CWI Split?

[butchersapron]

What is the name?

‘In Defence of a Working Class Trotskyist CWI’

 

[Fedayn]

‘In Defence of a Working Class Trotskyist CWI’

As opposed to a middle class one? How that would include Clare Doyle or Bob Labi would be interesting. Lynn Walsh too for that matter.

It's the kind of well that is our name so obviously we are the ones who are defending the genuine position, cow we called ourselves that. A circular argument that goes round and round and round....

One of the members of my PCS branch is a true believer in Taaffe-ism, currently a PCS NEC member too, he is unusually quiet over this.

 

[Limerick Red]

The Taaffee faction are referring to the rest of the CWI as "The non-Faction, faction" in their latest pronouncement.

 

[Lemony Cricket]

New document about the CWI crisis here: Out of the Clear Blue Sky?

 

[Fedayn]

New document about the CWI crisis here: Out of the Clear Blue Sky?

You wait for a split then two come at once.....

 

[Rivendelboy]

What is the point of these trot parties and the like? They can't surely think they will ever be strong enough to challenge the political hegemony, nor persuasive enough to rejoin/join Labour

 

[Louis MacNeice]

What is the point of these trot parties and the like? They can't surely think they will ever be strong enough to challenge the political hegemony, nor persuasive enough to rejoin/join Labour

To provide a disciplined revolutionary vehicle for the most advanced section of the working class...obviously.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Proper Tidy]

As an ex SPer I wouldn't mind knowing what the split is fundamentally about but not enough that I can be arsed trying to parse the jibberish. Anybody got a TL;DR version?

 

[Rivendelboy]

To provide a disciplined revolutionary vehicle for the most advanced section of the working class...obviously.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Vanguardism, no thanks

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Vanguardism, no thanks

You asked what they were for, not if they were a good idea.

Cheers - Louis (one time ultra vanguardist) MacNeice

 

[belboid]

As an ex SPer I wouldn't mind knowing what the split is fundamentally about but not enough that I can be arsed trying to parse the jibberish. Anybody got a TL;DR version?

The leadership is bad - there's a lack of democracy (which is, of course, a feature of every single Trot split ever)
The opposition is wrong, and a bit identity politicsy, but not as bad as the leadership says. We need to relate without dissolving into IDPol, or just sneering at it
Ditto wider left formations
The leadership are patronising tossers (see point 1, brackets)
The (leaderships) analysis of the 'new period' [post-08] is dubious. The w-c's failure to lead an opposition to the crisis has led to lots of folk seeking short cuts (opportunism) but in rejecting this manoeuvre, the leadership has become ultra-left sectarians.

That's the first half. I'll try to stay awake through the second at some point, to see if they have any sensible ideas about how to get out of their quandary.

 

[SpackleFrog]

D Day is here. We are in Camden's School For Girls for the occasion.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Socialist Party conference reaffirms the CWI's historic approach

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Socialist Party conference reaffirms the CWI's historic approach

"To give in to the pressures created by the complications of the current situation, as a number of the CWI's previous co-thinkers have unfortunately done, is a fundamental error". Is that SP code for 'we've split'?

 

[butchersapron]

Socialist Party conference reaffirms the CWI's historic approach

Is that a move to a have a reconstitution without the NFF, or to expel them at the reconstitution conference? A bureaucratic expulsion designed not to look like expulsion but a democratic start-over.

 

[Fedayn]

Socialist Party conference reaffirms the CWI's historic approach

I wonder which way those who voted 'against' the SP will jump?
SpackleFrog who are some of the leading members amongst the minority?

 

[SpackleFrog]

"To give in to the pressures created by the complications of the current situation, as a number of the CWI's previous co-thinkers have unfortunately done, is a fundamental error". Is that SP code for 'we've split'?

Ahhhh but it's not a split it's a correction.

Is that a move to a have a reconstitution without the NFF, or to expel them at the reconstitution conference? A bureaucratic expulsion designed not to look like expulsion but a democratic start-over.

The former.

I wonder which way those who voted 'against' the SP will jump?
SpackleFrog who are some of the leading members amongst the minority?

Not sure what names you would know but the youngest comrades on the SP exec committee and the International Secretariat committee weren't having it basically.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I wonder which way those who voted 'against' the SP will jump?
SpackleFrog who are some of the leading members amongst the minority?

Although I should add that despite the claim in the article, in the party internationally we are not a minority, we are an overwhelming majority.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Although I should add that despite the claim in the article, in the party internationally we are not a minority, we are an overwhelming majority.

So are you in the minority then?

 

[SpackleFrog]

So are you in the minority then?

In England and Wales, yes.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

So are you in the minority then?

As far as I can make out spackle frog is in the minority in Britain but the majority internationally. But I might be wrong....

 

[Proper Tidy]

As far as I can make out spackle frog is in the minority in Britain but the majority internationally. But I might be wrong....

Yeah that's what I meant

 

[sparta1917]

This, I gather, is from the England/Wales minority, but CWI majority, split conference. Let the competition for the CWI domains and other assets begin, I guess. Will the real CWI please stand up?

 

[Smokeandsteam]

This, I gather, is from the England/Wales minority, but CWI majority, split conference. Let the competition for the CWI domains and other assets begin, I guess. Will the real CWI please stand up?

'proper British Trotskyism'

 

[SpackleFrog]

'proper British Trotskyism'

Not like that foreign muck.

 

[chilango]

So...

Where does this leave the SP/TUSC electoral strategy?

 

[Proper Tidy]

So...

Where does this leave the SP/TUSC electoral strategy?

Honestly does it matter

 

[chilango]

Honestly does it matter

Not yet.

But when the wheels finish coming off the Corbyn bandwagon...?




...nah. Probably not even then.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Not yet.

But when the wheels finish coming off the Corbyn bandwagon...?




...nah. Probably not even then.

Hey! Don't be too sure. But I don't think it changes anything a great deal right now.

 

[sparta1917]

It seems like the England/Wales SP minority (but CWI majority affiliated) people are going with a name and logo borrowed from the American section - Socialist Alternative:

The Socialist Party, and before it the Militant tendency, has been a section of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) in England and Wales since 1974. The CWI is an international organisation based on the ideas and methods of democratic socialism, Marxism and Trotskyism, and further developed by the hard work and sacrifices of comrades across the world.

This includes 3 TDs (MPs) in Ireland, an elected councilmember in Seattle, and members fighting in the revolutionary movements in Sudan, Hong Kong and elsewhere. Sadly, after 45 years, the majority of the leadership of the CWI and England and Wales section have chosen to abandon the CWI and the bold ideas it was founded upon.

On Sunday 21st July, a Special Congress in London passed a resolution stating that the many members of the Socialist Party who still support the CWI, "will have to do so outside of the Socialist Party". In reality, the resolution is a cowardly method of expulsion from the party, following a campaign of witch-hunts, bullying and lies against the majority of CWI sections.

This was all but confirmed when the SP's Welsh Secretary said from the platform "goodbye and good riddance" to CWI supporters - a remark the leadership has refused to retract.

The majority of the SP leadership are running scared from a debate about socialist programme and tactics, only half way through an agreed one-year process of debate. Instead of having a discussion in the democratically convened leadership bodies of the CWI – the International Executive Committee and the World Congress (which all sides had agreed to) and risking losing a vote, they have chosen to expel the majority of the organisation and walk away with the resources, including hundreds of thousands of pounds, against the will of the majority of its members.

They have, in effect, attempted to enact the bureaucratic expulsion of the majority of the CWI: entire organisations and groups in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel/Palestine, Ireland, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Quebec, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, Tunisia, and the USA from the CWI, as well as a majority of members in Germany and South Africa who oppose their plans.

Over 100 comrades in England & Wales, including a majority of active members in over a dozen key cities, stand together with the CWI majority in opposing this course of action. A meeting on 22nd July voted unanimously to refound the CWI in England and Wales, rejecting these bureaucratic expulsions and continuing to organise in the proud tradition of Militant in Britain - the traditions of socialist democracy and Marxism.

Further explanation and analysis will follow. We call on all Socialist Party members, and in the wider workers and social movements to join us in fighting for a socialist world!

And here's part of the SPE&W resolution that was passed on July 21, apparently effectively expelling the CWI majority supporting members:

This special congress of the Socialist Party calls on all members, whether or not they have joined the IDWCT faction, to continue to help build the Socialist Party as part of a healthy Trotskyist international organisation in order to prepare for the mighty class battles ahead. The Socialist Party will collaborate with all genuine Marxist parties, groups or individuals who are in agreement on the central tenets of the CWI’s approach including the centrality of the working class, consistent work in and orientation to the mass workers’ organisations, and the necessity of the transitional method.

We are confident that the overwhelming majority of Socialist Party members will wish to participate in this historic task. If a small minority decides instead to build an alternative organisation, based on the opportunist policies of an NFF international, they will have to do so outside of the Socialist Party where they will have the opportunity to test their ideas against the reality of the class struggle.

We also agree with the decision of the NC not to recognise any meeting of IEC members called by the NFF. It is clear that the NFF are taking steps to build an alternative organisation. Some sections have not paid their full international dues over months, now NFF supporters – including IS member Danny Byrne – have called, in writing, for sections to stop paying their international dues, a decision which has been implemented by the Austrian NC.

The NFF wish to use their meeting in August and the World Congress in January 2020 to create an international that is completely outside the current political framework of the CWI, including changing the composition of the IS in order to achieve this. These meetings will therefore become a cover for the false and damaging policies and orientation of the NFF who wish to turn the CWI into an international in their own image and the Socialist Party will not participate in them.