Socialist Labour Group - Active in Labour Party

Active in Labour Party

The Socialist Labour Group remained active in the Labour Party, student unions and trade unions until 1988, publishing Unite and Fight, Socialist Newsletter and later Fourth Internationalist. It was also active in the Troops Out Movement, Labour Committee on Ireland and the London H-Blocks Committee and took part in various international solidarity campaigns linked to the OCRFI, PCRFI and FI-ICR, including anti-apartheid campaigning and support work for Solidarnosc and movements in Latin America. However, differences between them and the leadership of the OCI appeared from 1985 when Harry Vince, along with 6 other members of Lambert's international leadership, criticised Lambert's Fourth International - International Centre of Reconstruction (FI-ICR) for, among other things, proposing to proclaim itself as the 'reconstructed' Fourth International, the continued Lambertist insistence on a decades long 'pre-revolutionary' period, (leading Francois de Massot to say that the British miners' strike was not a historic defeat), differences over tactics in Latin America and (for some) corrupt methods within the OCI. In 1987, all but four of the SLG sided with the wing of the FI-ICR linked to Luis Favre, Camilo Gonzalez, Roch Denis, Carol Coulter and others. The SLG was briefly part of a Liaison Committee with those (in Brazil, Colombia, Quebec, Ireland, Sweden, Germany and France) who broke with Lambert in 1987. It also held discussions with Stephane Just fr:Stéphane Just but by 1988 was discussing joining with the International Socialist Group (ISG) which was a section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USec). The SLG dissolved itself in 1989 and its remaining members joined the ISG, although most of them left over the next few years. Harry Vince did not join the ISG and moved to Ireland where he became an editor of The Irish Reporter magazine. Other prominent ex-members of the Socialist Labour Group include Martin Wicks, (a leading RMT member and human rights campaigner), Steve Lloyd, a CPSA/PCS activist, Mary Godfrey and Alan Green, (who became National Secretary of the Scottish Socialist Party).

The few members of the SLG who remained loyal to the OCI in 1987 were centred on Charlie Charalambous. This grouping had a tenuous existence for a few years, but John Archer, who had joined the ISG with the SLG majority, decided to rejoin with Lambert's international grouping and formed a small circle within the ISG supportive of the FI-ICR, including academic Helen Peters . In 1991 it split and rejoined with the 'Charalambous group' to form the British Committee of the European Workers' Alliance, a new Lambertist group which undertook entrism in the Labour Party and occasionally published the Fourth Internationalist Bulletin. Mike Calvert (sometimes known as Frank Wainwright) worked closely with John Archer at that time but later had his own differences with the Lambertists and is now associated with Workers Action . John Archer died in 2000 still seeing 'entry work' as his main political thrust. Today, this grouping is led by Stefan Cholewka, a Labour Party member in Rochdale. The British Section of the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International is a small group which occasionally publishes Workers' Unity and The Link. Regis Faugier, although not a member, has sometimes been associated with this grouping (see: British Supporters of the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International).