SWP expulsions and squabbles

[bolshiebhoy]

Presumably because the RCP mobilised its cadres at Plumstead Common to try and prevent people from going on the ‘Unity’ demo (short version: “because ‘anti-fascist’ is a meaningless description, even Margaret Thatcher would consider herself ‘anti-fascist...”)?

I assume this chap was IFM also?

Not sure on that, was a union official on the rail before he came to lse. Hence him objecting to the term scab which yes was aimed at their refusal to support the anti bnp campaign. Nice guy actually, proof you can think someone has shot away politics and still get on, eventually

 

[bolshiebhoy]

the first publication named searchlight of which i'm aware was issued by the ku klux klan.

and as for the first organization including the phrase 'socialist workers party'...

*gets coat*

hilarious. You are a first in many ways. First person I ever heard call Islam a conquering religion, well before the edl even existed.

 

[butchersapron]

hilarious. You are a first in many ways. First person I ever heard call Islam a conquering religion, well before the edl even existed.

inshallah

 

[butchersapron]

The fucking filth you've become. Just posting as if you're not covered in shit. The front that takes. That's one reason wty all you is mangers and self-employed.

 

[butchersapron]

Hello comrades today i am not covered in shit, in sheff uni someone looked at me like she agreed with some shit stuff that sounded vague enough not to disagree with. Onwards.

 

[Pickman's model]

hilarious. You are a first in many ways. First person I ever heard call Islam a conquering religion, well before the edl even existed.

u still haven't posted more than whines and farts in your attempt to show i was wrong to so characterise its early years. still waiting after all these years for you to present an argument.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

The fucking filth you've become. Just posting as if you're not covered in shit. The front that takes. That's one reason wty all you is mangers and self-employed.

Oh dear. You really do hate the fact that this crisis isn't terminal. Grow up lad. No managers or self employed in my house, not that matters.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Ancient history, week of the big Welling demo in 93, I called him a scab, he split my lip. We were fine after he served his ban, Big red headed Irishman. Delta told me off for calling him a shillelagh swinger which I reckoned was unfair given I was irish too and his first did feel like a shillelagh. Delta demurred.

Nice Martin Smith anecdote there; let's put the warm arm of a shared memory round his shoulder and welcome him back in to the revolutionary family...the silly old sausage.

Louis MacNeice

 

[butchersapron]

Oh dear. You really do hate the fact that this crisis isn't terminal. Grow up lad. No managers or self employed in my house, not that matters.

You grow.

 

[emanymton]

I'm convinced quite a lot of them don't. I actually think some secretly disbelieve all of it but are afraid to say anything because they don't have many friends at uni and are gonna keep up this shit for as long as it takes to graduate and be an accountant.

Nobody likes Socialist Worker, but the idea that it is "highly troubling and upsetting to women" is a joke. The motion reads like it was written by a group of Victorian gentlemen, keen to ensure the women folk weren't exposed to anything that could excite them or make them hysterical.

I find it especially vile as there are real problems with sexual assault in universities and frankly if they cared about the safety of women at all there are a 1000 better thing they could do with their time.

 

[brogdale]

It's a juvenile motion, but the SWP are a rape apologist party, and they can go fuck themselves. I'd no platform the fuckers on a personal basis.

FWIW Brog jnr has been reporting rising instances over the term of the Sussex Student Swappie women using seminars etc. as a platform to defend their party against accusations of rape apology. Quite annoying, according to him, to have to put up with such "conflicted" individuals. Might explain why the proposers found it possible to gain a good number of signatures? (I don't know if jnr signed...I doubt it tbh...not a good 'joiner')

 

[Nigel Irritable]

A historical note:

There's considerable material dealing with the history of the SWP and what NUS types call "liberation politics" in the various essays in Against the Grain, a wildly overpriced book of essays about the history of the British left.

Apparently the first paragraph of Tony Cliff's introduction to the first SWP publication on gay liberation was an almost perfect statement of intersectionalism avant la lettre: "In class infested society there is oppressor and oppressed in all walks of life. Employer oppresses employee; man oppresses woman; white oppresses black; old oppresses young; heterosexual oppresses homosexual."

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Oh please Cliff being schooled on Marxism and oppression by a Millie. Swp politics on this subject is beyond reproach. The application of it is what's at stake.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Oh please Cliff being schooled on Marxism and oppression by a Millie. Swp politics on this subject is beyond reproach. The application of it is what's at stake.

Don't be a clown, there's a good lad. There are 604 pages of "reproach" on this thread.

I didn't write the essay. Nor did I write Cliff's pamphlet introduction. It's merely an interesting bit of evidence that the SWP has moved in all kinds of directions over the years on these questions, and Cliff himself more than most. In this case Cliff, was posing the question in a way directly contrary to the SWP theoretical orthodoxy of the eighties, but in a way that would fit well on tumblr today. A few years earlier he had been arguing that he didn't mind IS members doing gay work as long as they didn't think it was political activity.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Sorry pal but watching the working out of a reasonably advanced Marxist thinker on this subject is bound to be full of contradictions. Point me to the equivalent contributions from your tradition. You won't be able to. Crude workerism followed by a flip to left feminism and no sight of Marxism in between. Jog on.

 

[Pickman's model]

Oh please Cliff being schooled on Marxism and oppression by a Millie. Swp politics on this subject is beyond reproach. The application of it is what's at stake.

 

[Pickman's model]

Right... so what yr saying bolshiebhoy is the swp talk a good fight but their deeds belie their fine words

 

[bolshiebhoy]

I may not agree with her current evolution bit I defy any Marxist account of gender to surpass Lindsey German at her best, and when Cliff was her collaborator.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Sorry pal but watching the working out of a reasonably advanced Marxist thinker on this subject is bound to be full of contradictions. Point me to the equivalent contributions from your tradition. You won't be able to. Crude workerism followed by a flip to left feminism and no sight of Marxism in between. Jog on.

Christ, this kind of dubious thirty years ago, now just embarrassing, braggadocio on behalf of an organisation you dropped out of decades ago is almost funny.

Cliff, whatever his other merits, contributed pretty much nothing of lasting interest to Marxist understandings of various forms of oppression other than class. Exactly the same can be said of Ted Grant (and thank Christ he didn't produce a book on "the woman question" to go alongside Cliff's embarrassing effort). In so far as there were any interesting theoretical contributions on these issues made in IS/SWP circles they were from other people.

Cliff himself veered all over the place. Largely it seems in response to short term party-building concerns. But as he was the central leader of the SWP, the varying angles he took are of interest not on their own merits but because they indicate the lack of an IS/SWP "tradition" or orthodoxy up until the end of the fights of the eighties. At that point the orthodoxy settled and remained unchanged up until the recent interest in Vogel.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Right... so what yr saying bolshiebhoy is the swp talk a good fight but their deeds belie their fine words

No I'm not fella . Long proud history. I'm old enough to have been part of some of it. We need no schooling on this subject from anyone.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Christ, this kind of dubious thirty years ago, now just embarrassing, braggadocio on behalf of an organisation you dropped out of decades ago is almost funny.

Cliff, whatever his other merits, contributed pretty much nothing of lasting interest to Marxist understandings of various forms of oppression other than class. Exactly the same can be said of Ted Grant (and thank Christ he didn't produce a book on "the woman question" to go alongside Cliff's embarrassing effort). In so far as there were any interesting theoretical contributions on these issues made in IS/SWP circles they were from other people.

Cliff himself veered all over the place. Largely it seems in response to short term party-building concerns. But as he was the central leader of the SWP, the varying angles he took are of interest not on their own merits but because they indicate the lack of an IS/SWP "tradition" or orthodoxy up until the end of the fights of the eighties. At that point the orthodoxy settled and remained unchanged up until the recent interest in Vogel.

i don't dislike you but theoretically you're a dimwit. Totally dependent on sectariana to make you appear interesting as a thinker. Yes Cliff veered until he arrived at a position. And the sad thing is half of the people who left this year and last , well the half that were around at the time, know better because they arrived at that position too. And now what? Dave Renton spends his tone critiqueing the swp on libel law. Come on.

 

[comrade spurski]

No I'm not fella . Long proud history. I'm old enough to have been part of It. We need no schooling on this subject from anyone.

Everyone and every organisation needs to continue to learn all the time...your arrogance typifies the mentality that led to the swp monumentally fucking up. The idea that the swp or any other organisation has nothing to learn is plainly stupid

 

[butchersapron]

Fella. fella me lad. Boyo. Son.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

i don't dislike you but theoretically you're a dimwit. Totally dependent on sectariana to make you appear interesting as a thinker. Yes Cliff veered until he arrived at a position. And the sad thing is half of the people who left this year and last , well the half that were around at the time, know better because they arrived at that position too. And now what? Dave Renton spends his tone critiqueing the swp on libel law. Come on.

Christ, it's like arguing with an aggressive toddler.

Cliff did indeed "veer" and then arrive at an orthodoxy, but his contributions both pre and post orthodoxy are of no inherent interest to anyone bar the odd retired partisan looking to relive his "glory days". His pre orthodoxy views ranged from the homophobic all the way acrossto the borderline identitarian. His main post orthodoxy contribution was his wooden book on women, mostly now notable for its opposition to campaigns on issues like domestic violence.

There were things written in IS/SWP circles on issues of oppression which may still be of interest, but Tony Cliff didn't produce any of them. I'll tell you what though, oh oracle of Swindon, why don't you take the time to enlighten us assembled "theoretical dimwits" about the theoretical contributions on these subjects made by the messiah of your lost youth?

 

[comrade spurski]

i don't dislike you but theoretically you're a dimwit. Totally dependent on sectariana to make you appear interesting as a thinker. Yes Cliff veered until he arrived at a position. And the sad thing is half of the people who left this year and last , well the half that were around at the time, know better because they arrived at that position too. And now what? Dave Renton spends his tone critiqueing the swp on libel law. Come on.

Seriously?
The swp threaten to use the law to shut people up and Renton criticises this and you have a dig at him?
Do you remember posting that you changed your mind about the rape allegations cos a trusted member told you something?
Yet here you are arrogantly arguing that the swp knows best.
A political party is a tool to bring about political change for those who want it. You, and others in the swp, have decided the swp is more important than the political change you want. Your arguments on here are arrogant and sad. Your arguments represent everything that is shit on the left. Think back to when you joined the swp ... is this what you thought you'd be spending your time defending?

 

[bolshiebhoy]

God no the swp is not more important . Could die tomorrow and I'd be happy back in my Lanpur womb . Wouldn't be happy but hey ho. But yes defending the existence of a Leninist party is what it's all about surely? People hate Leninism . That's. Given.

 

[comrade spurski]

God no the swp is not more important . Could die tomorrow and I'd be happy back in my Lanpur womb . Wouldn't be happy but hey ho. But yes defending the existence of a Leninist party is what it's all about surely? People hate Leninism . That's. Given.

No it is not.
Fighting for a better world is what it is all about...I do not know and have never known anyone who became a socialist to defrnd leninism

 

[mutley]

No I'm not fella . Long proud history. I'm old enough to have been part of some of it. We need no schooling on this subject from anyone.

Fuck me you've learned nothing, absolutely nothing from any of this have you? The SWP's rep is in the mud, the average age is what would be pensionable is any decent society and you're having to fight off attempts to ban you outright in the colleges. The IB's, if you read between the lines, paint a picture of an organisation that is watching events pass it by, (eg in spite of shifting a respectable number of papers around the demo's and stuff over Gaza, its obvious that the age, decrepit nature and shit rep of the organisation combined to deliver no actual recruitment). Look for new ideas and you find nothing, nada, not a fucking thing. It's over. The fact that you have a thousand or so people on the books and a few hundred with meaningful union positions will keep it going for a decade or so but nothing of significance is going to happen. It's over.

 

[Pickman's model]

No I'm not fella . Long proud history. I'm old enough to have been part of some of it. We need no schooling on this subject from anyone.

apart from people who've taken sexual politics 101, have any interest in democracy with socialist organisations, etc

 

[Karmickameleon]

Christ, it's like arguing with an aggressive toddler.

Cliff did indeed "veer" and then arrive at an orthodoxy, but his contributions both pre and post orthodoxy are of no inherent interest to anyone bar the odd retired partisan looking to relive his "glory days". His pre orthodoxy views ranged from the homophobic all the way acrossto the borderline identitarian. His main post orthodoxy contribution was his wooden book on women, mostly now notable for its opposition to campaigns on issues like domestic violence.

There were things written in IS/SWP circles on issues of oppression which may still be of interest, but Tony Cliff didn't produce any of them. I'll tell you what though, oh oracle of Swindon, why don't you take the time to enlighten us assembled "theoretical dimwits" about the theoretical contributions on these subjects made by the messiah of your lost youth?

I can't but admire your perserverance with bolshieboy particularly since you must realise that your arguments are unlikely to have much effect on him (although they do entertain other readers, yours truly included). In fact, he reminds me of an ex-WRP member I knew years back who still steadfastly defended the party line in every respect, "if there is ever to be a revolution in Britain, the working class will need a party like the WRP". He just couldn't handle being a member of that organisation.
Bolshieboy also seems to see the SWP as the embodiment of the "Leninist" party with the correct position on everything (although there may be failings in its practice). This reminded me of a day I spent in the company of Chris Harman many years ago. Both of us were on holiday and we had a wide ranging discussion throughout the day with him doing most of the talking (if you've seen the film, a kind of "My Dinner with André", Harman style). At one level, his encyclopedic knowledge was truly impressive, but on the other hand his insistence on taking up a position on every single question under the sun (no ifs and buts) was more than a little disturbing. But as Bolshieboy says: "defending the existence of a Leninist party is what it's all about".