisers for inviting us to this meeting of the Socialist Alliance project. We will not be attending, because we feel that the discussions at and since the first meeting have confirmed our opinions of the project.
As we pointed out at the first meeting, the WSM has no problem with working with other groups in open and democratic campaigns. Many of the people here are currently involved alongside us in the anti-refuse charges campaign, and have worked with us in the trade unions, against racism, and in the fight for abortion rights. In all of these campaigns we have argued for the greatest possible democracy, and all of these campaigns have been valuable in that they have given people experience of self-organisation, confidence in their own abilities, and started discussions about the kind of society we want to live in, as well as winning immediate gains. The electoral project is nothing like that. Its very basis is undemocratic, in that it seeks to elect people to positions that are neither mandated nor recallable. Instead of people organising direct action to win gains themselves, the point of the project is to get a few people to grant things to the rest of us. This doesn't build confidence, it reinforces the idea that politics is the preserve of an elite few, who we can only hope will act on our behalf. And what kind of society could this project lead to?
Practically all of the groups in this alliance model themselves on the Bolshevik party, and this is reflected in their organisational structures. But this model, of a central leadership deciding policy for the rest of the party, just duplicates the worst elements of capitalist society where decisions are made by the powerful few rather than the great mass of people. It is not surprising that groups organised this way should have no problem with seeking elections to an undemocratic state, but as anarchists we can have nothing to do with it.
The society we want, the only society worthy of the name 'socialist', is based on freedom. It's a society where decisions are made by those effected by them, where there is no longer a division between rulers and ruled. To build that society we will continue to work, with others whenever possible, on campaigns that encourage class self-confidence rather than reliance on leaders. But we reject those, like the 'Socialist Alliance', that perpetuate a rotten distinction between those who rule and those who must obey.