Campaign rejects claims of Trotskyist takeover
Patrick Wintour and Rebecca Allison Monday December 1, 2003 The Guardian
The peace movement could be destroyed by the takeover of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War coalition by Trotskyist groups and the Communist party, according to allegations circulated by a leading campaigner.
The claims have been made by Jimmy Barnes, the veteran leftwing secretary of the trade union CND movement. He has warned in a paper sent to the campaign's national council and the trade union CND executive that "CND itself is now a small divided group with little future, unless there is a change".
It has been well known that the anti-war groups have always been heavily influenced by the far left, but the internal divisions have reached a startling degree of animosity.
Mr Barnes claims that the last CND annual conference saw a bitter fight for the chairmanship, ending with officer positions being captured by the Communist party and Socialist Action faction. He adds that the way CND was taken over in the autumn will "lead to a long-running faction struggle which could neutralise, or possibly destroy the peace movement at a time when it is most needed".
His stance was condemned as "divisive and destructive" by the current chairwoman, Kate Hudson, who last night dismissed any suggestion that the organisation had been taken over by a cabal of like-minded political campaigners as "ridiculous".
Other key supporters last night also expressed their continuing support for the group. Jeremy Corbyn, a Labour MP and member of CND's national council, said Mr Barnes had been predicting the imminent demise of CND for a long time.
"He was nominated as one of three vice-chairs in an unopposed ballot at the conference and was not endorsed. He then presented a long paper that was circulated within CND which made all the allegations he has now chosen to make public.
"It seems that losing the ballot has affected his judgment and behaviour. It is complete nonsense. What we still have is all the wide and varied traditions that make up CND."
The former Labour party leader, Michael Foot, said: "There is nothing that is going to put us on our last legs until we get rid of the bombs. We still have got that work to do.
"I am sorry about some of the arguments that have gone on within CND but throughout this the movement has been right to say that the fundamental concern is weapons of mass destruction. The organisation is still saying that and doing it well. Anyone who interferes with this or questions its worth I think is entirely wrong."
Bruce Kent, the campaign's chairman in the 1980s, said: "CND has always had tensions in its political make-up. It includes such a wide spectrum of opinions and views I think it is immensely relevant at the moment.
"One of the major problems for CND is that it gets pulled into every campaign and that sometimes dissipates the impact. It has got an older membership than it did in the 80s but it is still going strong."
CND has been frequently unsettled by disputes on the extent to which it should extend its campaigning work beyond opposition to nuclear weapons to a wider critique of western militarism.
Ms Hudson, who is a Communist party member, has advocated a move away from the purist idea of retaining a narrow focus on nuclear weapons in favour of the more pragmatic approach of taking anti-nuclear issues into the wider political debate on pre-emptive war and weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Barnes claims the Communist party and Socialist Action sought control of CND in order to use the campaign as a base from which to exert influence over the Stop the War coalition, the loose body which organised the massive protests against the war in Iraq. Mr Barnes asserts the coalition is increasingly dominated by another Trotskyist group, the Socialist Workers party.
Referring to the last CND conference, he claimed "the antagonism we saw at the conference is derivative of the aggressive and sectarian behaviour of those involved in the Stop the War coalition who strove hard to control and dominate the anti-war protest movement".
He claims CND officer positions are "now dominated by people associated with these two political groups, although in practice the groups act as one". The new leadership were so polarised from the membership that the campaign could no longer function as a forum for debate.
He claims both CND and the Stop the War movement believe the political opposition to the Iraq war is "generalisable into a political reaction against the New Labour project overall". Mr Barnes partially agrees with that position, but warns that the million plus anti-Iraq war marchers "have not been asked about this alternative political project and are unlikely to feel much affinity for it".
He also alleges that some in the Stop the War coalition have compromised on issues such as gay rights and even anti-semitism to retain the support of some British Muslims.
Revealing the average age of CND member is 63, he argues that other voluntary groups such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, or Breast Cancer Awareness have managed to grow by effective campaign work. CND by contrast has failed to expand, leaving a vacuum to be filled by other groups.
Whether those groups will manage to be any more cohesive and harmonious than this one remains to be seen.