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The Socialist Alliance was a left-wing electoral alliance in England between 1999 and 2005.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2024) |
The Socialist Alliance was a left-wing electoral alliance in England between 1999 and 2005.
The Socialist Alliance grew out of local alliances formed by the Socialist Party, Independent Labour Network and independent socialists from 1992 onward. They gradually coalesced into a national Network of Socialist Alliances. The Welsh Socialist Alliance was closely allied, but had separate origins.
The Socialist Alliance was named and expanded in 1999 when other Trotskyist groups including the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, Socialist Workers Party, International Socialist Group and Workers Power joined, as did the formerly separate London Socialist Alliance. In the 2002 local elections, the alliance gained one councillor in Preston, Lancashire. The Socialist Alliance had fraternal relations with the Scottish Socialist Party.
In late 2001, the Network of Socialist Alliances was transformed into a one-member-one-vote political party called the Socialist Alliance (a title already registered for electoral purposes).
The Socialist Alliance was riven by political disagreements. The Socialist Party left the Alliance in 2001 (after the conference that adopted one member one vote) while Workers Power left in 2003.
In 2003, the SWP, supported by the ISG, led the SA into an alliance with George Galloway and other figures involved in the Stop the War Coalition, to form the Respect Coalition. A minority of the SA objected to the way this decision was carried out and argued that the SWP were using their block vote to push their line. Many of these dissidents objected to Respect on principle and all objected to the way the decision to join it was carried out, many forming the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform.
In late 2004, some Socialist Alliance member organisations, which had remained outside Respect, joined with the Socialist Party and the Alliance for Green Socialism to establish the Socialist Green Unity Coalition.
As the SWP switched its priorities to working within Respect, the Socialist Alliance became virtually moribund and was formally wound up in February 2005.
In March 2005, a few groups and former members of the SA who did not join Respect met as the Socialist Alliance (Provisional). On 12 November 2005, most of the provisional grouping (independent members, and members of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, Alliance for Green Socialism, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee), the Democratic Socialist Alliance, [1] the Republican Communist Network (Scotland), the Revolutionary Democratic Group, the Socialist Unity Network, the United Socialist Party, and the Democratic Labour Party met again and claimed the name of the Socialist Alliance for a re-founded political organisation, registered with the Electoral Commission. In 2007, this small group entered into a mutual affiliation with its largest supporting organisation, the Alliance for Green Socialism.
In politics, a red–green alliance or red–green coalition is an alliance of "red" parties with "green" parties. The alliance is often based on common left political views, especially a shared distrust of corporate or capitalist institutions. While the "red" social-democratic parties tend to focus on the effects of capitalism on the working class, the "green" environmentalist parties tend to focus on the environmental effects of capitalism.
The Communist Party of Great Britain is a political group which publishes the Weekly Worker newspaper. The CPGB (PCC) claims to have "an internationalist duty to uphold the principle, 'One state, one party'. To the extent that the European Union becomes a state then that necessitates EU-wide trade unions and a Communist Party of the EU". In addition, it is in favour of the unification of the entire working class under a new Communist International. It is not to be confused with the former Communist Party of Great Britain, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist), or the current Communist Party of Britain.
The Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) was an Australian socialist political group. It was founded in 1972 as the Socialist Workers League (SWL), changing its name to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) a few years later. In the early 1990s it was once again renamed, as the Democratic Socialist Party, and in 2003 it became the Democratic Socialist Perspective.
The Campaign For A New Workers' Party was an initiative of the Socialist Party of England and Wales that argued for the establishment of a new mass workers' party, involving trade union activists, socialists, anti-capitalists, anti-war and environmental activists. It was launched at the party's annual Socialism event in November 2005. There were more than 4,000 signatories to the campaign's founding declaration, many of whom were trade unionists. Some left parties claimed that the CNWP was a front for the Socialist Party.
The British left can refer to multiple concepts. It is sometimes used a shorthand for groups aligned with the Labour Party. It can also refer to other individuals, groups and political parties that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United Kingdom. There are various subgroups, split between reformist and revolutionary viewpoints. Liberals, progressives and social democrats believe that equality can be accommodated into existing capitalist structures, but they differ in their criticism of capitalism and on the extent of reform and the welfare state. Anarchists, communists, and socialists, among others on the far left, on the other hand argue for abolition of the capitalist system.
The Convention of the Left (CL) is an annual conference of British left, socialist, progressive and green parties and organisations, first held in Manchester in September 2008. The format of the conference was that it 'shadowed' the Labour Party's 2008 Annual Conference, also being held in the city. A 'recall' event was held in the city in January 2009.
Socialism in Australia dates back at least as far as the late-19th century. Notions of socialism in Australia have taken many different forms including utopian nationalism in the style of Edward Bellamy, the democratic socialist reformist electoral project of the early Australian Labor Party (ALP), and the revolutionary Marxism of parties such as the Communist Party of Australia.
The Socialist Green Unity Coalition was an electoral alliance formed by leftist parties and political organisations in Great Britain prior to 2005 parliamentary election after the Respect Unity Coalition rejected requests to discuss an electoral arrangement to avoid clashes in 2005. It was established in September 2004, named in November 2004 and publicly launched in February 2005. After the 2005 election the coalition continued to operate as a liaison and co-ordinating body but has not extended its remit much beyond electoral co-ordination.
The Revolutionary Democratic Group (RDG) was a socialist organisation in the United Kingdom. It was founded in the early 1980s in a split from London and Scottish branches of the Socialist Workers Party, of which, for many years, it considered itself an "external faction".
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a far-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded as the Socialist Review Group by supporters of Tony Cliff in 1950, it became the International Socialists in 1962 and the SWP in 1977. The party considers itself to be Trotskyist. Cliff and his followers criticised the Soviet Union and its satellites, calling them state capitalist rather than socialist countries.
The Socialist Unity Network was a small network of the far-left in the United Kingdom which was not affiliated with any single political party. It grew out of the Socialist Alliance (SA) in England, and was initiated by several non-aligned members of the SA executive in March 2004.
Workers' Power is a Trotskyist group which forms the British section of the League for the Fifth International. The group publishes the newspaper Workers Power and distributes the English-language journal Fifth International.
The Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL), also known as Workers' Liberty, is a Trotskyist group in Britain and Australia, which has been identified with the theorist Sean Matgamna throughout its history. It publishes the newspaper Solidarity.
Socialist Unity was a small socialist electoral coalition in the United Kingdom. It was formed by the International Marxist Group (IMG) as a response to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) standing candidates in elections.
