butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Who? And why are they appearing here? Are you going to tell them not to?
SWP expulsions and squabbles
- Thread starter Nigel Irritable
- Start date
audiotech
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I'm not going to name them here obviously. I suspect they're there to try and keep the party on the road so to speak, having been members for some decades. I met one of this years speakers just before the 'Delta' debacle broke and I haven't spoken to her since. The others I have had no contact with in many years and don't have any contact information to get in touch with them anyway, even if I wanted to, which I don't.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
OK
discokermit
Well-Known Member
a lot of the opposition left inside the swp will still be going to marxism.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
If they're not there to disrupt then what are they there for?
discokermit
Well-Known Member
meet up, confer, make plans for the next conference.
i expect there will be quite a few arguments from the floor.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Well, i hope so, because they need to make it known. You're better placed than me to judge this.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
I'm pretty sure I remember someone who worked with victims of domestic violence defending specific ethic shelters on here precisely for this reason.
IIRC they claimed that having BME shelters did help BME victims of DV. Now like you I have some problems with shelters organised for ethic groups and I think they will only entrench identity politics even more, but if they do encourage DV victims for ethnic groups to seek help (more so than multi-racial shelters) then I think that they have to be supported.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
i think separate facilities etc do sometimes have a use because it can help to speak to people who understand and have been through the exact same thing, and i think i said that in my previous post but the aim should be to help people through the trauma surely? and deliberately encouraging separatism might actually be worse for some victims?
Oisin123
So Much for Subtlety
It's a hard call for SWP oppositionists whether to go to take a speaking platform at Marxism or not. Those going hope to use the event to get some arguments going. Mike Gonzalez, for example, has made his position pretty clear. I'm told that Paul Le Blanc is going as a critical voice. Those against taking invitations are concerned that whether you get a chance to raise the various arguments that arise from the rape allegation or not (and how will you get a few blows in if you are speaking on an unrelated topic?), you might end up being associated with the current CC. I think it significant that (unless I've missed it), Eamonn McCann is not on the program. Personally, I think it a good idea to attend, pick key meetings like Molyneux and the 'real' IS tradition and steam in hard there. But NOT to be an invited speaker this year.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Will there be the usual Irish delegation going over? If so, it will be interesting to see if any of the Irish lot weigh in on issues of controversy.
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
Is there a prayer room?
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
next door to the wing room at the airport
audiotech
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A few party hacks I know now all seem to be harking back to times gone by and mentioning the likes of Lewisham, strikes of old, what they did on the streets in 19whatever. Clearly designed to rally the younger, newer members (those who've stayed signed up for now) and themselves I expect, to not think about recent events and how its all gone pear shaped. A bunker mentality for sure.
The Paris guy who was expelled is not happy with the way he's been treated lately. Ostracised, as is usual for expellees. He friended me on facebook, so I've invited him to sign up here. There is life after the party.
The Paris guy who was expelled is not happy with the way he's been treated lately. Ostracised, as is usual for expellees. He friended me on facebook, so I've invited him to sign up here. There is life after the party.
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
ostracised where? he was ostracised in the SWP for years
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
eh? he is in the ISN though... and i'm not sure where else
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
And you don't think the ISN and SWP might end up working together in the same campaigns?
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Last Friday I spoke to a long time SWP member, who I haven't seen for years and years; in the past he has always been happy to defend the party against all criticism.
Unsurprisingly, I had him down as a super loyalist and so was encouraged when he told me that he had resigned - as he put it from the party not from being active - and that from his perspective those who are still in are 'only the 50 something men'.
He had subsequently been approached by the Socialist Party as a potential recruit; but he hadn't been convinced by what he heard of their disputes procedures when he enquired about them.
He seemed quite happy not to be in a party...which surprised me given his decades long commitment to the SWP and its particular brand of Leninism.
What do I take from all this?
If the SWP has lost people like this, and lost them so completely, then it is curtains for them; long drawn out curtains certainly, but it is over in any meaningful sense.
If a long time Leninist can get to grips with life outside 'the party' (whichever party that is) then there are a whole layer of people out there, with skill and experience to draw on, who can usefully contribute to a pro-working class politics; that doesn't mean that they necessarily will but there is a potential there.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Unsurprisingly, I had him down as a super loyalist and so was encouraged when he told me that he had resigned - as he put it from the party not from being active - and that from his perspective those who are still in are 'only the 50 something men'.
He had subsequently been approached by the Socialist Party as a potential recruit; but he hadn't been convinced by what he heard of their disputes procedures when he enquired about them.
He seemed quite happy not to be in a party...which surprised me given his decades long commitment to the SWP and its particular brand of Leninism.
What do I take from all this?
If the SWP has lost people like this, and lost them so completely, then it is curtains for them; long drawn out curtains certainly, but it is over in any meaningful sense.
If a long time Leninist can get to grips with life outside 'the party' (whichever party that is) then there are a whole layer of people out there, with skill and experience to draw on, who can usefully contribute to a pro-working class politics; that doesn't mean that they necessarily will but there is a potential there.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
He is talking about South Africa and his part in fighting apartheid there. He was not a NewLabour/blue labour robot in those days. He was a member of the Liberal Party then and known as a 'radical'. The SWP in their desperation to get speakers have gone into nostalgia for the 70s mode. Hain as a neoliberal economics supporter will be so out of place at Marxism. I would think that most of the young punters there will not even know about his past and be horrified that such an Establishment figure should be speaking.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Hain has just made a film about Marikana - that's what he is speaking about, not his anti-apartheid activities. And the SWP's Peter Alexander has just helped edit a book published by Bookmarks on the same subject.
all three of them?
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
No, and I think that would be expecting a bit much as part of a chance meeting on a railway station. He was quite obviously disappointed and angry, and I wasn't there to gloat or points score.
Also, if you prefer, substitute the word bunch for layer.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Ok. But I was thinking people might be appalled that an ex MP who voted for the Iraq war and voted against a public enquiry into the war is coming. Has no one mentioned this? The guy has got blood on his hands.
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