SWP expulsions and squabbles

[emanymton]

[QUOTE="Karmickameleon, post: 13265308, member: 60774" Although it didn't of course stop the invasion of Iraq, playing a key role in organising one of the biggest demos (if not the biggest) that the country has ever seen

This may be controversial but... I'm not sure you can credit SW with organising the demo's exactly - doing all the admin maybe, but not actually getting millions on the streets. Would likely have happened anyway. Speculation of course...

What's not speculation is that leading SWP members blocked with the more conservative elements of STW to rule out tactics such as strikes and direct action against the war - significant when we remember that elements of the FBU were suggesting coordinated strike action as a tactic for the anti-war movement.

My first political experience of the SWP and of activism full stop really was those demo's, and I well remember the SWP members who assumed control of STW branches full of willing but naive people and continuously insisted that all that was needed was more marches, more marches, more marches.

The SWP have achieved things - I'm not convinced that the likes of Rees and German should be as smug about their contribution to the anti-war movement as they are.[/QUOTE]
All of which is somewhat at odds with my experience of being in the SWP at the time. The line was consistently that strike action was required to stop the war for example. I don't deny that the leadership pissed away the support but my major criticism is that the SWP should have done everything it could to but the socialist alliance at the heart of stop the war, instead it did the opposite.

 

[Red Cat]

The line was indeed that strike action was needed, as you'd expect.

 

[Karmickameleon]

My first political experience of the SWP and of activism full stop really was those demo's, and I well remember the SWP members who assumed control of STW branches full of willing but naive people and continuously insisted that all that was needed was more marches, more marches, more marches.

The SWP have achieved things - I'm not convinced that the likes of Rees and German should be as smug about their contribution to the anti-war movement as they are.

Agreed. The achievements I mentioned re anti-fascism/anti-racism and Stop the War are relative ones and aspects of those mobilisations can clearly be criticised. That said, they do show how far the situation has degenerated with the leadership reduced to frantically mobilising its (remaining) members and supporters so as to achieve a respectable attendance at Marxism 2014.

 

[Karmickameleon]

Just noticed the following bizarre Twitter conversation (BTW, how can you embed tweets on this thread??)

1. Claire Duffin ‏@cduffin1 Jul 10
   @charlieswp Please could you call me on 0207 ******** as soon as possible. Thank you.
   
   
2. 
   charlie kimber ‏@charlieswp Jul 11
   @cduffin1 I did not go to Eton. I am not the son of a baronet. I did not go to any public school. Don't just circulate internet rumour..
   
   
   
3. 
   Andy Barton ‏@onthecouchagain Jul 11
   .@charlieswp last time #swp in headlines it was for covering up rape allegations. Now its for jokes about kids being eaten. What next ffs?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Daily Telegraph journo making demands there

 

[SpackleFrog]

All of which is somewhat at odds with my experience of being in the SWP at the time. The line was consistently that strike action was required to stop the war for example. I don't deny that the leadership pissed away the support but my major criticism is that the SWP should have done everything it could to but the socialist alliance at the heart of stop the war, instead it did the opposite.

I was 14/15 at the time, and in a small town hardly at the heart of the movement (though we did organise a simultaneous walkout in every school which was quite cool) so I can't claim to have been totally up to speed on the line. But I never noticed talk of strike action to stop the war in the various copies of SW I was sold.

I do remember SWP members repeatedly insisting (naively IMO) that we just needed to keep organising marches. That remained the same even in the case of local demo's which were becoming increasingly small. It was the first time I had met revolutionary socialists in any organisation and I resolved never to join them as I didn't get any sense that there members really had a clue about what to about anything. My impression generally was that the leadership of STW (ie the SWP) didn't seem to want to move beyond protest tactics.

I also remember being introduced, very firmly, to their youngest member in my small town, who was 28 or 29 at the time. I never understood why they were so keen for me to get to know this guy - years later, we met again and he explained he had been tasked to recruit me but didn't want to as he was thinking of leaving. He did recruit me to the SP however.

 

[october_lost]

Not much of an argument. Protz abandoned the lost cause of Trottery for the very different and much more modest world of consumer campaigning. CAMRA may be a worthy cause (though why anyone would choose real ale over real lager is baffling to me - do people really like the taste of yeast?) and may have more than its fair share of the beardy weirdy types who also drone on at left-wing meetings and at greenie gatherings, but CAMRA's cause is not leftist. If anything, it's (small-c) conservative.

I didn't perceive the work of CAMRA as just being a consumer rights campaign, but you're probably right...

 

[Horas]

The ANL, co-ordinating and nominally training a plethora of workplace militants, successfully rebranded a particular style of leftism that survived after the collapse of the Russian experiment, in addition to having contributed and popularised themes to, and within Marxist theory.

There is an argument to say that CAMRA is the most successful leftist initiative (I kid you not!) but the SWP are easily the most successful leftist group in post-war UK. The various pieces of flotsam and jetsam that most have us have traversed through haven't got anywhere close - which unfortunately says a lot about the state of revolutionary politics in general, in the UK.

as i see it, the swp like all the other left groups, including anarchos, have some good points and some bad points. unfortunately, they come together. as to what they have achieved, we can also ask the opposite, what haven't they achieved? they haven't led a revolution. they don't have mass influence. neither do any other left groups. this is the problem. i don't think too keep on doing the same thing again and again, despite whatever good it did in the past will lead to any great 'achievement'.

 

[october_lost]

All of which is somewhat at odds with my experience of being in the SWP at the time. The line was consistently that strike action was required to stop the war for example. I don't deny that the leadership pissed away the support but my major criticism is that the SWP should have done everything it could to but the socialist alliance at the heart of stop the war, instead it did the opposite.

I think you're confusing rhetoric with action.

From my experience of the STWC in Preston, it developed an obsession with doing everything it could to cosy up with a particular mosque, so much so that we had a meeting there, which for a leftist campaigning body outside of a quakers hall is unusual, this happened there at the expense of some of the stuff that was developing at the UCLAN campus, because the mosque (from memory) isn't exactly central. You would have demos that the mosque had clearly mobilised for and shouts of Allah Aqbar were competing with anti war chants. It was fucking odd, surreal and panders to the worst kind of communal thinking by both the SWP thinking they could only engage with a particular group of people through their religious institution and made outreach to the wider community by the STWC and anti war activists beyond the imposed remit very difficult.

And the logical trajectory to this relationship was semi permanent alliance between SWP activists and the said mosque that led to 'Socialist Alliance Against the War' and the rest is history.

I saw the whole Stop The War as the SWP thinking it had seized the moment to develop itself, but it did so at the expense of the moment, and when that had gone, the SWP was in not better position because it lead to a general defeatist attitude because so much had produced so little, the failure of the movement had also lead to a rise in political Islam, which increasingly bolstered the far right...

 

[Horas]

I think you're confusing rhetoric with action.

From my experience of the STWC in Preston, it developed an obsession with doing everything it could to cosy up with a particular mosque, so much so that we had a meeting there, which for a leftist campaigning body outside of a quakers hall is unusual, this happened there at the expense of some of the stuff that was developing at the UCLAN campus, because the mosque (from memory) isn't exactly central. You would have demos that the mosque had clearly mobilised for and shouts of Allah Aqbar were competing with anti war chants. It was fucking odd, surreal and panders to the worst kind of communal thinking by both the SWP thinking they could only engage with a particular group of people through their religious institution and made outreach to the wider community by the STWC and anti war activists beyond the imposed remit very difficult.

And the logical trajectory to this relationship was semi permanent alliance between SWP activists and the said mosque that led to 'Socialist Alliance Against the War' and the rest is history.

I saw the whole Stop The War as the SWP thinking it had seized the moment to develop itself, but it did so at the expense of the moment, and when that had gone, the SWP was in not better position because it lead to a general defeatist attitude because so much had produced so little, the failure of the movement had also lead to a rise in political Islam, which increasingly bolstered the far right...

thats true. a line i got from the swp in stwc was that they would win Muslims over to socialism. never really happened that way. i think the term for this is opportunism, for immediate gains that do not lead to anything in the future. counterfire are pretty good at this too.

 

[Horas]

the thing i found really odd about the swp/counterfire was the fake working class mockney accents some of the leaders and cadre try to put on. like martin smiff. there is a particular 'swappie' kind of way of talking and asking questions at meetings. i wonder if the cadre are drilled to talk like that?

 

[treelover]

as i see it, the swp like all the other left groups, including anarchos, have some good points and some bad points. unfortunately, they come together. as to what they have achieved, we can also ask the opposite, what haven't they achieved? they haven't led a revolution. they don't have mass influence. neither do any other left groups. this is the problem. i don't think too keep on doing the same thing again and again, despite whatever good it did in the past will lead to any great 'achievement'.

There is apparently a new group, Plan C, whose stated aim is not to make the same mistakes, etc.

 

[emanymton]

I think you're confusing rhetoric with action.

From my experience of the STWC in Preston, it developed an obsession with doing everything it could to cosy up with a particular mosque, so much so that we had a meeting there, which for a leftist campaigning body outside of a quakers hall is unusual, this happened there at the expense of some of the stuff that was developing at the UCLAN campus, because the mosque (from memory) isn't exactly central. You would have demos that the mosque had clearly mobilised for and shouts of Allah Aqbar were competing with anti war chants. It was fucking odd, surreal and panders to the worst kind of communal thinking by both the SWP thinking they could only engage with a particular group of people through their religious institution and made outreach to the wider community by the STWC and anti war activists beyond the imposed remit very difficult.

And the logical trajectory to this relationship was semi permanent alliance between SWP activists and the said mosque that led to 'Socialist Alliance Against the War' and the rest is history.

I saw the whole Stop The War as the SWP thinking it had seized the moment to develop itself, but it did so at the expense of the moment, and when that had gone, the SWP was in not better position because it lead to a general defeatist attitude because so much had produced so little, the failure of the movement had also lead to a rise in political Islam, which increasingly bolstered the far right...

I wouldn't really disagree with much of that. If we are talking about strike action what was the SWP in The position to deliver other than rhetoric? There was the fire fighters strike and I would say the STW stuff actually became secondary then, while of course we attempted to link the two.

I don't know a single SWP who thought that marching would stop the war, but then to be honest i don't think any of us thought it would be possible to stop it at all.

I think when people say that the SWP was against more militant action they are confusing a blanket rejection of militant action with some members of the SWP opposing any action they don't control or hasn't been pte-aproved by the Centre. I don't think it is necessarily wrong to favor a march over other types of action in any case, a million + people on the streets of London makes a he'll of an impact.

 

[Oisin123]

... i wonder if the cadre are drilled to talk like that?

No, but it does seem to be a development that arises in all small political (and other?) organisations. I remember when a Scouse accent was fashionable among the Militant and my friend from school, who had become a full timer for them, developed an outrageous near-parody of one. As an SWP organiser I found myself using 'actually' as a kind of punctuation mark in my own speech - especially when giving a talk - and it was a hard habit to break.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

You did have it down pat true enough, from memory. In fairness your breadth of knowledge when you spoke made up for it.

 

[october_lost]

I don't know a single SWP who thought that marching would stop the war, but then to be honest i don't think any of us thought it would be possible to stop it at all.

With the trot left its sometimes hard to distinguish what they believe, from what they say, because they're always formulating demands that are designed to sway public opinion, but are never meant to be enacted or likely to be achievable. I'm thinking of stuff like nationalisation of industries and scrapping nuclear weapons etc. All minimum and maximum programme stuff.

That aside, I do believe that either the SWP thought they could stop the war and thought they would benefit from opposition to it all, or they had a political investment in 'upping the ante' after the movement had failed to achieve its aim but fluffed it when the time came. I'm inclined to to think the former, because STWC ran and ran and they seemed very comfortable with being the opposition movement and the platform speaking for long after the movement had petered out.

I think when people say that the SWP was against more militant action they are confusing a blanket rejection of militant action with some members of the SWP opposing any action they don't control or hasn't been pte-aproved by the Centre. I don't think it is necessarily wrong to favor a march over other types of action in any case, a million + people on the streets of London makes a he'll of an impact.

The police were happy to contain a to b marches, but they were running scared of more militant activity. This isn't a small militant, big passive dichotomy. The SWP had amble opportunity to push a more confrontational approach, or allow people to go do their own thing, but instead it criticised sit-downs and anyone trying to develop beyond the well worn path of marches and speeches.

 

[laptop]

As an SWP organiser I found myself using 'actually' as a kind of punctuation mark in my own speech - especially when giving a talk - and it was a hard habit to break.

I thought that was taught at Skegness? With the hand-chopping?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

so on and so forth

 

[rekil]

There's a PD agent speaking today.

 

[comrade spurski]

Anyone else remember these well worn favourites:

1) This is no chinese wall between....
2) bending the stick

 

[treelover]

No, but it does seem to be a development that arises in all small political (and other?) organisations. I remember when a Scouse accent was fashionable among the Militant and my friend from school, who had become a full timer for them, developed an outrageous near-parody of one. As an SWP organiser I found myself using 'actually' as a kind of punctuation mark in my own speech - especially when giving a talk - and it was a hard habit to break.

The army have their own kind of language as well.

 

[treelover]

That aside, I do believe that either the SWP thought they could stop the war and thought they would benefit from opposition to it all

Here, they described it as 'getting the dividend'

bit like a bumper payout of green shield stamps.

 

[mutley]

On STW, I don't honestly think its fair to say SWP members 'took over' STW groups. In most cases they were the ones setting them up, and very often booking the coaches etc.

The stuff about turns of phrase and that is a very real effect and hard to see how it works. I wonder if psychologists have looked at it and noticed the effect elsewhere? The millies had it with the fake scouse accents, SWP had it with everyone going 'actually' all the time. There was a period where people would say 'inside of' - for example I remember a meeting where the speaker said se was going to talk about the role of religion inside of the world. My brain meandered off briefly into wondering whether she meant the mantle, the molten core, what? No wonder I never got asked to do a marxism meeting.

Oh and we did not ever get told to speak a certain way. It would just creep in.

 

[laptop]

Oh and we did not ever get told to speak a certain way. It would just creep in.

How can anyone tell whether that's just stick-bending?

 

[mutley]

Laptop if that's a serious question you'll have to ask it again cos I don't get it. 'stick bending' meant emphasizing one particular point that everyone absolutely has to take on board, to the edge of exaggeration. Eg 'it is absolutely vital that every comrade, no matter where they are, build a stw group as a matter of absolute urgency. If they don't it doesn't matter how many papers they are selling or whatever because that is the vital task for the moment'. Its an approach which as its place.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I wouldn't really disagree with much of that. If we are talking about strike action what was the SWP in The position to deliver other than rhetoric? There was the fire fighters strike and I would say the STW stuff actually became secondary then, while of course we attempted to link the two.

I don't know a single SWP who thought that marching would stop the war, but then to be honest i don't think any of us thought it would be possible to stop it at all.

I think when people say that the SWP was against more militant action they are confusing a blanket rejection of militant action with some members of the SWP opposing any action they don't control or hasn't been pte-aproved by the Centre. I don't think it is necessarily wrong to favor a march over other types of action in any case, a million + people on the streets of London makes a he'll of an impact.

Yes but the point of a million people on the streets is to mobilise further action is it not? Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the SWP insist on giving Charlie Kennedy a chance to speak at one of those big marches? If they were serious about what was neccessary they'd have got trade union leaders prepared to deliver action on the platform - or at least tried too.

 

[emanymton]

Yes but the point of a million people on the streets is to mobilise further action is it not? Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the SWP insist on giving Charlie Kennedy a chance to speak at one of those big marches? If they were serious about what was neccessary they'd have got trade union leaders prepared to deliver action on the platform - or at least tried too.

Quite right Kennedy should have been told to fuck off, and a Socialist alliance speaker should have been on the platform.
But to be honest with the big demo it was really really difficult to relate to it in any meaningful way, given the size of the SWP and the wider STWC we would only be able to talk to a tiny percentage of those that were there, I think it was a bit more 'running around like headless chickens not sure what to do' and a bit less deliberate sabotage I think a lot of people on that demo thought it would stop the war, we did not but how do you communicate effectively with that many people when there are ony a couple of thousand of you at most? Mind you as we can see from future events those SWP members who were leading in the STWC were being pulled away from working class politics by it.
Oh and I can't believe you are younger than me you bastard!

 

[Horas]

No, but it does seem to be a development that arises in all small political (and other?) organisations..

i guess thats true. i noticed that when people 'become' anarchists, they tend to swear a lot more than they did previously, there is a certain anarchist swagger, effing this, effing that. I think this is mostly through the influence of Ian Bone. many of the people, in both socialist and anarchist groups, are university educated and probably not so poor, but feel a need to show their proleterian credentials by putting on a fake accent and swearing

 

[Horas]

what bothers me about these unprincipled alliances, such as getting jackie kennedy to speak at the big stwc rally back then, . is that nothing seems to be gained from it. it gave the impression that the lib dems were more left than they really were, and this illusion only ended with the end of cleggomania. also speaking on that demo was imran khan, the former pakistani cricketer and millionaire, also bianca jagger. i am not sure what was the point of promoting these people. what is worse, however, is the left doesn't seem to gain anything from these tactics.

as an ardent activist at that time, i am sure i am not the only one who felt that all my actvist work was in the end used to bolster the support of people i don't support ie lib dems, left labour etc, imran khan, bianca jagger etc.
i wonder if some of this behaviour is due to a great lack of faith in ordinary people, that ordinary people need a celeb to tell them something to give it credibility.

 

[Karmickameleon]

Photo of the Prof's meeting at Marxism. It would appear to show a somewhat ageing audience, which is surely bad news for a supposedly revolutionary party (or are the students all standing at the back?):