SWP expulsions and squabbles

[kenny g]

Are there any after parties tonight?

I am not surprised members are pleased the last few days have been full of young people based on Delta's apparent tastes. More flesh for the mill and all that.

 

[discokermit]

apart from that foghorn bolshie bellowing "everything is great!" now and again, it's all been a bit quiet.

 

[DrRingDing]

So, what about these new rape allegations against Cmrde. D?

 

[emanymton]

What new rape allegations?

 

[DrRingDing]

What new rape allegations?

Apparently in the last week new allegations have surfaced. My friend went to Marxism due to this to see if the feminists would kick off.

 

[andysays]

So, what about these new rape allegations against Cmrde. D?

There are still outstanding allegations, from a member of party staff then reporting to D. If I remember correctly, these were known at the party conference earlier this year, but dealing with them has been inexplicably put off until next year's conference. All that's been mentioned (more than once) in the course of this thread.

Are you saying that there are now new allegations in addition to those?

 

[DrRingDing]

There are still outstanding allegations, from a member of party staff then reporting to D. If I remember correctly, these were known at the party conference earlier this year, but dealing with them has been inexplicably put off until next year's conference. All that's been mentioned (more than once) in the course of this thread.

Are you saying that there are now new allegations in addition to those?

I had a passing conversation with an ex swappie that mentioned it. I was looking here to see what you lot knew.

 

[emanymton]

Apparently in the last week new allegations have surfaced. My friend went to Marxism due to this to see if the feminists would kick off.

I have not heard of any new allegations. The women who spoke in the original disputes comment session and made an accusation of sexual harassment (Not rape, she never had a sexual relationship of any kind with Delta) has apparently now made a formal complaint. But this is not new and as I said is not an allegation of rape. Could this be what you have heard?

ETA - got distracted and Andy beat me to it.

 

[articul8]

Seymour has been retweeting comment by someone who alleges they have been physically attacked twice at Marxism 13

 

[treelover]

Glad to report that Marxism was bigger than expected yesterday (judging by size of meetings and queue for bar at 11PM, always the key indicator). Lively and diverse and young. Long may it continue.

Delusional,

I wonder how many were foreign students, etc who know little about the SWP?

 

[treelover]

Are there any after parties tonight?

I am not surprised members are pleased the last few days have been full of young people based on Delta's apparent tastes. More flesh for the mill and all that.

I think you are much closer to the mark than you were suggesting, only went to a couple of Marxism's and was struck by the number of much older men hovering around young female students and heard tales of harassment and that was 2003.

 

[KeeperofDragons]

That is a tiny turnout compared even to a few years ago. The opening rally used to be in Friends Meeting House and hold a couple of thousand, packed with young people. Changed times, there's no more than 7/800 in that room and you can see all the longstanding loyalists like Roddy Slorack and Paul Holborrow wheeled in to stand by their man. Looks like a Countryside Alliance meeting

I for one didn't go to the opening rally as I didn't finish work until after 5 and as Friends Meeting House is undergoing renovation at the moment the rally had to held in the Institute & I knew that that would be too full when I eventually managed to get there.

 

[kenny g]

Delusional,

I wonder how many were foreign students, etc who know little about the SWP?

Or fresh contractors/ cops checking out their covers?

 

[Before Theory]

Glad to report that Marxism was bigger than expected yesterday (judging by size of meetings and queue for bar at 11PM, always the key indicator). Lively and diverse and young. Long may it continue.

Of course it was "bigger than expected" Apology Boy, it was on course to be a train wreck with 200+ cadre and speakers threatening to withdraw over the suspension of the Bank Account Four. At that point a turnout of 500 would have been bigger than expected. The question is, was (is) M13 biggest than last year - no - or bigger than 2011, again the answer is no.

Don't let the size of the queue at the bar lull you into a false sense of security about the dwindling fortunes of the SWP, my local sometimes has a 3 deep queue at the bar because the landlord is too cheap to pay for other bar staff when his wife is not working !

 

[imposs1904]

hilarious

 

[dominion]

Report of incidents at Marxism:

http://howiescorner.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-swp-wont-call-police-over-alleged.html

Stalin and Beira would be proud of the Prof!

 

[treelover]

that post is excellent, the SWP are finished...

as for their aggression, I experienced it first hand at European social forums

and their sophistry

 

[treelover]

Throughout the meeting, a few got annoyed by a middle aged couple who seemed familiar going through the crowd trying to sell overpriced and out of date cappuccinos and somosas.

http://bloggingjbloggs1917.wordpress.com/

 

[bolshiebhoy]

http://inagist.com/all/356014581342167040/

Your mate Shawki was there wondering why he wasn't overly popular. Got a free beer off him though, nice fella despite his current efforts.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

bolshiebhoy. the only person to be actually drawn back in to the swp by their mistreatment of rape.

First Marxism in years I went to was last year to hear the Egyptians, I didn't even know about the delta stuff then so you're talking out of your hole. Was this years as good a Marxism as previous? Course not, the delta stuff hangs over everything. Still glad I went despite that and hope it continues year after year and has a better outward looking tone. Two things need to happen for that. The leadership need to sort the outstanding disputes properly. And the opposition need to decide if in the event of them losing the argument over their bigger agenda again do they finally leave or stop factionalising.

Mind you no doubt they're getting themselves very excited tonight about Eamonn's remarks at the final rally today. In fairness Eamonn has a long history of leading challenges to the leadership in Ireland so I'm surprised he's been kept quiet this long.

 

[BK Double Stack]

Report from Darkside Prof's session on Leninism--http://revolutionarysocialism.tumblr.com/post/55515965612/m2013-alex-callinicos-on-leninism

"The debate was a fractious and bad-tempered one that many comrades listening found confusing and demoralising." Sounds perfect.

 

[SLK]

First Marxism in years I went to was last year to hear the Egyptians, I didn't even know about the delta stuff then so you're talking out of your hole. Was this years as good a Marxism as previous? Course not, the delta stuff hangs over everything. Still glad I went despite that and hope it continues year after year and has a better outward looking tone. Two things need to happen for that. The leadership need to sort the outstanding disputes properly. And the opposition need to decide if in the event of them losing the argument over their bigger agenda again do they finally leave or stop factionalising.

Mind you no doubt they're getting themselves very excited tonight about Eamonn's remarks at the final rally today. In fairness Eamonn has a long history of leading challenges to the leadership in Ireland so I'm surprised he's been kept quiet this long.

What did McCann say?

 

[Tom A]

Someone isn't feeling the swppie love that much...

 

[Delroy Booth]

Report from Darkside Prof's session on Leninism--http://revolutionarysocialism.tumblr.com/post/55515965612/m2013-alex-callinicos-on-leninism

"The debate was a fractious and bad-tempered one that many comrades listening found confusing and demoralising." Sounds perfect.

Astonishing stuff there. To think, Callinicos is considered a genuine big thinker, a professor emeritus no less, yet his thoughts here are pretty vulgar leninism, vulgar democratic centralism, really crap unimaginative stuff. I accept I'm reading a transcription of it from an opposing point of view but look at this:

Lenin’s greatness, Alex said, lay in the fact that he was the first Marxist to properly theorise the question of revolutionary organisation. This question arises because workers’ consciousness is diverse and “fragmented”. Alex characterised this diversity in almost wholly negative terms: it was a fragmentation induced by the fragmentation of the capitalist system itself, and it acted as a barrier to workers’ movements developing revolutionary consciousness of their own accord.

That just reads like "dumb proles, can't get past Trade Union consciousness, if they can be arsed to even drag themselves away from the X factor in the first place." to me. They just don't deserve the SWP I suppose.

And this question is equally bonkers:

The floor debate opened with a speaker who said the reason we in the SWP “punched above our weight” was that we were not a debating society or a talking shop. He insisted that our debates were confined to the pre-conference period, and that once those three months were over those with qualms about the party’s direction should be silent. The alternative to this discipline was “permanent factions”, which in fact stifled debate rather than encouraging it.

Real delusional shit this. The SWP doesn't "punch above it's weight" and that's saying something coz it's pretty lightweight these days. That's always been their image of themselves, a small elite group, the smallest mass party in the world etc. I've heard speakers from the floor at Marxism make this point before, and actually comparing themselves to the Communist Party of Great Britain, suggesting that the SWP play a similar "punching above it's weight" role to the left of Labour that the CPGB once did. This is foolish in 3 ways; first because the communist party didn't end up in this position by choice, but because they couldn't affiliate to the Labour party and didn't have a mass membership like other communist parties in Europe. second because even though they were a small party and didn't have a mass membership they still outmatched the SWP in terms of membership (50,000 at it's peak remember) and it's prominence in the union movement, and finally because the CPGB is hardly a model that we ought to be trying to emulate - the role of being a small party that punches above it's weight to the left of Labour didn't work for them and wouldn't work for any revolutionary group. All being a small presence to the left of Labour will do is pull Labour to the left, which ironically is the same "left reformism" Callinicos is worrying about. You'd think a fucking trot would understand this.

And worth putting this up here coz Richard Seymour has been doing a few talks that've ended up on YouTube where he's been pushing the "we're all left reformists now" stuff and perhaps Callinicos is saying what he did in response to it?

 

[leyton96]

Some fascinating revelations from Elaine Heffernan about the SWP's role in the anti-war movement in the lead up to the vote for war in Parliament

I would like to know what Alex has to say about the majority of the CC's position at the time, and now, on the drift away from our politics. which were clear in the failure of stop the war under John and Lindsey's leadership,to follow up the massive march of millions with gathering outside of parliament WHILE the vote on war was being taken. This was a key moment in holding the movement back and a serious breach of our politics--I remember being hammered by everyone for arguing that should happen but in those days (well done Rob et al) we didn't argue in public.
It was that failure which I assume was due to a deal with Clare Short et al, that first made me think that we, the rank and file in the movement and the party, were being treated as a stage army. Then john answered a question at a Respect meeting by saying that the reason for setting up respect was the 100 MPs who had betrayed their promise to vote against the war. He recounted that if all those who had promised to vote against war, did vote against it, the government would have lost. In hindsight i think that the reason why they were allowed to demobilsie the movement on the most crucial day without an open row in the party was that the rest of the CC also didn't spot the danger--had forgotten the most basic rules of leninism (ie Marxism) and trusted not the masses to take the movement forward but the politicans instead. A little self criticism as well as criticism might be in order when Alex looks at breaks with our politics. everything would have looked different with tens of thousands at parliament first demanding an anti war vote and secondly, responding in a powerful way to the vote being for war. it was harder, so much harder, to keep people involved on the ground after the deal was done. leninists should have known that.
From that point onwards, at least in East London, the party members were used as fodder. We didnt have meetings unless it was to get the line on who to vote for in selecting candidates. Two instructive moments for me were 1. early on in the respect process, a leading comrade in respect in the area got really angry with my arguing for meetings and especially for papersales, "dont you get it Elane," he demanded in frustration, "paper sales are not where it is at. the SWP is finished. respect is the way forward" and then a while after i was physically thrown out of the office by an SWP member close to John and Lindsey for bringing papers into it with a threat to burn them if i brought them in again. CC members knew what was going on, but there was no leninist fight to change it, until it was way too late and the very people who had liquidated us, then wanted to differentiate us in a sectarian way. Leninism was reduced to obeying instructions or being punished... and that was not by john rees, but by the CC as a whole who lacked the leninism to take the working class comrades seriously or to engage in criticism or self criticism. apparently they were fighting among themselves bitterly but not in front of the children--how is this Leninist?

http://revolutionarysocialism.tumblr.com/post/55515965612/m2013-alex-callinicos-on-leninism

It was that failure which I assume was due to a deal with Clare Short et al

What the FUCK!!!

I've said it a couple of times on this thread. There is no such thing as an "IS Tradition" in terms of a set body of ideas that guides SWP strategy and tactics. There is only whatever seems to be expedient for the SWP leadership at the time. If Heffernan's claims are true, this is the clincher for me.

 

[IC3D]

Glad to report that Marxism was bigger than expected yesterday (judging by size of meetings and queue for bar at 11PM, always the key indicator). Lively and diverse and young. Long may it continue.

I heard there were far more at the fringe meeting on feminism than in any of the Marxism ones.

 

[butchersapron]

If the opposition is still stuck in the mindset displayed above:

the CC also didn't spot the danger--had forgotten the most basic rules of leninism (ie Marxism)

then they are already lost, and will just end up with an even smaller version of the loyalist SWP. That attitude and the lack of critical reflection on it, on its assumptions, is precisely how alex (and others) ended up not only being able to do what they did in the manner that they did it in, but to offer a ready made theoretical justification for doing so that the party (and others) had to swallow. To do this is to produce callinicos and argue that you need a party of calinicosites.

That's, of course, to leave aside the idiocy and dishonesty (sorry, the non-leninism) of the CC she demonstrates here. And also to leave aside the case that she and others put forward over the years that the SWP is an example of modern functioning leninism. The logic goes something like this: leninism is good, doing good things must therefore be leninism. Doing wrong things mean that you're not leninist (this is pretty clear in her comments). Behind this is of course is the idea that leninism can do no wrong by definition. I can't see much difference with the swp cc there frankly.

 

[J Ed]

butchersapron the whole language *is* very religious sounding isn't it?

 

[butchersapron]

butchersapron the whole language *is* very religious sounding isn't it?

It's like the amish cutting off members of their family because they painted their buggy the wrong colour of religious significance (which does happen!)

 

[sihhi]

Ron Margulies from DSIP, our Turkish sister organisation, spoke next. He noted how the absence of formal leadership in the recent Taksim Square occupation had allowed older, bureaucratic and more unrepresentative forces to take on that mantle of leadership instead.

Ron Margulies