Geoff Collier said:
A "soggie" refers to a supporter of Socialist Organiser, which became the forerunner of the Alliance for Workers Liberty. However it didn't start off quite like that. It began, IIRC, as the paper of the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory in 1978. That was a joint effort of the Matgamna group (then called the ICL), the Chartists (a smallish entrist group) and a number of genuine Labour lefts such as Ken Livingstone. The latter disappeared over time but I'd hazard a guess that McDonnell was a supporter of SO in its first phase.
geoff
That's right. McDonnell was never a member of the Matgamna period Socialist Organiser.
The early SO had four distinct parts - the IMG had a small entry fraction of about 50 members who were also involved, so it was a four-way split around Sept 1978 - I-CL/Workers Action, Chartist Minority Tendency, IMG entry fraction and a 'left wing of the bureaucracy' Livingstone, McDonnell (IIRC), Ted Knight also dillied with it and was at the first conference IIRC. A couple of issues of the SCLV paper, Socialist Organiser were produced in the run up to the May 1979 general election. (I was in the very first issue ...! and sold it outside GMCs). The Matgamna group closed Workers Action as a paper to support the SCLV.
By late 1979 however the CMT and Livingstone/McDonnell et al went off to form London Labour Briefing (along with a few not-so-left people like Margaret Hodge, though picking up better people like Tatchell), eventually capturing the GLC in 1981 and several London Boroughs in 1982; Knight went with the WRP and Gerry Healey to form Labour Herald, which also had Livingstone on board, and the IMG decided to become a full entry organisation and launched Socialist Action.
This left the Matgamna group running SCLV and Socialist Organiser on their own. Casting around for friends they chanced on the remnants of WSL who had their own paper Socialist Press and 'front' - the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement. The WSL and I-CL went into an ill-fated merger confusingly taking the WSL's name and Socialist Organiser as a paper, and after the original WSL were chucked out, ostensibly because of disagreements over the Malvinas/Falklands war in 1982, the Matgamna group was left with a revamped Socialist Organiser which they then used to create the Socialist Organiser Alliance, and the name 'WSL' for the secret controlling group.
That went on for a long time with the SO/SOA/WSL enjoying the nickname 'soggies' (short for 'soggy oggy' as Socialist Organiser became known).
And as a Postscript, the expelled WSL members formed the Socialist Group and went on to merge with a faction of the IMG/SL to form the ISG that is still around today - they also briefly merged with the remnants of the CMT but that fell apart over disagreements about the character of the Labour Party. Labour Herald disappeared after the WRP imploded in 1985 (and Ted Knight's disqualification as a councillor), but London Labour Briefing continues today as Labour Left Briefing, though a shadow if its former influence.
), so de-selection is unlikely to be on the cards unless Central Office gets Stalinist on their arses and conducts a purge.
