SWP expulsions and squabbles

[Red Cat]

Sorry but I'm not convinced - the accusations of political impurity seem like a smoke screen from where I'm standing. Have a look back at BB's posts on this thread and tell me with a straight face that I'm wrong. Especially when the comments are made when deltagate specifically is what's being discussed.

I dunno though, maybe I'm just allowing my emotions to combine with my deeply engrained bourgeois morality, resulting in - shock - horror - moral indignation.

You see, I didn't read them as accusations, I saw them as descriptions of positions.

 

[articul8]

Did I say it was anti-marxist?

Bolshiebhoy did

 

[Red Cat]

So ask him.

 

[cesare]

You see, I didn't read them as accusations, I saw them as descriptions of positions.

And I perceived it as political criticism (or even indignation) rather than moral.

 

[Red Cat]

Sorry, I don't understand that. Can you explain?

I mean rather than moral. I don't get the moral bit.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

This is not true the rape allegation was not made until september 2012, prior to that the allegation was of sexual harassment, which was reported to the SWP conference.

Are you sure? That's not how the reply from Seymour reads to me. It clearly says that people at the conference two years earlier were duped into thinking it was just a messy affair. In which case he is saying that people at the top knew it was far more than this.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

You're just looking for anything to fuel your outrage. There's no reason for you to believe Seymour's version of events. The opposition didn't argue this. Why believe him and not others?

I think this thread is a good example of people believing that they want to believe just as the CC and DC are accused.

Not at all. This person has chosen to make a stand on this because he believes the CC have acted so appallingly. If they have done as he says they have, any many others in the opposition say he has, then what is wrong with moral outrage?

I guess I am more likely to believe the opposition as the central committee have being lying and slandering people for decades.

 

[cesare]

Sorry, I don't understand that. Can you explain?

I mean rather than moral. I don't get the moral bit.

You described posters' reaction to bb's posts as moral indignation. Perhaps you meant political indignation? I don't get where the moral aspect of your description comes from unless it was hyperbole.

 

[emanymton]

Are you sure? That's not how the reply from Seymour reads to me. It clearly says that people at the conference two years earlier were duped into thinking it was just a messy affair. In which case he is saying that people at the top knew it was far more than this.

This is a quote from Candy who gave the disputes committee report to conference.

We noted that the complaint concerned incidents that had taken place over a period of about six months in 2008 and 2009, which was three or four years before we met. We also noted that there had been an informal complaint about these incidents from the same woman in July 2010, which hadn’t come to the disputes committee, and at that time she complained of sexual harassment rather than of rape.

And this is Viv one of W's supporters.

The hearing as you’ve heard concerned an accusation of rape, an incredibly serious accusation which we think the committee did take very seriously, and Candy mentioned the fact that the woman had come forward a few years previously at a conference. And the CC did handle the case in the way that she asked them to. But I think it’s important to say that she felt she could come forward two years later because she – as she explained it to me when she rang me up and asked me to give evidence on her behalf – she felt able to actually confront the issues that she’d gone through and actually say that she felt she had been raped. She felt the way the party had handled the Assange case gave her confidence that she would get a fair hearing.

Assuming Viv reporting accurately then W did not herself come to feel she had bee raped until recently, therefore no one in the SWP leadership could have been aware of a rape allegation. The report to conference says the case was heard in October 2012 I read somewhere else (can't for the life of me remember where now) that the allegation of rape was formally made in September.

What I think Seymour is getting at is one or more of the following
1, The initial accusation of sexual harassment was more serious than CC lead people to believer.
2, The CC was aware of other possible cases, but as only 2 complaints have been made this could only have been rumor.
3, At the previous conference they said W had accepted their decision, this does not now seem to be the case.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Well, many will try and carry on as normal! What d'you expect people who've been in the SWP for 30 years to do? And what's that observation got to do with being loyal or not to the SWP?

This questions demonstrates a lack of understanding of what I said - it is BB who is calling people's loyalty into question, however your subsequent posts demonstrate a total lack of understanding of the issues or people's thoughts about how rape allegations should be handled, so I'm not going to waste my time responding to you in any more depth.

 

[xslavearcx]

So lets get this straight, basicly the real issues underlying all people leaving the SWP is different conceptions of marxism from the CC and that this issue is just an incidental catalyist to that taking place?

 

[KeeperofDragons]

So lets get this straight, basicly the real issues underlying all people leaving the SWP is different conceptions of marxism from the CC and that this issue is just an incidental catalyist to that taking place?

Yes though you will have to admit that this catalyst is a biggie

 

[xslavearcx]

Its not a position i would hold if i had anything to do with the SWP, it just seems that some of the arguments that have been posted on here seems to imply that that is the case...

 

[KeeperofDragons]

There have been questions over the last few years regarding party democracy & as feelings run high on both sides of the debate things get to put it mildly rather heated resulting in suspensions & expulsions leading to walkouts by good members

 

[xslavearcx]

If it was me in the SWP i don't think after seeing how something as serious as that being handled so badly and implicating so many of the main people on the CC id want to have nothing to do with the party. As for whether peeps have got the true conception of marxism it does seem strange that so many people who are leaving just now are getting accused of that, some of whom, it seems have been around the party for a long while. Maybe so many people getting it wrong is an outcome of a party that likes to act all things to all people when they are on their recruitment drives.

 

[Red Cat]

This questions demonstrates a lack of understanding of what I said - it is BB who is calling people's loyalty into question, however your subsequent posts demonstrate a total lack of understanding of the issues or people's thoughts about how rape allegations should be handled, so I'm not going to waste my time responding to you in any more depth.

Really? My subsequent posts have tried to clarify what I see as bb interpreting what is happening in the SWP using the SWP's own politics. I don't see him as saying that the cc are right morally or politically just that they are acting in accordance with their own politics. If bb was still a member then I'd understand why he was seen as supporting them but he isn't. Anyway, he can speak for himself.

Other posts have been to suggest that we stick to what we know, what has been said. I don't know exactly what happened and neither do any of us on here.

As for the rape allegations, I'm not sure how it should have been handled, given that w didn't want to go to the police. I really don't know. I never said I thought it was an adequate process.

 

[Red Cat]

You described posters' reaction to bb's posts as moral indignation. Perhaps you meant political indignation? I don't get where the moral aspect of your description comes from unless it was hyperbole.

Because it seemed to me that he wasn't saying the cc were right. And it seemed to me that anger with him for appearing to be saying this was preventing people from seeing that he wasn't.

But like I just said, he can speak for himself.

 

[SpineyNorman]

You see, I didn't read them as accusations, I saw them as descriptions of positions.

I give up. He was basically saying that the ex socialist worker journo was only critical of the way the case was handled because he was a feminist - it's the usual apologetics - our accusers don't share the one true faith so their claims are invalid.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

What I think Seymour is getting at is one or more of the following

1, The initial accusation of sexual harassment was more serious than CC lead people to believer.
2, The CC was aware of other possible cases, but as only 2 complaints have been made this could only have been rumor.
3, At the previous conference they said W had accepted their decision, this does not now seem to be the case.

That makes sense. I think he is getting at points 1 and 3. If true still appalling and if true delta lapping up a round of applause is sickening.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

I give up. He was basically saying that the ex socialist worker journo was only critical of the way the case was handled because he was a feminist - it's the usual apologetics - our accusers don't share the one true faith so their claims are invalid.

No sorry didn't say that and don't believe that. Walker clearly feels passionately that the cc and dc have been up to no good. Thats one thing. He also clearly, at least to anyone reasonably familiar with IS politics and older debates on patriarchy, argued feminist vs Marxist ideas in his letter. That's a different thing. And the same is true of Seymour as I think his one telling remark about 'dogmatic' arguments with feminists in the 80's proves beyond a shadow of a doubt. All I've tried to argue is that we need to respond to those two things, the outrage at one case and the broader ideological position separately. it seemed and still seems to me that for obvious reasons people who hate the SWP want to talk about one but not the other.

The two are related of course. And Seymour has quite cynically twisted facts about the dc case I believe as part of his bigger agenda. Implying the cc knew there was a rape charge a year ago when the woman herself hadn't actually made it is pretty low.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

So lets get this straight, basicly the real issues underlying all people leaving the SWP is different conceptions of marxism from the CC and that this issue is just an incidental catalyist to that taking place?

It's not exactly incidental (certainly not for the victims im sure) but I do think it's a catalyst. but I wouldn't say it's the cc's version of Marxism that's being attacked, it's the whole tradition's version. it's pretty horrible and messy of course because in these situations people all claim they're standing in the same tradition and then trade blows.

 

[Trendy Trot]

The SWP loyalists, in trying to defend the indefensible, are now striking out against the whistleblowers. Given my experience of their operational methods this is not surprising.

What Seymour is saying is that the standing ovation from 2011 was given on the basis of a lying presentation from Martin Smith.

I was there, Martin Smith said it was a consensual affair that had gone wrong. He then went into a long sob story about how hard it can be when you are attacked from people on the outside.

Next he invoked the spectre of the "sectarian blogs" and their focus on destroying the SWP.

That's when some idiots at the front started chanting, and I kid you not "the workers, united, will never be defeated" and two thirds of the conference stood clapping in adulation.

Seymour's point was that the people giving the ovation did not know they were applauding a man who had been accused of sexual harassment. The CC knew the true nature of the allegations against Smith, an yet they let that continue.

Despicable.

 

[The39thStep]

If it was me in the SWP i don't think after seeing how something as serious as that being handled so badly and implicating so many of the main people on the CC id want to have nothing to do with the party. As for whether peeps have got the true conception of marxism it does seem strange that so many people who are leaving just now are getting accused of that, some of whom, it seems have been around the party for a long while. Maybe so many people getting it wrong is an outcome of a party that likes to act all things to all people when they are on their recruitment drives.

Nobody will take your posts seriously in the politics thread if you use the phrase peeps

 

[kenny g]

Nobody will take your posts seriously in the politics thread if you use the phrase peeps

Pompous , moi?

 

[xslavearcx]

Nobody will take your posts seriously in the politics thread if you use the phrase peeps

I'm a youthworker, its the way i roll.

 

[electric.avenue]

Ta, I had a quick look at the introduction and will take another look tomorrow. He makes interesting points although I'm not sure I agree with them, but I do also feel a bit uncomfortable about a man telling women that they're the wrong kind of feminist.

To me there's an edge of prosthelitysing - yes we need feminism but it needs to be subsumed under the class struggle, so come and join us and do what we tell you to.

Yes, re-reading it I found it full of useful factual information, and I'd like to give it a more thorough read.

But yes, I don't agree with the bits where he tells women what they should be focussing on. People have to respond to the immediate problems as they find them.

One of his critiques of the women's movement was that it was supposedly taken up more by "middle class women" than by "working class women", but I think that in fact the two supposed groups tend to blur into each other anyway. New ideas (eg: use of recreational drugs, living together outside marriage) do tend to be taken up initially by people who have had a chance of extended education, so it was not that surprising that the pursuit of women's rights first started to appeal to women in education, professions, etc. Cliff uses feminism's appeal to the so-called middle class as a way of damning it, when in fact the same could be said of the SWP, ie: that it appeals mainly to people at uni and in the professions such as teaching, social work, media, academia, and so on.

 

[electric.avenue]

SWP constitution - if 20% of banches call for it there has to be a conference. It's never happened though.

The tricky thing with this is: how many "real" branches are there and how many "ghost" branches? Leeds used to have about four branches, as I recall, and may now be down to one - but how many exist on paper?

 

[xslavearcx]

Ok, I've spent pretty much most of the day scouring the web and our collection of pamphlets, and can I hellers like find that Paul Foot one to quote from. But I think it was about the Haiti slave rebellion, and I read it at my then workplace when I was still yoof. What vexed me was that Foot mentioned rapes taking place as part of the rebellion, without labelling them for the unacceptable sexual violence that they were. Ok it was another time and another place, (the context of the rebellion). But it put me off joining the SWP for years, as it inevitably sowed the seed of an idea that some Marxist theoreticians found rape acceptable as an appropriate "punishment".

As for Cliff, 1984 (sorry for the copy and paste-a-thon):

"Tony Cliff
Class Struggle and Women’s Liberation
(1984)
From the Introduction:

In the later chapters of this book, we look at the contemporary women’s liberation movements in the United States and Britain. We consider their social composition and their mode of action. We show how these movements have focussed consistently on areas where men and women are at odds – rape, battered women, wages for housework – while ignoring or playing down the important struggles in which women are more likely to win the support of men: strikes, opposition to welfare cuts, equal pay, unionisation, abortion. The contemporary movements idealise women as victims of male supremacy, and not as fighting members of the working class. Instead of concentrating on where women are strongest – in the unions and workplaces – they concentrate on those areas where they are weakest. Hence these women’s movements have been pushed to the margins. They have been caught in a process of disintegration, although their ideas still hold a tremendous sway.

From Chapter 11:
A measure of how the women’s movement distanced itself from the working class is the changes in its platform of demands. As we have seen, the original 1971 demands (equal pay now, equal education and job opportunities, free contraception and abortion on demand and free 24-hour nurseries) suited the needs of working-class women. In 1975, two new demands were added: “Financial and legal independence” and “an end to all discrimination against lesbians and a woman’s right to define her own sexuality”. In 1978, at the last National Women’s Conference, the following demand was added: “Freedom from intimidation by threat or use of violence or sexual coercion, regardless of marital status; and an end to all laws, assumptions and institutions which perpetuate male dominance and men’s aggression towards women.” The original four demands were clear, aimed at changes in the real world and directed towards the state; the added ones largely related to “attitudes” and “assumptions”, to “personal politics”.
"

What this tells me is that, in Cliff's opinion, campaigning for improved support and treatment of rape victims was a bit of a distraction from what he considered to be the really important stuff, and yet what's come out in this discussion is that over the past few decades there really have been significant improvements in the way that rape victims are treated by the police, the courts and by the various support networks. I think that marginal improvements such as these really do make a big difference to people's lives in the here and now, and it gives them more confidence to fight and challenge other things.

Have to say there is a lot that rings pretty dodgy about Cliffs take on things there. For instance the implication that issues like domestic violence are not really about "changes in the real world" and are are somehow suspect by being "directed towards the state". I'd say being kept in a prison like condition would seem pretty real to someone affected by domestic violence - and that a strike they come upon in the news would seem somewhat remote compared to their immediate circumstances. Also slagging off its appeals to the state does that render all workers struggles for better working conditions or say the very anti cuts campaigns that the swp are a part of as null and void by the fact that they are appeals to the state?

If stuff like that is the philosophical foundation as to why there is a problem with feminism within the swp, no wonder that concerns for abstract notions of "the party" play more importance than the immediate concerns of a rape survivor.

 

[audiotech]

is that it?

Obviously not as there are other posts I've made on this thread, including one about a revolt from below being prudent just now. The bureaucratic degeneracy is complete.

 

[electric.avenue]

I'm a youthworker, its the way i roll.

I'm not even youth and I say peeps - usually when writing online, rather in actual spoken conversation.