SWP expulsions and squabbles

[bolshiebhoy]

After 508 pages of this stuff I feel no closer to understanding the minds of the SWP leadership. The sensible course of action - some sort of damage limitation strategy involving apologies and quasi-independent investigation (eg the sort of thing most political parties do all the time to kick difficult issues into the long grass) - seems so fucking obvious it seems just impossibly masochistic that events have unfolded as they have. Deranged. It's strange world where giving any ground to opposition is deemed worse than trashing your reputation so comprehensively your ability to achieve anything at all is at stake. And it's this complete utter disregard for how this all looks to the outside world - including 'the class' - that really has me perplexed.

But what would have stopped the exodus and been good enough for the external critics? Every concession was met by more demands because nothing short of the end of the swp as currently constituted was ever going to be enough. Sort the dc process? Fine, now you must apologise. And if the apology had been good enough? Fine, now the cc must resign. And if that had happened? Fine, now we must examine the failures of leninism that led to the Smith debacle. Etc, etc. There was always a bigger agenda for the ultras in the faction, the sad thing is that because they weren't entirely open about it it's going to be very difficult for them to cohere as a group now they've left. Which is sad cause we don't need more flailing about like the ISN.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

typical rat behaviour, tying those closer to you as the left, snd thus those who oppose your rape cult as the right.

Christ you must be fun at Xmas parties with a turn of phrase like that, chill out, not everything is as black and white as you would like. You do realise that left and right here aren't terms of abuse they're attempts to situate the different trends yeah? More left isn't always 'correct' any more than more to the right is 'wrong'. Personally I'd place myself on the centre right of the loyalists. But that's obviously only because I no longer lock my son in the coal shed when he misquotes Where We Stand.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

But what would have stopped the exodus and been good enough for the external critics? Every concession was met by more demands because nothing short of the end of the swp as currently constituted was ever going to be enough. Sort the dc process? Fine, now you must apologise. And if the apology had been good enough? Fine, now the cc must resign. And if that had happened? Fine, now we must examine the failures of leninism that led to the Smith debacle. Etc, etc. There was always a bigger agenda for the ultras in the faction, the sad thing is that because they weren't entirely open about it it's going to be very difficult for them to cohere as a group now they've left. Which is sad cause we don't need more flailing about like the ISN.

Still the good news is that the SWP is now more fucked than ever - it has not recovered really from a single set back in the last 10 years or more - the most it has done is not suffer as badly as it should have because of a sizable resevoir of good will and people who identified with them, even if not members. Both of those have now dried up, along with the exodus of a critical mass of members, particularly the more personable and intelligent ones. The only ones left are the unpleasant hacks and the idiots who were never capable of independent thought.

 

[newbie]

But what would have stopped the exodus

reading the first page or so of the Dummies Guide to being a Great Leader?

 

[barney_pig]

Christ you must be fun at Xmas parties with a turn of phrase like that, chill out, not everything is as black and white as you would like. You do realise that left and right here aren't terms of abuse they're attempts to situate the different trends yeah? More left isn't always 'correct' any more than more to the right is 'wrong'. Personally I'd place myself on the centre right of the loyalists. But that's obviously only because I no longer lock my son in the coal shed when he misquotes Where We Stand.

As your idea of correct is to support rapists I really don't give a fuck what you think, although I would be half interested to see what shades of grey you can give rape, sexual harassment and hacking to destroy evidence. But not so interested, so I have finally put you on ignore.

 

[killer b]

But what would have stopped the exodus and been good enough for the external critics? Every concession was met by more demands because nothing short of the end of the swp as currently constituted was ever going to be enough. Sort the dc process? Fine, now you must apologise. And if the apology had been good enough? Fine, now the cc must resign. And if that had happened? Fine, now we must examine the failures of leninism that led to the Smith debacle. Etc, etc. There was always a bigger agenda for the ultras in the faction, the sad thing is that because they weren't entirely open about it it's going to be very difficult for them to cohere as a group now they've left. Which is sad cause we don't need more flailing about like the ISN.

Basically, this is a textbook example of how not to do this shit. How could it have been done better? By doing the exact opposite of what they actually did do, at every single decision point.

That said, the die was cast the moment they tried to cover up the initial rape allegations imo.

 

[Oisin123]

I would be half interested to see what shades of grey you can give rape, sexual harassment and hacking to destroy evidence...

50, presumably.

 

[belboid]

their members in Sheffield could all be sharing the same brain and you wouldn't know any difference - in fact, come to think of it ).

really? My experience is that they're almost as all over the shop as the ISN nationally. There's even one of Seymour's clique here, altho only one, and they turn up to nowt. A couple are well into their identity politics schtick, but not all of them by any means. Naah, they're as confused as the organisation nationally.

we'll be helping out on their campaign this year

christ, please dont bother - most of her comrades dont (they think its a complete waste of time and just massaging her ego). And hopefully this will be her last time

 

[belboid]

But what would have stopped the exodus and been good enough for the external critics?

well, one leading oppo recently said that all they wanted to see was that the party could accept they got something wrong and that the world changes, and so we need to change with it. That's all, hardly a massive break with years of tradition. Hell, recognising how the world changes and how previous truths no longer hold up was the foundation of the tradition!

Ideas, as I'm sure you remember, are not like shoes comrade, you cant just pull them out from under the bed after twenty years and go 'oh yes, these are just perfect'

 

[SpackleFrog]

Well then, much as it pains me, I have to concur in this instance with the Trot-bashing Limerick Red, & ask what the fuck's the point in being in a democratic centralist organisation if on the ground you practise pure autonomism?

That's not what he said, is it? Why reply if you're gonna do so in such a lazy manner?

 

[articul8]

Desperate and transparent. Really makes you look a fool. Are you channelling John Golding or something?

wtf? I've not turned into a witchhunter if that's what you're implying. I can and do happily work with the SP on local anti-cuts stuff, even if there's an obvious parting of the ways around futile attempts to stand TUSC candidates. I'm sure the internal regime IS in relative terms far superior to the SWP. That doesn't mean it doesn't share aspects of the flaws of this Leninist model of organising (I know there was a pretty pathetic attempt to substitute "democratic unity" or some such for "democratic centralism" but the core concept is a bastardised version of a model the Bolsheviks weren't even using in condition of illegality under Tsarist dictatorship).

But of course I'm in Labour so that automatically invalidates anything I have ever said, am saying, or could every say.

 

[Oisin123]

Sort the dc process? Fine, now you must apologise. And if the apology had been good enough? Fine, now the cc must resign. And if that had happened? Fine, now we must examine the failures of leninism that led to the Smith debacle.

For anyone searching for the explanation of the mentality of the loyalists that them to this disaster, this is really it in a nutshell. So the fundamental axiom is there must be a Leninist Party at all costs. From that, there must be an SWP. From that, the CC must not be open to root and branch challenge. From there, an apology would be dangerous. From there, an admission Smith did anything wrong would be a political mistake.

bolshie, if you learned anything about Marx in your revolutionary years, you might have picked up that for him the truth was always specific, detailed and concrete. And that only after understanding the nitty gritty detail can you have a firm footing for a wide generalisation. So there would be no theory of evolution without Darwin's decades of work on barnacles. There would be no Marxist theory of history without intensely narrow particular studies of key events of Marx's time. And the right way to understand the lessons of this current crisis is to start from what actually happened. If you ground yourself there and work outwards, you might not like the general conclusions, but they will be correct ones. If you start with an a priori position that the SWP leadership have to continue as they are for the sake of a future revolution, then you are not a Marxist but a Kantian. And you're also finished as a human being capable of original thought.

 

[SpackleFrog]

The fact that SWPers from all over the country had remarkably similar experiences of TUSC would suggest there was a centralised strategy at work there.

SWPers all over the country demonstrate some very different attitudes to TUSC as you well know - in 2010 I asked some local SWPers if they would support a TUSC campaign in the town where I was at the time. They didn't know what it was, and when I told them they weren't interested. Many SWP members are totally uninterested in electoral politics or in TUSC.

 

[SpackleFrog]

we'll be helping out on their campaign this year.

Woah. I thought we said that we'd offer, if it helped to get them to take it more seriously/stand more candidates? I didn't think we'd definitely committed ourselves to it had we?

 

[SpackleFrog]

But what would have stopped the exodus and been good enough for the external critics? Every concession was met by more demands because nothing short of the end of the swp as currently constituted was ever going to be enough. Sort the dc process? Fine, now you must apologise. And if the apology had been good enough? Fine, now the cc must resign. And if that had happened? Fine, now we must examine the failures of leninism that led to the Smith debacle. Etc, etc. There was always a bigger agenda for the ultras in the faction, the sad thing is that because they weren't entirely open about it it's going to be very difficult for them to cohere as a group now they've left. Which is sad cause we don't need more flailing about like the ISN.

You are genuinely starting to sicken me.

 

[belboid]

Woah. I thought we said that we'd offer, if it helped to get them to take it more seriously/stand more candidates? I didn't think we'd definitely committed ourselves to it had we?

You want them to stand more candidates? Even now??!'

 

[SpackleFrog]

In fact, this crisis is not just the SWP’s. It effects the whole of a revolutionary left that continues to fragment at every turn.

http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/991/swp-conference-notes-of-a-delegate

A detailed analysis and well worth reading, but I'm getting really fed up of this attitude. I keep encountering oppositionists that insist that because the SWP is in crisis, then by definition so is the rest of the left. I'm finding it a bit fucking annoying to be honest. I'm not trying to claim the left is in a healthy state, but I think its fair enough to say that the rest of the left is not imploding as a result of covering up rape allegations and protecting rapists.

I'm not saying that the SWP weren't or aren't still a major part of the left, I think its the attitude that pisses me off so much. I get a lot of ISN types insisting to me that its not just the SWP, that no left organisation can possibly be healthy, and I don't see any logic behind that other than some kind of belief that the SWP was a perfect organisation and that where it has failed, so too must all others.

 

[SpackleFrog]

You want them to stand more candidates? Even now??!'

Weeeeell... we want to get to the threshold for fair media coverage for TUSC candidates (15%) and they only want to stand MB. At least thats what we agreed a month or so ago. At the moment, what I want I'm not to sure about.

 

[Shoegazer]

Weeeeell... we want to get to the threshold for fair media coverage for TUSC candidates (15%) and they only want to stand MB. At least thats what we agreed a month or so ago. At the moment, what I want I'm not to sure about.

I suspect that, come election time, the voters of Sheffield will be reminded that 'Mad Maxine' was part of the original DC which cleared Delta.
Wasn't it her who asked the young complainant if it was fair to say she 'liked a drink'?
MB has stood for SA, Respect and TUSC and would no doubt stand for Left Unity if there was a sudden change of the party line.

 

[belboid]

Wasn't it her who asked the young complainant if it was fair to say she 'liked a drink'?

and also said that she'd 'say sorry, but not apologise'

 

[Shoegazer]

and also said that she'd 'say sorry, but not apologise'

She obviously has the levels of sincerity and integrity required to be an MP then!

 

[SpackleFrog]

I suspect that, come election time, the voters of Sheffield will be reminded that 'Mad Maxine' was part of the original DC which cleared Delta.
Wasn't it her who asked the young complainant if it was fair to say she 'liked a drink'?
MB has stood for SA, Respect and TUSC and would no doubt stand for Left Unity if there was a sudden change of the party line.

She is, not to put to fine a point on it, a big ball of festering excrement. But (sadly?) nobody is going to "remind" the voters of Sheffield of that, are they?

 

[ska invita]

From this mornings resignation round up:

"Our student members have been shouted at, shoved, had their papers ripped out of their hands (and burned in some cases), stalls tipped over, they were excluded from campaigns on campus, banned from student occupations... this list sadly goes on. These are not just 'problems' in our student work. These are tragedies, for the SWP and for the whole left. This is the position young comrades trying to build SWSS will find themselves in. It was not created by the factions (declared or not), it was created by a leadership that failed, at every turn, to swiftly address the problems we now admit our procedures had." [admit problems? ]

It will be interesting to see how isolated remaining SWPies find themselves in 2014

 

[treelover]

Perhaps a turn away from students would be apposite, though some do seem to becoming interested in more concrete issues.

 

[SpineyNorman]

really? My experience is that they're almost as all over the shop as the ISN nationally. There's even one of Seymour's clique here, altho only one, and they turn up to nowt. A couple are well into their identity politics schtick, but not all of them by any means. Naah, they're as confused as the organisation nationally.

I only really know their student members and they seem to share a kind of hive-mind, backing eachother up even when they're making obviously dodgy and prejudiced identity politics based arguments (apparently their having been 'patronised' by older comrades in the SWP means that ageism should be positively encouraged).

christ, please dont bother - most of her comrades dont (they think its a complete waste of time and just massaging her ego). And hopefully this will be her last time

I wish it wasn't her to be honest, given her role in the whole Delta affair, but if we're going to stand TUSC candidates it does make sense to concentrate where you get the best vote. Her comrades don't seem to think we should bother standing at all and if what they're saying is anything to go by I wouldn't be surprised to see the SWP leave TUSC before too long - with how cosy they seem to be getting with labour in the peoples assembly it wouldn't surprise me too much if they're calling for a 'critical' lp vote again come 2015.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Woah. I thought we said that we'd offer, if it helped to get them to take it more seriously/stand more candidates? I didn't think we'd definitely committed ourselves to it had we?

Yeah, what we're talking about doing is having one day - probably a Sunday - where we help out in that campaign.

 

[SpineyNorman]

She is, not to put to fine a point on it, a big ball of festering excrement. But (sadly?) nobody is going to "remind" the voters of Sheffield of that, are they?

I wouldn't be too surprised to find revsoc temporarily overcoming their pathological fear of doing anything outside the university campus - where there are no safe spaces and there are too many old men, who are probably all misogynist rapists - in order to do just that.

 

[belboid]

I only really know their student members and they seem to share a kind of hive-mind, backing eachother up even when they're making obviously dodgy and prejudiced identity politics based arguments (apparently their having been 'patronised' by older comrades in the SWP means that ageism should be positively encouraged).

defending their comrades' daft comments isn't really restricted to ISN, or SW tho, a common occurrence over the entire left, pretty much.

In other news - Seymour has outed himself as a Posadist - http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/20/outer-space-final-frontier-capitalism-mine-moon

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

She is, not to put to fine a point on it, a big ball of festering excrement. But (sadly?) nobody is going to "remind" the voters of Sheffield of that, are they?

Since as a Tusc candidate she is unlikely to keep her deposit or indeed win more than a few hundred votes it probably doesn't matter

 

[belboid]

Since as a Tusc candidate she is unlikely to keep her deposit or indeed win more than a few hundred votes it probably doesn't matter

uhh, no deposit in a local election. Tho she has always got enough votes to save a deposit were one required (as did the Socialist Alliance candidate before her)