Build the anti-war movement… back Comartin

This will be controversial to many on the left of the party. Few are looking towards Bill Blaikie and Lorne Nystrom, two known quantities whose political stances put them well on the right of the party.

Many on the left are backing Jack Layton for leader as an alternative to Blaikie and Nystrom.

This is understandable. Layton has activist credentials going back years. He was prominent in Toronto in the 1980s, helping to defend the Morgentaler abortion clinics.

He was active in opposing the Gulf War last time.

And in the 1990s, he was prominent in Toronto defending the homeless.

But he has consciously staked out his campaign as one of "building bridges" between the left and right inside the party.

When asked about the debate between the Blairists and the left inside the NDP, he responded by saying, "I think we have to bridge those differences. … I believe there is a potential there for some bridge building and beginning to work together."

But there is an internal war going on inside social democracy around the world. Blairism has come to stand for the open capitulation to the market, to George Bush’s war aims, to privatization and union-busting.

We don’t need bridges to the Blairists — we need to oppose them.

Layton’s bridge-building is having some success.

He now has the backing of former NDP leader Ed Broadbent.

Broadbent tries to distance himself from Tony Blair. But he argued this summer that the NDP should be "clear we support a market economy," and called for the "banning of corporate and union donations to political parties."

Lumping corporate and union donations together is the hallmark of the right-wing of the NDP, the people gathered around NDProgress.

There is no equivalent between corporations and unions. Corporations represent the tiny elite who control capitalist society. Unions are the mass organizations of the advanced workers. In fact it has been union backing of the NDP that has made it a party qualitatively different from the other parties in Canadian politics.

Union donations to the NDP should be made more accountable. Open up the process — let union members have a real say over how the money is spent, and to whom. But democratizing the process of union donations is a very different thing from banning union donations completely.

But Broadbent is is now standing shoulder to shoulder with Layton inside the party.

Comartin’s campaign has been focussed, not on building bridges to the party establishment, but on building bridges to the anti-war movement and the Islamic community.

October 19, at a mass union rally for health care in Brampton Ontario, Comartin distributed a leaflet that had only one message — mobilize against Bush’s war.

He traveled to Iraq in the middle of the campaign, and has used much of his time since in reporting back on the appalling conditions he discovered there.

He has taken his message to mosques and Islamic communities across the country, and has brought in hundreds, if not thousands, new Islamic members into the NDP. The Muslim Council of Montreal is urging its members to join the NDP and to donate money to his campaign.

For NDP members who see the anti-war movement as a central priority, backing Comartin makes a tremendous amount of sense.

There is an openly socialist candidate, Bev Meslo, running with the backing of the Socialist Caucus. Her policies are very similar to Comartin’s.

But Comartin is a much more high profile candidate, and has made the war a central issue in a way that Meslo has not. In fact, when interviewed by Socialist Worker, Meslo said her top priority was not fighting Blairism, or building the anti-war movement, but campaigning for proportional representation.

This is not a central issue for the left in Canada today.

Comartin is unlikely to win the leadership race. It looks to be a fight between Layton and Blaikie.

So all on the left will be faced with a challenge once the new leader is chosen — how to continue to build a fighting, socialist left in the unions, on the campuses and on the streets.

Back Comartin — but work to build a socialist alternative to the NDP, whether it is led by Blaikie or Layton.