SWP expulsions and squabbles

[laptop]

Wow, it isn't just the .org.uk domain http://www.123-reg.co.uk/order/?dom...stnetwork.com&ajax_enabled=true&search=search

internationalsocialistnetwork.eu is free

 

[sihhi]

I think I know what you mean - that it shouldn't be the criminal law starting point of innocent until proven guilty and I agree. But I don't think guilt or innocence should be assumed - everything should be taken on the balance of the evidence. I think that in the way complainants are treated and supported it should be assumed from the start that they are telling the truth, but in terms of the investigation I think it's a dodgy road to go down.

It hasn't mentioned guilt or innocence.

It's sort of pointing out the truth that because of this reality "We recognise the enormous challenges faced by women victims of male violence, and the pressures which women face, including from abusive men, not to complain about violence and abuse" - false reporting of domestic violence is much rarer than false reporting of other crimes.

It's suggesting, I think, along the lines that when an allegation of violence is made, solo contact between the male and the woman be cut out, that people are informed of the allegation, and opportunities for that male to interfere with accuser witnesses or rope in acquaintances to bend the truth also be minimised.

 

[SpineyNorman]

It hasn't mentioned guilt or innocence.

It's sort of pointing out the truth that because of this reality "We recognise the enormous challenges faced by women victims of male violence, and the pressures which women face, including from abusive men, not to complain about violence and abuse" - false reporting of domestic violence is much rarer than false reporting of other crimes.

It's suggesting, I think, along the lines that when an allegation of violence is made, solo contact between the male and the woman be cut out, that people are informed of the allegation, and opportunities for that male to interfere with accuser witnesses or rope in acquaintances to bend the truth also be minimised.

I think it might be worth clarifying in that case because if that's what it means I'd like to sign it but it seems a bit ambiguous - surely if we start from a position of believing women that implies that we also start from a position of assuming any accusations are true. Which they usually are but not always.

 

[sihhi]

2. Socialist Worker not a trace of the Special Conference.

Scratch that - CC man Charlie Kimber has this which was posted later than the other articles for some reason so I missed it:

Delegates meet and discuss the way forward for the SWP by Charlie Kimber, national secretary, Socialist Workers Party

The SWP has faced strong criticism from people outside and inside the party over its handling of serious allegations against a leading party member. This was the catalyst for the formation of an organised group, or faction, critical of the party’s leadership. But it is also clear that wider political debates are involved over many issues. These include what sort of party revolutionary socialists need, women’s oppression, democracy and the shape of the working class. These questions confront the revolutionary left across the world.

Sort of says a lot but nothing at all.

Clarify
The SWP is part of a vibrant Marxist tradition that constantly tests its theory against reality. We are committed to having discussions that clarify ideas so that we can be as effective as possible in the fight against capitalism. On Sunday 77 percent of delegates backed a motion from the party’s leading body, the central committee. It expressed confidence in the SWP’s democratic method of full discussion before making major decisions and then every member implementing them. The conference made clear that this applied to all party members. Slurs against fellow socialists and the party on blogs and Facebook are not how we should conduct debate. The motion passed expressed delegates’ belief in the integrity of the party members who were involved in handling the disciplinary case and of their investigation.

'Slurs against the party' that's how they saw the IDOOP blog.

The conference set up an elected body to look at particular problems of confidentiality, the disciplinary process more generally, and to propose changes where necessary.

> Confidentiality for who, for what, for where?

The party has been through an intense period of internal debate. It is now crucial it turns outwards. Some 250,000 civil service workers in the PCS union are set to strike on Wednesday of next week. This is budget day, when chancellor George Osborne will announce further attacks on working people. The SWP must be at the centre of building solidarity and demonstrations on the day.
More generally the party will play a full part alongside others in the Unite the Resistance
initiative.

We need to build on the successes of Unite Against Fascism and take on the arguments over who is really to blame for the lack of jobs, housing and services. The working class needs socialists to unite against attacks

Fails to explain that the senior party member is also a senior member of Unite Against Fascism.
What about if the sexual violence attacks come from within the camp of socialist leaders?

I sort of get the the feeling that the SWP thinks if it is not there and looking outward the PCS will be unable to conduct its one-day strike if left to its own devices.

 

[sihhi]

I think it might be worth clarifying in that case because if that's what it means I'd like to sign it but it seems a bit ambiguous - surely if we start from a position of believing women that implies that we also start from a position of assuming any accusations are true. Which they usually are but not always.

You 'assume' accusations are true only in so far as you take appropriate initial action against it.

If someone reports a burglary to an insurance company and police - they (theoretically) send victim support, take all details carefully, immediately provide replacement items, begin processing the claim. They don't come with the analysis that there are two sides to each and every story and begin hunting for evidence that the burglar was possibly told that they could borrow one of the items for as long as they liked, or that victim is possibly perpetuating an insurance fraud by lying.
So violence against women could be investigated with the accuser as victim and accused as a possible danger - different to most law cases where the power balance is normally the other way - strong accuse the weak.

 

[SpineyNorman]

You 'assume' accusations are true only in so far as you take appropriate initial action against it.

If someone reports a burglary to an insurance company and police - they (theoretically) send victim support, take all details carefully, immediately provide replacement items, begin processing the claim. They don't come with the analysis that there are two sides to each and every story and begin hunting for evidence that the burglar was possibly told that they could borrow one of the items for as long as they liked, or that victim is possibly perpetuating an insurance fraud by lying.
So violence against women could be investigated with the accuser as victim and accused as a possible danger - different to most law cases where the power balance is normally the other way - strong accuse the weak.

I understand all that, I just think the current wording is ambiguous and could benefit from rewording.

 

[sptme]

http://internationalsocialismnetwork.wordpress.com/

Somebody spent hundreds of pounds buying up domain names, whereas I made this one for free.


If the International Socialism Network want to use this wordpress url, post a comment and permissions will be set up.
Until then, this can be a friendly reminder that you can spend all the time and money in the world on being petty and childish, but on the internet somebody will undercut your entire project for free. And that is priceless.

LOL

 

[emanymton]

Thinking back, Nick Cohen was by far and away the worst figure to have had in a byline for something like this because of his attacks over the SWP over the war in Iraq in What's Left - which were full of slander and half-truths. The fact that Nick Cohen has written it, has made some - I'm thinking of loyalists in the comments section of Socialist Unity - reject those claims as pure exaggeration.

To be honest me as well, this whole story is tainted by its association with him. I have only come to accept there is any truth to it since the victims post on Seymour's Facebook page, and as I have not been able to read her post myself I am still unsure about some of the details in Cohen's story.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Not having a go but

1. A manoeuvre for what? To do what?

2. It's not just Seymour who can point to dozens of instances of planned irregularities at best, total rigging otherwise, in the run up to both Conferences but specifically the March Conference. Won't this effect perceptions of the CC

Yes but only the Platform had a wider agenda of ditching whole areas of the party's politics. By leaving the Sino-Seymourists have made it possible at some point for the loyalists and factionalists to talk about the dc without every conversation becoming a different one about leninism/feminism and the rest. But that can't start immdiately one would have thought, this early into the formation of the ISN people will still be looking at each other wondering "you staying or going?" And with RS serialising his 'revelations' about the horrid things the loyalists said and did over the last 4 months no chance right now. Once the dust of the split has settled maybe things will be different. Or maybe I'm fooling myself but there's no alternative for those who want the swp to survive.

 

[The39thStep]

Shouldn't crack up really but...


surely they must concentrate on jazz, the most unorthodox of musical forms

More like

 

[chilango]

How many hundreds are left in the SWP now then?

They must be freefalling down the lefty league table now.

 

[Scribbling S]

I can understand the whole "Nick Cohen is reporting this [the second case] so it probably isn't true" attitude, but I find it very disappointing : the point is, he was quite clearly from the beginning quoting from a letter he got, so suggesting he was lying really meant suggesting the woman was lying, which isn't ground you want to be on without being very sure: If you read through his two articles carefully, it wasn't hard to see where he relied on quotation, and where not (actually the first piece he wrote in the Spectator was clearer). Equally, Charlie Kimber's "denial" was such a non denial to anyone who cared to look properly. Both Nick & Shiv Malik have misreported in the past, but they have done so by relying on unreliable witnesses, not by 'making things up' , so the credibility of the witness is the issue. There have been high profile accusations of sexual assault which were products of complete confusion - the completely untrue accusation against Neil & Christine Hamilton for example - but nobody suggested that was the case here. The fact that the woman in question wanted to go to the most implacable opponent of the SWP might be regrettable, but it is completely understandable. As I've said, from where I've looked into this independently, it seems substantially worse than Nick reported , in the way the SWP dealt with the aftermath. I'm going to see if I can write this up somewhere, but it makes me sad that some SWP members used Kimber's "non denial" to start shouting "Lies" !

 

[Lilith Morris]

 

[articul8]

http://internationalsocialismnetwork.wordpress.com/

LOL

That is about the most petty thing I've ever seen - talk about scraping the barrell. People know it was a pro-CC hack that did this, right?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

That is about the most petty thing I've ever seen - talk about scraping the barrell. People know it was a pro-CC hack that did this, right?

Some bloke called Simon Hickman

 

[Joneser]

The SWP was never as cult-like as the Workers Revolutionary Party, but, unfortunately, recent SWP resignation statements show that it is going in that direction.

Andy Lawson has said: ‘This is not the behaviour of a revolutionary party, it is the behaviour of a cult. I have no intention of remaining in a cult.’

Meanwhile, Richard Seymour has compared some SWPers to ‘Scientologists’ and has even compared the recent SWP conference decision to ‘Jonestown’ (in that it was clearly suicidal for the party).

So, how can revolutionaries organise without creating cults?

Ex-WRP and Solidarity founder, Maurice Brinton raised this question many years ago in his classic article: ‘Suicide for Socialism’. There he made credible comparisons between Jim Jones’ socialist suicide cult and Gerry Healy’s WRP. Later, of course, it was revealed that Healy had been even more abusive than Brinton suspected.

Other interesting articles on left cults can be found here:
Understanding left cults (SWP, SP, Spiked, WRP) - a reading list

Feminism has to be at the centre of any genuinely revolutionary project, e.g. see: ‘Feminism is a dirty word’. What would Marx and Engels think today? - Camilla Power

… but so does anti-authoritarianism. As Marlene Dixon’s Democratic Workers Party showed, a ‘Marxist’ cult dominated by an authoritarian woman is no improvement over one dominated by men. See this interview with an ex-DWP member: 'The power of cults - How Janja Lalich went from cult member to author'.

 

[two sheds]

I've drawn the parallels too, but I have to say that what has happened within the SWP (from the material I've seen) is a pale shadow of what's gone on in scientology. And until we get mass SWPers jumping off cliffs it's nowhere near Jonestown either. Similar mechanisms but nowhere near the same effects yet.

 

[Jean-Luc]

. See this interview with an ex-DWP member: 'The power of cults - How Janja Lalich went from cult member to author'.

And this.

 

[ViolentPanda]

you really are an idiot if this is what you believe. they can't turn the image round because they've covered up various thoroughly disgusting shit and voted to accept it. twice.
they've also shown that the majority of the party can only get a small minority at conference. what a disgusting stitch up.

and you're still sticking up for these corrupt, manipulating and lying individuals? you clown.

See, the rest of us are missing the point, disco.
The point being that War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Bolshie, unlike many others, is willing to give himself over to the revolution wholly and uncritically.

He really is either that gullible, or that scheming.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Sounds good - but also rebrand themselves as something less toxic and with mass appeal: drop the 'Workers' out of SWP and stress their roots as being the party of Great Britain.

Adopt a socialist yet nationalist approach?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yeah I know Harry's Place is right, the party was always a conspiracy to provide nubile teens to middle aged men. And Sheila and Judith and Talat are the fluffers.

Except no-one here has even insinuated such a thing.

Jesus wept, how many actual swpers have you ever met to think so low of fellow anti-capitalists?!

The SWP are about as "anti-capitalist" in the broad generic sense as it is necessary for them to be to attract new studes to the membership. No more, no less. The SWP's anti-capitalism is, however, slightly less broad, isn't it, bb?

 

[andysays]

Lol. But no, there is a balance between the measures the party adopts to rescue the situation and the mounting campaign of shit directed at them. That balance had to and still has to play itself out, the cc still hasn't lost all room for manoeuvre yet. but it's narrowing.

Plus the exit of SEYMOUR! et al should give the cc more room for manoeuvre. These people would have toppled the cc if they could have and the replacements would have buried the SWP as a Leninist organisation. So quite rightly the cc made beating them the priority. But now they've toddled off to do their own thing the remaining sets of people need to have a quieter, less acrimonious discussion about how the fuck they turn the image of the party round. The dc reform body is crucial to that, though it's not ideal that apparently all 11 (I think) places on it have gone to the loyalist faction. Not that I think the faction (minus the platform) are right on all this, I don't. But if the loyalists are serious about "listening" then there need to be some olive branches soon.

 

[Pickman's model]

you haven't worked out how to post a video yet i see. to the right of the insert image icon is the insert video one, and it's there you can put in a youtube video of eg britney spears performing her famous song.

 

[andysays]

you haven't worked out how to post a video yet i see. to the right of the insert image icon is the insert video one, and it's there you can put in a youtube video of eg britney spears performing her famous song.

Thanks for the advice, but it's actually unnecessary:

http://urban75.net/forums/threads/life-after-the-swp.200781/page-22#post-12035421 for one I did earlier

 

[andysays]

you haven't worked out how to post a video yet i see. to the right of the insert image icon is the insert video one, and it's there you can put in a youtube video of eg britney spears performing her famous song.

But if you've got some advice on how to link to a previous post on another thread, I obviously still need help with that...

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The SWP was never as cult-like as the Workers Revolutionary Party, but, unfortunately, recent SWP resignation statements show that it is going in that direction...

And yet again this thread attracts a drive by first post from an arsehole pushing that drivel on libcom.

 

[Oisin123]

Ohh, you mean like this? Thanks Pickman. This is for bb ... and sptme.

 

[butchersapron]

Thats right, they've all got the lenin contagion. Keep it up boss, this is enjoyable to watch.

This is what you need isn't it? You need an anti-party narrative, and in your shriveld political imagination this can only mean anti-leninism.

The more rocks that are picked up the more the use of the phrase 'creeping feminism' can be seen as tactical rather than political, dismissive and part of the cover-up rather then rooted in real differences. When your political justification is a cover up then it's over.

 

[Jean-Luc]

that drivel on libcom.

Is this the libcom thread you are referring to:
http://libcom.org/history/understanding-left-cults-swp-sp-spiked-wrp-reading-list

 

[treelover]

View attachment 30123

have they occupied yet?