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SWP expulsions and squabbles

Karmickameleon said:
If anyone is interested, the following post from Michael Rosen is causing quite a lot of discussion on Facebook, including from a number of loyalists such as the leading muppet, John Mullen. Anyway, here it is:

I am becoming increasingly concerned that a range of extremely serious allegations have been made here on facebook by people as part of their resignation letters from the SWP or in posts following their resignations. Some of these come from people who were in the party for ten years, twenty years or more. These allegations are distinct from those made by people who have become disenchanted or who came to disagree with the way the SWP conducts its usual daily affairs. They are specific and detailed and, if true, are of concern to anyone who takes part in meetings or campaigns in which the SWP acting as the SWP is involved. That's to say, the allegations are made about actions taken by the SWP's 'governing body', its Central Committee. I'm not going to list them but they are in toto an assemblage of what we might call wrongdoings on any account, but particularly when looking at an organisation that makes claims to be about liberation, justice, equality, the end of exploitation and oppression.

As an individual - usually acting alone - I have no way of verifying or contradicting these accusations. However, though they're coming thick and fast, I have to date not seen a careful reply to them from the SWP. It's as if the organisation has a policy of treating them with disdain as if they are self-evidently rubbish and/or made by people whose motives are suspect. However, it would seem that the consequence of this attitude is that the organisation itself is getting smaller and smaller. From the 'outside' (as I am) it also comes over as a disdain for those of us who know we will be appealed to join campaigns, take part in meetings and the like. We too are asked to take them as self-evidently not true. But I'm suggesting that that's a bridge too far. The SWP cannot assume that those of us on the outside can or will take these allegations as self-evidently not true.

I personally have only a few problems with working alongside individuals who are members of the SWP - though I know there are some people who are now refusing to do that. The problem remains however when it comes to anything that is, as it were, officially an SWP event and/or an event organised by one of the bodies the SWP as the SWP set up. If it's not clear already, the reason why I have a problem is that these allegations are too serious to be left unanswered. Or put another way, the sources of the allegations are clearly not flippant, not made lightly, not made by people who just float about the edges of left organisations (like me!), but by people who gave decades of their lives to the very same organisation they are accusing of wrong-doing.

If anyone is curious about what I'm talking about, all they need to do is follow a line of facebook contributors, from my timeline, or threads on my timeline. Perhaps some of them will post their names and links on to the end of this post so that people can see what it is I'm talking about. One website belonging to jimjepps.net is gathering it all up anyway.

Please note: I am not saying that all - or even some - of these allegations are necessarily true. My position is that it is not sufficient for those of us on the left to be given little or no reply to them. But....how arrogant of us who are not even members or (in my case never were) to 'demand' this of the SWP! Yes, true but that's because we are appealed to, invited to join in with that party's activities. So, speaking as a minority of one, I'm appealing back to the SWP: just for one moment, never mind the stuff about why your organisation is the most perfectly equipped means by which humanity will reach utopia, never mind all the stuff about how you and only you are poised to be in the most perfect place to lead this or that resistance. You won't lead anything at all, or be equipped to deal with anything, or even find that you're welcome in campaigns, if you don't deal with what you're accused of by people who up until recently were amongst your most loyal, most active members - and in some cases - officials.

So - again, to be clear - it's not me making these allegations. You have already shown that you are happy to try to splat people like me 'on the outside' - on occasions making up hooey to suit the case. (I don't ever expect a reply or an apology for the lie directed at me during this matter, even though I appealed to you to rectify your lie. But as I don't expect it, neither can you expect from me co-operation. We can call that quits.) The allegations come from people who were 'your own'. They're not even people who you've expelled.

There. I don't think I can be clearer.
Click to expand...

I'm a little perplexed that (in view of all the bad blood that now exists between him & the party) Michael Rosen is being advertised in the latest SW as appearing at an event at Bookmarks on Saturday 21st December. Was this arranged before the present contretemps? If not, will he now consider pulling out?
 
Vladtheimpaler said:
Worried that the predictions by oppositionist friends still in the party (well, at least until the latest conference) that it would soon drift away from class struggle into identity politics & compromises with reformism are being proved correct.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your account, very interesting. Why do you think that members of the ISN are so attracted to identity politics and reformism?
 
J Ed said:
Thanks for sharing your account, very interesting. Why do you think that members of the ISN are so attracted to identity politics and reformism?
Click to expand...
I guess because they've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. A lot of the people who were recruited young and inexperienced and have only known the SWP as 'the authentic voice of Leninism' have rejected the whole Leninist project and are now looking for alternative narratives that seem to make sense. For example, by for so long setting up 'feminism' as a caricatured bogeyman based on obviously mistaken (& sometimes bonkers) 1970s species of radical separatism or bourgeois careerism, the SWP can't cope with a whole new generation of young women stripped of that baggage but who are proud to call themselves 'feminist', meaning simply that they are for women's liberation. This in effect plays into the hands of the purveyors of patriarchy theory & other ideologies that don't recognise the centrality of class.
 
Nigel Irritable said:
What allegations is he talking about? The same ones we've been discussing here forever, or something new?
Click to expand...
Yes, those we are very familiar with. Michael Rosen has obviously been checking out the resignation letters that Jim Jepps has conveniently posted on his webpage.
Anyway, he has clearly wound up one loyalist, who sent him the following note:

Michael-which side are you on? If you want to sling mud at Revolutionary activists be prepared for the consequences! If you can't stand the heat don't set fire to the kitchen in the first place.Ok these reactions may not be pretty but what do you expect?"

A sign to things to come in an Idoom controlled SWP?
 
Oisin123 said:
Very civil of you. There are, however, plenty of people around keen to try to put the boot in, but since no one here but JM takes the loyalist position (and that in his capacity as a British SWP member only), it just comes across as an attempt to try and make political capital opportunistically.
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No one but JM? I probably have zero chance of this being treated as an honest question but it is. No one? That's not entirely the impression I had. Bearing in mind that loyalism is a spectrum that over here at least includes a lot of very different positions. I had the impression there were very few idoom types (ok probably zero exist anywhere outside the uk!) but plenty of what would be called middle grounders over here. I realise there are plenty of my old Irish mates who would be completely on your side on this, I can see them on FB making it clear they're in favour of kicking the SWP out of the IST etc but there are variations on a theme no?
 
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Karmickameleon said:
Yes, those we are very familiar with. Michael Rosen has obviously been checking out the resignation letters that Jim Jepps has conveniently posted on his webpage.
Anyway, he has clearly wound up one loyalist, who sent him the following note:

Michael-which side are you on? If you want to sling mud at Revolutionary activists be prepared for the consequences! If you can't stand the heat don't set fire to the kitchen in the first place.Ok these reactions may not be pretty but what do you expect?"

A sign to things to come in an Idoom controlled SWP?
Click to expand...
Interesting that he says in his public reply that Kimber sent him a note with a very different tone. How anyone in the SWP thinks they're helping matters by abusing Rosen for...being Rosen is beyond me. I do think it's odd he's acting like he only just heard all these other accusations (is he really that naive) but whatever the case on that, the moronic abuse he's getting is just appalling. Luckily it's not the only way swpers are reacting to him but it is daft, actually it's worse than daft :-(
 
bolshiebhoy said:
Interesting that he says in his public reply that Kimber sent him a note with a very different tone. How anyone in the SWP thinks they're helping matters by abusing Rosen for...being Rosen is beyond me. I do think it's odd he's acting like he only just heard all these other accusations (is he really that naive) but whatever the case on that, the moronic abuse he's getting is just appalling. Luckily it's not the only way swpers are reacting to him but it is daft, actually it's worse than daft :-(
Click to expand...
BTW the person who wrote the message is apparently a woman (not named). Another loyalist muppet (Saira Meiner) comments:
Although the message isn't v pleasant, I really don't think it's a threat and it does not represent members of the swp asna (sic) whole. No one is happy with what's happened in the last year. No one.
Sounds like a threat to me ie "be prepared to face the consequences". But perhaps she means that Rosen won't be invited to Marxism any more, which might be a blessing in disguise...
 
I don't understand why all these young-ish people ever gave a fuck about "the IS tradition" in the first place. I could perhaps understand it if you were an old timer who remebers the days when the SWP were seemingly a much healthier organisation but people in their 20's and 30's? What tradition would that be? The one that fucked up socialist alliance? Respect? Stop the War etc etc

Same could be said for any type of Leninism but this particular type is even more baffling. At Lenin successfully overthrew the Tsar, at least there's something there at the very basis of it which is romantic and epoch-defining enough to really be loyal toward.

And if they all end up becoming ultra-liberal identairians or outright Tories then I wouldn't be surprised.

I should really collect my thoughts on this and write something long and boring rather than just come out with banal statements, especially as some people on here have gone to a lot of effort and taken a lot of time to chronicle their experiences of the SWP.
 
the principle of 'the tradition' for me (as a 'youngster', i was in between ages 14-21) was important as a kind of constitution; a guarantee that core principles of the 'troika' (socialism from below, state capitalism, permanent arms economy) would never be abrogated for opportunistic gain. clearly the entire time i was a member the 'troika' was being devastated by every policy turn - but within the whirling madness of the latest last minute swooshes from the leadership the canon seemed to be a rock of rationality and principle amidst a sea of opportunistic bullshit.

it was an instrumentalist argument really but one which left me with a sentimental attachment to 'the tradition' for a long while after they shunted me.
 
killer b said:
christ, it's like the truth & reconciliation commission in here this week.

;)
Click to expand...
now it's all over a lot of us feel the need to get it out of our systems. i certainly do.

anyway, my membership was brief compared to some of the others here, i joined in '88.

i had seen 'young frank', a shy sixteen year old in a tweed jacket and black jeans selling s.w. at wolvo train station on a friday evening. he was pretty weedy looking and flinched when somebody shouted 'wanker' at him but carried on regardless. i didn't buy a paper but was impressed.
i was an eighteen year old labourer, my only political reading up to that point was an anarchist comic, the bit from 'mask of anarchy' on the back of 'sound affects' by the jam and a clipping from a broadsheet paper about lenin, trotsky and stalin. at work i would have to throw away loads of paper that the chrome plated plug holes we were making were wrapped in and would read the interesting looking articles on my break. i decided i liked trotsky and lenin so cut out their pictures and stuck them on my locker. the rest of my politics i got from two tone, the style council and the redskins.
i eventually bought the paper when i was in town on a saturday. they had a dozen people selling, making a right racket, having a laugh and taking the piss out of each other. i was asked if i wanted the paper delivered so i gave them my address.
sneaky bastards.
i agreed with everything in the paper plus i thought they had nicked the redskins album title for their masthead, which impressed me. marxism looked good, meetings on music and film and a shitload of other stuff, so i sent off for a ticket. the following thursday a funny, spiky little irish feller who looked like a cross between trotsky, bob dylan and a lab rat and an earnest looking ex para falklands veteran turned up on my doorstep with my paper. we chatted, i liked them but i didn't let them in the house.
the next week i had decided to go to a meeting, when they came to deliver the paper i asked them if it was ok, they seemed overwhelmed with joy so i went.
it was ace.
twenty odd people in the back room of a dingy wolverhampton pub. the chair of the meeting, steve, looked well cool, short silver hair brushed back, denim shirt, cowboy boots and an easy smile on his face. the meeting was great, the contributions were great, the atmosphere was great. i was well impressed when kenny spoke, edinburgh accent, early twenties, yellow fred perry. also, and i probably shouldn't say it in the context of this thread but in the spirit of truth and whatever, the women were gorgeous. i couldn't get enough.
i ended up staying after with frank henderson, a shop steward at longbridge and long time trot, and jim, a council manual worker. chatting for ages. i developed the sort of bond you get between apprentices and the skilled blokes that teach them almost immediately with frank. kind of a man crush. the whole thing was overwhelming. from feeling so politically isolated before to discovering there was a whole room full of revolutionaries who were all so sound and friendly. lots of them in their teens and early twenties, a fair few working class.
anyway, i joined the party at that meeting.
then came marxism. just getting off the coach in mallet st was great. tons of socialists everywhere. i was wearing my long sleeved black fred perry, tight dogtooth trousers and red white and blue bowling shoes. ulu was like a scene out of a film. it seemed like utter chaos, but friendly chaos. the meetings were great, i hung round with steve, a postie who was a year older than me, paula, also a year older and an art student, alison, also twenty and an art student, brendan and frank were both sixteen, frank doing sixth form, brendan working as a clerk. days listening to foot, hallas and cliff, nights getting pissed and having a laugh with the branch on the institute balcony or dancing at ulu. i fell in love with the swp there and then.
the early days were great, large ish branch, great parties, interesting meetings, drinking in the newhampton. my self confidence grew, speaking in meetings helped massively when i had to do it at work. i played a pivotal role in turning a sectional dispute over shifts into a factory wide dispute over unionisation, which i would definitely not have done if i hadn't been in the party.
and our branch seemed fairly autonomous. i didn't question democracy as we seemed to decide stuff and act on stuff as a branch and i felt part of that.

i'm too tired to finish it. anyway, that's the start. tomorrow maybe i'll do part two, oisin123, his part in my downfall.
 
Delroy Booth said:
I don't understand why all these young-ish people ever gave a fuck about "the IS tradition" in the first place. I could perhaps understand it if you were an old timer who remebers the days when the SWP were seemingly a much healthier organisation but people in their 20's and 30's? What tradition would that be? The one that fucked up socialist alliance? Respect? Stop the War etc etc

Same could be said for any type of Leninism but this particular type is even more baffling. At Lenin successfully overthrew the Tsar, at least there's something there at the very basis of it which is romantic and epoch-defining enough to really be loyal toward.

And if they all end up becoming ultra-liberal identairians or outright Tories then I wouldn't be surprised.

I should really collect my thoughts on this and write something long and boring rather than just come out with banal statements, especially as some people on here have gone to a lot of effort and taken a lot of time to chronicle their experiences of the SWP.
Click to expand...
I'm a bit knackered to do this can of worms justice, Delroy, so this will be brief and probably inadequate (I'll try to provide a fuller, more worked out account tomorrow if you like). I think when most people refer to 'the IS tradition', what they're really talking about is a body of theory (courtesy of Cliff, Hallas, Harman, etc.) which (whether you agree or disagree) still has some intellectual clout together with a (perhaps imaginary) golden age when that drove the practice of the party, rather than the increasingly unprincipled opportunism of the last couple of decades. It's the cognitive dissonance experienced in trying to reconcile the two that has led to the entirely counterposed social psychological coping mechanisms on the part of some older members: (a) utter blinkered denial that any such contradiction exists on the part of the IDOOMers; or (b) bitter rejection of the whole project of revolutionary socialism to which they've devoted their lives by too many that have left. Younger comrades (and a fair number of old lags like me) don't necessarily experience the wrench in quite such an extreme way. Some will go in search of other ways to square the circle. Others will take a more dialectical approach and see the contradiction as just that - a worthwhile tradition betrayed (but not negated) by an antithetical praxis.
 
I used to like Socialist Alliance as a concept, to think so many years later that LU seem to be basically in a similar vein, and that thus those years have been arguably lost while neoliberal capitalism marched on, well...it's very frustrating.

Can anyone link to a reliable and substantive account of how the SWs screwed it up? Ta if so.

ETA: Permanent Revolution have an account which starts well but gets a bit bogged down in theory.
 
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You beat me to it! Actually I know at least one left ISNer who will be disappointed by this, many saw PT as one of their significant heavyweights. It also makes it even less likely that the recently departed will manage to salvage something recognisable.

But yes every time this happens over the next few months it'll cement the relationship between the left of the faction and us (middle ground) loyalists ever so slightly more than it was previously.
 
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bolshiebhoy said:
You beat me to it! Actually I know at least one left ISNer who will be disappointed by this, many saw PT as one of their significant heavyweights. It also makes it even less likely that the recently departed will manage to salvage something recognisable.

But yes every time this happens over the next few months it'll cement the relationship between the left of the faction and us (middle ground) loyalists ever so slightly more than it was previously.
Click to expand...
You seem to be saying that Paris has left the ISN. Do you know that for sure? Despite the name of the organisation, there are quite a lot still comfortably in it (obviously, I'm not one of them) who would agree with him that 'the IS tradition is dead'.
 
discokermit said:
now it's all over a lot of us feel the need to get it out of our systems. i certainly do.

anyway, my membership was brief compared to some of the others here, i joined in '88.

i had seen 'young frank', a shy sixteen year old in a tweed jacket and black jeans selling s.w. at wolvo train station on a friday evening. he was pretty weedy looking and flinched when somebody shouted 'wanker' at him but carried on regardless. i didn't buy a paper but was impressed.
i was an eighteen year old labourer, my only political reading up to that point was an anarchist comic, the bit from 'mask of anarchy' on the back of 'sound affects' by the jam and a clipping from a broadsheet paper about lenin, trotsky and stalin. at work i would have to throw away loads of paper that the chrome plated plug holes we were making were wrapped in and would read the interesting looking articles on my break. i decided i liked trotsky and lenin so cut out their pictures and stuck them on my locker. the rest of my politics i got from two tone, the style council and the redskins.
i eventually bought the paper when i was in town on a saturday. they had a dozen people selling, making a right racket, having a laugh and taking the piss out of each other. i was asked if i wanted the paper delivered so i gave them my address.
sneaky bastards.
i agreed with everything in the paper plus i thought they had nicked the redskins album title for their masthead, which impressed me. marxism looked good, meetings on music and film and a shitload of other stuff, so i sent off for a ticket. the following thursday a funny, spiky little irish feller who looked like a cross between trotsky, bob dylan and a lab rat and an earnest looking ex para falklands veteran turned up on my doorstep with my paper. we chatted, i liked them but i didn't let them in the house.
the next week i had decided to go to a meeting, when they came to deliver the paper i asked them if it was ok, they seemed overwhelmed with joy so i went.
it was ace.
twenty odd people in the back room of a dingy wolverhampton pub. the chair of the meeting, steve, looked well cool, short silver hair brushed back, denim shirt, cowboy boots and an easy smile on his face. the meeting was great, the contributions were great, the atmosphere was great. i was well impressed when kenny spoke, edinburgh accent, early twenties, yellow fred perry. also, and i probably shouldn't say it in the context of this thread but in the spirit of truth and whatever, the women were gorgeous. i couldn't get enough.
i ended up staying after with frank henderson, a shop steward at longbridge and long time trot, and jim, a council manual worker. chatting for ages. i developed the sort of bond you get between apprentices and the skilled blokes that teach them almost immediately with frank. kind of a man crush. the whole thing was overwhelming. from feeling so politically isolated before to discovering there was a whole room full of revolutionaries who were all so sound and friendly. lots of them in their teens and early twenties, a fair few working class.
anyway, i joined the party at that meeting.
then came marxism. just getting off the coach in mallet st was great. tons of socialists everywhere. i was wearing my long sleeved black fred perry, tight dogtooth trousers and red white and blue bowling shoes. ulu was like a scene out of a film. it seemed like utter chaos, but friendly chaos. the meetings were great, i hung round with steve, a postie who was a year older than me, paula, also a year older and an art student, alison, also twenty and an art student, brendan and frank were both sixteen, frank doing sixth form, brendan working as a clerk. days listening to foot, hallas and cliff, nights getting pissed and having a laugh with the branch on the institute balcony or dancing at ulu. i fell in love with the swp there and then.
the early days were great, large ish branch, great parties, interesting meetings, drinking in the newhampton. my self confidence grew, speaking in meetings helped massively when i had to do it at work. i played a pivotal role in turning a sectional dispute over shifts into a factory wide dispute over unionisation, which i would definitely not have done if i hadn't been in the party.
and our branch seemed fairly autonomous. i didn't question democracy as we seemed to decide stuff and act on stuff as a branch and i felt part of that.

i'm too tired to finish it. anyway, that's the start. tomorrow maybe i'll do part two, oisin123, his part in my downfall.
Click to expand...
Good stuff, Discokermit. The sartorial standards have certainly dropped since the 80s. M&S is now the leading label! I look forward to hearing exactly what you were wearing when you decided to leave. Personally, I was in a rather fetching dressing gown. ; )
 
discokermit said:
now it's all over a lot of us feel the need to get it out of our systems. i certainly do.

anyway, my membership was brief compared to some of the others here, i joined in '88.

i had seen 'young frank', a shy sixteen year old in a tweed jacket and black jeans selling s.w. at wolvo train station on a friday evening. he was pretty weedy looking and flinched when somebody shouted 'wanker' at him but carried on regardless. i didn't buy a paper but was impressed.
i was an eighteen year old labourer, my only political reading up to that point was an anarchist comic, the bit from 'mask of anarchy' on the back of 'sound affects' by the jam and a clipping from a broadsheet paper about lenin, trotsky and stalin. at work i would have to throw away loads of paper that the chrome plated plug holes we were making were wrapped in and would read the interesting looking articles on my break. i decided i liked trotsky and lenin so cut out their pictures and stuck them on my locker. the rest of my politics i got from two tone, the style council and the redskins.
i eventually bought the paper when i was in town on a saturday. they had a dozen people selling, making a right racket, having a laugh and taking the piss out of each other. i was asked if i wanted the paper delivered so i gave them my address.
sneaky bastards.
i agreed with everything in the paper plus i thought they had nicked the redskins album title for their masthead, which impressed me. marxism looked good, meetings on music and film and a shitload of other stuff, so i sent off for a ticket. the following thursday a funny, spiky little irish feller who looked like a cross between trotsky, bob dylan and a lab rat and an earnest looking ex para falklands veteran turned up on my doorstep with my paper. we chatted, i liked them but i didn't let them in the house.
the next week i had decided to go to a meeting, when they came to deliver the paper i asked them if it was ok, they seemed overwhelmed with joy so i went.
it was ace.
twenty odd people in the back room of a dingy wolverhampton pub. the chair of the meeting, steve, looked well cool, short silver hair brushed back, denim shirt, cowboy boots and an easy smile on his face. the meeting was great, the contributions were great, the atmosphere was great. i was well impressed when kenny spoke, edinburgh accent, early twenties, yellow fred perry. also, and i probably shouldn't say it in the context of this thread but in the spirit of truth and whatever, the women were gorgeous. i couldn't get enough.
i ended up staying after with frank henderson, a shop steward at longbridge and long time trot, and jim, a council manual worker. chatting for ages. i developed the sort of bond you get between apprentices and the skilled blokes that teach them almost immediately with frank. kind of a man crush. the whole thing was overwhelming. from feeling so politically isolated before to discovering there was a whole room full of revolutionaries who were all so sound and friendly. lots of them in their teens and early twenties, a fair few working class.
anyway, i joined the party at that meeting.
then came marxism. just getting off the coach in mallet st was great. tons of socialists everywhere. i was wearing my long sleeved black fred perry, tight dogtooth trousers and red white and blue bowling shoes. ulu was like a scene out of a film. it seemed like utter chaos, but friendly chaos. the meetings were great, i hung round with steve, a postie who was a year older than me, paula, also a year older and an art student, alison, also twenty and an art student, brendan and frank were both sixteen, frank doing sixth form, brendan working as a clerk. days listening to foot, hallas and cliff, nights getting pissed and having a laugh with the branch on the institute balcony or dancing at ulu. i fell in love with the swp there and then.
the early days were great, large ish branch, great parties, interesting meetings, drinking in the newhampton. my self confidence grew, speaking in meetings helped massively when i had to do it at work. i played a pivotal role in turning a sectional dispute over shifts into a factory wide dispute over unionisation, which i would definitely not have done if i hadn't been in the party.
and our branch seemed fairly autonomous. i didn't question democracy as we seemed to decide stuff and act on stuff as a branch and i felt part of that.

i'm too tired to finish it. anyway, that's the start. tomorrow maybe i'll do part two, oisin123, his part in my downfall.
Click to expand...
I've got Frank Henderson's (quite brief) autobiography. Interesting life.
 
Vladtheimpaler said:
In North London, Harrington jackets, black 501s, white socks & DM greasies were de rigueur.
Click to expand...
Despite their nutty politics & obnoxious manner, on paper sales the expensively dressed RCP fashion victims over the road always beat us in the style wars, I'm afraid. Subjected to semiotic analysis, I guess our uniform signified proletcult and theirs middle class twattery. How prescient of their later transformation into right wing media tarts!
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
I used to like Socialist Alliance as a concept, to think so many years later that LU seem to be basically in a similar vein, and that thus those years have been arguably lost while neoliberal capitalism marched on, well...it's very frustrating.

Can anyone link to a reliable and substantive account of how the SWs screwed it up? Ta if so.

ETA: Permanent Revolution have an account which starts well but gets a bit bogged down in theory.
Click to expand...

Basically, they insisted on moving to a OMOV set up, a bit like the ISN (no, not that one) wanted in TUSC. Because at the time they were the largest group involved, that meant they could effectively control the SA. At this point the Socialist Party left, and eventually the SWP de facto ended the alliance by creating Respect.

The alternative explanation, which I've been offered from time to time, is that the SP are to blame because they left, therefore making it easier for the SWP to dominate.

There's some substantive (though obviously biased) stuff here: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ke...12-2001/socialist-alliance-conference-setback
 
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