SWP expulsions and squabbles

[belboid]

He's talking about the other case this time where they found Smith guilty of rape so suspended him for two years before giving him a job as an organiser again.

they refused to rule on the rape in his case, he was found guilty of assaulting women, wasnt he?

 

[audiotech]

Time for a TRB revival - massively underated IMHO - wore out Power In the Darkness as did most of my contemporaries - not sure whether he was in the SWP or not he was a staple of RAR 79 -81

Robinson (I was never a fan, but met a few who were - enthusiastic mostly) wasn't in the SWP. Spoke to him briefly at a music unconference last year, where he was the keynote speaker and he remembers those times fondly.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

It's an unthinking ripost to anyone who says that a certain political/social environment may not be an attractive place to others particularly women because of the culture.

It's also very reminiscant in my view of the arguments used by right-wing women who are successful in politics or business against women and others who complain about board room or House of Commons culture and working proceedures.

It's boneheaded because it basically uses extremely simplistic reactionary arguments that celebrate sterotypically masculine behaviour in a couple of women to demonstrate why the given environment is not alienating to women.

"But look at Margaret Thatcher, why do we need to make it easier for women to get involved in parliamentary politics?"

The president of the US is a black man.

So a robust political athmosphere makes an organisation unattractive to women does it? Bollox. One of the best things about the SWP imho is the way it has throughout it's history produced (not by accident mind but consciously and with concerted effort and encouragment from experienced comrades) strong, articulate female (and often working class) cadre at all levels of the party who can stand toe to toe with anyone in a debate. Working class women who were a hell of a lot more demure and lacking in confidence when they first joined. To have them accused of 'masculine' behaviour or compared with successful business women (or Thatcher for god's sakes!!!) is too fucking ironic by half.

 

[Jean-Luc]

He's talking about the other case this time where they found Smith guilty of rape so suspended him for two years before giving him a job as an organiser again.

Are you sure. The term "not proved" is used here.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

they refused to rule on the rape in his case, he was found guilty of assaulting women, wasnt he?

Fair enough.

OK he's talking about the other case where an organiser was found to have assulted women and suspended for two years before being reappointed as a full time organiser

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

To have them accused of 'masculine' behaviour is too fucking ironic by half.

Who is accusing them of masculine behaviour?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Who is accusing them of masculine behaviour?

I know this one! It was a made up Militant member back in Bolshiebhoy's glory days. Do I get a prize?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I know this one! It was a made up Militant member back in Bolshiebhoy's glory days. Do I get a prize?

Why does he keep banging on about before he joined the Labour party instead of dealing with the issue at hand?

 

[audiotech]

The SWP recruited some formidable women it should be said, some I know are still holding membership cards for now.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

The SWP recruited some formidable women it should be said, some I know are still holding membership cards for now.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Why does he keep banging on about before he joined the Labour party instead of dealing with the issue at hand?

His defence of the SWP is intimately bound up with nostalgia for his youth. He can't separate the two.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Why does he keep banging on about before he joined the Labour party instead of dealing with the issue at hand?

Mmm. Are arguments ad hominem like that not machismo behaviour ;-)

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

His defence of the SWP is intimately bound up with nostalgia for his youth. He can't separate the two.

Fair enough I won't hear a bad word said about X-Men comics despite not having read one for about 15 years

 

[bolshiebhoy]

His defence of the SWP is intimately bound up with nostalgia for his youth. He can't separate the two.

Brining my old age into it is a bit machismo too innit! Not that I'm saying your wrong mind

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Mmm. Are arguments ad hominem like that not machismo behaviour ;-)

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Actually what this little diversion has made clear in my head is how the differences between the older swp women comrades and the younger student feminists in the party which several of the IB contributions talked about aren't just political. It's deeply cultural too. There is a brand of feminism that regards argument, actually disagreeing with someone as opposed to 'engaging' with them (that engage word crops up in the FB debates between loyalists and platformists constantly) as in itself Patriarchal behaviour. They just can't abide the bolshie women comrades who regard telling someone they're talking shit as a basic human right! If Sheila tells them that socialist feminism is a contradiction in terms they don't just find the analysis abhorrent, they object to her being so rude as to disagree with them rather than just saying 'well yes what you say is interesting'. Disagreement is oppressive.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Apart from the digs at Choonara and Bergfeld, Seymour's latest also contains a pretty sharp account of the leadership's debating tactics: Trying to turn the issue into a debate about the personal integrity of DC members, the "false flag" denial of claims that were never made and the reliance on loyalist women to put a less male face on the defense of the indefensible.

Also, he says that in the run up to the December conference that "People really believed that there was a plot to wreck the party, stirred up by sleeper agents of the ISG or Counterfire." Which is astonishing if true.

 

[electric.avenue]

In Smith's case, absolutely!

Smith's meteoric rise only occurred after I had left (2004, I think), so I only got to know about him since the scandal broke.

Sounds like he fulfils a certain stereotype.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

There are people in the swp who are sympathetic to the arguments of the ISG and Counterfire. Quite a few less now mind. But it's not astonishing to say that or believe it.

 

[belboid]

Actually what this little diversion has made clear in my head is how the differences between the older swp women comrades and the younger student feminists in the party which several of the IB contributions talked about aren't just political. It's deeply cultural too. There is a brand of feminism that regards argument, actually disagreeing with someone as opposed to 'engaging' with them (that engage word crops up in the FB debates between loyalists and platformists constantly) as in itself Patriarchal behaviour. They just can't abide the bolshie women comrades who regard telling someone they're talking shit as a basic human right! If Sheila tells them that socialist feminism is a contradiction in terms they don't just find the analysis abhorrent, they object to her being so rude as to disagree with them rather than just saying 'well yes what you say is interesting'. Disagreement is oppressive.

where the fuck are you getting that from? It's a bizarre reading.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

"...even some of those who were on our side about the rape allegations were absolutely horrified by some of the discussions favouring radical changes to the party's structures." RS always knew he wasn't going to take the majority of the faction with him.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

"...even some of those who were on our side about the rape allegations were absolutely horrified by some of the discussions favouring radical changes to the party's structures." RS always knew he wasn't going to take the majority of the faction with him.

He certainly always knew that the democratic opening he wanted wasn't going to get majority support. How is that news?

 

[bolshiebhoy]

where the fuck are you getting that from? It's a bizarre reading.

No it's not

I don't know how many FB discussions you've seen between them all but the dominant tone of the platformists when talking about the feminist debates is "stop disagreeing and engage". That bloody word is omnifuckingpresent. And of course there is the RS quote I have used about 10 times on this thread about the "overly dogmmatic 80's arguments". It's not just the content of the older women's arguments he was objecting to. It's their style. Namely their tendency to say something clearly and not waffle around the edges like what he does and so many of the student feminists do.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

He certainly always knew that the democratic opening he wanted wasn't going to get majority support. How is that news?

A week ago we were being told on here that the cc had lost the argument with a majority of the members.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

A week ago we were being told on here that the cc had lost the argument with a majority of the members.

This is yet another non-sequitur.

Seymour clearly thought that a majority could be won on the issue of the DC dispute. He also clearly thought it unlikely that at the same time there would be a majority for a democratic restructuring of the SWP. He argued for both nonetheless because he believed in both. How is this news? Or even slightly surprising?

 

[J Ed]

Are you sure. The term "not proved" is used here.

They are referring to Martin Smith there.

 

[sihhi]

They are referring to Martin Smith there.

Do you know anything about this J Ed:

Then there was the tone of the leadership's contributions. "The elephant in the room," a CC member had reportedly explained, "is what has happened to the student movement since Millbank. The students are turning inward because the movement has collapsed. The current debates are a symptom of pessimism arising from that collapse." This was a stunningly delusional and self-serving analysis, but it would be repeated in other contexts by other CC members. The emerging line was that the students had lost their way because the party had failed to take an 'ideological turn' after Millbank, and effectively argue the party's politics on women's liberation, among other things, in SWSS groups. This foreshadowed a series of doomed, miserable, finger-wagging SWSS events staged after conference.

Didn't the party leaderships always dominate the SWSS group leaderships?

 

[Fedayn]

I know this one! It was a made up Militant member back in Bolshiebhoy's glory days. Do I get a prize?

Aaaahhh, a harking back to Julie Waterson's 'white macho heterosexuals' and 'dads army' jibe at the YRE stewards and the 'Away team'.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

http://internationalsocialismuk.blo...etwork-national-meeting-on-13th.html?spref=tw

And the ISN is off and running.

 

[frogwoman]

for fuck's sake. it's ironic when my impression of the SWP was of supporting the worst kind of apolitical identity politics and "anti-imperialism" and so on, now this rape case and its mishandling is justified with a load of bollocks about feminists and autonomists. the party doesn't seem to have an real politics and just seems to exist for the purposes of perpetuating itself.