Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
Thanks for that Nigel Irritable. Paulin was def in the WRP. He's written about trying to sell their paper door to door in Belfast.
SWP expulsions and squabbles
- Thread starter Nigel Irritable
- Start date
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
They were I think unique amongst Irish Trotskyists in setting themselves up as a constituent part of a British party. I've no idea why they did so. It can't have helped them in the South or amongst Northern Catholics. The only other left group I can think of that did something similar was the BICO, but in their case they were an Irish group expanding to the bigger island.
In the early seventies a new Healyite organisation (League for a Workers Vanguard) was born out of a split in the LWR. Presumably that means the original Irish Healyites had disappeared by then.
Limerick Red
Мы вас похороним!
who was the group DR Lysaght was/is part of?
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Socialist Democracy. I think he came from the Movement for a Socialist Republic side of the merger that created SD, rather than the People's Democracy side. MSR was what eventually resulted from a (USFI/Mandelite) split from the League for a Workers Republic. The merged group should really have kept the much better known PD name.
I believe he is still in SD, in so far as SD is still a functioning group.
(What became the MSR overlapped with the Saor Eire milieu, Peter Graham most obviously being a leading figure in both circles)
just popped over to the SD website, they use frames!
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
I remember not so long ago on Wikipedia inspired delve through what happened to PD ending up on the SD website.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
They also use zimmer frames.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Karmickameleon
Too long in exile
By all accounts the RIC conference this last weekend was very successful. Not surprisingly, neither Sheridan or the SWP were invited to speak.
That is interesting - Sheridan is calling for tactical vote for the SNP in the 2015 general election. The SWP's normal position is to vote Labour i believe (unless there is a front organisation that they are supporting like TUSC etc)..
i can see no justification for a Labour vote considering their history and their imperialist type antics re the Independence referendum.
Who can say which way the SWP will jump by May 2015?
SpackleFrog
Smash showy bell-bottom pants and sporty haircuts
TUSC will be standing 100 Parliamentary candidates next year, including in Scotland. The SWP are committed to providing a couple of them - they could easily U-turn on that mind, I know of a few swops who are panicking so much about UKIP they clearly want to call for a Labour vote.
UKIP don't seem to have the traction in Scotland that they have south of the border though. If TUSC are standing 100 candidates, that leaves approx 500 seats where left of Labour candidates will be comparatively rare (except the Greens of course). In those seats one assumes the Swops will urge a Labour vote. What a travesty of a socialist position.
SpackleFrog
Smash showy bell-bottom pants and sporty haircuts
Yeah, possibly. They did that in the by election after Louise Mensch resigned if I recall, and then withdrew it after 24 hours. In Scotland they might well call for an SNP vote though given the mess Scottish Labour is in. Or Scottish Socialist Party. Fuck knows.
(If anyone wants to give us £150,000 by the way we'll stand another 100 candidates, promise
)(If anyone wants to give us £150,000 by the way we'll stand another 100 candidates, promise
The problem is you would just lose another 100 deposits on top of the 96 you will definitely lose anyway. Why participate when you have no strategy?
SpackleFrog
Smash showy bell-bottom pants and sporty haircuts
Who says we have no strategy? Don't get me wrong, we'll lose a LOT of deposits. But I'm genuinely convinced we have to do this.
What's the strategy then?
I don't think anyone is saying it is. I was asking spacklefrog what the strategy behind TUSC is
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
wooh yeah! Piss a load more money away for no votes and then wind the useless organisation up! Cracking strategy.
Fucking swappies have promised that they'll stand in my seat, despite their moron of a candidates vote collapsing at the last local election. Hopefully their conference will decide its time to pull out.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
London Black Revolutionaries unimpressed with SWP's shenanigans over Ferguson demo:
https://www.facebook.com/events/312433102293366/permalink/312949965575013/
https://www.facebook.com/events/312433102293366/permalink/312949965575013/
leyton96
NGO's selling privilege checking solutions
What's everyone getting so angry about?
I can go into the TUSC strategy in detail if you want but the tl;dr version is:
Stand widely ==> build name recognition, popularise idea of a working class based party
Stand widely ==> give a space for working class people to enter the electoral process, thereby building up a cadre of people across the country familiar with electoral campaigning, organisation etc. This is money in the bank for when a situation more favourable to a new mass working class party develops.
(To save us all a tedious exchange about a new party being about more than electoral politics the above simply relates to standing in elections)
There (probably) won't be that much money wasted as all the deposits will (probably) be paid for from a legacy from a former member of the Socialist Alliance of around £55,000. Before folks get a cob on about the money being better spent on building the movement or something the legacy specifically states it has to be spent on a left electoral challenge.
http://www.socialistalliance.org.uk/?linkId=1&storyId=124
Is it a lame question to ask why the SWP, which has its own long standing weekly paper, along with a functioning core etc, why they are not standing candidates on an honest and open basis as the 'Socialist Workers Party', rather than concealing themselves behind/within a variety of 'front' organisations ? it seems a bit furtive, a bit we've got something to hide-ist to be frank. Shouldn't the relationship to the working class have a bit more integrity about it?
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
As opposed to your superior strategy, which you will no doubt be able to outline and which you are no doubt currently carrying out, right?
This exchange mostly reminds me of the kind of sneering you sometimes hear from the stupider Left Unity partisans. As if Left Unity actually was a "British SYRIZA" or "British Podemos" or British whatever the flavour of the month currently is, rather than 300 grey haired cranks, burn outs and other associated well meaning flotsam.
Of course an organisation like Left Unity with even less of a future than TUSC may not be what you prefer to counterpose to it. You may instead be one of the people who prefer the IWCA, an organisation which ran out of future entirely some years ago. I'm not going to bother insinuating that you might prefer the Labour left as I don't think you are an idiot.
It's easy to sneer at the English left. Any part of it. It's harder to come up with a plan that stands a reasonable chance of seeing that left become less marginal in the nearish future. Mind you the same could have been said about the Scottish left two years ago (and there's every possibility they could squander their lucky break still).
I'm not a particular adherent of TUSC's approach. It isn't what we do over here, though then again we have better options to choose from. But if they see spending money that they are being given for that purpose only on standing very widely and go into that process understanding that they will get a low vote, I don't think it's really something that should attract the outraged sneering of other lefts. Much of it looks like displaced self loathing from people who themselves don't know what to do.
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articul8
Dishonest sociopath
Not the least of the reasons for that is that you have a better electoral system. Not saying that solves everything, but it least gets you a foot in the door.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
This is interesting because it shows a failure to adapt to new circumstances. The combination of social media plus diminished size and resources plus their almost complete loss of non party allies means that this particular type of SWP manouever is now more likely to be counterproductive than productive.
Now, along with the usual (almost always white) twittersectionals, they have a whole bunch of left leaning black people getting outraged about them (not just LBR but a much wider and more disparate group). And for what? So that one of their fronts gets to provide a fucking compere at a rally? They don't even gain anything out of it.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Oddly enough I reckon we wouldn't do too badly under fptp - the left vote is quite geographically concentrated. But yes, our electoral system is certainly better for small parties.
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