ACRONYM LIST: WSF - World Social Forum, ESF - European Social Forum, SWP - Socialist Workers Party, GR - Globalise Resistence, CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UNISON - Public Services Union, GLA - Greater London Authority, LSF - London Social Forum, CPGB - Communist Party of Great Britain, NATFHE - The University & College Lecturers' Union, RMT - Britain's largest specialist transport union.

At the first (and only) UK ESF Assembly on Saturday January 24, 2004 the people chairing ignored the workgroups that had been set up at the European Assembly on December 13-14 2003 and the entire meeting was devoted to the establishment of the "UK Organising Committee [UKOC] for the European Social Forum 2004 (London)" (more). This had the majority - but far from consensus - approval of the assembled people. However, although the chairpeople nodded and paid lip service to working by consensus, it was obvious that they did not believe in the principle, nor had any experience actually working by it. Even before the meeting they knew what the outcome would be: a date for the first meeting of the UKOC had already been set. This was, of course, not announced publicly to the Assembly at the time (more and more).

So on Thursday 29th January, with little public notification *^{(see footnote)} this group met for the first time, and has done so for a further two Thursdays since (1, 2, ...). These meetings have been:

always chaired by the same two people (Maureen O'Mara (NATFHE) and Alex Gordon (RMT)) [On February 5 Brig Oubridge was also listed as chairing] with the Mayor's Mouth (Redmond O'Neill) sitting next to them, making sure they say The Right Thing and who gets preferential rights to shout down anyone who's saying something he doesn't like, for as long as it takes him to ram his point home. (More)

In the official minutes of the Thursday 29 January meeting it was noted that:

4. Working groups:

All of those who had contributed to the process to date were thanked... It was agreed that the UK ESF Org Cttee would establish all of the working groups necessary to develop the process in Britain and ensure continuity with the work done so far... (more)

However, Stuart's version runs thus:

Throughout the first part of the meeting, Dave Timms of the Programme Group and Jeremy Dewar of the Practicalities Group, repeatedly made the point... that it was disrespectful not to hear any reports from these groups... The Chair/Redmond axis simply bulldozed their way through with the support of highly bureaucratic people who just kept saying "we've got work to do, we've got no time"... The Chair, prompted and then overruled by Redmond O'Neill until they said the 'right thing', eventually said that working groups had been abolished with the creation of the Organising Committee... The UK Assembly and working groups no longer existed - Redmond O'Neill repeatedly stated: "the working groups work ended on the 24 January".

As for 'the working groups were thanked'. This is particularly disingenuous. It was only after a woman from a European network stated that perhaps if Redmond O'Neill was to thank people for their work so far and recognise that they had done some work and not simply being 'abolished' then people might feel a lot better about things. So Redmond promptly, in a deeply irritated voice with a large twist of sarcasm, 'thanked the working groups for their work'. (More)

The next step along the path to exclusion and alienation was taken at the next UKOC meeting of February 5 where a smaller "Coordinating Committee" (UKCC) was established:

3. Establishment of Co-ordinating Cttee

To establish a Co-ordinating Committee to progress work between meetings of the UKOC. This body will be accountable to the UKOC and act within the framework of its decisions. Members of the Coordinating Committee must be able to commit a day a week to work on the project and may be nominated by affiliates of the UKOC. Agreed (more).

This new UKCC has met on Friday 6 and Wednesday 11 and 18 of February (Minutes: 6th Feb, 11th Feb, 18th Feb). In Lucy Davis's words: '...the new, all-powerful elite "Coordinating Committee" is deciding everything of importance... And re-deciding a few things that it didn't like the first time around' (more).

Also at the UKOC meeting of 5 February it was decided that, "A new programme group will be established by the UK ESF OC..." (more).

Against this obvious attempt at sidelining the existing group, Dave Timms of the World Development Movement has been trying hard to report back from the (old) Programme Group, without much success:

This is the report [see link below] I unsuccessfully tried to give to the Organising Committee last night [12 February]. The item was placed low down the agenda and as usual the meeting over ran time. The meeting had just enough time to decide that the Programme Group meeting on Monday (5.30pm, Unison, 1 Mabledon Place) will be constituted on the same basis as the Organising Committee (one from each affiliated group plus observers). (more)

However, its not always an easy ride on the bulldozer; Anne McShane from CPGB reports that:

As the SWP had not been able to mobilise quite as many of its members to the latest meeting of the UK organising committee as previously, they lost on a rather emotive issue. With their GLA allies, the comrades attempted to immediately close down the 'old' ESF programme group in favour of a newly established group, which would be far better, far bigger and "far more representative", as comrade Jonathan Neale (Globalise Resistance/SWP) argued...

The 'old' group had successfully been meeting since December... Between 20 and 40 people had been attending, representing a wide range of groups. According to Redmond O'Neill, though, this was "simply a small group of self-selected people. There is no way that serious organisations will get involved in this most sensitive group if it has been hijacked by one particular political outlook." I somehow doubt he meant the GR/SWP, although it has been by far the largest group attending.

The reason for wanting the group abolished is quite clear. For some reason, the GLA had not managed to attend any of the working group meetings and therefore had had zero impact. Undoubtedly, it will send a number of representatives to all gatherings of the 'new' group to ensure that it does not make any decisions not to Ken's liking.

Dave Timms from the World Development Movement... was finally able to convince the majority of people at the organising committee that the work of the programme group should not just be thrown into the bin...

About 40 people attended the last meeting of the 'old' programme group on February 10, which opened with Jonathan Neale giving a rather dishonest report-back from the OC. He stressed the positive attitude the majority of people in the meeting had towards the work of the programme group, conveniently forgetting that he was most certainly not amongst them...

The 'new' programme group... will undoubtedly carry on with an identical composition to the 'old' one. With the addition of our friends from the GLA, of course. (more)

At least the culture workgroup is doing their best to ignore this infighting and get on with outreach and the planning of the cultural events.

Also detailed in the minutes of February 5 was the 'Right of Exclusion':

The meetings of the UK Organising Committee for the ESF in London will be open, meetings of sub-committees will also be open but with the right to exclude. Agreed (more).

However, Tina Becker from the CPGB remembers it differently:

CPGB comrades suggested that - like all other ESF structures - the coordinating committee should be open to interested observers and publish its agendas and minutes. This proved more controversial than should be the case, with Jane Loftus (SWP member representing the Communication Workers Union) and Fred Leplat (member of International Socialist Group, representing London Unison) calling "no, no" during our intervention, while other SWP members present shook their heads.

Fortunately, reason won. However... a little clause with big implications has been added. Meetings of sub-groups can "meet in closed session by agreement". A day later, at the coordinating committee, this clause was already being put into practice. The majority in the meeting decided that I should not be allowed to report any financial details of the ESF: "Nobody can openly talk about figures if it is going to end up in a newspaper," comrade O'Neill stated. (More)

At the next UKOC meeting of February 12 this "Right of exclusion" was further advanced:

Right of exclusion

It was agreed that the Co-ordinating Committee would propose a code of practice and present it to the next Organising Committee meeting for approval. (more)

This was because the day before, Wednesday February 11, the UKCC had already excluded two people from certain "sensitive" discussions:

3. Fundraising... Journalists were asked to leave the meeting for this item (more).

It was decided that attendees who happen to write for newspapers will have to leave the room whenever finance is being discussed. So Jeremy Dewar, from Workers Power, and Tina Becker, from Weekly Worker (CPGB), were "asked to leave", even though both had declared they would adhere to the non-reporting proposal.

According to Tina Becker an even more severe right of exclusion was proposed:

...Chris Nineham (SWP, aka Stop the War Coalition) suggested that observers should no longer be able to attend meetings of the coordinating committee. Although his proposal was not put to the vote, I would not be surprised if observers will be shown the door at next week's meeting... (More)

So the process has been fraught with difficulties, to say the least.

And why this exclusion? Because it seems that

no trade union or other organisation has made any firm commitment of financial support yet. This has even led to suggestions by Redmond O'Neill (Livingstone's policy director on public affairs and transport) that the ESF in London might not take place in 2004 at all, but "maybe in November 2005." (More)

The irony is that this is exactly what 150 groups and individuals were proposing last November (more).

As for the practicalities, they progress: "It was noted that the application form for the bank a/c would be sent to the Co-op Bank on 13 February" (more). And the constitution and legal framework investigated by the Legal Status Work Group (LSWG) has been sent around the GLA-run "ukesfcommittee" email list (more from the LSWG).

As for the ESF fee this has been reported by Lucy Davis:

The entrance fee being discussed for the participants at the forum will be between £25 and £35. Please note that the scale for individuals in Paris and Florence was much lower and in reality 60% of attendees won concessions there. The Mayor's Mouth has voiced his concern that we must make sure that there's none of that soft treatment going on here in London! Profits first! Only 20% will get concessions, of 20%.

Lucy Davis also reports that:

Recently the self-appointed UK Organising Committee had a Brasilian-based WSF organiser in attendance who was invited to speak. He pointed out that under WSF principles, the UK process cannot be run by the government in power (that is, Labour) and that meetings shouldn't be taking place at the GLA. Oops, crisis?! Naa, get out the wood-chip wallpaper and start papering over those obvious cracks.

and also that:

A group of activists from many backgrounds... call[ing] themselves the "horizontals"... [who] are deeply concerned about the flawed nature of the organising and the process for this UK ESF, about its overtly commercial basis and about the control the Mayor's Office is exerting in concert with the SWP... met recently to collectively decide a way forward. (More)

From the Horizontals: Horizontals Draft and Evidence Log.

It seems that the drivers of the bulldozer have barely looked sideways, and deliberately not looked down at the principles and peoples they have been ignoring and disempowering. They claim that at least they are getting things done, and thus miss the criticism entirely. The problems are not mainly with the results, but with the way things have been done; as one can like Nikes and disagree with the way they are made, critics can support the ESF but despair over the process. Up to a point.

Upcoming meetings:

• The UK ESF Organising Committee met for three Thursdays (Jan 29, Feb 5, Thur 12), however, they "agreed that the next meeting of the Organising Committee will take place on Sunday 29 February at City Hall 12-4 pm. [Tube: London Bridge] The purpose of the meeting will be to agree the proposal that [is] to be presented to the European preparatory meeting."
• There will be a meeting of the UK ESF Coordinating Committee on Wednesday 25 February at 2.00pm, in Committee Room 5, City Hall, The Queen's Walk, London SE1 2AA (nearest tube station: London Bridge or Tower Hill). "It was agreed that the next Coordinating committee meeting would be held on Wednesday 18 February at City Hall at 2pm and would continue on this basis every Wednesday." (more)
• European Assembly: March 6, 10am-5pm. March 7 10am-1pm. GLA, Queen's Walk, London SE1 2AA, tube: London Bridge.

Footnote:

[*] Stuart: 'On Tuesday evening, 27th January, an email was circulated by the GLA informing a small list of invited organisations to the first meeting of the Organising Committee on Thursday evening at 6.30pm at City Hall. The email, however, contained important new language: "National and regional organisations which have agreed to affiliate to the Organising Committee are invited to send one representative to this meeting"' (more). Also for example it was never sent to one of the larger ESF lists esf-uk-info@mobilise.lists.socialtools.org, although details that it had been held were sent to this list the day after)