Socialist Labour Group - Split

Split

In late 1974 the two groupings, mainly based in London, the larger around Blick and Jenkins (perhaps 20 plus including associates in Reading and Swindon) and another around Vince, Stratford and Faugier (perhaps 12 plus including associates in St Helens) began planning publication of a journal called the Marxist Bulletin. As a result, they became known as the Bulletin Group, aligned with Lambert's Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International to which the Hamilton-Vince-Stratford group were already linked. A heterogeneous tendency, they attempted to act as an 'external' faction of the SLL, with the aim of winning over more SLL members. The Marxist Bulletin, which commented on SLL-WRP (the Socialist Labour League had become the Workers Revolutionary Party) politics and activities and gave a voice to the ideas of the OCRFI, was successfully infiltrated into the SLL, angering Healy who accused the group of writing substantial sections of documents circulated internally by SLL trade union leader Alan Thornett, who had formed an opposition grouping within the SLL and was soon to leave and form the Workers Socialist League. Healy supporters physically threatened Bulletin Group members and a leading SLL member boasted publicly that houses had been burgled and infiltrators sent in. Thornett did have meetings with Blick and Jenkins from the Bulletin Group, who reached him via Kate Blakeney (a leading member of the WRP) in Reading and Ray Howells in Swindon. The initial document upon which the Thornett opposition was founded was in fact co-written by Bulletin Group members, essentially Robin Blick, in consultation with Mark Jenkins and John Archer, but this did not lead to an ongoing political relationship.

Lambert wanted Robin Blick to lead the Bulletin Group as open supporters of the OCRFI, with parallel entry work in the Labour Party, where the Vince-Stratford wing and the Archers already worked as entrists. The grouping around Blick and Jenkins were holding secret caucus meetings within the Bulletin Group and moving away from support for the OCI. Harry Vince left the Bulletin Group and moved to Ireland in 1975, where he joined the League for a Workers Republic. Mark Jenkins and then Robin Blick, along with most of their supporters, such as Tom Hillier (see Chris Pallis obituary), Nick Peck and Robin Brown, began to question Trotskyism-Leninism from about 1976 and left the Bulletin Group over a period. Robin and Karen Blick developed 'anti-Soviet' politics and were later founders of the Polish Solidarity Campaign. Kate Blakeney moved to Australia and was active in the USec (United Secretariat of the Fourth International) affiliate there for a time. John and Mary Archer remained loyal to the OCRFI-Lambert, but hostile to Betty Hamilton and Ken Stratford. They regrouped some newer student members centred on Harry Stannard, Marcus Giaquinto and John Ford (now academics), who had never been members of the SLL-WRP, with other members in Reading, Swindon and Norwich and kept the name Bulletin Group. Some of them engaged in entrist work in the Labour Party. They continued with the publication of the Bulletin until 1977 but its influence on the SLL had fast diminished after the Thornett group split and it had many internal tensions. Betty Hamilton, Ken Stratford, Regis Faugier and their associates formed a separate British Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International. The two small groupings were both affiliated to the Lambert OCRFI but had little relations with each other. In 1979 Vince moved back from Ireland at Lambert's request and the two groups joined together to form a new grouping, which called itself the SLG (Socialist Labour Group). This was enlarged in 1981 by a merger with some supporters of Nahuel Moreno from the IMG, including Mike Phipps (now an Editorial Board member of Labour Left Briefing), and the SLG affiliated to the Parity Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International when that was formed.