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SWP gone Green:, genuine or genuine disaster?

T

treelover

Well-Known Member
Many people have commented on the size of the very important Climate
Change demo, it was apparently the largest CC demo ever. However, perusing the pictures it is clear that there were numerous members of SWP/Respect on the demo which added considerably to the turnout, and it was heavily publicized on their website and other publications. It was also heavily flyered by them in the regions.However, all this was done late and if it had been publicized better by the wider EM, it would have been twice as big, even without them. I wonder if this is a genuine concern for environmental issues by them or just another trawl for new recruits, (how long before an eco-front?)

However, either way, I think it matters: to me, the danger is if the SWP get involved it ( the env movement)will see a massive increase in dynamism and energy, unfortunately that will just be temporary and in the long term it will be disasterous for the environmental movement. One only has to look at the shell that is the STWC to see the effects on what was once was a vibrant and diverse network.

The issue of global warming/climate change is a momentous one, they will never be forgiven if they destroy the EM*

Its interesting to note the Green party marched as a bloc for the first time, maybe they didn’t want to be associated with the SWP.
 
Right....so you don't want people on the march if you don't like them for your own political reasons?

Why not get the Greens et al just to come out and say who isn't welcome on the marches before hand. Simple really.
 
er, i'm not a member of the Green party, just someone who knows the track record of the SWP,(i saw them utterly emasculate the ESF in London and the STWC.
 
DexterTCN said:
Right....so you don't want people on the march if you don't like them for your own political reasons?

Why not get the Greens et al just to come out and say who isn't welcome on the marches before hand. Simple really.
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Not wanting the SWP and their fuckwitted fronts to screw up yet another movement is hardly unreasonable.

I recall how bitter the Swappies were when the Greens legally (and wisely, IMHO) refused to have an electoral pact with them. It was the reason I finally broke with them, IIRC.

Cue much slagging of the Greens, both here and elsewhere, by the Swappies for some considerable time afterwards.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the Swappies try setting up some sort or eco-front. A sort of Globalise Resistance, only with the usual greenwash added to it to impress those who don't know better. If they do, and they have the same effect on the Green movement as they did on StWC, then they will have reached new levels of sectarian fuckwittery, even by their advanced standards.

I suggest anyone who doesn't recall Globalise Resistance should read the Schnews leaflet entitled 'Monopolise Resistance'. They'll find it very informative.
 
treelover said:
Yes, and this is not just any movement, it could mean the future of life on earth :eek: :( ,
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Yes, exactly.

The Green Party (of which I was a member until I finally went Anarchist) looks like it may be making electoral breakthroughs within the next few years. They have elected a number of local councillors, and are polling respectably in Parliamentary elections in areas like Brighton.

The big NGO's, like Greenpeace (I am a member) and Friends of the Earth (I will soon be a member) are still doing their thing, with high-profile stunts like the one that disrupted Blair's pro-nuclear speech still gaining press attention. So they are still doing well.

If environmentally concerned people want an electoral vehicle, they have the Green Party.

If they want high-profile direct action, there is Greenpeace.

If they want lobbying, there are groups like the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), the Worldwide Fund for Nature and various other groups.

The environmental movement in the UK is finally beginning to break through, and the last thing it needs is a bunch of paper-selling, megaphone-ranting wannabe "working class" heroes and street-corner rabble-rousers descending upon it to 'organise the struggle', only to disappear in a cloud of their own rhetoric when the Central Committee decides to have yet another change of 'line'.

We don't need the SWP, or any SWP front.

And I don't think many people in the Green movement even WANT the SWP, or any SWP front. I can only speak for myself, but as an active environmentalist I view the appearance of an SWP 'eco-front' with undiluted horror.
 
Isn't the problem that there weren't 1,000,000 or more on the streets about, like, the end of the world? I think it's a bit weird, talking to some people from workers power in the pub afterwards, how climate change is just another issue for the left. 'sort it all, in montreal!' ...?
 
Oh shit!








On the other hand: pointing out to the CC the considerable risk of a large proportion of their dwindling cadre running away with the raggle-taggle gypsies, as happened with (for example) their attempt to infiltrate the movement agaisnt the Criminal Justice Bill, could well pay dividends.

Memo to CC: Anarchists have better sex and drugs. You cannot compete with this lure :D
 
justuname said:
Isn't the problem that there weren't 1,000,000 or more on the streets about, like, the end of the world? I think it's a bit weird, talking to some people from workers power in the pub afterwards, how climate change is just another issue for the left. 'sort it all, in montreal!' ...?
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It is a problem that there weren't 1,000,000 people or more on the march today. Climate change is arguably the biggest issue of them all. Its the great leveller that affects EVERYBODY regardless of wealth or power or privilege. Certainly at the Earth First Winter Moot back in February it was a real hot potato. I was there. I expect it will be at the next Winter Moot, and the Summer Gathering, not to mention the Climate Change camp that is set for August 2006 and is already being built for.

The suggestion that the Left consider it 'just another issue' disturbs me greatly. What I'm really afraid of is some Trot 'eco-front' parachuting in, running the issue into the ground, ruining the uk's environmental movement for its own selfish aims and then ditching it as soon as the next 'Cause Of The Week' appears on the horizon. It is not 'just another issue'. It is one of the greatest, if not the greatest threat to our continued survival, and it should be treated as such. Not as simply another excuse for cynical political hacks to sell papers and poach recruits.
 
Pilgrim said:
Yes, exactly.

The Green Party (of which I was a member until I finally went Anarchist) looks like it may be making electoral breakthroughs within the next few years. They have elected a number of local councillors, and are polling respectably in Parliamentary elections in areas like Brighton.

The big NGO's, like Greenpeace (I am a member) and Friends of the Earth (I will soon be a member) are still doing their thing, with high-profile stunts like the one that disrupted Blair's pro-nuclear speech still gaining press attention. So they are still doing well.

If environmentally concerned people want an electoral vehicle, they have the Green Party.

If they want high-profile direct action, there is Greenpeace.

If they want lobbying, there are groups like the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), the Worldwide Fund for Nature and various other groups.

The environmental movement in the UK is finally beginning to break through, and the last thing it needs is a bunch of paper-selling, megaphone-ranting wannabe "working class" heroes and street-corner rabble-rousers descending upon it to 'organise the struggle', only to disappear in a cloud of their own rhetoric when the Central Committee decides to have yet another change of 'line'.

We don't need the SWP, or any SWP front.

And I don't think many people in the Green movement even WANT the SWP, or any SWP front. I can only speak for myself, but as an active environmentalist I view the appearance of an SWP 'eco-front' with undiluted horror.
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Excellent fucking post! Hopefully if this does come to pass (the SWP eyeing up the green movement) then maybe this time some collective education effort about them and their tactics can be initiated earlier to good effect.
 
Kid_Eternity said:
Excellent fucking post! Hopefully if this does come to pass (the SWP eyeing up the green movement) then maybe this time some collective education effort about them and their tactics can be initiated earlier to good effect.
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I've been pushing that line for some time now.

I wrote an article on the issue for www.anarkismo.net (SWP And Leninism: The Elephant In The Corner?), suggesting a concerted campaign to keep the SWP away from new groups and movements, and giving my reasons why, a few months ago.

I haven't got around to republishing that article in print form yet, I'll probably want to edit and possibly rewrite sections of it before releasing it again. Debate and comments on the article are welcome.

I sincerely hope the SWP CC aren't eyeing up the Green movement in the UK.

It could be an absolute disaster if they were to do what they have done to their various other fronts.
 
sometimes I think the fuckers are state funded, every time an issue is coming up that is seen as sensitive by the state (more nuclear power stations in this case?) the SWP pops up and forms some front or practises entryism and completly fucks everything up with their control freak tactics.That or they are opportunists of the worst sort.
 
Pilgrim said:
I've been pushing that line for some time now.

I wrote an article on the issue for www.anarkismo.net (SWP And Leninism: The Elephant In The Corner?), suggesting a concerted campaign to keep the SWP away from new groups and movements, and giving my reasons why, a few months ago.

I haven't got around to republishing that article in print form yet, I'll probably want to edit and possibly rewrite sections of it before releasing it again. Debate and comments on the article are welcome.
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Good to hear! I reckon an effort to top them trying it with this could be quite effective if taken seriously. You're excatly too about this not just being another issue for the left given that it's likely effects reach everyone.
 
Eita said:
sometimes I think the fuckers are state funded, every time an issue is coming up that is seen as sensitive by the state (more nuclear power stations in this case?) the SWP pops up and forms some front or practises entryism and completly fucks everything up with their control freak tactics.That or they are opportunists of the worst sort.
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Thought the same more than a few times myself, they're effective at neutralising popular movements to the point of suspicion.
 
Eita said:
sometimes I think the fuckers are state funded, every time an issue is coming up that is seen as sensitive by the state (more nuclear power stations in this case?) the SWP pops up and forms some front or practises entryism and completly fucks everything up with their control freak tactics.That or they are opportunists of the worst sort.
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The issue of State infiltration into such a rigidly 'top-down' party as the SWP has been hashed over on here before.

Personally, I don't know whether the SWP is State-run, but I certainly consider it to be State-infiltrated, and at the highest level too. A single infiltrator on the Central Committee would be in a position not only to know the latest top-level information before the ordinary members do, but would also, as the SWP is so rigidly 'top-down' and authoritarian, to actually DICTATE policy.

And the case of Finnon and Stoker shows that even amateur infiltrators have to out themselves before the SWP hierarchy realises thay are being spied upon.

Opportunism is a definite possibility. When I first heard the SWP described as 'Swappies' I asked why. I was told that it was partly down the initials (SWaP) and partly down to their habit of frequently and effortlessly leaping from one potential bandwagon to the next. I fear that the Green movement might be the latest bandwagon they have in their sights.
 
Pilgrim said:
I don't know whether the SWP is State-run
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Me neither.

And I don't care, and regard discussion of whether it is as a mere hobby, and not one of mine.

The point is that it has the same effect as if it were.
 
Well... see my suggestion about scaring the Central Committee, above.

It's been reported here that they're haemorraging members as it is. If they send members - particularly this year's fresh crop of student recruits - into the green movement (such as it is), they'll have a lot more ex-members in short order.

True, it'll be deeply annoying for a few months.

But feeding the fresh recruits lots of drugs and rock'n'roll should be entertaining, and is what the green movement is good at :)
 
Kid_Eternity said:
Good point. If they are considering going "green" how is that to be identified and averted?
Click to expand...

We can start by confirming whether or not they are going Green.

Then we can identify which new 'eco-front' has been set up, and make it as public as possible to all and sundry that anyone joining such a front is, whether they know it or not, working for the SWP. If people know they are working for the SWP, then I reckon many of them would rethink their decision. Personally, I ascribe the SWP's use of 'united fronts' to the fact that, if people knew they were working with the SWP, they wouldn't have anything to do with them. Hence their need to parade in other clothes and hide who they really are.

Then we need a caucus among the non-SWP sections of the Green movement (Green Party, Greenpeace, Earth First!, Rising Tide, Friends of the Earth, the Climate Change camp organisers, Anarchists and any other groups and individuals we can think of, local and national) to agree precisely how to keep the SWP out of the Green movement. We need to get some cohesion and some proper teamwork within the Green movement to keep the SWP out.

Another edition of 'Monopolise Resistance' and 'Vampire Alert' may well need to be circulated, and circulated as widely as is humanly possible.

It isn't enough to allow the SWP house room within the Green movement, only to have a long and bloody fight to get them out again, doing God only knows how much damage to Green politics in the process. They need to be kept out altogether and from the start. Prevention is better than cure.
 
Pilgrim said:
I recall how bitter the Swappies were when the Greens legally (and wisely, IMHO) refused to have an electoral pact with them. It was the reason I finally broke with them, IIRC.
Click to expand...

I will never vote for Karl Rove's people.

I think that means I have to vote Green, 'cos the SWP are "the enemies of my enemies" for Rove.

Useful Idiots, that is.
 
Yeah, I had noticed this shift, with the traditional left pattern of 'mass mobilisation' being applied to climate change. Posters all over regional towns and campuses, stalls and petetions in shopping centres, coaches booked providing cheap and collective transport.

Terrible! There is a real danger that some members of the general public might find out how to get involved and actually join in.

I hope we can keep our little environmental direct action ghetto pure and small, unlike that horrible anti-war movement.

Unity has helped make the biggest and most well publicised climate protest ever. Shame! Winge winge, wine wine.
 
Barry Kade said:
Yeah, I had noticed this shift, with the traditional left pattern of 'mass mobilisation' being applied to climate change. Posters all over regional towns and campuses, stalls and petetions in shopping centres, coaches booked providing cheap and collective transport.

Terrible! There is a real danger that some members of the general public might find out how to get involved and actually join in.

I hope we can keep our little environmental direct action ghetto pure and small, unlike that horrible anti-war movement.

Unity has helped make the biggest and most well publicised climate protest ever. Shame! Winge winge, wine wine.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Fucking hell do you know that in Birmingham there were COACHES which people from Respect and the swp students at the University like helped PUBLICISE. I mean how underhand is that! Imagine, bussing people in to demonstrations! Some of these people have never even spent months living in trees or tunnels to stop roads being built!

And they put motions to union branches and student unions highlighting the issue. We must warn people! Next thing they'll be using that awful tactic, where, you know, just cos there are more people at a meeting that agree with them than us it counts. It's really shocking.

(ps no disrespect to those who do take heroic steps to stop roads, it's the paranoid twats i have a problem with)
 
As a Green on the march yesterday, I object to this suggestion of a Green block, avoiding the SWP. There is a natural tendency of people to associate with those they know or feel particular kinship with on a march and personally I was really pleased to see so many Green banners and placards there and to be associated with them. As the march progressed, it became increasingly mixed, and thoughout the day there was good camaredie between people from all organisations, at least from the evidence I saw.
 
There is already a group which merges green and socialist viewpoints far more successfully than the SWP could ever hope to - If I ever consider leaving the Greens it would probably be the other organisation that I would consider joining ;) -

Alliance For Green Socialism

The good thing is that there is now, given the disastrous experience of the old Socialist Alliance, Globalise Resistance etc etc, a good degree of unity across the green/left/progressive movement to resist SWP bureaucratic centralism wherever it rears its head - a good sign is the reformation last month of the Socialist Alliance along federal lines.

We should seek unity across the left/green movement as a whole wherever possible. A crucial precondition of this is specific structures and agreements to prevent the domination of bureaucratic entryists and frontists.
 
Right, so effectively some posters feel I should be 'allowed' to attend a march as I am not in the swp but friends I have who are members should be banned from attending...

Thats not very inclusive but then I guess the organisers wanted a couple of hundred protesters rather than thousands :rolleyes:

I'm afraid I'm starting to see most leftie groups as being just as bad as each other- tbh a lot of posters on U75 seem to be doing a good job persuading people not to attend marches :( :mad:
 
I don't see how the SWP 'broke' STWC; I'm no fan and appreciate they may have damaged it in many ways, I don't know.

However surely the fact remains that STWC was so successful in the first place because people perceived a chance to stop the war before it took place? Naturally it's going to be less successful after it fails. I don't see a valid comparison/benchmark.

I don't know how the SWP will affect green issues but they're either a significant force for change which we don't seem to believe they are, or irrelevant.
 
The SWP are interested in recruits and furthering their own political trajectory, that as FA to do with social change, however you simply cant bloc against them doing activity, all we can rely on is collective action and good theory and practice to educate people away from their muppetry.

Absolutely. Fucking hell do you know that in Birmingham there were COACHES which people from Respect and the swp students at the University like helped PUBLICISE. I mean how underhand is that! Imagine, bussing people in to demonstrations! Some of these people have never even spent months living in trees or tunnels to stop roads being built!
Click to expand...
Grass roots organisers who dont display cretinous tactics are obviously in danger of isolating themselves, but this doesnt validate the authoritarian methods of the SWP. As a political activist of some years, I have seen the SWP first on hand on many occassions and its never a pleasant experience, even when they appear to doing something positive its usually for a negative end.
 
I share people's concerns about SWP exploitation of green issues. I suggest that there is a right way to respond and a wrong way. nuLabour is a perfect demonstration of precisely how not to respond to trot entryism. By trying to harden the party against entryists, they managed to centralise so much that they were taken over by people who were even worse for the party's health.

Decentralisation however, even within the GPEW, seems to cause the SWP (and to be fair all the other trots) a great deal of confusion and distress. If there is no central committee, then entryism is a much less powerful tactic.
 
I think in all honesty that the SWP cannot win with some people.

Fair enough, I recognise that some people think that the SWP 'hijacked' the STWC and are involved in a number of centrist fronts, but I don't particularly think its fair to have a go at the SWP for getting involved in Green issues?

Is it opportuinism? Perhaps. Did the SWP make the demo a lot larger? Certainly. And if SW can report more on environmental issues then I think that it can only be a good thing. If they didn't then people would criticise the party for not doing so. Climate Change is a key issue at the moment, and it is only right for the left to campaign over this issue, whether you agree with the SWP or not. To some it may be an opportunity to sell more papers. To me and many other people I know in both Respect and the SWP it is an issue that we genuinely care about and want to raise as much awareness about it as possible. Is that such a bad thing?
 
the way to prevent the swp from taking anything over is to prevent them from instituting steering committees and giving themselves full time paid officer positions in any broad based coalitions that may form

it is also important to educate people about the dangers of the inevitable front group that they will launch
 
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