4th November North Devon Branch meeting report

Members and non-members of North Devon Socialist Party gathered last night in Barnstaple, and enjoyed extensive discussions about the American elections, building the left in the US and in Britain, and future activities of North Devon Socialist Party.

JL, introducing the discussion on the American elections, noted the importance of the grassroots movements built up by Barack Obama and Ralph Nader (the independent pro-worker candidate). He reiterated the political positions and likely acts of the incoming President Obama, including making the American working class pay for the economic crisis caused by the capitalists, as well as continuing with the substance of Bush's imperialist foreign policy, albeit with a different focus and Clinton-style charm and superficial multilateralism. He emphasised the need for the movement built by Nader to continue to organise on 'November 5th and beyond' to build an independent pro-worker force, preferably moving towards forming a workers party with other elements including peace campaigner Cindy Sheehan.

Those present agreed with the characterisation of the Democrat Party as just a wing of the capitalist party in the US, the Republicans being the other wing. The mass movement backing Obama were set for disappointment, and it would be the task of the left in America to engage with those people, and patiently explain the need for a break with the Democrats.

Concerns were raised about the scale of the task facing the American left, and certainly the challenges of organising and building on a continental scale are great, but there was consensus at the meeting that there was no alternative, and the best we could do in Britain and Europe would be to offer practical and political support to our American comrades. In addition, we need to work towards establishing our own workers party in Britain, emulating and learning the lessons of the tremendous efforts in Germany and France in this respect.

There then followed industrial and student reports, in which our support for the Appledore shipyard workers was reiterated, and an update was provided on the efforts to build the Shop Stewards Network in North Devon.