SWP expulsions and squabbles

[belboid]

Is this definitely a real thing? The person who recruited me to the SP was ex-SWP (now CPB) and one of his biggest gripes was that you weren't allowed to support England at football. Was this common in branches?

absolutely, a regular staple. One time when my branch was considering who to add to the branch committee, one chap was suggested, but vehemently rejected by our full-timer, Nigel, who damned him - 'he's not a communist. He can't be, he supports England.' He remained off the committee (something he was probably grateful for)

 

[belboid]

Interesting that he thinks the SP is still smaller than the SWP. Is he suggesting that because the SWP has haemorrhaged members, so to must the SP have?

naah, he's just saying its smaller. Used to be a lot smaller, now just a little bit

 

[J Ed]

absolutely, a regular staple. One time when my branch was considering who to add to the branch committee, one chap was suggested, but vehemently rejected by our full-timer, Nigel, who damned him - 'he's not a communist. He can't be, he supports England.' He remained off the committee (something he was probably grateful for)

Who do 'communists' support?

 

[belboid]

Who do 'communists' support?

ABE

unless you're German, in which case ND (Nur Deutschland)

 

[imposs1904]

Who do 'communists' support?

Surely you should always pull out the "90 minute Nationalist" card in such circumstances?

Though being Scottish I haven't had to pull out the card for a while. In fact, where did I put my card? I seem to remember I was using it as a bookmark back in 1998. If I'd known I wouldn't be using it for a while, I should have had it laminated.

 

[BK Double Stack]

The lack of self-awareness in German and Birchall's defensive comments are pretty outstanding. German's reasoning of "there was no problem with democracy in discussing Respect strategy; in fact, we never discussed it at all" is beyond laughable. Birchall looks very naive as well. "I traveled around as an invited speaker to many branches, and most of them seemed to have a great internal culture of debate." WTactualFuck are you that stupid?

When someone (especially someone who writes fucking books for an organization) visits a branch to speak, everyone wants to present themselves (as individuals) as really responsible and thoughtful. This obviously would seem to reflect itself collectively. Nothing sinister in this; its just how most people work. So, it is very difficult for a leading intellectual like Birchall to get an overall impression of different experiences within their party.

Reminds me of LeBlanc joining the ISO over here with a letter that said "they're very open to debate." Yeah, to YOU! You write the most widely-read books about Lenin on the left. Within weeks, there are a dozen resignations from the ISO with horror-stories of internal life. I'm not saying every internal critic should be taken at face value, and obviously the easiest line of attack against any left org is "this group isn't democratic!" Still, the obliviousness to different experiences within orgs depending on how you're viewed is absolutely astounding.

 

[imposs1904]

He was a member in Ireland, but much of the "insider" tone is a stylistic quirk. I don't think he was ever a leading figure.

well, you're one of the people on the thread who I presumed would know his real identity so I'll take your word for him never being a leading member.

However, with regards to the insider tone being a "stylistic quirk" I've always got the sense that he personally knows a lot of the leading characters in this sorry mess, and no one in the comments to his blogs has ever challenged him on it.

edited.

 

[J Ed]

Wow, it's almost as if they want to deliberately alienate people outside of their narrow subculture. Argh.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

well, you're one of the people on the thread who I presumed would know his real identity so I'll take your word for him never being a leading member.

However, with regards to the insider tone being a "stylistic quirk" I've always got the sense that he personally knows a lot of the leading characters in this sorry mess, and no one in the comments to his blogs has ever challenged him on it.

edited.

He uses the same tone and style when he's writing about Catholic leaders. He certainly will have encountered, met, heard speak, etc most senior SWP people and will have access to a lot of second hand information about them, but he's no more a former top leader of the British SWP than he is a former member of the Bishop's conference.

 

[barney_pig]

He uses the same tone and style when he's writing about Catholic leaders. He certainly will have encountered, met, heard speak, etc most senior SWP people and will have access to a lot of second hand information about them, but he's no more a former top leader of the British SWP than he is a former member of the Bishop's conference.

he did , on the old blog, get very defensive of the church at one stage. which seeing as it was around the attempts of the church to cover up and defend abusive priests, is alittle ironic..

 

[leyton96]

naah, he's just saying its smaller. Used to be a lot smaller, now just a little bit

If you're going by active membership then the SP is probably bigger.

Not that that means an awful lot for us since its been "achieved" largely by standing still.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Not that that means an awful lot for us since its been "achieved" largely by standing still.

Ah the best kind of progress.

 

[comrade spurski]

Is this definitely a real thing? The person who recruited me to the SP was ex-SWP (now CPB) and one of his biggest gripes was that you weren't allowed to support England at football. Was this common in branches?

It was called something like "revolutionary defeatism"...it was likened to supporting your country in a war if i remember correctly.
as an argument it tended to start off badly, go downwards and end up as a farce...apart from that it made perfect sense...if you were proper cadre!

 

[Nigel Irritable]

It always struck me as a weirdly counter-cultural stance. Or perhaps the sort of thing that people might have a drunk pseudo-theoretical argument about at 3AM, that somehow found itself as policy.

 

[Das Uberdog]

that was a fucking insane line. policy on the team you support in the World Cup is clearly a perfect analogy for the Bolshevik line towards the victory of the Tsarist government in wartime Russia. quite a few present leading ISNers took that argument up quite vociferously

 

[comrade spurski]

Who do 'communists' support?

bizarrely enough when I was in my early twenties and was a council worker and shop steward there was a meeting in a pub when England were playing Germany and some of the working class vanguard swp leadership thought it was cool to sign the German national anthem ...when I asked how singing a national anthem of a country as equally racist and capitalist as ours was showing they were socialists I was informed that I needed to read Trotsky and lenin...when I asked if lenin and trotsky supported germany at football they quoted marx at me...

It was interesting for me as it helped me learn to only agree with things that would
a) make sense to me and
b) make sense to my mates outside the swp

I never really got caught up in the swp's (and the rest of the lefts) love of "I'm right you're wrong" type arguments

 

[SLK]

Is this definitely a real thing? The person who recruited me to the SP was ex-SWP (now CPB) and one of his biggest gripes was that you weren't allowed to support England at football. Was this common in branches?

Yes. I fell for it and even started repeating the ridiculous revolutionary defeatism argument. I remember flyposting during the Euro 96 semi final desperate to watch and know the score but too scared to admit I wanted to know to my comrades at the time.

 

[comrade spurski]

that was a fucking insane line. policy on the team you support in the World Cup is clearly a perfect analogy for the Bolshevik line towards the victory of the Tsarist government in wartime Russia. quite a few present leading ISNers took that argument up quite vociferously

people who did fuck all in the real world with real people to build campaigns and strikes were the most fervent anti england supporters...they were convinced (rightly imo) that being white didn't make you a racist but acted like (wrongly in my opinion) being an england fan made you one step lower than a nazi
It was like being the most anti england fan made you the best socialist...weird for a party that was anti competition!

 

[Das Uberdog]

before the Bolton anti-EDL demo at an organizing meeting, i remember Delta making a specific point about southern members not chanting 'Narzi Scum' at any old soul they saw in Bolton with an England jersey, so entrenched was the habit and prejudice.

 

[frogwoman]

So if a German SWP member and an English SWP member were watching football they'd have to support each others national teams, that makes no sense

 

[comrade spurski]

before the Bolton anti-EDL demo at an organizing meeting, i remember Delta making a specific point about southern members not chanting 'Narzi Scum' at any old soul they saw in Bolton with an England jersey, so entrenched was the habit and prejudice.

doesn't suprise me at all unfortunately

 

[comrade spurski]

So if a German SWP member and an English SWP member were watching football they'd have to support each others national teams, that makes no sense

that's cos you haven't read enough Marx, Engles, Luxemburg or Trotsky

 

[Nigel Irritable]

What was their attitude to Ireland supporters? Are they backwards nationalists or plucky anti imperialists?

 

[belboid]

bizarrely enough when I was in my early twenties and was a council worker and shop steward there was a meeting in a pub when England were playing Germany and some of the working class vanguard swp leadership thought it was cool to sign the German national anthem ...when I asked how singing a national anthem of a country as equally racist and capitalist as ours was showing they were socialists I was informed that I needed to read Trotsky and lenin...when I asked if lenin and trotsky supported germany at football they quoted marx at me...

when i tried pointing out the same (and I dont particularly support England, not 'politically' but because I just dont really care about them) with relation to a then upcoming England - Germany game, and the fact that RD is rather predicated upon the fat that both countries CAN lose in a war, but not in (knock out) football, they just muttered. The fact that this game was at a time when the fash were weak over her, but busy firebombing asylum seekers' hostels in Germany, made the position seem even madder.

(I was actually delivering a meeting on the Iranian revolution at the time of the match. Very small turnout for some reason. Even smaller meeting by the end of my introduction too...)

 

[belboid]

What was their attitude to Ireland supporters? Are they backwards nationalists or plucky anti imperialists?

the latter. Tho had 'you' not been rubbish that position might have changed.

 

[imposs1904]

Yes. I fell for it and even started repeating the ridiculous revolutionary defeatism argument. I remember flyposting during the Euro 96 semi final desperate to watch and know the score but too scared to admit I wanted to know to my comrades at the time.

 

[imposs1904]

What was their attitude to Ireland supporters? Are they backwards nationalists or plucky anti imperialists?

I don't know about the irish supporters but I do know that McCarthy and McGeady suffer from nationalist illusions. Bastards.

 

[butchersapron]

What was their attitude to Ireland supporters? Are they backwards nationalists or plucky anti imperialists?

Backwards anti-imperialists.

 

[comrade spurski]

when i tried pointing out the same (and I dont particularly support England, not 'politically' but because I just dont really care about them) with relation to a then upcoming England - Germany game, and the fact that RD is rather predicated upon the fat that both countries CAN lose in a war, but not in (knock out) football, they just muttered. The fact that this game was at a time when the fash were weak over her, but busy firebombing asylum seekers' hostels in Germany, made the position seem even madder.

(I was actually delivering a meeting on the Iranian revolution at the time of the match. Very small turnout for some reason. Even smaller meeting by the end of my introduction too...)

ditto...but to be honest the revolutionary defeatism line was just ponciness...Delta was a west ham fan which was ok regardless of some of the west ham crowd being amoungst the most anti semetic fans in England...but a port vale fan would be lectured about being a bad socialist for support british racism if he wanted england to win a match...mind you it was funny to watch their neck veins nearly pop when they saw black people supporting england...it didn't compute or fit into their boxes so they just looked confused

if this has done your head in you should have been around when they argued all socialist should read Salmon Rusdie books cos they are great...I made the mistake of saying I found them unreadable to be told that it was a shame that the education system failed me...it was said a little more subtly but that was the meaning...that was by a lecturer called Gareth J
There was also the time when the real cool dj types (early 90's) argued that sociaists should listen to the clash and pogues because they were good and anything else was shit!!!

 

[imposs1904]

if this has done your head in you should have been around when they argued all socialist should read Salmon Rusdie books cos they are great...I made the mistake of saying I found them unreadable to be told that it was a shame that the education system failed me...it was said a little more subtly but that was the meaning...that was by a lecturer called Gareth J

For Spurski: