SWP expulsions and squabbles

[frogwoman]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/944/the-left-comrades-in-the-swp-rebel

this looks like a good article, can anyone with more knowledge of the swp than i do comment?

The SWP is utterly directionless. It recruits a thousand or so pseudo-members a year, and transforms a small fraction of those into activists, who are employed strictly to recruit the next contingent. It is not a ‘party’ - indeed, it can barely even be called an organisation. It is a self-perpetuating machine, which sustains itself by keeping its lower cadre quiet and occupied with building the next demonstration or meeting, be it a pseudo-conference of trade union militants or another fruitless turn of the ‘anti-fascist’ gerbil wheel. It lacks even the beginnings of a strategic direction in this period.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

As well as the disgraceful way that a rape allegation has been handled, and which will inevitably cause the most damage, there are also a lot of other political questions from the faction.

The form of democratic centralism that the SWP use and the way they set up fronts and call them united fronts and damage campaigns seem to be two of the central ones that were being brought up by the faction. Of course this all relates back to the far left's total inability in the last 20 or more years to relate to the working class in any meaningful way, or engage the working class or learn from the working class as they largely live in a vanguard bubble ever more detached from reality. The SWP seem to make an art form of this, but all the far left groups suffer from it, at least in this country.

There have been some attempts to engage working class communities, but sadly they have been few and far between. And in the unions I'd be a millionaire if I'd got a pound for every time I'd heard someone on the far left use the term "rank and file", but for all the energy that is put in to speaking about it, almost nothing is done in practical terms. There must be a few hundred people in the far left in UNISON, but not even the basic stepping stones have been built to try and build a grassroots network.

Still it's ok, we've got Martin Smtih to scream out Nazis. "I call 'em Nazis, cos they don't like it, they don't like"...............

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/944/the-left-comrades-in-the-swp-rebel

this looks like a good article, can anyone with more knowledge of the swp than i do comment?

Well the bit about pseudo conferences of trade union militants is certainly true. The UTR conference I went to was exactly that. In terms of a strategic direction I was left there sitting it's all good and well screaming out general strike but you seem to have no conception of how bad things are in the unions in terms of a total lack of grassroots network/rank and file and you don't seem to have any ideas whatsoever about how to change that, other than keep saying general strike and saying everyone is angry.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

You don't get it. There is of course a place in a revolutionary org for centrists like these. Until they challenge for leadership. It's just nice that they're finally revealing the political reasons for their exit. Nobody actually in the swpwill put it like that of course but it's what the people left clinging to the lifeboat will be thinking.

So you think that's a good way to build a working class socialist organisation? A load of full timers, most with no attachment to working class communities, with all the knowledge, and then most of the membership a bunch of "centrists" who do what they are told.

 

[frogwoman]

Well the bit about pseudo conferences of trade union militants is certainly true. The UAF conference I went to was exactly that. In terms of a strategic direction I was left there sitting it's all good and well screaming out general strike but you seem to have no conception of how bad things are in the unions in terms of a total lack of grassroots network/rank and file and you don't seem to have any ideas whatsoever about how to change that, other than keep saying general strike and saying everyone is angry.

me? i do have some idea thanks ...

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

Sorry that meant to say UTR (Unite the Resistance) not UAF. And I was referring to the UTR conference, not you!!

 

[two sheds]

Yes interesting article froggy. These couple of paragraphs, if true, are particularly revealing.

So why should this mummer’s show of legal arbitration have been so unconvincing - and, assuming his innocence (he has not, after all, been proven guilty), why should these allegations against Smith prove so instinctively believable among the SWP rank and file? The second question is easier to answer. Whether or not such behaviour is reproduced in the comrade’s personal life, it is undeniable that he is a bully and a thug. It was Smith, for example, who hounded comrade Simon Wells out of the SWP - and later wrestled him to the ground at the SWP’s Marxism festival to confiscate his ticket.4 It was Smith whose phone calls were dreaded by SWP organisers, and resembled the hectoring of the worst kind of shop-floor manager.

This character, alas, made him ideal material for the role of SWP national organiser - the SWP operating a version of ‘chain of command’ which would be recognisable to any police constable or private. A genuine revolutionary working class organisation would promote capable, thinking leaders who had earned the respect and trust of the rank and file. The SWP, with some honourable exceptions, promotes hacks.

 

[articul8]

Oh please people. Haven't you got a political bone in your bodies. That one sentence from Seymour on Lenin's Tomb proves what this is really about.

Quite apart from the implied utilitarian approach that two women's experience is somehow of no real importance in comparison to maintaining historic perspectives and methods, the political mistake being made is by the dogmatic apologists. Apart from anything else you seem incapable of recognising that "feminism" covers a whole spectrum of different and sometimes mutually incompatible political stances - not all feminism is liberal identity politics.

 

[emanymton]

I am sad to say it but I think the CPBG are spot on about the UTR conference pointless rally. Lets get 1000 people in a room and then ... it smacks of desperation a need to do something, anything. Also the CPBG are advertising london seminars with what I think are a lego Marx and Engles. Please CPBG stop doing things that make me warm to you.

 

[The39thStep]

Quite apart from the implied utilitarian approach that two women's experience is somehow of no real importance in comparison to maintaining historic perspectives and methods, the political mistake being made is by the dogmatic apologists. Apart from anything else you seem incapable of recognising that "feminism" covers a whole spectrum of different and sometimes mutually incompatible political stances - not all feminism is liberal identity politics.

True Louise Mensch for one.

 

[The39thStep]

Yes interesting article froggy. These couple of paragraphs, if true, are particularly revealing.

You do realise that the only reason the CPGB publish all this is to try and recruit out of it. For all their 'come over here to the land of milk and honey' propganda their own history is full of the same sorts of shenagigans of splits, expulsions and falling outs.

The problem I have with democratic centralism isn't that it isn't some form of proportional representation heaven or endless bouts of consensus based meetings but that it replicates internally the same 'advanced workers/politically conscious' split that all of the Leninist and Trot based groups do with the working class.

 

[Red Cat]

Core of the debate on where? here? LP's article? at the SWP Conference? on Socialist unity? on the CPGB website? the Independent?

I think you might find that there are a number of different agendas.

He's talking about the debate in the SWP.

Isn't he?

 

[Red Cat]

So you think that's a good way to build a working class socialist organisation? A load of full timers, most with no attachment to working class communities, with all the knowledge, and then most of the membership a bunch of "centrists" who do what they are told.

He didn't say he was in agreement with the SWP, he gave his analysis of what he thinks has happened.

 

[rosecore]

Now the Daily Mail are copying Jerome Taylor.
Socialist Workers' Party held 'sharia-style court' to exonerate party member accused of raping female 'comrade'

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

More feminist autonomists:

Leeds University SWSS Statement:

Leeds University SWSS condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the recent handling of very serious accusations against a leading member of the SWP Central Committee. We are also extremely disappointed that SWP national conference voted to ratify the decision and process of the Disputes Committee responsible for the investigation.

As many people will have seen from the recent leaked transcript of SWP conference, the conduct of the Disputes Committee fell far short of what should be expected in a socialist organisation committed to ending women's oppression. Questions regarding sexual history and drinking patterns would be rightly condemned as sexist if asked within a bourgeois court of law – it is therefore completely unacceptable that socialists should consider this a reasonable line of questioning. Coupled with the effective sacking from the SWP national office of one of the women that brought forward the accusation, and the expulsions of four comrades for attempting to ensure the issue was dealt with, the whole behaviour of the party's leading bodies suggest a worrying departure from the best practices and traditions of our movement.

What has also has been deeply worrying is the attitude that has been taken towards younger members and students raising legitimate concerns. It seems an atmosphere of intimidation has been allowed to develop in which young members are viewed with suspicion and treated as such. Accusations of 'autonomism' and 'feminism' (not that feminist should be an insult!) have done nothing to clarify political positions, instead create a culture where members feel unable to raise disagreements. It seems this paranoid approach has extended to the national office, where full-time workers with disagreements over the Dispute Committee proceedings have been moved department under the pretext of “factionalising” amongst students, or worse removed from their position entirely. This kind of internal culture is opposite of the kind which should exist within a healthy revolutionary organisation.

Leeds University SWSS would like to re-affirm its commitment to fighting sexism within society and its desire to continue to work alongside activists, feminists and militant anti-sexists in that struggle. There is a global movement developing that is challenging the sexist, rape-apologist culture of capitalist society and the economic system that underpins it. We believe revolutionary socialists should be proud to take a leading role in that fight.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Trust the Mail to give an Islamophobic twist to the swp bashing.

 

[The39thStep]

He's talking about the debate in the SWP.

Isn't he?

Are you following the debate within the SWP?

 

[rosecore]

Trust the Mail to give an Islamophobic twist to the swp bashing.

It was Jerome Taylor in the Independent who did it first ironically enough.

 

[frogwoman]

You do realise that the only reason the CPGB publish all this is to try and recruit out of it. For all their 'come over here to the land of milk and honey' propganda their own history is full of the same sorts of shenagigans of splits, expulsions and falling outs.

yep.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Quite apart from the implied utilitarian approach that two women's experience is somehow of no real importance in comparison to maintaining historic perspectives and methods, the political mistake being made is by the dogmatic apologists. Apart from anything else you seem incapable of recognising that "feminism" covers a whole spectrum of different and sometimes mutually incompatible political stances - not all feminism is liberal identity politics.

Eh yes I've heard of socialist feminism. So have Tom Walker and Seymour. That's the point.

 

[The39thStep]

Eh yes I've heard of socialist feminism. So have Tom Walker and Seymour. That's the point.

So have the Labour Party

 

[frogwoman]

The problem I have with democratic centralism isn't that it isn't some form of proportional representation heaven or endless bouts of consensus based meetings but that it replicates internally the same 'advanced workers/politically conscious' split that all of the Leninist and Trot based groups do with the working class.

how do you mean? do you mean that it enforces a differentiation between the full-timers and the rest of the members (and the w/c in general)? just a bit confused here

 

[The39thStep]

how do you mean? do you mean that it enforces a differentiation between the full-timers and the rest of the members (and the w/c in general)? just a bit confused here

That's the tendency. Will explain later if I don't have too many pints but I am off out to watch the football. Had a busy day actually ; a big shop at Morrison's, went to the allotment, cleaned the chickens out, defrosted the fridge, walked the dog and hoovered downstairs and the stairs. I deserve a pint for all that unpaid domestic labour and dog care.

 

[Red Cat]

Are you following the debate within the SWP?

No, only what we all know.

I thought the post was referring to issues in the SWP coming to the fore that have been in the background for a while. I don't see why this is so difficult to understand but maybe I'm being stupid. tbh I don't understand most of the thread, it's like everyone's talking in different languages.

 

[frogwoman]

chickens! nice one

 

[bolshiebhoy]

So you think that's a good way to build a working class socialist organisation? A load of full timers, most with no attachment to working class communities, with all the knowledge, and then most of the membership a bunch of "centrists" who do what they are told.

Not at all, there'll be centrists at all levels of the organisation. That was true in the Irish party when I first joined it and it'll be true of the SWP today. That's inevitable, some people join and stay with a party because they want to change the world but never agree with its core worldview. Nothing wrong with that at all. The problem is when they get carried away and try to takeover.

 

[frogwoman]

that doesn't mean they're centrists tho or that they're wrong, just because they disagree with the leadership on organisational matters. I'm in the SP because of the work it's done locally and because I think it's probably the organisation on the left that has actually done quite a lot of good in large areas of the country, in unions, etc, as well as internationally with other sections of the cwi. there's loads i disagree with the leadership about though.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

I hope Leeds swss pay copyright to Tom Walker for the use of militant anti sexist.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

Not at all, there'll be centrists at all levels of the organisation. That was true in the Irish party when I first joined it and it'll be true of the SWP today. That's inevitable, some people join and stay with a party because they want to change the world but never agree with its core worldview. Nothing wrong with that at all. The problem is when they get carried away and try to takeover.

So you're basically saying despite all that has happened there isn't really anything wrong with the SWP and all the centrists need to get out so the hardcore can get on with more of the same?

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Feminist is an insult to a Cliffite that's what they don't understand.