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Telephone: 07739 904924
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History |
The Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform (SADP) was an organisation that operated within the Network of Socialist Alliances in England (Socialist Alliance, SA for short) before it was dissolved by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and its allies in February 2005, in order to concentrate on a less socialist organisation known as Respect: the Unity Coalition. The SADP voted soon after, at a very sparsely attended meeting, to dissolve itself in favour of a “provisional” SA, which relaunched the SA (adopting the same name, i.e. Socialist Alliance) at a conference in November 2005. Meanwhile a minority within the SADP decided in June 2005 to continue the SADP, adopting the new name Democratic Socialist Alliance (DSA). After the relaunch of the SA, the DSA decided not to participate in that organisation, primarily because of the SA's federal structure and a large emphasis on republicanism. Subsequently the majority of SA members have objected to the emphasis on republicanism, which may create possibilities of reuniting in the near future.
Stockport SA (the only SA in the Greater Manchester area not to have been dissolved by the SWP) had been meeting jointly with Manchester Area SADP in Manchester City Centre since the autumn of 2004. I, Steve Wallis, put forward a motion in June 2005 (shortly after the national launch of the DSA) to rename ourselves the Greater Manchester Democratic Socialist Alliance (GMDSA). However, John Pearson counterposed the name Manchester and Stockport Democratic Socialist Alliance on the grounds that there may have been some additional SAs operating in Greater Manchester that we were unaware of. The meeting decided to postpone adopting a new name (opposed by John and myself), but John more recently told me that (since it is now clear that no other SAs operate within Greater Manchester) he was withdrawing his objection to calling ourselves the GMDSA. I put the proposal to adopt that name at the May 2006 meeting (which I could not attend) and the proposal was passed.
We decided at our March meeting to stand a candidate, Sabrina Jones, in the local elections in the Levenshulme ward of Manchester, on the 4th of May 2006, where Sabrina (then with the surname Nutter) has previously stood, on two occasions, as an SA candidate. However, we were unable to get enough signatures to get her name on the ballot paper. This was history repeating itself; I had failed to get nominated for Manchester Withington in the 2005 general election (but I handed out copies of my manifesto anyway, plugging the DSA and helping the Liberal Democrats win a supposedly safe New Labour seat with their biggest swing anywhere in the country).