Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

SWP expulsions and squabbles

Ideal for the swp i would have thought'

Sorry for the above, sounds pro-forma, but it's not, I'm only sorry for confronting this now very well off prick here. He chose the grounds.
 
discokermit said:
i remember heffernan and her clique turning over the table of the radical anthropology group at marxism once. it was one of many things that turned me against the swp leadership.
Click to expand...
Physical assaults on other socialists were a regular feature of the SWPs summer school. Almost a tradition.
 
I remember going down there with Class War not long after I left the SWP. The swp had erected gazebos around the front, which had the 'completely coincidental' effect of stopping the lefties from gathering there.
Watching the wind pick them up and blow them across the road was a joy.
There was an attempt to strong arm us away, it failed.
The swp are simply being repaid in their own coin.
 
barney_pig said:
Physical assaults on other socialists were a regular feature of the SWPs summer school. Almost a tradition.
Click to expand...
Physical assaults is rather overstating it. A couple of nobs getting manhandled out, leaflets getting chucked was about the size of it. Of course there was the time when the cpgb were viciously assaulted with their own leaflets...
 
I think the AWL put out a whole pamphlet about a brutal and terrifying assault the SWP inflicted on some member of their's at Marxism 20 years ago or some similar nonsense.

I've seen the SWP pull all kinds of embarrassing, silly stuff to remove the irritation presented by other leftists talking to their new members or potential recruits, but I've never seen them indulge in "violence" of any significance. It's not really their style.

Maybe that's just a function of an SP perspective, and they are more prone to getting physical with groups that are too small to give them any hassle in return, but to be blunt I doubt it. They don't really attract goon types.

It should be said, mind you, that the anarchoid stall tippers haven't really gone any further in their own "violence", although presumably sooner or later one of these little set pieces will lead to lost tempers and a bit of scuffling. So far the response has been very restrained - so restrained that you'd have to assume there are internal orders not to clout anyone for pr reasons. They can gain some sympathy from being pushed around, but twitter will go berserk if they respond aggressively.
 
Last edited:
Maybe that's just a function of an SP perspective, and they are more prone to getting physical with groups that are too small to give them any hassle in return, but to be blunt I doubt it. They don't really attract goon types.
Click to expand...

There's a certain party hack in Newcastle who may easily fit that description.
 
discokermit said:
synchronised menstruation in pre class societies. early nineties.
Click to expand...
i thought it was probably that. Was it the year they were finally allowed a debate, or the one after, where they kept trying to repeat the debate (good ol' sex strike theory)? I was on The Team those years, and can remember they were being a pain in the arse, tho not to the extent that they deserved any physicals.
 
belboid said:
i thought it was probably that. Was it the year they were finally allowed a debate, or the one after, where they kept trying to repeat the debate (good ol' sex strike theory)? I was on The Team those years, and can remember they were being a pain in the arse, tho not to the extent that they deserved any physicals.
Click to expand...
dunno the year. they had a paste table and literature on the grass between ulu and the institute. weren't in anyone's way, weren't bothering anyone.

you were on The Team?

oh dear.
oh dear oh dear.
did you have fun strutting round in your tshirts, chucking people out of their seats at the front of big meetings so as cc members could sit there?
 
discokermit said:
dunno the year. they had a paste table and literature on the grass between ulu and the institute. weren't in anyone's way, weren't bothering anyone.

you were on The Team?

oh dear.
oh dear oh dear.
did you have fun strutting round in your tshirts, chucking people out of their seats at the front of big meetings so as cc members could sit there?
Click to expand...
I wandered round, stood on doors letting people in and gave out a few speakers slips. Funnily enough not even a sparkly t-shirt gave me the ability to make anyone do anything.
 
Well I just checked back on this thread for a few posts and find that it is mostly a discussion of how many autonomist angels can dance on the head of a pin. Meanwhile the SWP awaits the Second Coming of Cliff and hopes for the Resurrection.
 
Nigel Irritable said:
You have to be making that bit up about evicting people to make way for the CC's cosseted buttocks.
Click to expand...
Once, when Andy Wilson and I wanted to make sure we got to speak in a Marxism meeting - and also because we knew it would have a head-wrecking effect - we came early and sat in the front row, slightly to the right seats that the CC invariably occupied. We had a gentle request to move, I think, but no serious force was applied. And as the CC members came in, it was amusing to see them halt, decide they didn't want to sit next to us and look around for alternatives. It's hard now to capture how defiant this act was and how liberating, because it's hard to remember a time when I was intimidated at the prospect of incurring the wrath of the party apparatus.
 
Oisin123 said:
Once, when Andy Wilson and I wanted to make sure we got to speak in a Marxism meeting - and also because we knew it would have a head-wrecking effect - we came early and sat in the front row, slightly to the right seats that the CC invariably occupied. We had a gentle request to move, I think, but no serious force was applied. And as the CC members came in, it was amusing to see them halt, decide they didn't want to sit next to us and look around for alternatives. It's hard now to capture how defiant this act was and how liberating, because it's hard to remember a time when I was intimidated at the prospect of incurring the wrath of the party apparatus.
Click to expand...

The manager's reserved parking spot of the revolution.

The status awareness is obviously the oddest thing about that cultural tic, but it's also notable as part of a package with the speakers slip system to keep discussion controlled.

I'm fairly sure I'd have noticed if the Irish lot had that kind of reserved seating. I presume Kieran doesn't have his own throne? I do remember them using slips on occasion, but not in a while. Is that gone entirely now?
 
The NUS election results were in today. Now, obviously, there is no elected position more trivial than a place on the NUS executive bar perhaps Parish Councillor. However, those elections do give a pretty good idea of the ability of different factions to gather NUS conference delegates which in turn gives an indication of where they are amongst student "movement" type students and sabbatical types.

The SWP were the dominant left group for decades in terms of numbers, although from time to time the AWL were able to temporarily create a larger periphery. They were of course wiped out amongst students by their crisis. This conference provided an opportunity to see if they are making a bit of a comeback. And the answer was no.

On a side issue, having waded through the mire that is the NUS on twitter, it seems that the practice some left groups engage in of having activists sign up for courses in some FE college just to enable them to stand for elections has become a bit of an issue now that they are taking FE reserved seats.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

ElizabethofYork
Men’s violence against women and girls is a national emergency
34 35 36 37 38
Replies
1K
Views
44K
The39thStep
The39thStep
Smokeandsteam
Facebook: Australia content ban, SWP removal and related news
2 3 4
Replies
115
Views
8K
NoXion
NoXion
S
Tory songs and bands
4 5 6 7 8
Replies
210
Views
10K
Wilf
Wilf
W
all these “So and so’s time is up” threads.
2 3
Replies
89
Views
4K
wow
W
J
To save the UK economy this is what Sunak and Hunt should be doing
Replies
18
Views
1K
bimble
bimble
Back
Top Bottom