PCS: Socialist Party become bad losers

For months the infighting between the remaining members of the Socialist Party and it's erstwhile allies inside the PCS Left Unity electoral alliance led to the defeat of Chris Baugh the useless and now former Assistant General Secretary of the largest civil service union the PCS. Once the largest faction and in many ways de-facto control of the union the Socialist Party have been reduced to just 2 members of the National Executive Committee.

The old Militant tendency have not taken this defeat and loss of control and prestige well:

Chris came second with 5,796 votes to John Moloney, candidate of the union's 'Independent Left' grouping, who received 6,211 votes. Lynn Henderson - supported by general secretary Mark Serwotka, the Socialist Workers Party, 'Socialist View', and much of the union officialdom - came third on 5,588 votes.

But importantly, on many key industrial issues, the big differences were between Chris Baugh and John Moloney on one hand, and Serwotka, Socialist View, the SWP and Henderson on the other. For example, Chris and John had similar positions on union democracy, the need for lay control and accountability, and for an open-minded and inclusive approach in shaping the pay campaign and strike ballots.

Not sure the Independent Left would agree about democracy or much else that the bureaucrats of the Socialist Party stood for but the comrades continue:

Seen in this light, the combined vote for Chris Baugh and John Moloney clearly represents a massive rejection of Serwotka and his supporters. Moloney must now deliver on his promises. Union members will be looking for him to stand up to what appears to be the leadership's bureaucratic trajectory.

Henderson, in a statement on her blog after her defeat, claimed "the vote is a rejection of the Socialist Party, its control of the AGS post, and Chris Baugh's conservatism." But nothing could be further from the truth.

Henderson forgets she came third in this election. The reality is that Chris and Moloney's vote is a rejection of the approach and methods of Mark Serwotka, Lynn Henderson, and their supporters.

How the SP can even begin to see their votes in the same light as Maloney's will always be a mystery. The Independent Left broke away from left Unity in the days when it was known as the Socialist Caucus. One of their (legitimate) complaint was the bureaucratic and exclusionary way in which Let Unity had become an electoral machine to simply re-elect union grandees .

Of course the grandees had powers of appointment to juicy full time posts in the union and lots of Socialist party members found themselves earning a crust well above that of the members they purported to represent. Not even Baugh when he was AGS lived on an average civil service salary.

Neither did or does Mark Serwotka.... 

Still the Socialist Party did nothing about this when they were the officialdom. They've simply lost to others after all these years. Their hard core members have drifted off to "Socialist View" and other than selling papers at NEC meeting maid Marion (Lloyd) will be reduced to ranting ineffectively from the back benches only able to muster one other vote for Taffe's now rapidly declining sect.