Lenny the Lion - or Leo the Lion?don't be bloody coy. are you talking about lenny?
I know I'll regret asking but here goes nothing. So I'd imagine the only way to get that integrity is to stop supporting the swp and it's brand of politics yes? And to instead support one of the groups formed by the leavers assuming one is still vaguely an IS person? Can we at least have a chance to see what their politics are going to be first or do we have to base everything on a group's attitude to the delta question? Fair enough if you think we should base it on that, big test of a party's politics on oppression, I get that completely. But are we even allowed to wonder about all the other issues that these groups might disagree on, to ask what their ideas are, before we decide that only one course of action is morally/politically acceptable?
Although someone has commented that they saw him leaving home and heading off on his usual route to work at the usual time yesterday.
Well, I saw him driving a cab in Hackney last night.
He's a reformist and I'm not sure about you.
You are still looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope. By starting from a desire to have SWP politics unamended by this experience, you'll end up ... supporting the SWP, Delta and all. To have any kind of a future involvement in a mass movement, you have to start from the other end: the handling of the rape accusation was wrong, the efforts to avoid admitting that mistake despicable. There are political lessons to be drawn from this, which even if you want to retain most of the core SWP theoretical positions means a revision of what you thought about how the SWP organise. So, the right thing to do is to join one of the breakaways and help shape them and be part of the discussions. Watching from the side (or from within the SWP) looking for heretical deviations from the line in these new formations is heading for a position of: 'yeah, the Delta thing was wrong but lets move on because we have the best politics'. i.e. political death.
Actually, Jen is fairly reliable and well-informed - for example, her running total of those resigning in December was spot on. There's been more discussion on Facebook though.
There are others, but I can't discover the original source. Interestingly, this week's Party Notes is not yet up on the SWP website. I would have expected it by now.
Although this is an unconfirmed rumour, it wouldn't surprise me if Kimber has resigned as Nat Sec. Given his role and actions I have zero sympathy with him, but three fractious conferences in one year, splits on the CC, having to defend the indefensible etc must have taken their toll. What's more, the prospect of working with the IDOOM headbangers on the CC can't be very motivating. Anyway, we shall see...
I've also just seen a post from someone reasonably credible that Kimber has resigned as National Secretary, not from the SWP. This could be a rearrangement of posts on the CC - which itself would be significant. The CC will be meeting this evening, so I'm not expecting to see anything formal until after that meeting.
The telescope is the wrong analogy though Oisin, we need a pair of binoculars. One lens is the delta mess and I'm sure to everyone who 'always' knew the truth about that then it must look like some of us have had the lens cap on for most of the last year. The problem is apart from our personal prejudices about the people involved (good or bad) and how we think they might have acted we all actually only 'know' what we've been told in private and yes what I've been told most recently is appalling. But the other lens is the politics of the participants and lets not pretend there haven't been agendas beyond the cases. For some like Seymour the whole leninist project and traditional marxism itself are old hat and we all need to ride the post poulantzas wave. For others (generally the most recent departees and their international admirers) the position is less drastic but the delta mess was proof that unreconstructed cliffites are just shit on feminism and questions of internal democracy and have been so roughly since the IS became a party and cliffism with a humanist face was 'abandoned'. A position put most clearly by Shawki last summer and most academically but also most ridiculously in Abbie Bakan's article on the alleged 'epistemological dissonance' between 'certain brands of marxism' and feminism. There is tension between these groups but what both groups share is the belief that delta happened because of a flaw in the party's politics. There is of course a third group who think it happened despite the politics but sincerely believe it makes the politics too toxic to continue with the same leadership in charge, who in their eyes have so badly handled this mess and betrayed their own heritage. If that last group of people were the majority or even a sizable chunk among the leavers then I'd say the new grouping had a chance but I think the truth is they're a tiny minority. They do exist, I can think of one very impressive woman who left well before all the current crop but they are few and far between. Which might be one reason why the heavy hitters like Stack and Birchall have thrown the towel in completely rather than commit themselves to building a new org.
is just bullshit, really : The SWP made clear to it's own members how they had gone about 'investigating' the allegations against "Comrade Delta" , and these methods were made public when the transcript of conference was leaked. The methods of investigation were rotten - this was party, then public knowledge : The attempt to negotiate a "compromise" with the woman alleging assault, the Party's decision to "investigate" rape, the use of a panel made up of Comrade Delta's mates, the offensive "like a drink" questioning, the claims that concern about age differences was "bourgeois" , the initial , long, refusal to look at a second complaint of sexual harrassment , moving an employee who complained of sexual harrassment to another job : It was these public acts that led anyone with half a brain to realise that the SWP took a rotten approach to these complaints [this of course implied they were trying to cover something up, that's a reasonable inference ]. Forming a judgement doesn't depend on 'confidential' information, it depends on not being an idiot. Or at least, on not decieving yourself.
You speak of the Delta "mess" a number of times. But surely what happened is much more than that: the appalling way in which at least two women were treated (some of the details of which you now appear to be aware), the dishonest attempts by the so-called leadership to cover up for Delta, their refusal to apologise for what happened etc etc etc. Surely "scandal" would be a more appropriate word.
Stack is on the newly elected Steering Group of RS21.
oh wow sorry didnt realise that, think I conflated bits of his resignation letter with IB's in my head and vice versa. Better that he hasn't just disappeared.
