Militants squabbling in PCS union continues unabated

Whilst the rest of the UK is either preparing for Christmas or has ended up bored silly of Brexit, the far-left inside the PCS civil Service Union continue to squabble about control of the union. The Socialist Party or Militant to us oldies has been firmly defeated in it's control of the Left Unity organisation, a front without which they cannot control PCS.

Whilst current Assistant General Secretary Chris Baugh has been painted the pantomime villain, it's really Mark Serwotka's political ambitions that are behind the current internecine warfare. Serwotka wants to orientate to Corbyn's Labour Party and bring PCS in a position to affiliate in the near future. The Socialist Party are a barrier.

Whether relations between the frankly useless Baugh and the over-bloated Serwotka were that bad after all these years is now an irrelevance. The inability of Janice Godrich to continue into the election has resulted in a demand that Chris be re-instated as AGS candidate.

The breakaway Socialist View group issued a statement yesterday:

The attention has understandably turned to what Left Unity will now do following Janice’s withdrawal.

The Socialist Party have unfortunately already demanded that Chris now be allowed to take the LU nomination for AGS.

While the LUNC will need to decide a way forward, Socialist View are clear that supporting a candidate whose methods and strategy have just been defeated, following a lengthy campaign and much debate, would create a significant problem for Left Unity and would be a huge error of judgement.

Chris has played his part in the history of both Left Unity and the union itself, and no one will wish to wipe that from the record, but he has become an increasingly divisive figure, and the policy and record on which he stood in this election has been overwhelmingly rejected by LU members.

It is equally true to say that many of those who supported Chris, adopting the same platform, have also been defeated in these elections. That cannot just be ignored or overlooked.

We urge the new LUNC (Left Unity National Committee) to write and ask Chris Baugh to step aside, in the interests of unifying and strengthening the left, not endorse his nomination as AGS candidate.

It may of course lead to a current Full Time Officer being offered the post. There's plenty of potential bag carriers for the General Secretary amongst that crowd. One leading LU member asks:

Would anyone be surprised if a candidate from the FTO staff were to emerge if Chris B were to stand aside? 

Err no. Meanwhile leading Socialist Party hack Kevin Greenaway makes the Socialist Party's demands quite clear:

There is only one option. Chris is the remaining nominee. The LUNC should accept that and move on. This is the most convoluted and contrived attempt at constructing a position to avoid the truth of the position imaginable. The continued vilification ofChris and others, presenting them as divisive is an irony that persistently evades SV. There is no way Chris should stand down. This is no attempt at creating unity it is the very opposite. SV needs to think again. Mind you, it took long enough to come up with this masterpiece. Then you had to wait until the end for the demand. Anybody would think SV was that embarrassed to put it out that we would barely notice. Reality is of course that the letters are almost certainly written already.

Martin Cavanagh, Socialist View replied in no uncertain terms:

There only ever was for you. You said Janice was wrong to stand originally, now having seen Chris and the strategy he proposed defeated - despite demanding votes be included that wouldn't be in any democratic election - you still say it should be Chris. Your assertion may be based on either genuine belief or out of party loyalty, that's not for me to say, but to pursue it means whoever reads it can take it with a pinch of salt.

And there we have it. The road to there being three candidates is becoming more a possibility by the moment.