SWP expulsions and squabbles
- Thread starter Nigel Irritable
- Start date
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
aw 
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
Quite remarkable to see prianikoff, ie Rob Sewell, quote a woman threatening moon unit on a thread like that....
comrade spurski
Well-Known Member
This is an example of why the left is regarded as a joke by a lot of my "normal" (ie non affiliated) mates, both in work, in my union and my personal mates.
The UAF is an anti Nazi organisation and it would be good if it was brought down?
Seriously?
It's enough to make me weep and give up.
Fair enough mate...hate the SWP...God knows they seem to now hate a lot of the left but I think you need a little perspective. I'm mixed raced asian...I live with a white woman and we have 2 kids together (one light kinned with blue eyes and the other dark skinned with brown eyes)...I couldn't give a shit about who runs an anti Nazi group or to be honest how many there are. If some wanna sing songs, some wanna pray, if some wanna march, petition, have meetings or physically oppose the Nazis when they march then good for them ...at least they are ALL openly opposing them.
My kids carried a banner on a UAF march about 4 years ago...it said "one of us is brown and one of us is pink but we both think the BNP stink." They've still got it and still remember going on the demo. Surely that is a good thing for the future. Or is it only good if you can go beat the shit out of them so everyone else bar the brave and tough should stay away?
Sorry for being liberal but surely it's the scum in the BNP and EDL etc. that need to be taken down?
Scribbling S
Active Member
Well said Comrade Spurski, but I don't think Spanky's "bring down the UAF " represents "the left", joke or otherwise
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
No it's not. It's an example of you using an argument against a particular form of pro-status quo anti-fascism to try and argue that anything outside of it doesn't take account of or try to appeal to broad anti-facsist or anti-racist themes. It's not true historically and it's certainly not true now
The reason the left and the new posters here are alienated from the wider working class are not to do with someone saying fuck the UAF - and if you think that they are then you're not even close to understanding what a hole you are in.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Keep the UAF going - it's great does then? That's the left - what it should be?
comrade spurski
Well-Known Member
I have no idea what you are referring to and I ain't in a hole mate...I'm in no organisation and ain't alienated from anyone in my union or in work. I think that some of the lefts "it's my way or fuck you" is a very unfunny joke that damages some great causes.
Fuck the UAF???? Like I said a little perspective is needed. You may not like some of those who formed it and you may think there are other tactics that are better to beat the fascists but to want to see an anti Nazi organisation go down the toilet is plainly nonsense.
The UAF are a dreadful, uttery ineffective, undemocratic and pitiful organisation that have done precious little to build a coherent anti-fascist movement in this country. This is view based on bitter personal experience, not sectarianism. What successes there have been in beating back in the EDL and the BNP are in spite of, not because of, the UAF.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
No it's not. It only been kept alive by inflating the edl for the last three years. A wrecking yard for people the cc don't want and useless in terms of anything else. Fuck the uaf.
You may not be alienated from anything or anyone - the wider left is, your whole point rested on this being the case. Yet you put this situation down to someone on this board saying the UAF is shit? It's not. It's due to a membership and leadership pursuing their own immediate interests to the detriment of the sort of immediate class interests that, if fought for consistently, would make those wider aims a practical possibility.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
That's exactly what you're doing in regards the UAF. Any criticism of them is met with exasperated criticism from you.
comrade spurski
Well-Known Member
Like I said mate ... you need a little perspective. My kids experience of the UAF has been different to yours. Going on the demo and feeling that they had their say was a very positive experience for them... If they heard your view (fuck the UAF) they'd stay well away from you ... my point being that you'd have alienated your anti nazi argument, experiences and ideas from them cos they'd think you were a prick.
I think that every person who is fighting for a better world...or who is fighting against war, injustice, discrimination etc. has a responsibility to debate in a way that brings as many people together as possible without betraying key ideals. I'd never compromise with some one who was scabbing on a strike but I would work against racism and fascism with a labour party member or a UAF member. It's the inability to do this that also damages the left in my opinion
comrade spurski
Well-Known Member
I have no issue with criticising the UAF...I ain't a member of it and ain't precious about it....I am "exasperated" at reading people write that because they hate Martin Smith and or the SWP that it would be great if it (the UAF) was taken down by the rape crisis and reading comments like fuck the UAF.
EVERY organisation should be open to criticism as should any person. My only point is that these comments are part of what makes people stay well away from the "left".
I
Listen i've quite happily worked alongside UAF and SWP members on many different occasions, but that's the not the same thing as supporting UAF as an organisation, is it? As a organisation it's utterly ineffective as an anti-fascist group, that weakness has been exposed dozens of times where the UAF has had derisory turnouts and relied entirely on the police to protect them from severe beatings. And you have to remember that the UAF's main purpose is not to defeat fascism or the EDL, but to recruit on the behalf of the Socialist Workers Party. That's it's primary function, anti-fascism comes 2nd to that.
And you say I'd never compromise with someone scabbing on a strike, well I'd never compromise with an organisation that hands over information on militant anti-fascists to the police (which UAF have done) or an organisation that actively colludes with the police and the EDL to choreograph their demos (as they did in Bolton, and many subsequent demo's thereafter)
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
So, by definiton the UAF can't be criticised because your kids had a good time at one of their events. Great. And anyone who thinks different is a prick. You really do sound like the open to anyone sort that your next paragraph tried to paint you as
What is the political purpose of that last paragraph? Is it to suggest that my characterisation of why the left is, in your words, "regarded as a joke" is wrong? That not wanting to work with,and pointing out the problems of, working with a group that has David Cameron and similar people as founding signatories is sectarian? That this is the only way to organise anti-racist or anti-fascist activity (you already hinted at your answer with your crude "Or is it only good if you can go beat the shit out of them so everyone else bar the brave and tough should stay away?" btw). Their way or the highway.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
No they are a not, if you think that they are then try and establish how and why.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
Jeezus folks spurski was quite right. 'fuck the uaf' is a shit position for anyone on the left. Criticize the uaf, replace them, do what you want but don't let your hatred of the swp leadership get you to the point where you can say it would be a good thing for any left organisation to just collapse and make our side weaker. I saw a Morning Star guy selling his paper in downtown Swindon today (quite shocked me!). If I'd walked past and said 'fuck you' he would have assumed I was a rightwinger. I have issues with his politics but I think it's good he was there not a bad thing. The anarchists wishing the uaf would just 'fuck off' need to think about where that would leave our side.
I'm not an anarchist but imo it'd leave us much better off, it'd give people opportunity to build an anti-fascist movement that firstly) actually effective and secondly ) not linked to a parasitic Leninist cult run by rape apologists.
There's nothing worse than seeing the SWP loyalists using the UAF as a shield to justify their shit party and their shit way of operating, as if the decline in the EDL and BNP had anything to do with them. It's utterly dishonest.
comrade spurski
Well-Known Member
This is a different thing to someone wanting the UAF to go down due to the rape crisis in the SWP. Criticism is entirely valid. If you think that the SWP use it to recruit so their tactics in it are hindering the fight against fascism then people like my daughters will listen and could develop their ideas and understanding of how to fight the Nazi's ... they may or may not agree with you but they'd definitely hear you out. That is a very different explanation and point of view to "Fuck the UAF" or "It would be good if it goes down" ... I have no knowledge re the things you said re handing names over etc. so would not tell you (or anyone else) that a little perspective is needed I'd have asked what happened and how did this info get out cos I'd want to learn about it. In my opinion that's very different from the comments I have brought up
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Sorry but the bit about Bolton is nonsense, if they were colluding with the police why did the police dive into the demo to arrest people like Smith and Bennett? Bolton was possible the last time UAF/SWP tried to organise any attempt at all to actually confront the EDL directly. There were major problems but collusion with the police was not one of them.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
In the same situation as now but without people running around going OMG the EDL are coming! The edl are coming!
Did you two decide that the long running criticisms of the UAF and how they operate are due not to informed analysis but to dislike of Martin Smith btw? Thanks for doing that.
How handy, bolshie saw someone who illustrated his point. (He even winked as if to say look i know i make up loads of examples but this one is true, it really really is)
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Tell you what, spurksi - don't just jump in uniformed. Wait and see what people mean and why when they say things like "Fuck the UAF" or "It would be good if it goes down". This board and the discussion ongoing did not start the second that you joined.
It's absolutely true. I don't care if you don't believe me coz I know it's true. They've done it since too. They met up in a hotel with Greater Manchester Police and a representatve of the EDL about a week or so before the Bolton EDL demo, where an arragement was made to divide the area in front of the town hall into two pens, two pre-emptive kettles in other words.
The reason why Smith and Bennet got arrested is because, being the tactical geniuses they were, they didn't inform any of the regular SWP or UAF people who were turning up that this was going to be the arrangement. This is obviously great for the UAF coz it gives them a captive audience of UAF people to hard-sell papers too punters all day, which I suspect is what attracted them to the idea. So several hundred anti-fascists arrived into a police kettle, were told once you're in you're not getting out until the EDL have left, and within about an hour of it starting everyone went "Hang on, I'm not spending all day being fucking kettled in by the police whilst the EDL roam the town with impunity" and so a group of a few hundred or so people tried to charge out of the exits. This was right at the start. Once this happened, GMP considered this a breach of their prior arrangement with Smith and Bennett, and so arrested them, and then spent the rest of the day kicking the shit out of the assembled anti-fascists.
comrade spurski
Well-Known Member
There is nothing worse than have racist scum attacking you and your very young daughter as you shop in your local co-op (as happened to me and my kids nearly 10 years ago) and having to argue with the shop to call the police and then argue with the police to escort you home when they tried to send us across a common in the dark not knowing where the scum were.
The UAF experience was an invaluable part of rebuilding my kids confidence and their belief that they and we belong here.
I ain't saying the UAF is the only way or is the best way...(in my first post I mentioned all sorts of views I've come across) but the UAF is clearly not just full of SWP loyalists. As for the link to a parasitic cult of rape apologists I take it you would not fail to support a strike simply cos the SWP and its parasitic cult of rape apologists also supported it.
Dislike or hate the SWP mate ... put across your disagreements with the UAF too...my ONLY point was that shouting fuck the UAF and claiming it would be good if the SWP crisis dragged them down is alienating to most "normal non aligned" people
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
God you may be the most sophisticated anarchist I've listened to but you have very little that isn't ad hominem to say.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Odd -
That's exactly what happened in Bristol. Two separate meetings that they were negotiating with the police about one, they agreed to one then the night before pulled the rug and said the other - a proper pen (along with we don't do what the police tell us rhetoric) was off when they knew that it wasn't and marched everyone into it. Leaving Smith (again, arrested - but how could this happen!!!) to shout at people in town beforehand.
That's exactly what happened in Bristol. Two separate meetings that they were negotiating with the police about one, they agreed to one then the night before pulled the rug and said the other - a proper pen (along with we don't do what the police tell us rhetoric) was off when they knew that it wasn't and marched everyone into it. Leaving Smith (again, arrested - but how could this happen!!!) to shout at people in town beforehand.
comrade spurski
Well-Known Member
I don't assume any thing - I thought this was a discussion board which welcomed people (so I obviously realise that it existed long long before I piped up)
I am not uninformed ...I simply think it is off putting to write FUCK the UAF.
Respond to my points and disagree but don't patronize... you are one step away from calling me sonny!
People have a right to disgree in a fraternal friendly manner...that's all I have done...I've defended no body and no organisation. If I make a statement then you have the right to challenge it. I have the right to do the same no matter how long I've been on this board
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
If you invent many handy examples over a very long period, then pointing it is not ad hominem - it's actually necessary to point it out. A morning star seller, in swindon. Illustrating your case. My arse.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
Ha ha you are a joke, I invent nothing you idiot. Come and meet me in central Swindon next Saturday at lunchtime the guy will be there again.
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