SWP expulsions and squabbles

[SpineyNorman]

To be fair it is not clear if they mean the SP of now, or Militant of days gone by.

Anyway what they seem to be saying is that 'millies' focus on building their party rather than in engaging with the wider movements. I guess the SP would probably say they engage in different movements.

I have to say that personally while I like you spinney, in fact I think you are possibly one of my favorite posters on here, my experiences with SP members in 'the real world' have been far from positive. I have encountered sectarian hackery at a level the SWP could never much.

Cheers mate

Different areas of the country maybe? Dunno - certainly not been my experience.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I'm assuming "The students they have recruited sound like millies- the paper, the party, the meeting" does indeed mean the Militant Tendency approach, vintage 80s style - which was to recruit among students to bring them into the party-of-the-workers without really involving them in student protests & struggles (presumably a new SWP scheme to make sure their new students do not go off and develop ideas of their own in the process). As it happens the Socialist Party seem to be now (have been for a while ? ) getting quite into student protest at the universities, so there is a kind of direct swap of roles here.

That would make sense. But I don't think that's a matter of choice - they've been forced into it (and this isn't in any way a defence of them) because, quite rightly, they can't get involved in stuff on campus because someone will always bring up the delta stuff - meaning 1) they can't work with anyone else and 2) they'd lose any new members pretty quickly when they heard the other side.

As it happens I don't get into the student stuff much but that's nothing to do with any party line - I'm just not at all comfortable with it, especially with how the more vociferous members of the student left around here carry on with their ageist crap and 'if you disagree with me you're reinforcing oppression' bullshit - so I do more community stuff cos apart from anything else I'm a lot better at that.

 

[Scribbling S]

"it wasn't any different when he joined - this isn't a story of degeneration" - well there is definitely a lot of aging, shrinking and even dying going on, which looks like it leads to degeneration to David Renton, and indeed to me.

In some ways the part of his report from conference that stood out for me was :- "I must also insist that there were many people at conference sitting there with their heads in their hands, some in tears. You could see this most clearly among a section of the middle ground, who seemed visibly in pain at what they were watching." - really I guess you should read the whole thing

The details about the split in the disputes committee given by both Gruff and David R. might seem a bit specific, but is actually really shocking.

 

[ska invita]

how people like that ended up 20 years in the swp (and it wasn't any different when he joined - this isn't a story of degeneration) is something pretty important.

...someone sold him a paper is how

By the sounds of it he felt the party was growing and believed it could be big <that optimism must count for a lot. Being young when you join must also be a factor. The word cult has been going around of late, and without wishing to insult SWPers here, there are at least elements of cultish behaviour (sacred texts, true paths, priest class, etc) that exist which might have some psychological sway. Just some thoughts

 

[emanymton]

Cheers mate

Different areas of the country maybe? Dunno - certainly not been my experience.

I think you are probably right, the same I'd true of the SWP as well. The are some ex-members who's experiences I recognise, while others seem to be describing a totally diffrent orginsation.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

david renton writes: http://livesrunning.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/to-my-comrades-of-any-party-or-none/

...


on a side note, he says "Over the past 20 years the self-taught workers have almost all left, while the party-liners have multiplied."
i was speaking to someone the other day who said that the SWP "in the seventies" (he may have got his dates wrong, maybe early 80s) was a lot more "libertarian" and "horizontal" , but those people left pretty much as a bloc. can anyone confirm that? has the party changed a lot over time?

The IS, the predecessor of the SWP was a lot looser organisationally. The process of turning it into the SWP involved successive purges of dissident minorities, complete by the late 70s.

The Renton piece is good and also grim. An interesting side issue is his remark about the age profile. From a party which often had the piss taken out of it for allegedly being a bunch if students, reduced to one in seven under the age of forty! And that's before most of the remaining under forty year olds leave as part of the opposition.

bolshiebhoy: you called me a cock the other day for saying I was surprised to see half a dozen resignations from the SWP by young women because I didn't think that there that many still in the SWP. Do you still stand by your "the SWP will not be broken by this" stuff? You must be familiar with left groups which have that type of membership demographic. Have you ever heard of one of them making a comeback? And that's without the isolation and opprobrium the SWP have brought on themselves.

 

[killer b]

the conference sounded horrible. mind you, reports from the last few have been pretty nasty too.

 

[barney_pig]

Dave Rentons piece is very good. I've always liked him and found him personally 'good' - how people like that ended up 20 years in the swp (and it wasn't any different when he joined - this isn't a story of degeneration) is something pretty important.

for me, who, I think, count as one of Renton autodidacts, the reason I stayed in for so long was because my internal image of my party was was of one which fundamentally differed from the reality, yet one maintained it in the face of whatever evidence reality could throw at it. At every public or internal party initiative comrades would shamelessly lie constantly about the influence the party had "punching above its weight" Among the working class.
I know I would look at my comrades and know they were lying, and then, when my turn came, get up and lie myself.
Often we weren't even lying to impress outsiders, the most outrageous lies were spoken during internal conferences and aggregates.
The swp was built on a dream of an idealised Bolshevism, free from the bacillus of Stalin, yet to match reality to that ideal involved the construction of an elaborate scaffold of fantasy and lies.
For me the end was the moment when the party decided it was necessary to embrace a popular front with salafists and Baathists in order to engage with the wider movement created by The anti war moment of 2003 and the SWPs Respect turn was too much to swallow.
For others, the bureaucratic horror of a leadership closing rank to defend a rapist, and justifying this as Leninism was the end.
Disgracefully, for some even this is not enough.

 

[emanymton]

On the of chance anyone is interested from the names I have seen of people who have left, it would appear that ciffite is no longer longer a member of the SWP.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

On the of chance anyone is interested from the names I have seen of people who have left, it would appear that ciffite is no longer longer a member of the SWP.

What about rabbit worrier?

 

[imposs1904]

This is juche shit.

your spell checker not working?

 

[emanymton]

What about rabbit worrier?

Are you suggesting something about his... preferences there?

Pretty sure he is still in, but to be honest I am struggling to remember his surname.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Poor weekly worker stuck leading with the hot button issue of Bordigism

 

[butchersapron]

Renton lays out the dynamic - (in an odd way):

Few of my closest friends are people who I met anywhere but in the SWP.

 

[imposs1904]

Poor weekly worker stuck leading with the hot button issue of Bordigism

that was actually an interesting talk - I guess I would say that, though - despite the fact that sometimes I thought it was like JP from Fresh Meat narrating the audio book of Proletarian Order. A shame that the podcast didn't also include the contributions from the floor.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

that was actually an interesting talk .

I'm not criticising it. Just using it as an obvious example of them missing the boat. The SWP in meltdown is what they've been praying for for two decades and they've got more detailed coverage of Bordiga on the front page.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Renton lays out the dynamic - (in an odd way):

I've never really understood that sort of social behaviour. I've met zero of my closest friends through political organisations of any stripe and have never had any desire to use one as a substitute social life.

 

[butchersapron]

When the crisis hit they had chris knight on the front cover about some stuff about eve or something. I will destroy whatever and whyever they bordiga-ed.

 

[butchersapron]

I've never really understood that sort of social behaviour. I've met zero of my closest friends through political organisations of any stripe.

Got to look at rents workplaces.

 

[imposs1904]

I'm not criticising it. Just using it as an obvious example of them missing the boat. The SWP in meltdown is what they've been praying for for two decades and they've got more detailed coverage of Bordiga on the front page.

Just means a bumper issue on the fall out this coming Thursday. Hopefully even knocking Conrad annual 'Jesus as a revolutionary' essay into the long grass. That would be a Christmas miracle.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Got to look at rents workplaces.

Ok, I suppose in his particular case it makes more sense. But his path is pretty unusual in the SWP, I'd have thought.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Just means a bumper issue on the fall out this coming Thursday. Hopefully even knocking Conrad annual 'Jesus as a revolutionary' essay into the long grass. That would be a Christmas miracle.

From your lips to God's ears on the Jesus essay part.

As for the bumper issue, they face a fundamental problem in competing with social media, blogs etc. By Thursday what will be left to reveal?

 

[emanymton]

For a slightly different take on the conference

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art/37111/SWP+conference+discusses+the+way+forward+for+the+left

Apparently they have recruited 800 people this year, nothing to worry about then. Seriously why do they keep saying shit like that, when everyone knows it's utter crap.

 

[Balbi]

Souvenir issue

 

[butchersapron]

Structured educationals are important.

To who, as you go into your shell without cliff.

 

[butchersapron]

This, from the paper is drivel:

We need to link this to increasing the sales of Socialist Worker and think how every comrade can get one or two more sales.

Sharp

It would be foolish to pretend this has not been a difficult and divisive year for the party. We have seen very sharp internal discussions–and regrettably some people have left the SWP.

The conference passed overwhelmingly a motion that set out the political context of the divisions and the debates they have sparked.

And delegates passed near-unanimously a revised set of procedures for our disputes committee which looks at matters of discipline and conduct. We hope this will give every member confidence in the processes.

Furthermore the central committee (CC) made a statement that many people have suffered real distress as a result of taking part in or giving evidence to the disputes committee, or due to slurs on the internet and we are sorry to all of them for that.

Specifically two women who brought very serious allegations suffered real distress.

We are sorry for the suffering caused to them by the structural flaws in our disputes procedures, the way in which the two cases became a subject of political conflict within the party and slurs on the internet.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

The astonishing thing is still that if the SWP tops and their supporters had behaved decently, properly, like socialists, from day one they could and would have avoided all this - every last bit of it. Sure they'd have they'd have the same problems as before - lack of internal democracy and democratic culture, great-men politics, middle/upper and academic class domination, appalling opportunism etc - but they were internal problems, their problems. Instead, by reacting like paranoid stalinist control freaks, by jim jonesing it (i was going to say corporal jonesing it but the collective nature of this idiocy takes it far beyond that) they have manged to turn it and the stuff listed above into a problem for everyone else to deal with, they made those problems social and in that act provoked reactions and answers to those problems that have seriously damaged what they thought they were protecting. What does this say about the political acumen of this vanguard - that it does this on what, when placed alongside their grand aims, could be said to be a relatively minor matter? It throws into doubt every single piece of analysis they now offer, whether historic or contemporary, it makes people ask, hang on, just who on earth are these chancers and how have they got where they are? Why should i/we listen to them? And all because their puffed up local authority meant they could no longer respond decently, no longer respond without seeing difference of opinion or disagreement as a challenge to their authority.

Slightly long winded and more importantly completely wrong because nothing was ever enough for the hard core of the faction. As the middle ground have thankfully realised at the last moment. The trajectory of the permanent opposition was always out, no concession short of remaking the SWP as the ISO or god forbid the ISN would have been enough to stop them.

 

[frogwoman]

This is juche shit.

im just glad the SWP aren't in power, could you imagine callinicos and tony cliff as the dear and great leaders

 

[butchersapron]

Slightly long winded and more importantly completely wrong because nothing was ever enough for the hard core of the faction. As the middle ground have thankfully realised at the last moment. The trajectory of the permanent opposition was always out, no concession short of remaking the SWP as the ISO or god forbid the ISN would have been enough to stop them.

This is religion not politics. The outsidesr vs the insiders, us vs them, stick with me kid - you have nothing left on which to make this deal. You bluffed and you lost. You'll be back in the same CLP as newman soon. A series of great choices.

 

[butchersapron]

Listen to this mangled shite - and i know mangled shite :

Delegates showed through the votes at conference that they did not believe the party and its leadership are sexist or trampled on the politics of women’s liberation or covered up injustice.