Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

CWI Split?

Seen some of this popping up on my Facebook now... so far two copy and pastes of a statement from one side (the SP side?) with really negative language, and from the other basically a really emotive and easy to follow explanation that they were with the CWI. I retain an interest after being involved with the scene a few years ago but honestly it's taken a while to get my head around the really basic dynamic of who is against who and why which says it all really
 
muscovyduck said:
Seen some of this popping up on my Facebook now... so far two copy and pastes of a statement from one side (the SP side?) with really negative language, and from the other basically a really emotive and easy to follow explanation that they were with the CWI. I retain an interest after being involved with the scene a few years ago but honestly it's taken a while to get my head around the really basic dynamic of who is against who and why which says it all really
Click to expand...
Christ never mind all of the ones I've seen are from the same side. I'm so confused
 
Taffe always got right on my tits, there's a lot of people in the SP I have respect for (though some will have left in the split I'm sure) but he was never one of them.

Always seemed to be banging on about how he was right about something in 1984 or whatever. Also, he looks like the old bloke in Raymond Briggs' when the wind blows.
 
SpineyNorman said:
Taffe always got right on my tits, there's a lot of people in the SP I have respect for (though some will have left in the split I'm sure) but he was never one of them.

Always seemed to be banging on about how he was right about something in 1984 or whatever. Also, he looks like the old bloke in Raymond Briggs' when the wind blows.
Click to expand...

Yeah don't think we really experienced him at his best.

One of the weirdest bits in any of the documents was when he was castigating AP (who I think you'll remember well and we both admire a lot) for saying 'I' and speaking as an individual rather than collectively, but then in the next para doing exactly the same thing himself several times over.
 
In Defence of... seems to be a popular choice for CC factions, the SWP went for that one as well, although at least IDOOP/IDOOM is a proper acronym.
 
They missed a trick really, it's one of the few times you could legitimately get the word committee into a name twice and as everyone knows the quality of a left wing group or factions name is proportional to the number of times it has commitee in it.

Committee for a working class trotskyist commitee for a workers international would have been a thing of great beauty.
 
Fedayn said:
Interesting...

A new chapter for revolutionary socialism in Britain
Click to expand...

Weekly Worker
1 Numbers:

As long expected, the leadership of the Socialist Party in England and Wales - the sinking tanker at the centre of the CWI oil slick, with Peter Taaffe as its clueless helmsman - has concluded its laughably cynical response to losing undisputed control by dissolving the international and declaring another. Taaffe’s opponents, meanwhile, see no reason to abandon the name, seeing as the SPEW leaders have acted in outright contempt for the formal democratic norms they themselves created ever since their first attempt to bring troublesome comrades in Ireland to heel backfired.
...
So we now have two CWIs - one built around SPEW and the other composed of everybody who thought the split was unnecessary, the most important components being found in Ireland and the United States. Both sides emerge damaged by the course of events, although it is the SPEW faction - in the best traditions of Taaffe’s leadership - whose wounds are most predominantly self-inflicted.

Those wounds, then: in the best case, the split leaves the CWI (Taaffe) light by about a third of its former members. Assuming SPEW really did number 2,000 prior to all this, and the low vote against the leadership line actually represents the balance of forces within SPEW, then it has lost 350 at home, the majority of the 800-strong US section, the vast majority of the 150 or so in Ireland, and most of the micro-sections of 20 or less members scattered around the place. (This leaves out of account the Spanish section and its allies, which have already flounced out on the basis that Taaffe and co were too conciliatory.)

So let us say the Taaffe CWI is down from 3,000-odd to 2,000, and down from 40-odd sections this time last year, for what they are worth, to 11. This is undoubtedly an over-generous estimate, if only because splits are inherently demoralising and send people quietly to the exits in dribs and drabs.

2 Money. CWI (SPEWTaaffe) have all the money, no friendly divorce:

It certainly seems to be the case that Taaffe and co have made off with all the international’s assets, taking advantage of the IS’s control of bank accounts, web infrastructure and so on. Given that their decision to split amounts to an admission that they could not expect to win at any meeting of the IEC or subsequent congress (note that the ‘refoundation’ of the CWI is attributed to Taaffe’s faction, since no more august body could be persuaded to back it)
 
Last edited:
Sometimes you just have to love the Weekly Worker's house style:

from the same article
‘Better fewer, but better’ simply does not work if the percentage of people in your organisation called ‘Peter Taaffe’ goes up by half.
Click to expand...
But then they report this gem from the US section about working within mass movements against oppression without comment:
The majority of the CWI and its ranks believe the best way to help overcome this confusion is by participating as the most dynamic and programmatically clearest component in those movements, clearly drawing a line between our working class approach and that of our opponents.
Click to expand...
Everybody knows the left squabble like rats in a sack, but to openly declare those you work with as your opponents is unusually frank.
 
sihhi said:
Weekly Worker
1 Numbers:

As long expected, the leadership of the Socialist Party in England and Wales - the sinking tanker at the centre of the CWI oil slick, with Peter Taaffe as its clueless helmsman - has concluded its laughably cynical response to losing undisputed control by dissolving the international and declaring another. Taaffe’s opponents, meanwhile, see no reason to abandon the name, seeing as the SPEW leaders have acted in outright contempt for the formal democratic norms they themselves created ever since their first attempt to bring troublesome comrades in Ireland to heel backfired.
...
So we now have two CWIs - one built around SPEW and the other composed of everybody who thought the split was unnecessary, the most important components being found in Ireland and the United States. Both sides emerge damaged by the course of events, although it is the SPEW faction - in the best traditions of Taaffe’s leadership - whose wounds are most predominantly self-inflicted.

Those wounds, then: in the best case, the split leaves the CWI (Taaffe) light by about a third of its former members. Assuming SPEW really did number 2,000 prior to all this, and the low vote against the leadership line actually represents the balance of forces within SPEW, then it has lost 350 at home, the majority of the 800-strong US section, the vast majority of the 150 or so in Ireland, and most of the micro-sections of 20 or less members scattered around the place. (This leaves out of account the Spanish section and its allies, which have already flounced out on the basis that Taaffe and co were too conciliatory.)

So let us say the Taaffe CWI is down from 3,000-odd to 2,000, and down from 40-odd sections this time last year, for what they are worth, to 11. This is undoubtedly an over-generous estimate, if only because splits are inherently demoralising and send people quietly to the exits in dribs and drabs.

2 Money. CWI (SPEWTaaffe) have all the money, no friendly divorce:

It certainly seems to be the case that Taaffe and co have made off with all the international’s assets, taking advantage of the IS’s control of bank accounts, web infrastructure and so on. Given that their decision to split amounts to an admission that they could not expect to win at any meeting of the IEC or subsequent congress (note that the ‘refoundation’ of the CWI is attributed to Taaffe’s faction, since no more august body could be persuaded to back it)
Click to expand...

Down from 7,000 to 2,000 I reckon, and 45 sections to about 8. But yeah, hard to disagree with some of that, even stopped clocks etc.
 
Idris2002 said:
Narked comrades, plural, I'd say. Given that the SP are players, even if only in a small way, and the rest of the CWI is not in any way, I'd say the SP are growing increasingly weary of taking orders from the mothership.

And the more they become players in Irish politics, the more Oirish they'll become. Expect to see Paul Murphy bopping around in a Leprechaun suit sometime soon.

I jest of course, but I did once see SP election posters on the Shankill road where the shade of red they'd used was very, very close to being orange. You can start off doing that sort of thing as a cynical ploy, but eventually the face will grow to fit the mask (fwiw it's worth, I did vote for them in those local elections).
Click to expand...


Paul Murphy has now left the SP, to form a "new socialist group".

Paul Murphy Leaves The Socialist Party

The split is an amicable one, apparently. "Amicable", meaning?

Where next?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

brogdale
Labour Party split watch
2
Replies
34
Views
2K
wheelie_bin
W
camouflage
  • Poll
Labour Party split: Crap/Not Crap?
Replies
20
Views
1K
DaveCinzano
DaveCinzano
L
Interesting piece about the SDP split
2 3 4
Replies
90
Views
4K
ViolentPanda
ViolentPanda
emanymton
If the Labour Party was to split would you be more likely to join?
2
Replies
54
Views
3K
skyscraper101
skyscraper101
W
Splitters - Giving anti-Corbyn MPs a name
2 3 4 5
Replies
125
Views
6K
billy_bob
billy_bob
Back
Top Bottom