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Former SWP members plan to sabotage Steve Hedley's TUSC campaign

Das Uberdog

Das Uberdog

remembers the alamo
Saw this thread on fb and thought it deserved some scrutiny. Steve Hedley, former Socialist Party member accused of domestic abuse last year, has been selected to stand in East Ham South for TUSC in the upcoming council elections. In this thread, ISNers and RS21ers discuss intervening in his campaign, including leafletting against him amongst the East Ham community.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Names removed]

**OP**

domestic abuser steve hedley is standing for tusc in east ham south. the sp have some explaining to do


**Poster 1**
Whaaaa?

  • **OP**
    http://www.theleftvote.org.uk/?page_id=499

    London Council and Mayoral Candidates 2014
    www.theleftvote.org.uk
    Listings of Green target candidates and left of Labour candidates with local lin...
  • **Poster 2**
    Ffs. Expose.

  • **Poster 1**
    Jesus.
  • **Poster 2**
    What the actual fuck.
  • **OP**
    it was the first thing i looked for when i saw the candidates were declared. they've never distanced themselves from him for a second
  • **Poster 1**
    OK OK. What can we actually do about this? Do we know people in the area?
  • **Poster 2**
    Not to my knowledge.
  • **Poster 2**
    But agree: what do we do?
  • **Poster 1**
    I don't know. I'll have a think. Maybe some guerrilla fly posting one night. Maybe turning up to the hustings. Maybe spamming TUSC's email address letting them know how disgusting we think it is. Maybe contacting any community organisations in the ward letting them know. Maybe some kind of social media campaign. I don't know.
  • **Poster 2**
    you're right that the sp never distanced themselves from him at all, so this doesn't surprise me, as he stood another tusc election a couple of years ago and i suspected this might happen
  • **Poster 1**
    East Ham South (the ward he's standing in) has allotments, a nature reserve, a cemetery and playing fields. In terms of actual streets with houses on it it's very small. A group of 20 of us could go round there one weekend afternoon, flyer through every door alerting the people of east ham to the fact that they maybe don't want an abuser representing thrm would do the trick. Ward map here: file:///C:/Users/Charlotte/Downloads/Map%20of%20Newham%20showing%20streets%20and%20ward%20boundaries.pdf
  • **Poster 2**
    that would be awesome
 
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  • **Poster 1**
    I'm well up for doing that. It's fucking disgusting. When is election? ow long have we got?

  • **Poster 2**
    We should ne calling ng for no vote for them until they withdraw him.

  • **Poster 1**
    OK May 22nd. Right. We better get a wriggle on comrades.

  • **Poster 3**
    I'm up for it

  • **Poster 1**
    I am happy to help organise this, put money in for leaflet printing,

  • **Poster 1**
    round up volunteers, write leaflets, whatever. This abuser must be stopped.

  • **Poster 1**
    Those of you who I will see on Saturday, let's discuss.

  • **Poster 2**
    A petition for the left and feminist groups.

  • **Poster 1**
    Yeah [reference to other poster removed]. All of that. We'll have a STOP HEDLEY coalition.

  • **Poster 1**
    Added bonus will be we'll make a good dint in his campaign for RMT gen sec too. Ace.

  • **Poster 4**
    im happy to be involved

  • **Poster 1**
    Awesome, [reference to other poster removed]!
  • **Poster 6**
    I am opposed to him standing but as a Newham resident I am totally against opposing Tusc in the elections. There is a rotten all labour council here headed by Sir Robin Wales aka Robin the poor. Millions of pounds of cuts have been pushed through single mums on mass at FocusE15 are being evicted! Their campaign is being supported by TUSC activists and others. The Mayor Wales and his councillors have presided over a war on the poor and push to support big business Westfield and Olympic park interests. They have dismanted translation services and have pioneered access to housing priority for ex armed forced and working people. Alongside sending homeless families to Birmingham and Stoke. Respect ended in a massive failure in Newham and labour gained as a result and served us this shit. Police attacked us at previous protests at the council ask Zita and Elane. With an absence of any opposition TUSC are campaigning well and have stood Lois as Mayor candidate on a platform demanding access to housing and issues affecting the communities here.


  • **Poster 6**
    So its complicated. And unless you're aware of these local issues you will not understand where the land lies in the borough and effectively be campaigning for a rotten labour lot on the doorsteps of that ward.


  • **Poster 5**
    put pressure on TUSC to withdraw the nomination from him.
 
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if you're removing names, you might want to break *all* the links in your posts...
 
Awesome Wells said:
so where is the evidence he has committed this crime?
Click to expand...
Not sure what the 'official' outcome was, but there was an RMT inquiry. Guilty or not guilty, there were some serious issues. From what I read, I have my own opinions, but I won't start spraying them round this thread.

Edit: which I'm sure you know. I've just seen how much there is about it on the mega-swp thread. :oops:
 
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Wilf said:
Not sure what the 'official' outcome was, but there was an RMT inquiry. Guilty or not guilty, there were some serious issues. From what I read, I have my own opinions, but I won't start spraying them round this thread.

Edit: which I'm sure you know. I've just seen how much there is about it on the mega-swp thread. :oops:
Click to expand...


Try here from his victim

http://carolineleneghan.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/3/

Also seems to fit with a general pattern of bullying behaviour towards women

http://sexxxypolitics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/my-experience-of-steve-hedley-and.html
 
So this is trial by media and gossip?

People are encouraged to vote against someone, more importabntly something, because of rumour? This is the politics of the SWP?

I don't know this guy from adam, he may well be a cunt, but this is ugly indeed.
 
q_w_e_r_t_y said:
Rumour? Seriously?

Have you read that first link above from his victim?
Click to expand...

What do you want me to think? What do you expect people voting are meant to think if they don't know the truth firsthand, with or without access to these blogs?

I am not comfortable deciding whether someone is or isn't a wife beater on the basis of blogs.

Clearly there should have been a full and proper investigation. tragically that didn't seem to happen. That is unacceptable, but there it is. Now people come to this situation and are expected to toe a particular line on the basis of what peopel are saying on the internet.

Nothing about this makes me comfortable. if her story is true, and I'm not saying it isn't, then indeed he's a cunt of the first order. But does that mean the cause TUSC represents has to suffer? Why are all these people defending him if this is true? A few comrades perhaps, a dogdy investigation I can understand, but why TUSC?
 
Awesome Wells said:
I am not comfortable deciding whether someone is or isn't a wife beater on the basis of blogs.
...
Nothing about this makes me comfortable. if her story is true, and I'm not saying it isn't, then indeed he's a cunt of the first order. But does that mean the cause TUSC represents has to suffer? Why are all these people defending him if this is true? A few comrades perhaps, a dogdy investigation I can understand, but why TUSC?
Click to expand...

It is women who are the main victims of coalition cuts.
It is women who are the main victims of domestic violence.
Coalition cuts are disproportionately affecting victims of DV.

Its not about him being a violent cunt, there will always be violent cunts, its about how the left deals with misogynists in its midst.
 
If any of these people were really serious about their view that Hedley should be driven from the worker's movement they'd be spending their energy intervening in the important election he might win. Not some council election he hasn't a hope at. But they aren't doing that strangely enough.

Cynics might suggest that this is because they don't want to take on the RMT and are generally fixated on small left groups.
 
Nigel Irritable said:
If any of these people were really serious about their view that Hedley should be driven from the worker's movement they'd be spending their energy intervening in the important election he might win. Not some council election he hasn't a hope at. But they aren't doing that strangely enough.

Cynics might suggest that this is because they don't want to take on the RMT and are generally fixated on small left groups.
Click to expand...
No - I oppose him standing for the RMT as well.

Does he actually have a chance of winning the RMT gen sec?! Bloody hell!
 
q_w_e_r_t_y said:
No - I oppose him standing for the RMT as well.

Does he actually have a chance of winning the RMT gen sec?! Bloody hell!
Click to expand...

You may "oppose" him running, but you aren't here declaring that the RMT - which investigated him, remember, and which he remains a central leader of - are a bunch of "misogynists" are you? And the people chattering away on Facebook above aren't proposing an "intervention" into the RMT, are they?

As for his chances of winning, the situation is very confused. There are a number of candidates who were important leaders under Crow standing and there's no organised left to pick between them. My impression from afar is that he is one of the front runners, but that's not based on any inside information.
 
I think the RMT contain a great number of misogynists, and its deeply worrying that someone of Headley's ilk could become so prominent within it. However my experience of trade unions suggests a macho culture which pervades, where some men see it as an alternative way of achieving power rather than through traditional management structures. This is a general problem with trade unions, and do with their relationship to managerism. It needs challenged both from the gender perspective and also from the underlying culture of "reps" who have little to do with the folk on the ground.

However TUSC is not just a TU coalition, but explicitly includes socialists. You would hope (but I am the eternal optimist) that socialists would have an understanding of the situation of women under capitalism, and challenge the patriarchal structures which give rise to it.

I cant intervene in the RMT, as I'm not a member, but would raise the issue with anyone whom I knew who was.
 
The RMT are central to TUSC. The groups involved, even if they were minded to do so, could not realistically tell the RMT that its leaders are not acceptable candidates and then continue the project. The reality that Hedley is and will remain a central leader of the RMT is the great unspoken issue in all of this. Those who want to work with the RMT have to work with its actual leaders whatever people on twitter think. It is completely beyond the power of those who insist he must be guilty to actually remove him from the workers movement, and they don't want to aggravate the RMT by waging a campaign against it, so they concentrate on shouting at small left groups instead.

Are you saying that socialists should refuse to work with the RMT? That's the logic of your argument after all.
 
Last edited:
q_w_e_r_t_y said:
I think the RMT contain a great number of misogynists, and its deeply worrying that someone of Headley's ilk could become so prominent within it. However my experience of trade unions suggests a macho culture which pervades, where some men see it as an alternative way of achieving power rather than through traditional management structures. This is a general problem with trade unions, and do with their relationship to managerism. It needs challenged both from the gender perspective and also from the underlying culture of "reps" who have little to do with the folk on the ground.

However TUSC is not just a TU coalition, but explicitly includes socialists. You would hope (but I am the eternal optimist) that socialists would have an understanding of the situation of women under capitalism, and challenge the patriarchal structures which give rise to it.

I cant intervene in the RMT, as I'm not a member, but would raise the issue with anyone whom I knew who was.
Click to expand...
On what evidence do you say that the rmt contains a great number of misogynists?
 
barney_pig said:
On what evidence do you say that the rmt contains a great number of misogynists?
Click to expand...

Many men are members of the RMT. Many men are misogynists. Unless you can provide evidence that men who are misogynists are significantly less likely to join the RMT, then it stands to reason.

If you have a misogynist at the helm that only sends a "misogynists welcome" signal out.
 
Nigel Irritable said:
Are you saying that socialists should refuse to work with the RMT? That's the logic of your argument after all.
Click to expand...

No, I don't think that they should refuse to work with the RMT any more than they should work with other broad organisations, but I do think that they should prioritise highlighting gender issues when they do, as the RMT clearly has a problem in this area as Hedley is - as you say - one of their de facto leaders.
 
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