SWP expulsions and squabbles

[Nigel]

Pre conference article produced for bulletin by Paris Thompson.
No wonder the CC were a bit pissed off!
http://www.unkant.com/2012/12/paris-political-engagement-and-party.html

 

[The39thStep]

I think the site and the stuff they write aggressively pushes the idea of working class culture and capabilities that points directly and immediately beyond the SWP, beyond leninist discipline, beyond the party. Yet it's always there for them. It doesn't have to be.

Beyond the pale if you ask me

 

[butchersapron]

I'm not an anarchist BA.

I dont agree with the CC of the SWP on most organisational issues. However the SWP has been the most significant org in assiting and organising UCU left, of which I am a part of. Getting national struggle kicked off for the first time in donkeys years around pensions. It's a shame that issue got kicked into the long grass, but, it is, what it is.

I think Paris and the Democratic Opposition platform may cause a massive internal reflection and discussion on future organisation, this has been going on for some time and many agree with the DO platform. The SWP has too many full timers and London hangers on, this has gor to go, it is not healthy for a left party or organisation of this size.

I dont have a problem with a centrally organised group based on the principles of DC, however the SWP as it is is not DC.

You keep banging on about the failings of the SWP BA, but to be honest its just bluster there is no other left organisation capable of putting out the level of information and support for left trade unionists, that in itself is problemtaic.
Im utterly bored of people banging on the net, winning arguments and been right, the left is always winning arguments and getting no where. One of the reasons i post very rarely on here.

Or why you edit on long posts after your original one liner been replied to. Naughty.

Are you now in the swp? If so, why? Is it a reflection of your position as a lecturer? The relative strength in this niche area? How then does that translate to class organising?

 

[past caring]

Looking at that musical marixts things again - it totally revolves around the two of them's relationship with the swp - one expelled 18 years ago one left 3 years ago and everything, no matter what the ostensible topic is actually about the SWP. I actually have a lot of time for what they are trying to do and how they do it, but after all this time to still be concentrating on the SWP (and to only have gone as far as Debord and Adorno) is a bit...well crap.

Like a lefty Miss Haversham.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Beyond the pale if you ask me

What the fuck is that?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I think the site and the stuff they write aggressively pushes the idea of working class culture and capabilities that points directly and immediately beyond the SWP, beyond leninist discipline, beyond the party. Yet it's always there for them. It doesn't have to be.

This!

I think there's a lot of good stuff on there (although i can see why it might not be to some people's tastes!) but I am flummoxed by the gravitational pull the SWP has on them...

"One more effort..." as the old patronising cliche goes.

 

[mk12]

Off the top of my head Charlie Kimber is now the general secretary then there's Callinicos, Joseph Choonara, Michael Bradley and Amy Leather, not sure who else is on there these days though.

Posh Cambridge student called Dan Mayer too iirc.

 

[nogojones]

Beyond the pale if you ask me

This is why I never went partying with my mates from the SWP

 

[barney_pig]

Beyond the pale if you ask me

A case of the remedy being more toxic than the disease.
I am reminded of Nick Cohen's point that when the left began to revel in being separate or ahead of the class; avant- guard and vanguards, it began to lose its fundamental link with the class.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

What a surprise. A member of one nobody left group starts a thread about another nobody left group. Nobody else cares.

It's truely pathetic the amount of time that people in left groups spend looking at what other left groups are doing, when none of them amount to a hill of beans as the saying goes.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I stand to be corrected on this but I don't think anyone believes this thread will become a decisive factor in the class struggle.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

No it won't. But the post was mainly directed at the person who started the thread rather than the rest of it. Someone in the Socialist Party gloating about problems in the SWP and pretending it is for another reason. When in reality the Socialist Party is very little different from the SWP.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I don't think that's why he did it at all - he's a notorious lefty trainspotter - I think he's genuinely interested in what's going on.

And you're having a dig at the SP and pretending it's for another reason so I reckon there might just be a tiny bit of projection going on here.

 

[Cornetto]

BA I added the rest about 2 minutes later as i had to go wipe a toddlers arse on the toilet.

I pay money towards the SWP as they are effective within UCU left (that does give membership rights), I also make donations and have direct debits to various leftist groups. The SWP are effective as a grouping as the UCU is a small union focused ona specific work area. They have formations in all the TU orgs, but the mega union nature of unison, unite, GMB etc make impact more difficult.

Ideologically I'm more in the camp of Plan C, i have been to a few meetings, but it seems to be much more of a discussion forum. It may go somewhere in the future. One annoying thing is that most of the Plan C lot are academics, yet they make no intervention within their workplace via UCU.

As for class organising I do what I can given my time and constraints of life, work and family. This is at the moment confined to TU work and a local community assocaiation. I work in higher education so that is where i organise as i did before in health and socail care and prior to that in catering and hospitality.

 

[emanymton]

Ideologically I'm more in the camp of Plan C,

What's plan C? Or maybe I should say which plan C as Google gives quite a few hits.

 

[Cornetto]

What's plan C? Or maybe I should say which plan C as Google gives quite a few hits.

http://www.weareplanc.org/

Thats the London Group

 

[audiotech]

This is why I never went partying with my mates from the SWP

Many years ago I went to see the Buthole Surfers with one person featured in that vid. It was an enjoyable night out all in all.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

I don't think that's why he did it at all - he's a notorious lefty trainspotter - I think he's genuinely interested in what's going on.

And you're having a dig at the SP and pretending it's for another reason so I reckon there might just be a tiny bit of projection going on here.

How is my dig at the SP for another reason? I'm saying the far left groups are irrelevant, inward looking and totally off putting to the vast majority of people. That's not because socialist ideas are wrong in my view but because these orgnisations are run little differently than cults in a lot of respects.

Most of the people in far left groups are lefty trainspotters, obsessed with the tiny and ever shrinking world of the far left. And each group, whether the SWP, SP or whoever else gloat at any problems that other groups have while seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are little different from each other.

 

[Cornetto]

Some one leaked the Democratic Oppistion staement to the Grazia of the left - Weekly Worker.

http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/online-only/socialist-workers-party-faction-declared

 

[butchersapron]

Only 6 Lenins in that updated version - onwards to the 21st century comrades!

(Includes this corker: This is most basic principal of Leninism: bringing revolutionary theory to mass working-class organisation.)

 

[nogojones]

Many years ago I went to see the Buthole Surfers with one person featured in that vid.

This is another reason I'd not go partying with them

 

[Smokeandsteam]

How is my dig at the SP for another reason? I'm saying the far left groups are irrelevant, inward looking and totally off putting to the vast majority of people. That's not because socialist ideas are wrong in my view but because these orgnisations are run little differently than cults in a lot of respects.

Most of the people in far left groups are lefty trainspotters, obsessed with the tiny and ever shrinking world of the far left. And each group, whether the SWP, SP or whoever else gloat at any problems that other groups have while seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are little different from each other.

Except your analysis of the nature of the left, which I share, drives everything (including the ideas which you state are correct).

This is why the left constantly intervene in issues when have no ability to influence them. It's why on issue after issue the left puts itself on the opposite side of the debate from the class it aspires to 'lead' and it's why the left have nothing at all to say about the bread and butter issues that any organisation serious about gaining credibility amongst the class would want to put at the centre of their work.

Not fit for purpose organisationally or intellectually in other words.

 

[belboid]

How is my dig at the SP for another reason? I'm saying the far left groups are irrelevant, inward looking and totally off putting to the vast majority of people. That's not because socialist ideas are wrong in my view but because these orgnisations are run little differently than cults in a lot of respects.

Most of the people in far left groups are lefty trainspotters, obsessed with the tiny and ever shrinking world of the far left. And each group, whether the SWP, SP or whoever else gloat at any problems that other groups have while seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are little different from each other.

And yet you have turned solely to whine about other lefty groups' behaviour! You seem to be even more oblivious than the people you're trying to criticise!

 

[Red Cat]

The SWP doesn't talk much about far left groups at all, they talk about Labour and reformist orgs. I never met any trainspotter types in the SWP.

 

[belboid]

The SWP doesn't talk much about far left groups at all, they talk about Labour and reformist orgs. I never met any trainspotter types in the SWP.

There are loads. They just dont put it in the paper.

 

[butchersapron]

There are loads. They just dont put it in the paper.

They do let the prof do his regular round-up of lefty trainspotting around europe though. It's ok when he does it.

 

[Red Cat]

There are loads. They just dont put it in the paper.

I never met them.

 

[Red Cat]

My admittedly long ago experience of the SWP was nothing like my experience of p&p on urban. There's a lot wrong with the SWP but they've always IME been outward looking in their attempts to make themselves bigger.

 

[KeeperofDragons]

Metronidozole alert!!! Often given for gumboils and DO NOT drink on them. They will make you projectile vom.

I hope this comment has not come too late although I suspect it may have and someone will be finding out the hard way, as did I, that metronidozole and alcohol is a very nasty combination.

That's what it was - & no I didn't drink - couldn't even stand the smell of alcohol. Reminded me of when I was pregnant - both times

 

[KeeperofDragons]

It's a dirty drug alright. You do have to question the motives for prescribing it. As people have said, amoxycillin usually does the job, There's no need to prescribe stuff that makes you puke (/gives you thrush/).

I was given it as when I had the remains of a tooth pulled it took a bit of my jaw bone with it