From SWP Pre-Conference Internal Bulletin #4,
Reply to Respect document, by Lindsey German
The debate in the party has reached an extremely serious stage, not just concerning the Respect crisis but also about our future perspectives. This seems incongruous because looked at overall, there is much that the party has to be proud of in terms of our achievements in recent years.
We have led the biggest mass movement in British history over the war and have been central to other united fronts against fascism and in defence of council housing. We are now in the middle of the deepest economic crisis the world has seen for decades, which should give many opportunities for socialists to grow and increase their influence.
The danger is, however some of the interpretation of the experiences of recent years and especially that of Respect, will lead us to retreat from the politics which have informed our work in recent years, especially the centrality of the united front, which it seems to me is now being downgraded.
Indeed, history itself seems to be being rewritten. The CC document on Respect claims that ‘Respect also reflected some of the weaknesses of the anti-war movement – most particularly a somewhat top-down style and a tendency to lionise notables’.
This is a criticism of the Stop the War Coalition which flies in the face of the reality of an organisation which, unlike so many other united fronts, has always had an active and organised base in almost every area of the country. It is also a criticism which has never been articulated in the CC, including when we discussed the CC document in IB1 about Stop the War, but now finds its way into a document about another issue.
Since I have played a central role in the electoral work and in the anti-war movement, and have played a key role in most other areas of party work in my many years on the CC, I have watched the development of the current debate with increasing dismay.
I have held back from replying to some earlier criticisms because I hoped that the CC document on Respect in IB3 would deal with some of the misconceptions and inaccuracies, as well as give a general overview of the situation. When I read the document I found that, while I agreed with much of its overview and conclusions, there were also important differences or omissions which should not go unchallenged.
I therefore asked to be allowed to write a reply, which has been agreed.
I want in this document to spell out my analysis of what happened in Respect and my role in it. Though the debate has been personalised in the most unacceptable way, I think Extremely important issues are at stake about our perspectives and united front work, and I want to comment on these in the run up to conference. It is clear to me that the perspectives which we all agreed as a CC in September are being interpreted in very different ways by different leading members.
We all have a duty as party members to try to clarify these disagreements and unite behind a perspective which can help us intervene round the recession and build the party. That means that while we have to have a realistic and honest assessment of the mistakes we have made, we also have to put them into perspective rather than allowing what is one issue mainly about what we have done in the past to dominate.
Respect
There are so many issues raised in the bulletins over this issue that it is impossible to deal with them all but I will try to highlight a few what I see as key points.
1. We were right to do it: it is hard to remember now how much enthusiasm there was for an electoral alternative to Labour in the aftermath of the Iraq war. It was palpable and could have organised tens of thousands.
But Respect faced problems from the very beginning, principally that no Labour MP other than Galloway broke from Labour, and that we didn’t win significant trade union or other left forces. That was to do with the enduring, if decaying, hold of Labour, and the refusal of especially the CPB to join us.
The result was that the project at a national level revolved around an agreement between George Galloway, Salma Yaqoob and the SWP. There was a tension from the beginning in the sense that both our main allies refused to accept an overtly socialist name and that Salma always tended to follow her own agenda (including rewriting the agreed founding statement when she got back to Birmingham and pressurising the rest of us to accept the changes).
It is not true to say, as the CC document does, that the party ‘lacked a distinctive and independent standing in its internal discussions’.
Of course the individuals who had worked in STW played a central role, but they always did so as CC members and only as a result of extensive consultation and discussions with the rest of the CC.
It is also untrue to state, as Chris Harman did at the central London aggregate, that there was little discussion throughout the party about the establishment of Respect.
The project was discussed at CC, NC, Party Council and branch levels. It is true, however, that a sizeable minority of comrades always remained aloof, and perhaps one of our failings was not putting more effort into winning them. The very real successes we did have however prove to me beyond doubt that we were right to pursue the project.
2. The role of accident and mistakes: there is huge scope for discussing the many mistakes and errors national and local comrades made. It is impossible and probably fruitless to deal with them all, but of course we made many mistakes.
No doubt we were too soft at some times and too hard at others. But we also have to be completely honest about these mistakes. In the context of building an organisation like Respect, it is impossible to work with people and always get the balance right. Over Big Brother for example, we had to steer a position between those who wanted to break with George completely, to severely criticise him, and those who were totally uncritical. I think we took the right position (although I sometimes feel that life would have been easier subsequently if we had broken with Galloway).
But the whole fiasco weakened Respect, especially among trade union activists. In a united front public criticism is often hard; that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t take place, but it carries high risks and sometimes we were caught between a rock and a hard place.
Accident also played a role: if I had been elected to the London Assembly in 2004 (as I very nearly was) then the balance of forces in Respect would have been very different. If white socialists had been elected in 2006 in Newham and Tower Hamlets (as they very nearly were) then the balance of forces and level of politics in those areas would have been raised. If Gordon Brown had not flirted with calling an election in autumn 2007 then maybe Galloway would not have attacked so rapidly.
The important thing to assess is what, if anything, we could have done differently and to understand why we didn’t do it.
3. A collective leadership: one thing I find unacceptable about this whole debate is the way in which responsibility for mistakes is placed on the shoulders of one person. Nearly all the decisions taken at national level were collective ones, usually discussed either at the CC or with CC members not directly involved in the work. We made a decision after 2006 to ‘steer left’, stressing the need for trade union work, LGBT etc.
There is no question that this helped to exacerbate the tensions with Galloway but it was the right direction politically. The alternative was to allow more opportunism and tendencies towards communalism, which we all agreed we could not do.
The argument that the individual responsible for the work should resign ignores that collective responsibility. Every CC member makes mistakes and misjudgements. Our attitude to the poll tax in Scotland was disastrously abstentionist, allowing the Militant to hegemonise the campaign and leading to our later marginalisation round the SSP. The CC member responsible suffered no sanction.
More recently, issues such as our defeat at the UCU conference over pay by 7 votes (when the CC member responsible did not attend the caucus), or the very small size of the UAF demo in the summer compared to the predictions of the CC members responsible for it, were never discussed in an accusatory way or blamed on individuals.
That is the way we have always worked and it seems to me essentially correct if we are to build a genuine party leadership, not one terrified of taking initiatives for fear of failing or scapegoating.
4. The London elections: we always knew that the London Assembly and mayoral elections would be hard following the split in Respect. We lost the name through no fault of our own (a point never acknowledged by our critics in all this), lost a lot of our support in our strongest areas and were short of money and resources. Because of the rows since the autumn we were very late in the campaign and many of us had little enthusiasm for it.
I seriously considered not standing (and incidentally was put under some pressure by people outside the party not to stand). However I felt that if we did stand, I had to be the candidate. It is no good putting yourself forward in conditions where you expect to do relatively well, and then expecting someone else to carry the work when those conditions change.
Comrades now argue this might have been a mistake. In judging this we have to consider the alternative outcome: we would have been totally marginalised, there would have been no left candidate standing against an increasingly right moving Livingstone, and we would have left the field open for Galloway – and, in particular, his argument that we should go soft on some New Labour figures. Had Galloway won a London assembly seat (unlikely as this now appears), we would have been in a substantially weaker position to argue the case for an independent Left.
Livingstone’s continued defence of the Met over Jean Charles de Menezes and his continued support for pro-City economic policies indicates we were right to fight the election. We discussed collectively at the CC my standing; all agreed that I should and I was the only person who raised the possibility of not standing. All the CC campaigned in the election and I have absolutely no problem with what was done by them. I think we all expected to do better than we did, certainly many of us did.
Did we raise false expectations? Maybe, but it is virtually impossible and completely pointless to go into an election saying ‘we are going to get a poor vote’ even if you think it. It is clear that we under estimated the pull to Livingstone (even the very high profile Green campaign only got 3% to their bitter disappointment), and the impact of the loss of the name.
All the reports from polling stations indicated huge confusion over who was standing and for what party. We also under estimated the effective abstention by large numbers of our members in parts of London.
5. Events since the election: We held a party council shortly after the election at which there was near unanimity that the vote wasn’t good, that we should operate Left List/Alternative at a lower level, concentrating on areas where we did well, and that the result should not prevent us from involvement in other work. What has changed since then?
Firstly, we became aware that our remaining three Tower Hamlets councillors were being pulled towards Labour. Various comrades spent some weeks trying very hard to win them back but failed. The reason for this was simple; they felt they were more likely to get elected as Labour but recognised they would not if they stayed with us.
To imply this decision might be the fault of any individual in the circumstances is completely absurd.
There were various issues such as the number of placards on the Unite demo (too many but we all thought the demo would be much bigger), changing the name (a necessity following the elections but nothing like a relaunch as is being alleged) and discussing whether we would stand in the Euro elections (we wanted to keep our options open vis a vis both those on the European left and Galloway and anyway this was surely a point worth considering). Maybe all these were errors, but if so they were errors of not adjusting quickly enough to the situation rather than anything else.
They were all tactical decisions taken in line with the NC position of keeping an electoral operation on the road but in the slow lane. However, they were enough for the majority CC to demand John Rees’s resignation in the summer, to which, after much debate, he acceded.
6. The Left Alternative NC: much criticism of me has centred on this meeting in September. Indeed half the SWP NC a week later was given over to the issue. We were told at the time that the NC would draw a line under the issue.
But it is clear from some IB articles and the attitude of the CC majority that this is not the case. I would therefore like to set out my side of the story. First let me dispel some myths. No one blackmailed the CC or threatened to split the party, even though this allegation is regularly repeated without substantiation.
No one broke party discipline, a point acknowledged to me by Charlie Kimber subsequently and agreed at the CC meeting following the Left Alternative NC. These are canards thrown into the discussion at various times and unfortunately not rebutted by the CC but encouraged and repeated so that they now have the status of fact.
These are the facts: when a group from the CC met after Marxism to discuss John’s future, Chris Bambery and I made clear that we would also resign, me at the September meeting and CB by the time of the Left Alternative conference in November. This was agreed, as was the idea that we would hand over responsibility for Left Alternative work to other comrades.
In the run up to the September NC, there appeared to be no preparation for the meeting, which we knew would be difficult because of John’s resignation, and we raised on several occasions that someone had to take on the work. I assumed (wrongly) that all CC members would be informed about my decision to resign, but responsibility for that lies not just with me but with all the CC who knew of that decision. (In fact some other CC members did know. Charlie Kimber for example admitted that he did, before the meeting.)
The meeting was always going to be difficult because many of the non-SWP members and some of the SWP members on the Left Alternative NC were not happy with the CC’s decision to remove John from the NC and from responsibility for the party’s work.
They were also not happy with the insistence of the SWP CC that there should be no Left Alternative placards on the upcoming anti-war demonstration in Manchester. This was indeed a bizarre demand from the CC, committed as they apparently were to keeping Left Alternative on the road. It was a decision that I and others on the CC had disagreed with but of course accepted once we had lost the argument.
It is therefore quite extraordinary that John, Chris Bambery and myself are being blamed for any controversy that arose from the meeting. John’s crime appears to have been to resign when told to, mine and Chris’s to resign when it was agreed we would. Let me underline; no member of the CC has ever criticised anything John or I said in our resignation speeches. Of what then do we stand accused?
7.Accountability: much has been written on this subject quite rightly. All party members should be accountable for their work, and at CC level they have to be especially accountable because they are carrying the whole direction of the party. But we need to go a little bit further than that if the whole debate is not to descend into personal and unpolitical attacks but is to clarify how we behave in the future. Firstly, we have been highly accountable.
John Rees apologised for the OFFU cheque at last year’s conference, and we were told a line had been drawn. Now it is being used to remove him from the CC, even though he had already been held to account. Even under bourgeois law, you can’t be tried twice for the same offence.
I was accountable when I stood in the elections, because I had my personal doubts about doing it but didn’t want to let the party down. I was prepared to debate at the last NC although I was subject to some personal abuse which effectively accused me of lying and I accepted the majority view.
But accountability is a two way street. Some of the national leadership of Respect/ Left List effectively abstained after last year’s conference. Both Maxine Bowler and Michael Lavalette, who had some of the strongest support electorally and high standing in the organisation, attended few if any national meetings, unhelpful at a difficult time of transition, especially when some decisions made at those meetings are now being criticised by the same comrades.
It is common knowledge that many comrades in London abstained from doing anything to help the election campaign; should they not also be held accountable? Perhaps most importantly, are we seriously going to base a model of party accountability on criticising those who are active, or those who stick their necks out and take risks, while those who remain passive or criticise from the sidelines remain totally unaccountable?
It seems to me we have gone some way down this road and it has regrettable consequences both for party structures and democracy.
8. How the argument has been conducted: in the end of the day there will be many different interpretations of the strengths and weaknesses of Respect and what went wrong. That in itself is not a problem if we can learn appropriate lessons.
To me, one of the main lessons is that we must never conduct a debate in this way again. Gossip, rumour and innuendo have taken the place of clear public debate in too many instances. If CC members had the doubts or disagreements over the conduct of Respect they now claim, they had an absolute duty to raise them at the time.
Having taken a series of collective decisions and defended them collectively it is simply unacceptable to renounce them in hindsight in favour of personal attacks. This technique has been extended to the record of Stop the War.
I was amazed to read in the document on Respect the criticisms of Stop the War – criticism which has never been raised to me by anyone on the CC. Some praise the Sheffield document as the acme of democracy. I don’t agree. To have a district meeting which I was told took place without anyone from the CC knowing, which passed a resolution only sent to the CC some time later, and where no one who was attacked was told of the meeting or invited to put their point of view, seems to be falling short of hearing a full and rounded debate.
I understand that Sheffield delegates were subsequently elected on the basis of support for that document. The party has always taken the view that delegates should not be mandated but should make up their minds when they have heard the arguments at conference; in addition, delegates should not be elected on what they think about one issue out of many at conference. Even within the CC, there is too much reliance on sounding out opinion in private rather than open debate. When challenged as to who the people are who feel strongly, we are told they are private conversations. Fair enough, but then they shouldn’t be used politically.
We should have debated the Left Alternative at Marxism, where we could have held a members’ meeting, as I suggested. We did not and were then told that everyone in the bars was talking about it. This is simply not an acceptable way of judging opinion in the party, and leads to manoeuvre and secrecy rather than open politics.
Real differences, much more serious than the ones that divide us, can be debated openly but it has to be done in a democratic and political manner. The Paul McGarr et al document in IB3, with which I differ over some issues, deals with points rationally and politically. Unfortunately some others descend into pettiness and personalism, without understanding that point scoring is not a substitute for political analysis.
Where do we go from here?
These are some of the issues about Respect, but it is clear that whatever is decided at conference there are wider issues which need to be addressed. Firstly we must not allow the past and mistakes that have been made to colour our judgement on the future.
Some CC members have said that it is difficult to predict the future at the moment because events are moving too fast. That is a mistake.
It is at times of crisis when events are moving fast that we most need an assessment of what is going on and how we can respond to it. We have always been characterised by boldness and audacity, yet our response to the recession has been slow and cautious.
There has grown up a belief by some in the party leadership that we are isolated on the left and in the movement because of the Respect crisis and because of John Rees personally. This is utterly absurd. Look at the list of prominent left individuals who have signed the Charter unhesitatingly.
It includes Tony Benn, George Monbiot, Caroline Lucas, Jeremy Dear, Jeremy Corbyn, etc Look at the number of individuals who have spoken with our comrades on platforms in the last few months. These include Sally Hunt of the UCU and Kevin Courtney from London NUT, Britain’s most prominent left economists Paul Mason, Larry Elliot and Graham Turner, if anything a widening spectrum of anti-war figures including Jonathan Steele, Inayat Bungawala from the MCB, Nick Davies, Moazzam Begg.
A number of successful People Before Profit Charter meetings, continuing support for Stop the War, the size of some student meetings (500 students came to a Goldsmiths Stop the War meeting with Tony Benn a few weeks ago on the same night that a similar number attended a left forum about the economy at LSE) as well as the success of some of our recent SWP public meetings all show there is a big constituency on the left looking for a way to respond to the current situation.
How then is this argument being pursued? For the first time in many years we are in danger of not providing a way forward for these people.
This caution will if we are not careful lead to an internalised perspective rather than pushing outwards. While some comrades will justify this on the grounds that we need to preserve the party and that paper selling and branch meetings have to be our priority, such activity without pushing outwards, or just relying on the occasional stunt, will be self-defeating.
The party can only grow and prosper insofar as it relates to the movement and the wider periphery around us. That is why it is disturbing to hear reports of organisers telling people to downplay STW, not to attend STW organising meetings rather party meetings.
As the perspectives document in IB1 put it, we need more united front work as well as more party building. At present, relatively few comrades are involved in united front work in any ongoing way, and this has consequences for the party.
Perhaps the major problem facing the party, over and above any specific strengths and weaknesses in any area of work, is that the level of passivity remains extremely high. Of around 6,000 registered members, probably the majority are totally or near totally passive. Perhaps a tenth of this figure attended pre-conference aggregates, despite controversies which usually help raise attendance.
Branch meetings remain in most instances small, and they clearly do not, despite the hard work of a small number of activists, meet the needs of many comrades in the party. This has consequences for the health of the party and for its democracy. Comrades want to discuss party structures and their shortcomings at national level but there is at least as great a problem at local level.
We have a situation where our paper membership bears little relation to our active membership. It is very good that comrades are prepared to give money and stay committed but there has to be a level of involvement and activity as well. At most aggregates, the number of delegates allocated was not much different from the number of people in the room. In situations with little or no contest for places to conference, comrades who have been inactive sometimes for years were able to win places supposedly to represent the district.
We have to fight for a more active and engaged party whose members are involved in a wide number of united fronts, trade union work and local campaigns. That means rediscovering our methods of party building and winning arguments within the party.
I like many older members was brought up on the idea that the party does not develop arithmetically. We move forward and grow by grasping the overall nature of the period and then deciding the most appropriate course of action. We polemicise for that course of action hard and try to win all comrades to it so that the party moves forward together.
Always, however, the most advanced party members move forward and hope to win those who are more dubious or passive.
In Cliff’s vol 1 of Lenin he stresses the need for constant tactical turns, for seizing the key link in the chain and for bending the stick to emphasise the most important issue at any time. This was, of course, Cliff’s own method which he always applied. While a number of people resented this method, it was the way in which the party was built. Compare it with today: everyone can take what he or she want from the perspective, so it is unclear. The result is little polemic and further lack of clarity. No wonder many people say they don’t know what the perspective is supposed to be.
The argument which broke out over recruitment just over a year ago reflects the problem here (see John Rees’s document for more details). It is argued in response to my criticisms that of course everyone is in favour of recruitment, which is of course true. But what I argued for was a recruitment campaign, highlighted every week in the paper and party notes. I also argued for open recruitment, ie that we open the doors of the party to anyone who generally agrees with us and that we recruit on a big scale, knowing that we will lose a number of the recruits but that overall the size of the party will still be much bigger than if we recruit incrementally. That is always how we have built the party in the past. But it is a method which appears to be rejected by at least some of the CC.
Recruitment is rarely mentioned without talking about retention, and retention is equated with being on direct debit, as though these are the only ‘real’ members. Yet as has already been stated above, many comrades give money without being at all integrated into the party. The key to retention is involvement in activity, which means we have a problem.
If this were one isolated instance that wouldn’t matter. But if it is part of a general retrenchment then that is a different matter. An even more serious development it seems to me is coming not from the CC itself but in some documents, especially that by Neil Davidson, which appear to involve a whole rethinking of the methods of organisation we have followed since 1968 and which have got us to where we are.
There is a kind of revisionism going on which appears to be challenging the whole way in which Cliff built the party. Neil argues that a sign of the maturity of the party will be when it can have a more objective assessment of Cliff’s weaknesses as well as his strengths. I don’t think anyone who worked with Cliff, as I did closely for many years, was unaware of his weaknesses: his falling in and out of love with comrades, his great enthusiasms, his many ideas some of which came to nothing and his complete single mindedness which sometimes tried the patience of us all. But overall he should be judged on whether his method was right and whether he achieved what in my opinion others could not – the building of the largest revolutionary party in Britain, capable of intervening in the major issues of British politics as we have done.
A sign of true maturity in the party would not be that it abandoned bending the stick, but that it stopped tearing itself apart over one issue. Cliff used to quote an old Russian proverb that ‘a fish rots from its head’. He was right, and all CC members have to take responsibility for the failings of the party and try to find ways out of it.
The trouble is that the main action being proposed and promoted by the majority is scapegoating one individual which is not a substitute for charting a way forward.
The Respect split has caused a very serious crisis for us but whatever happens about it at conference will not provide a strategy for the present or the future. It is argued that John Rees has to go because somehow removing him will end paralysis. That is at least recognition that there is a problem. But we aren’t paralysed because we’re divided; we’re divided because we’re paralysed, caught between a past that we can do little about and a fear of the future. Take the arguments about the Charter which have been rehearsed elsewhere, with a range of different responses.
There are those strongly against it, strongly for it, and agnostic to various degrees. All these positions are perfectly acceptable within a revolutionary party. But all these positions are at present held within the CC and CC members argue different ones publicly. This despite the fact that work with the Charter is supposed to be central to our perspective. No wonder confusion reigns.
I hope that this conference can resolve some of these questions but I am becoming worried. Some of the most important issues facing us – the united front, why the left hasn’t grown – are not even on the agenda.
The Respect debate threatens to be a blame game rather than a serious assessment. There is a new perspectives document being written which will not be discussed by the party before conference. We need a thoroughgoing debate about where we are going and how to address these weaknesses – a debate which could not be more urgent.
external bulletin on said:
“If white socialists had been elected in 2006 in Newham and Tower Hamlets (as they very nearly were) then the balance of forces and level of politics in those areas would have been raised.”
And once again, Lindsey German sinks to the gutter with her…. well, it’s just racism isn’t it?
There are Asian socialists in Respect. There are black socialists in Respect.
How easy would it have been for her to just say “if SWP members…” or even “if revolutionaries…”?
Her choice of words is just as calculated as her choice of smear against Respect in the gay press, claiming that the “more extreme” Muslims had supported Galloway – leaving, what, the nice ones for the Left List? Remember, she also said essentially that homophobia was a reason for the split: “Last year there was a bit of a split in the party because we directed a lot of funds into having our own gay float”.
It’s pretty disgraceful, don’t you think?
But there’s more:
“we have to consider the alternative outcome: we would have been totally marginalised, there would have been no left candidate standing against an increasingly right moving Livingstone, and we would have left the field open for Galloway – and, in particular, his argument that we should go soft on some New Labour figures. Had Galloway won a London assembly seat (unlikely as this now appears), we would have been in a substantially weaker position to argue the case for an independent Left.”
This isn’t even subtle: Lindsey is finally admitting that she stood in the elections in order to act as a spoiler, to stop Galloway.
It’s par for the course with these people, obviously – but it’s a real outrage against the left for her to actually want to stop George Galloway getting an assembly seat. It wasn’t even a sectarian call to keep him honest: It was a spoiler. She knew she could not win, and she wanted to make sure she split the vote so that Galloway couldn’t win either (in the end, the point is moot – but she’s proud of what she did).
Remember, everyone contributing to this debate in the IBs supports the split in Respect.
Are we supposed to look up to a movement leadership that is so happy to casually bandy around terms like “white socialists” raising the political level? That talks of “more extreme elements” supporting George Galloway? That risked the LMHR carnival just so Lindsey could speak as a candidate (but denied other left candidates the same opportunity)?
From “more extreme elements” to “Muslim notables” to “right wing Islamists” (in 2005, according to Chris Harman), the language of the SWP CC has not just flirted with Islamophobia, it’s given in to it completely. Harry’s Place is now using the arguments of the SWP CC to show that it was right about Respect.
And Lindsey stood in May this year because she didn’t want George Galloway getting a seat on the GLA.
I’d like to say “Makes you think, eh?” – but the problem here is, even the critical contributions to the SWP debate start from the premise that it was right to split Respect.
Mike on said:
“There has grown up a belief by some in the party leadership that we are isolated on the left and in the movement because of the Respect crisis and because of John Rees personally. This is utterly absurd. Look at the list of prominent left individuals who have signed the Charter unhesitatingly.”
Ms German may be happy that she and other ‘leading comrades’ can appear on the same platform as various liberal hacks and union bureaucrats but on the ground it means Sweet Fanny Adams.
As for her advocacy of the revolving door method of recritment it simply leads to naive youth joining and lleaving again a few months/years later. Often embittered and hostile to our ideas. Better fewer, but better as someone once wrote.
Louis Proyect on said:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/the-fight-in-the-swp-part-two/
Nas on said:
External bulletin – that’s spot on. These are really filthy positions from German. As for the guff about double jeopardy and bourgeois norms of justice. When it comes to the German-Rees clique, go tell it to the marines, as someone used to put it.
Above all the “white socialists” does it for me. What an utter disgrace.
Tricksymix on said:
Out of interest, why does the phrase ‘white socialists’ in the context of what she’s talking about upset you so much ? (I’m not a supporter of the SWP or Respect by the way
Nas on said:
From la shibboleth to la blanche. I’ve run this by several black and white socialists who have worked with the SWP and who know German. They are appalled. Really appalled. On the other side of the “debate” we’ve got Harman describing the electoral alliance in Tower Hamlets in 2005 as including “right wing Islamists”.
I now fear the worst. This fight in the SWP is going to do an awful lot of damage unless a significant body of people stand up now and cut through the filth from both sides.
Andy Newman on said:
But where are they? Up until very recently the likes of John G, and richard Seymour would be all guns blazing if anyone in ( for example) the AWL said there was a need for “white socialists” to be elected. Quite correctly they would have condemned the islamophobia of describing Muslims in Respect as “right wing Islamists”
Nas on said:
#5 what the natives need is “white socialists”. You geddit? Not what the non-socialists need is socialists (aka SWP members), which would be elitist bullshit at the best of times. No. What the Asian councillors needed in 2006 was whites to lead them. Yeah. Real progressive this Rees-German axis. Sure these were the same people who fawned over Asian organisations like the PJP in Birmingham and even paid them thousands of pounds. That just shows their utter cynicism. Filth. The pair of them (and I’d add Nineham who was appointed head honcho of the Muslim anti-war network – they need a white middle class guy, doncha know) are utterly filthy.
Dear Koba on said:
Chris Nineham: “white middle class guy”
That rather understates the degree of privilige in Chris Nineham’s background, doesn’t it?
Alex Naysmith on said:
Like I said on the ‘reply to John Rees’ thread:
‘It is also true that a lot of SWP members were encouraged to believe that the Tower Hamlet Muslim members of RESPECT were ‘communalist’.
It’s not just the minority CC faction with Rees, Lindsey and Co. putting out this line, but Chris Harman also.
Other SWP members have said it straight to my face that they consider the ‘communalist’ elements of Muslims in RESPECT to be at fault in the RESPECT split. These are comrades from Manchester, not able to assert their allegations from first hand experience, instead taking their information entirely from the SWP apparatus.
The SWP are now in league with the cretins from Harry’s Place.
Daisy on said:
Andy: German is a disgrace but when and where did the AWL use the formulation “white socialists”?
Clive Searle on said:
It is my belief that one of the best things about the early Stop the War movement was that post 9-11 the left had to come to an accommodation with MAB – because they had already booked Trafalgar Square for a Palestine demonstration. It brought the left into contact with large numbers of British Muslims who, without that happy coincidence, may never have met. So was born the greatest strength of the Stop the War Coalition. A lot of that was carried over to Respect – and guess what Harry’s Place hated it, the AWL hated it, New Labour hated it, the racists hated it.
It now appears that for some in the SWP that they weren’t so keen on it either. I’m truly flabbergasted. I was saddened by Lindsey’s remarks in the Pink paper but put it down to crass electoralism in the middle of a lost election campaign. But this shit about ‘white socialists’ is beyond belief.
non-partisan on said:
To be honest, I was just shocked at the low political level. On the offa cheque, “yea ok so he apologised, can’t we just forget it now?” “Respect wasn’t our fault, anyway its over, can’t we just forget it now?” “Yea I know the elections were awful and we only stood to stop galloway, but its done, can’t we just forget it now?”
It really is bizarre to think that this comes from thier mayoral candidate.
for example; 8. How the argument has been conducted: in the end of the day there will be many different interpretations of the strengths and weaknesses of Respect and what went wrong. That in itself is not a problem if we can learn appropriate lessons.
How can you learn the lessons if you all have different views on what happened? No where here, or any of the other documents from SWP members do they explain what actually happened in Respect, they skirt around it and use euphanisms because they can’t actually deal with it without looking like liars or fools.
this organisation is in serious trouble, i thought they would have a larger conference because of short term increase in interest in the debate, but, unless something radical happens they are on the way out.
Andy Newman on said:
#11
I didn’t mean to imply that the AWL had actually used that formulation, or indeed that they would ever use it.
My point was that if someone else rather than Lindsey, and from a group antagonistic to the SWP like the AWL had used such an expression, the Swoppies would be all over it, but when one of their own uses a disgraceful racially insenstive comment they are quiet.
As they would put it on the terraces at the County Ground
Can you here the swoppies sing?
no, no?
Can you here the swoppies sing?
I can’t hear a fucking thing
no, whoh, whoh oh oh.
ll on said:
When Galloway stated he was standing in the next election and on his radio and website he stated that one of the reasons he was standing aginast Fitzpatrick was that he (Fitzpatrick) was pro gay marriage. We were told be Andy and others this was ok and just a mistake. There was not one jot of any criticism from you lot. Now I don’t think Lindsey’s phrase is the best piece of writing but to argue she is a racist is frankly obscene. What ever the differences the idea the SWP are racist is off the planet.
ll on said:
Andy,#14
come on now Andy don’t give us all that I am a prole at the footie bullshit. At your school it was more like croquet, hockey and rugger!!!
end of an era on said:
Must say Andy, you’ve got some very politically well-informed and articulate fans in Swindon. With Man City fans you can never tell whether the darkly muttered ‘how the fuck did we end up here?’ is referring to the latest twist of the SWP CC or just the football.
Andy Newman on said:
I knew Thatcher was finished when I heard 8000 City fans chanting “We won’t pay no poll tax” at Ashton gate
ll on said:
LATEST OUTSTANDING ARTICLE BY GALLOWAY!!!
READ ALL ABOUT IT, READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!
HERE IT IS…………….
“LIKE Leona Lewis before her, Alexandra Burke looked like the winner of The X Factor right from the start. I really must start putting my money where my mouth is.
But the other winner for me was Cheryl Cole. As mentor to Alexandra, you just felt she had invested hugely in the younger girl’s success, not out of duty but out of love.
Her tears were genuine, as genuine as the Geordie accent she hasn’t bothered to conceal. Cheryl is a credit to her profession and her roots.”
UHHH cAPITALISM IS A FUCKING MESS AND THE GREAT MP OF RR DECIDES TO GO ON ABOUT CHERYL COLE AND X FACTOR… AS MY MATE IN WORK SAID TO ME THE OTHER DAY ” WHAT HAPPEND TO THAT GUY GALLOWAY”
I AM COUNTING DOWN NOT TO XMAS BUT TO THE NEXT ELECTION. IT WILL BE A HIGHLIGHT TO SEE RR GET FUCK ALL NAD ALL FALL OUT AND BLAME THE ISR AS ANDY IS DOING ALREADY. LOL
Clive Searle on said:
“I don’t think Lindsey’s phrase is the best piece of writing” – then perhaps you’ll ask her to apologise to all those Black and Asians out there who may have been offended.
ll on said:
I bet it pimms and lemonade for Andy on the terrace ( at Henley) lol
Nas on said:
ll – no one has said German is a racist. Her words are, however, despicable – both the “white socialists” and the standing as a spoiler against Galloway. You’ve been answered so many times over the Fitzpatrick stuff, you’re just being silly now.
Given you’re in apologetics mode – what’s your defence for Harman’s “right wing Islamists” jibe? That accord with your experience in Brum?
ll on said:
Clive
can you get Galloway to apologise to all the LGBT community for the offence he caused on national radio and on his website. Remember you said it was just a mistake (twice) and blamed it on some minion. So let me know when that apology is coming Clive and you will get a reply about German.
oh, whilst we are at it, also an aplogy to 50% of the worlds population from Galloway for making sleezy sexist crap comments. Good luck when you talk to the great one!!
ll on said:
what Nas
It was mistake to put a homophobic comment on his website and read out a homophobic statement and then blame some aide!!! is that what you are referring to? just so we clear Nas.
ll on said:
By the way tell Galloway to stop perving over Cheryl Cole, he’s fucking old enough to be her grandfather. What a wanker.
Clive Searle on said:
Your really are a prat, ll or whoever you really are. I’m not sure you may realise this but millions of people watch X-factor and, guess what, some people who are socialists or on the left even vote in the competition. But for you it’s a sin to talk about it.
But nice attempt at distraction technique. Lindsey G writes some contemptuous drivel about ‘white socialists’ but you try to change the subject by implying that the biggest crime is that GG has an opinion on a programme that was watched by over ten million people.
And just in case you want to denounce me on similar lines let me tell you that I voted for Rachel Stevens but I thought Tom Chambers’ show dance was the better of the two.
But when I voted I shouted ‘CAPITALISM IS A FUCKING MESS’ down the phone so that made me feel better for being so right wing.
Nas on said:
ll – if German and Harman kiss and make up, you might even get a job back the way things are going. What a mess, what a total mess.
ll on said:
“Respect could unconsciously further the beginnings of a polarisation based on racial division, by not countering the growing perception that it is a ‘party for Muslims’.”
The Socialist Party
I just thought all those on the site in RR and sing the praises of the SP and how unsectarian they are such as Adny should remmebr this jem.
ll on said:
Clive
If you think perving after Cheryl COle is a great use of the only MP for RR in a weekly colum then fine , great… whatever.
Now what about Galloways offence to LGBT and Women, any chance of getting the apology?
Nas on said:
Silly trolling now, ll. Bed time. I’m sure German and Rees are happy to have you on side.
christian h. on said:
Maybe if Andy could for once take off his blinders, he would realize that comrades have internal debates, well, internally. Andy may delude himself that he has a RIGHT to participate, but that’s really his problem, isn’t it? Or rather, his single-minded pursuit of damaging the SWP is, in fact, a problem for the whole British Left.
Clive Searle on said:
So the SWP now agree with the SP over Respect. Don’t you remember ll that you used to disagree with the SP over this charge. The only difference today is that I still think they were wrong – you on the other hand used to think they were wrong but now that Lindsey and Chris H. have changed their positions you have obediently joined them.
end of an era on said:
“Or rather, his single-minded pursuit of damaging the SWP is, in fact, a problem for the whole British Left.”
Seems the SWP are doing quite enough damaging themselves.
ll on said:
27#
Nas you just don’t get it do you.
The debate/arguement in the SWP is in my honest opinion the best thing that could internally happen. I think we were too soft on Galloway way before the split. I absolutely agreed with the project etc but we should have kept our difference. That was a political mistake. The idea that the SWP having a proper debate about the party and the shape of the class struggle will be bad is not a view I share. The branches of the SWP are in better shape than a couple of years ago. Long way to go etc but have improved in the vast majority of areas.
Now I look at Respect. Andy is arguing it is on the verge of collapse. He argues that the Respect aprty has been bullied by the ISR, It was railroaded by the ISR in respect of its conference. The paper sales of Respect are I know pathetically low. There are hardly any branches, no activity and the prospects inside the leadership of Respect with reference to the coming election are highly pessimistic. The SWP for all its faults has a tradition which I am very proud of.
I am serious when I say, the fact that leading members of Respect call for sacking of workers alongside the SUN newspaper and CLive Searle defends this is enough for me to know the Respect project is sunk.
ll on said:
332
Clive
If you took the time to read the post you will see it was clearly to show how sectarian the SP and no I do not agree with the statement from the SP. For fucks sake CLive wake up man!!
Nas on said:
Your level of delusion is quite frightening, ll. German and Rees have told us all that the active membership of the SWP is smaller than at any time since the early 1980s, is deeply divided, is propping up an overmighty apparatus and is permanently fleeced to levy monies to fill a gaping financial black hole.
And your really think this row is going to do the party a power of good? Delusional.
Kent&CanterburyDan on said:
Sorry its worth repeating, this site is called socialist UNITY?!?!
Prinkipo Exile on said:
Will Michael Lavalette and Maxine Bowler be demanding a reply to Lindsey German’s criticism of them in her reply to the CC’s criticism of John Rees’ criticism of the CC …
which side are they on by the way? I think we can gain a hint from the fact that Lavalette refuses to call himself ‘Left Alternative’ or even link to their website, though he’s added the very informative Lenin’s Tomb website instead since he launched his new ‘independent socialist’ blog (informative about Korea that is – not places nearer home).
http://www.michaellavalette.com/
end of an era on said:
“I am serious when I say, the fact that leading members of Respect call for sacking of workers alongside the SUN newspaper and CLive Searle defends this is enough for me to know the Respect project is sunk”
Please – try harder. That’s pathetic. Though I do believe you may be ‘serious’.
Nas on said:
PE – good point. I thought German’s snipe at Bowler and Lavalette was extraordinary, especially as her and Rees’s friend Carmel Brown from Merseyside dropped out of the LA NC as things really got rough. Is German going to have a swipe at her too?
If Bowler and Lavalette weren’t going along with this rubbish why didn’t people speak out sooner. And why didn’t they speak out sooner. Like over the split.
Futurecast on said:
A “swoppie” sings:
The use of the term ‘white socialists’ threw me back for a moment there as I was reading this. The election of ‘white socialists’ would have helped argue against those who said Respect was simply the “Muslim party”. But the way in which Ms German uses it (ignorantly and unthinkingly I imagine) is very poor indeed. It is a form of clumsy racial stereotyping.
Apart from that huge red herring (for which I think at least a correction and at most an apologee is needed)it isn’t a terrible document. But I am far more in favour with the Davidson/Molyneux outlook on inner democracy and I’m not convinced that the majority CC are “soft on the crisis/united front”.
I was frustrated that the Left Alternative was ‘parked’ without discussing this with me or anyone I knew in the membership. But I don’t see what other choice there was. Scraping the LA is probably not a good idea as it may be useful to be revived and dusted off in the near future and pushing forward with it (when it was essentially left with no other non-swp elements, electoral representation i.e. tower hamlets councillors or much of an electorate, who don’t seem to ‘get’ voting left)
Although I personally think LA/RR/CFANWP are all fucked without each other electorally. This is often criticized as the “huddle-together-for-warmth” outlook. The problem is, right now the electoral left of labour are corpses… all of which are freezing to death and will probably not exist in any meaningful way at all within very little time. So if there’s one thing we could do with it’s warmth.
Also union is useful as an end in itself. One act of solidarity can begat another and before you know it, even with a top down redrawing of the left, you can give people the impression that the left are finally getting their act together and finally that we deserve to be taken serious.
That’s all for now. I suppose my totalitarian party will expel me for having opinions won’t they? Please. How you flatter us.
ll on said:
Christian
The point is Andy won’t put up any internal documents of the rows raging inside Respect. He is arguing they are on the verge of collapsing. Searle says there are no internal means of expressing ones views inside Respect. No minutes of the national exec where a bust up between Andy and Thornett happend. I understand Galloway backed Andy but hey may be wrong as there are no minutes and the few members outside the nat exec have not been told. Andy of course should give an account for all the elft to join in th debate about how a small bunch of trots “railroaded” Respect. But no Andy says he can’t or won’t subject Respects internal debates for all to see. Andy first claimed that he oinly put articles if they had not been circulated by the SWP national office. This then turned out to be a complete Lie as he then put up articles which were sent out via the national office. So Andy game at being the voice of the people lol wears a bit thin when he is seen as a bullshitter.
Inside Respect the national conferecne was nearly canceeled as Andy didn’t want the members to meet up!!!
Galloway picked their GLA candidates on his own, members were not allowaed to select and vote for candidates,
Respect conference – absolutely no dissent was allowed inside the conferecne. The fact that Nat Exec member Mark France was openly calling for workers to be sacked and backing Murdochs SUN campaign against a local authority didnt get any resonse, indeed this scab was elected to the natioanl exec and writes about how lovely the conferecne was in the respect newspaper. Mark France also attacks single women (verbally obviously) and claims they get preferential treatment compared to men. Clive Searle by the way didn’t see this as a problem indeed thought it was something to celebrate. Liam from ISR to be fair did say his comrade from Respect was a disgrace for scabbing on local govt workers.But then Thornett then suggests a conference every two years. The level of democracy is nill inside Respect as regards the national organisation. No debate at the conference over Respect backing New Labour against the left in 2 by elections in Scotland, enough said.
clive searle on said:
I’m not sure whether I should respond to to you anymore ll but please try to get a grip. I’ve read what you posted from GG and if you think that’s a problem then so be it – but really is this more important than the fact that many of your leading members from Lindsey to Chris Harman seem to think it is OK to use the language of Harry’s Place and the AWL to justify their splitting of Respect.
Futurecast on said:
A “swoppie” sings:
The use of the term ‘white socialists’ threw me back for a moment there as I was reading this. The election of ‘white socialists’ would have helped argue against those who said Respect was simply the “Muslim party”. But the way in which Ms German uses it (ignorantly and unthinkingly I imagine) is very poor indeed. It is a form of clumsy racial stereotyping.
Apart from that huge red herring (for which I think at least a correction and at most an apologee is needed)it isn’t a terrible document. But I am far more in favour with the Davidson/Molyneux outlook on inner democracy and I’m not convinced that the majority CC are “soft on the crisis/united front”.
I was frustrated that the Left Alternative was ‘parked’ without discussing this with me or anyone I knew in the membership. But I don’t see what other choice there was. Scraping the LA is probably not a good idea as it may be useful to be revived and dusted off in the near future and pushing forward with it (when it was essentially left with no other non-swp elements, electoral representation i.e. tower hamlets councillors or much of an electorate, who don’t seem to ‘get’ voting left)
Although I personally think LA/RR/CFANWP are all fucked without each other electorally. This is often criticized as the “huddle-together-for-warmth” outlook. The problem is, right now the electoral left of labour are corpses… all of which are freezing to death and will probably not exist in any meaningful way at all within very little time. So if there’s one thing we could do with it’s warmth.
Also union is useful as an end in itself. One act of solidarity can begat another and before you know it, even with a top down redrawing of the left, you can give people the impression that the left are finally getting their act together and finally that we deserve to be taken serious.
That’s all for now. I suppose my totalitarian party will expel me for having opinions won’t they? Please. How you flatter us…
TH Respect Survivor on said:
ll – fuck off.
Lindsey German is a disgrace. As a gay, Bangladeshi, Muslim SOCIALIST I’m absolutely disgusted by what she’s said. I thought the interview in the Pink News was bad enough, you know – the one where she accused me and thousands of other people in East London of being homophobic – because we have two factors in common – we vote/d Galloway and we’re Muslim.
She never apologised for that. Never retracted that comment.
As I said to my partner, “In the very words of Lindsey German, of course I’m in favour of defending gay rights, but I am not prepared to have it as a shibboleth, created by people who won’t defend George Galloway.”
And now, this thing about “white socialists”. Would I not have been good enough for he? Cos the colour of my skin is brown? It seems I can subscribe to socialism, be a Marxist, even a Trotskyist. But if I’m brown, then I just don’t cut it. No massah, I ain’t good enough for yah.
Let me make this clear: Lindsey German is a disgrace. And any respect I had for her, for her as a person, for her politics, for the SWP, is gone.
ll on said:
#39 “Please – try harder. That’s pathetic. Though I do believe you may be ’serious’.”
No its true, Mark France calls for
1. Local govt workers to be sacked in Haringay
2. Single women get preferential treatment compared to men like him!!!
3. Public Sector has cushy jobs not like the private sector
4. He is on the dole as single women keep getting training courses eg social work before him and he is clearly better than them.
5. He has seen a social worker at a late night party snort cocaine and therefore deduces from this they are all over paid and living a “cushy life”.
I do appreciate you find this hard to believe that a leading member of RESEPCT would say such things, and I was surprised as well. But its simply true and Clive Surely said it showed how democratic (sic) Resepct was that they could have a leading member sAaying these things.
Nas on said:
Futurecast – I wouldn’t worry, don’t think there’ll be any expulsions: it’s all a bit too fragile for that
Your sentiment about co-operation is in my experience fairly widely shared, so I shouldn’t be too down about it, if I were you. Just make sure you keep attack dogs like LL on a tight leish and find the space for a rational discussion in the SWP.
It would be pleasing if there was some acknowledgement that the split was unnecessary and that the attitudes that paved the way to it will have to change if other areas of work, electoral and non-electoral, are going to persist with others on the left. Best of luck – genuinely: the last thing we could do with is the likes of LL to be calling the tune in any organisation of the left, least of all an important one like the SWP.
ll on said:
TH Respect Survivor
fuck off and tell the truth. Lindsey German did not say thousands of Muslims in the East End are homophobic, so fucking grow up and at least be honest.
I am sure you must have hated Galloways statement that he wanted to defeat Fitzpatrick and cited one of the reasons as being he (Fitzpatrick) was pro gay marriage. It was read out on his radio show and on his website. I am sure you complined to Galloway about this homophobic crap.
clive searle on said:
Futurecast, you write ‘Although I personally think LA/RR/CFANWP are all fucked without each other electorally.’ but one of the debates here is about whether the first two needed to be separate at all. The reality is that Respect split for no good reason but because some of us wanted a more accountable national office – where someone else could work alongside John Rees (whom we are now told was unaccountable and so on) and the SWP couldn’t allow that. Even after they agreed to the post of National organiser they couldn’t abide the idea of one of their own members, Nick Wrack, doing the job for four weeks. It was stupidity to blow the whole thing up.
Now the problem with all these documents is that they refuse to entertain the idea that the Respect split wasn’t a necessary response to ‘resisting’ Galloway. Some are unhappy that they lost the ‘middle ground’, some continue to repeat lies and untruths. But until an honest accounting of why such tactically inept and stupid decisions were taken there can be no real moving forward – unless you simply retreat to ‘party building’ circa 1986. But this time with less members, less branches and less allies.
ll on said:
NAS
The man who posts that he wants the SWP to fuck off and be destroyed.
Howard Kirk on said:
quote- The project was discussed at CC, NC, Party Council and branch levels. It is true, however, that a sizeable minority of comrades always remained aloof, and perhaps one of our failings was not putting more effort into winning them. The very real successes we did have however prove to me beyond doubt that we were right to pursue the project.quote
I think Chris Harman is right here. I was still a member then, and 1, the branches had been disatrously broken up back in 2000, and if there were indeed ‘branches’ they were far looser and ad hoc if I remember correctly. But more importantly, what does she mean by discuss? I think she means the SWP brand of ‘discuss’ that applied to the dissolution of the branches, the start of the SA, the end of the SA and the beginning of Respect: the CC make the decision and then tell you roughly how you will go about implementing it. At no point, and maybe things are changing in recent months, will raising significant disagreement with the party line be the sort of experience that one would like to repeat too quickly.
Comrades may well have remained aloof: it’s because there is no point in objecting so many will have little involvement. That said, as a skeptic myself who thought ‘suck it and see’, I did go to meetings/leafletting but not as much as I did over the war. The lack of a proper culture of debate in the SWP acts as a method of re-inforcing and not challenging the mistakes of the centre. This is the responsibility of the organisation as a whole and not just John Rees or LG.
I wish them well if they are serious about change. This kind of internal debate is so striking because it’s not been the case in recent years. It’s healthy. You never know, they might get a taste for it. The party conferences I went too were less like conferences and more like an echo chamber. This no longer is the case.
Howard Kirk on said:
Sorry, the quote at the top was LGs – responding to CH who said Respect had not been discussed etc.
ll on said:
Yes Clive
Galloway was right.
We should do fuck all trade union work
Make sure we do not go on the gay pride demo
make sure only he can select candidates for the GLA election
do deals with buisness men
tell Newham Respect at the time not to intervene in a trade union dispute as the boss was friendly
tell Respect members to not select a candidate due to him being a shia muslim
back New Labour in Scotland aginst comrades (solidarity or SSP doesn’t really matter) trying to do what we are all trying to do!!
go on BB and act like a prat and make fools out of the membership and then go back to do a subsidery programme
Earn £300,000 per year
Tell you what Clive. You keep it mate. I think Andy Newman is right. He must know the inside track being on the national exec….and he says its about to collapse, no national profile, no activity, hardly any branches … D Day is coming.. its called the general election… then all out bun fight and with the ISR ready for the firing squad. Andy is already loading the bullets.
Nas on said:
ll – stop making stuff up, and stop bullying TH Respect Survivor.
German told Pink News, in the context of accusations of “Muslim homophobia” by Respect, that there had been a split and the “more extreme” Muslims had gone with Galloway. Now we’ve got the white socialists stuff. It’s filthy. Callinicos and Co are right to move against her and Rees. Their hands are not entirely clean though.
Nas on said:
just seen your 53, ll. You take take first prize at the school of falsification.
Meanwhile, back to the thread. One thing’s pretty clear from the German and Callinicos pieces: she surely can’t remain on the CC.
end of an era on said:
“There was a tension from the beginning in the sense that both our main allies refused to accept an overtly socialist name.”
Love the way Lindsey brings this one up now, five years later. What was Lindsey’s preferred name? No one will ever know because they never said anything at the time. That’s the trouble with secret discussions (which is how the SWP leadership operates in normal circumstances) – you never know when someone is telling the truth.
ll on said:
Howard Kirk
There is no doubt the internal culture is changing and it is becoming much much more healthy. Conference this year will have a lot more discussion that any previous and it needs to have more. I am of the view that Harman and SMith are very serious about chnaging the internal culture. I am more optimistic about the party than for many years. We need this change to be able to seriously discuss the strengths and many weaknesses of our side during this economic crisis etc.
ll on said:
Nas
One thing is for sure Scab Mark France cannot remain on the national exec of Respect.. or can he???
Nas on said:
End of an era – and which ones of the SWP’s allies in Scotland “forced” them to argue, unsuccessfully, against Solidarity including the word socialist explicitly? Answer: no one. They did that themselves. At best, she’s disingenuous. At worst, filthy.
ll on said:
Nas
Do you know what was the context of the bunfight between Andy and Thornett over the conference?
why no article or published minutes? the one member I have contact with was shocked to find this out and said he had had no kknowledge of this sharp debate? Just interested Nas in what the fight was about and how did Slama , Galloway etc vote?
TH Respect Survivor on said:
Well you read her Pink News interview and reach your own conclusions. I know what conclusions I reached. And I know what conclusions other people who read it reached. You want honesty?
Here’s honesty: People like you and Lindsey (and I don’t know why you’re still defending her, it’s soooo last year – haven’t got the memo from the CC yet?) make me sick. And that’s not even metaphorically speaking. The filth that pours forth, as you philosophise from your armchairs, churns my stomach.
You might think it was just Respect that you destroyed, but Lindsey’s words will (and already have) impacted in other “united fronts” like StW. Why would a black and/or Muslim person want anything to do with German or the SWP or anything they’ve touched?
She has no idea what it’s like being black and/or Muslim. And she’s never worked in her life. Yes sah, I’m gonna be a good house boy for mizz lindzee, and listen to what she says as she pontificates from her ivory tower.
Oh, and ll and stop shit-stirring with that gay marriage stuff.
TH Respect Survivor on said:
@60. The day you have a genuine interest in Respect and want to do something other then twist words, create rumours and perpetuate lies, will be the day that people will take your questions seriously.
end of an era on said:
You are of course right on all counts ll (53). How amazing we didn’t notice these things before.
Let’s call the whole thing off.
But before we do, may I add a few more crimes you missed :-
Kevin Ovenden once ate a whole baby raw;
Rob Hoveman is secretly a Morman, who uses Respect canvassing to recuit to the Church of Later Day Saints;
The Respect ex-members of the SWP in Manchester are all members of a satanic coven and, worst of all, some of them support Manchester United;
Jerry Hicks was once a model in Playboy;
Linda Smith once sneezed without using a tissue;
and George Galloway is in fact a giant python with an unhealthy appetite for sharp suits (but which thankfully flatter his curves.)
Now, Lindsey German thinks Respect’s failure was not to get ‘white socialists’ elected. Discuss.
Dickie Ticker on said:
There are only two options, and both are dead ends. These groups(SWP, SSP, et al) either dilute their doctrinal commitments and dissolve, or they maintain them in full ‘purity,’ and wither in sectarian isolation.
Take your pick, or simply oscillate between accomadtion and chauvanism until the inevitable breakdown in the mythological narrative occurs and the whole thing goes to the shithouse.
Richard Searle on said:
After reading this piece by LG,
2 words come to mind,
‘utter’ and ‘shite’
Dickie Ticker on said:
Yeah, and I can think of another couple:
‘Middle’ and ‘class’
external bulletin on said:
I’ve got a couple too: “Dole” and “queue”.
Kimmy on said:
Is this the slow-motion death of the SWP?
Anonymous on said:
I didn’t like the comment or the implications of the comment about “white socialists” in that article – does anyone really think a genuine socialist would have sunk quite that low? Just how mendacious are these people?
Karen Elliot on said:
The howlers in German’s document are blatant and, by themselves, show that she has lost the political instincts that might once have made her useful in some people’s opinion. How SWP members must have groaned on reading this steaming pile of self-serving horsehsit, I can only imagine. Worse than that, the entire document is a shameless defense of her and Rees’s characteristic combination of bureaucratic fiat and political machination, which has already definitively proved a disaster for the SWP. Does anyone have an imagination strenuous enough to read this document as anything other than an unwitting suicide note?
Harman and Callinicos both correctly proclaim the need for a unified CC. Now, can any of the SWP logicians out there possibly square this with supporting her continued membership of the CC?
doom n gloom on said:
As an outsider looking in I see a nightmare, wind up. How can the SWP be taken seriously again, in Scotland they are isolated in Solidarity along with a few CWI sycophants, in Ireland they are an anathema, and now post Respect in England, what, a small group splitting into smaller groups who will probably split into smaller groups. The SWP may have been a legend in their own lunchtimes but now its time to call it a day.
kimmy on said:
It occurs to me, reading this after the affaire Madoff, that the SWP in the later 70s turned itself into a sort of political Ponzi scheme. As long as it was recruiting a flow of new members, the defects of the overblown apparatus and effective ban on factions and horizontal communication, etc, would not become visible to members (the scheme appears to produce outstanding returns on capital). Once the recruitment flow stops, it becomes apparent that there is no *real* base (no real investments) and there is a crisis.
This then drives the ‘turns’: the SWP has to be wherever it is possible to keep recruiting youth on the basis that the SWP are the ‘best activists’. Respect is only an extreme (failed) variant.
The project is counterposed to actually arguing about politics (as one must to build real bases either in the unions or electorally) or recognising that the SWP is one of the bigger groups, not something on a larger scale altogether than the other groups. Hence the extraordinary irrealism of the discourse of the current SWP documents about the SWP’s relative weight.
Lobby Ludd on said:
ll, even though we share initials, I’m sure you don’t mind me disassociating myself from you, do you?
(These words can be sung to a currently popular tune.)
Fuck off and happy Xmas.
Ray on said:
“Now the problem with all these documents is that they refuse to entertain the idea that the Respect split wasn’t a necessary response to ‘resisting’ Galloway. Some are unhappy that they lost the ‘middle ground’, some continue to repeat lies and untruths. But until an honest accounting of why such tactically inept and stupid decisions were taken there can be no real moving forward – unless you simply retreat to ‘party building’ circa 1986. But this time with less members, less branches and less allies.”
The problem is Clive no one in the SWP agrees with your version of events. The few that did left during the split. No amount of propaganda on your part will take away Galloway’s role in the divisions in Respect. ll lists many of the inconsistencies in Galloway’s politics that led to the split. It’s a shame that in your attempt to heap the blame on the SWP you are neglecting the rightward drift of your own organisation. What little of it that is left.
When the balance is weighed I think it will be Galloway and his supporters who will be found wanting. Benn and others on the left have little time for Galloway and still want to work with the SWP. At the end of the day many on the left distrust Galloway and this is a result of his maverick behaviour. While there is little love lost between the SP and SWP at times they are willing to work with us but I doubt very much whether they see Galloway as a viable ally.
It’s all very well you lot pouring over our internal debate but when are you going to have yours? All this talk about openness and democracy yet RR won’t even discuss the political differences in its own organisation for fear that it will disintegrate even further. All these claims on SU that the SWP CC decide policy without consulting members yet in RR there is no consultation of members and Galloway dictates policy.
It’s no use denying this because those outside the SWP that I speak to who actually know about Respect call it Galloway’s party now. The games up and the shows over for Respect but where will you and your fellow sectarians go?
terminal illness on said:
It’s clear there will be no renewal for the SWP so long as sick sectarian morons like ll and Ray constitute what passes for their “cadre”. Cliff will be spinning in his grave at the sorry pass to which the SWP leadership has brought his party and the appalling people it now has in its midst.
Dickie Ticker on said:
The comparison of the SWP to a ‘Ponzi’ scheme is basically accurate. The organisation subsists on a perpetual recruitment cycle focused around ‘fresher fairs’ and other academic events.
Every three years or so they simply wear out the existing membership and replace it with another group of enthusiastic, paper selling drones. When this cycle breaks down, the ‘crisis’ kicks in.
At the root of the systemic rot is a glaring ‘decmocratic deficit,’ and as long as the commitment to bureaucratic and authoritarian structures continues the situation will simply deteriorate further.
Michael Rosen on said:
[DELETED CONTENT – THIS WAS SOMEONE IMPERSONATING MICHAEL ROSEN, NOT THE REAL THING]
lenin on said:
[DELETED CONTENT – THIS WAS SOMEONE IMPERSONATING RICHARD SEYMOUR, NOT THE REAL THING]
Mark Foster on said:
I am not, nor have ever been, a member of the SWP.
But, it seems to me, if I were a member at the present time the contributions of John Rees and Lyndsey German would lead me to wish to have then removed from the party.
Sometimes individual personalities and agendas present such obstacles to what has to be done for the broader good that removal is the only effective response.
terminal illness on said:
#78 Gosh Richard. That really raised the cultural level. I am just amazed at the depths which some SWP members are now plumbing. I never ever thought it possible. Just as well we are finding out now before anyone is foolish enough to put them in positions of real influence. No fear of them leading a revolution fortunately.
paul c on said:
“Well to be honest all I can say is – FECK OFF YOU’RE ALL A BUNCH OF PRETEND-LEFT WING WANKERS. Only the SWP can lead the revolution so FUCK OFF with this shit.”
Wow have you ever heard everything thats wrong with the SWP summed up in such a short statement. And he calls himself Lenin, what a twat.
lenin on said:
[DELETED CONTENT – THIS WAS SOMEONE IMPERSONATING RICHARD SEYMOUR, NOT THE REAL THING]
Ed D on said:
That probably wasn’t Seymour, of course. He’s usually tucked up in bed at this time of the day.
I think German meant ‘white socialists’ in the sense that their election would have countered the communalist forces in Respect that she also talks about. It was just short hand for that really, but I quite agree that if you’re going to go around accusing all sort of other people of racism, then that remark is pretty stupid. The Seymour crowd would come down on it like a tonn of bricks if anyone else said it.
skip on said:
#80, #81: Hello, I am honourable LYNDSEY GERMAN tragically widow of MR JOHN REES National Secretary of Respect. I have 900,000,000,000 Great Britain Pounds in direct debit membership fees that I must urgently escape from the country. Please sirs I command that you send your passport and banking details to me so I can complete this transaction, if you can help I will grant to you 100,000,000,000 Great Britain Pounds, I write to you as your comments on the blog prove you to be a clearsighted and skeptical disposed gentlemen. Thank you.
terminal illness on said:
#82 Word of advice Richard. Don’t blog when drunk.
Ed D on said:
I had to say that or someone would accuse me of impersonating him. Well it wasn’t!
AndyW on said:
Well it has to be acknowledged that the comment about “white socialists” was very ill-judged indeed – and Richard get some sleep mate.
Michael Rosen on said:
[DELETED CONTENT – THIS WAS SOMEONE IMPERSONATING MICHAEL ROSEN, NOT THE REAL THING]
lenin on said:
The comment from ‘lenin’ obviously wasn’t written by me. In addition, the comments purporting to be from AndyW and Michael Rosen are probably posted by the same troll, who sometimes visits Lenin’s Tomb as ‘Dr Dalrymple’. Obviously, I don’t want to encourage censorship (heaven forfend!), but if the SUN mods need tips on how to spot trolls, just drop me a line.
Theodore Dalrymple on said:
Dicky dear boy – not guilty! Now why do you call me a troll? Because I ask difficult questions or offer a perspective that you don’t like? I thought you loved debate? Or is that only on your terms?
As for your deletion of comments on your blog – what is with that? Socialist “democracy” in action – if it’s pushed down the memory hole then it doesn’t exist (how pathetic). Get that idea from Stalin did you?
As a leading member of the SWP Dick, what do you think on the comments that we all need more “white socialists”? Agree or not Dicky?
P.S. as a lowly prol I am thankful to the SWP for leading me to freedom and equality, towards infinity and beyond
Ray on said:
Having worked in mental health the troll that is impersonating SWP comrades and other socialists on this blog needs to get professional help rather quickly.
Ray on said:
“It’s clear there will be no renewal for the SWP so long as sick sectarian morons like ll and Ray…”
There’s nothing like good old fashioned political debate and that’s nothing like it.
redbedhead on said:
In the comments section following the recent posting of Alex Callinicos’ document, Ger Francis wrote: “Respect found itself on terrain not of its choosing. The anti-war tide was receding, the fracturing of traditional political loyalties which were pronounced in sections of the Muslim community, was less pronounced beyond it, plus we entered into what was for many of us a whole new and ugly world of having to deal with electoralist pressures specific to South Asian communities.”
Hmm, this sounds like Lindsey’s argument. Of course, Ger argues that the SWP dealt badly with these pressures. Nonetheless, the analysis of a leading member of the post-SWP Respect, an aide to Salma Yaqoob feels that one of the main difficulties was a “whole new and ugly world of having to deal with electoralist pressures specific to South Asian communities.” Might that be what has been referred to, in shorthand, as “communalism”?
Now, let’s put Ger’s argument in the context of Lindsey’s point about “white socialists.” It was obviously not about “white socialists” doing a better job or any such nonsense. It is about countering arguments inside and outside of Respect – both from those sections of the right – and left – who argued that Respect was simply a “Muslim party”. But also, as a counter-balance to the “electoralist pressures specific to South Asian communities”.
external bulletin on said:
That’s some pretty tortured linguistic gymnastics you had to go through there, redbedhead.
If Lindsey thinks that the way to counter the idea of Respect as a “Muslim party” was to give in to the racism behind such thoughts, she really wasn’t fit to lead a revolutionary party.
And if you think that “electoralist pressures specific to South Asian communities” = “communalism”, as opposed to another expression of oppression inside a community battered by racism, you’re welcome to be led by Lindsey.
The thing the SWP could be most proud of was its ability to cut through the bullshit about Islam, communalism, the “Muslim party” etc. Now it turns out that the SWP was just as lost as the rest of the left.
That’s the biggest shame – the actions of the SWP after 9/11 were something every serious socialist could be proud of. But it’s degenerated to Chris Harman talking of “right wing Islamists” being a problem in 2005, to Lindsey German thinking that it’s ok to talk of “white socialists” (not just “socialists”) having better politics – and you, from an IST sister organisation, justifying her words on the grounds that it might make people think that Respect wasn’t just a Muslim party.
Andy Newman on said:
What a differecne if Lindsey had said:
“If experienced SWP members had been elected in 2006 in Newham and Tower Hamlets (as they very nearly were) then the balance of forces and level of politics in those areas would have been raised.”
But she didn’t, she used racially insensitive language – and I can assre you that in the SWP people have been hung for much less.p>
But to my mind, this admission from Lindsey is appalling, in justifying her standing for London:
i) It seems from this line “his argument that we should go soft on some New Labour figures” that the SWP cc cannot distingusih between New labour and traidtional labour.
ii) They see stopping another left winger being elected as a legitimate aspiration!
swp member on said:
First its not a cc document, so all the guff about ‘they’ think this and ‘they’ can’t see that is bollocks. Its the work of one person.
Second its bloody obvious what she’s driving at when she talked about ‘white socialists’. The perception (both within and without!) was that Respect mark 1 could only have a future/gain support in one very liminted constituency. The election of people of a different ethnicity would have blown that away.
optimistic Larry Nugent on said:
Nas, 50#
Many of us totally agree and read with satisfaction the stupid erroneous replies from SWP cc members. The genie is out the bottle.
Howard Kirk on said:
Reality Check
One of the problems of the SWP constitution is that he/she will have to wait to next year to do so. I think the abscence of permanent/semi permanent factions and open debate for 12 months of the year – and only then being able to do so within your own branch – is a significant factor in the lack of culture of debate which has contributed to this mess.
redbedhead on said:
“If Lindsey thinks that the way to counter the idea of Respect as a “Muslim party” was to give in to the racism behind such thoughts, she really wasn’t fit to lead a revolutionary party.”
What? That makes no sense. Nobody has ever said that it wasn’t fabulous that the alliance that made up Respect won the election of several Muslim councillors. Nobody. The point – and the open argument after the election of Galloway in particular – was that Respect had to use the beach-head established by Galloway in order to drive inland, that is open a wider breach into the broader working class. Part of that would be to elect people who represented an extension into that working class. And, like it or not, Britain is still in its vast majority a “white” country (as obviously fictional as is the category of race). If Respect was going to push forward, it would have to make a breakthrough into the white working class. That’s the point here.
This is not a new argument in the history of the socialist movement either. In the early 1920s the Communist Parties in North America were dominated by the Foreign Language Federations. There was a debate and pressure from the Russians to push outwards into the “native” working class of the majority ethnic group as a necessity to building a successful communist movement. This was understood to be a strategic argument that didn’t disparage the work that had been done amongst the oppressed minority groups but about what would most successfully further the general struggle.
As for right wing Islamists. Certainly it was understood that there was a debate within the Muslim community, a struggle for hegemony, if you will. One part of that was with Islamists, for instance those who showed up to Galloway’s press conference in the lead-up to his election in BG&B and to pronounce a death sentence on him. Others were less isolationist but still conservative in politics and orientation.
“And if you think that “electoralist pressures specific to South Asian communities” = “communalism”, as opposed to another expression of oppression inside a community battered by racism, you’re welcome to be led by Lindsey.”
Well, you have the ability to throw ridiculous schoolyard insults around. Perhaps you could explain, then, what exactly is meant by this. It is hardly the case that the oppressed walk around with angel’s wings on their heads. they too are affected by the distortions and corruption of an oppressive society. Cliff used to say that “power corrupts, powerlessness corrupts absolutely”. This is hardly specific to Muslims. Tamany Hall in New York in the 19th century was an example of brokerage politics built around the oppressed Irish community. Canada’s Liberal Party has maintained its dominance through a similar process of ethnic brokerage in various communities.
Howard Kirk on said:
QUOTESecond its bloody obvious what she’s driving at when she talked about ‘white socialists’. The perception (both within and without!) was that Respect mark 1 could only have a future/gain support in one very liminted constituency. The election of people of a different ethnicity would have blown that away.
QUOTE
I think it would have made Respect appear to be drawn from, and representing, a cross section of the community in terms of those elected (that’s not saying those who were elected could not represent a cross section of the community). However, she talks of ‘balance of forces’ and ‘level of politics’, and she should have said more specifically that is where, as Andy says, experienced SWP members would have made the difference.
redbedhead on said:
“the SWP cc cannot distingusih between New labour and traidtional labour.”
Nor, apparently can George since he called for a vote for New Labour in Scotland. And, since, Livingstone has now completely made his peace with New Labour. He is pro-City, pro-killer cops. Being in favour of congestion charge, cheap busfare and multi-culturalism (in a multicultural city) is hardly radical or “old Labour”. Toronto’s Tory mayoral candidate was also in favour of many of the same things – though, importantly, he supported the war.
redbedhead on said:
Andy:”What a differecne if Lindsey had said:
“If experienced SWP members had been elected in 2006 in Newham and Tower Hamlets”
As swp member above points out – and as I said – she didn’t mean that. This wasn’t about a partisan maneuver. This was about winning a general political argument outside and inside Respect about the possibility of building a left of Labour party of relevance to the working class as a whole – the majority of whom are white. It is about cutting against the BS from New Labour, the BBC, et al about the alienated white working class who want more immigration controls, etc. And about succumbing to “electoralist pressures specific to South Asian communities” by providing an example that cuts against community realpolitik.
Andy Newman on said:
Redbedhead: “Livingstone has now completely made his peace with New Labour”
You see this is the trouble of commenting on the detail of political processes from an ocean away.
Livingstone remains a mainstream left social dmeocratic figure, very much in the long term traditions of the Labour Party. What is more, in terms of any mass politics in the trade unions, and among labour voters, Livingstone is clearly identified as a left figure.
If you look at the Socialist economic Bulletin that he publishes (with more than a little input from Socialist Action, one assumes), you will see that Livingstone is completely outside the neo-liberal camp on economic policy.
You also seem oblivious of the very limited powers that the London mayor actually has, and the degree to which Livingstone leveraged off of those limited powers to advantage working people.
When you write “George … called for a vote for New Labour in Scotland”, you seem oblivious of the fact that the whole of the non-sectarian left will be wanting the Labour party to win the next election.
Relating to the labour party, with its remaining links to the trade unions, and still large resevoir of broadly progressive electoral support is a difficult course to chart.
I have a difference with George over whether or not the break up of the UK is a good thing or not. Becasue I favour Scottish Iindependecne, and becasue the SNP are a centre left party themselves, I was not worried about the SNP winning Glasgow East, and so I advocated a vote for the SSP. George took a different view based upon his more traditional labour moovement position in support of union between England and Scotland.
But generally the left SHOULD be supporting Labour in the next general election, except in those very few constituencies where candiadtes to the left of them have a realistic chance of winning, for example, Abjol Miah, George galloway, Adam Price, Salma Yaqoob and caroline Lucas. (I am leaving Scotland out ofthis, where the elections will be fought on a different agenda)
skidmarx on said:
#95 “They see stopping another left winger being elected as a legitimate aspiration!”
Who would that be? And # Are you Stalin in disguise
are you Sta-a-lin in disguise #
#26 “But nice attempt at distraction technique.”
You sir are a hypocrite. You make repeated requests for me to apologise when I have said nothing wrong, yet are always silent when your colleagues are pumping out the porkies.
#54 “ll – stop making stuff up, and stop bullying TH Respect Survivor”
I would ask Nas to stop making stuff up but clearly I would be wasting my time. Did you not notice that the first thing TH Resect Survivor did was tell ll to fuck off?
terminal illness on said:
#100 And no-one could object to deepening and broadening Respect’s base of support. Unfortunately what actually occurred was a factional divide inside Tower Hamlets Respect encouraged by Rees and the “broadening and deepening” initiatives counterposed to the “Muslims” and conducted in a completely cack-handed and sectarian manner. But then it must be so difficult to distinguish the wood from the trees peering in from more than a thousand miles away and wearing blinkers too.
Andy Newman on said:
Redbedhead #104
“This was about winning a general political argument outside and inside Respect about the possibility of building a left of Labour party of relevance to the working class as a whole – the majority of whom are white. It is about cutting against the BS from New Labour, the BBC, et al about the alienated white working class who want more immigration controls, etc. And about succumbing to “electoralist pressures specific to South Asian communities” by providing an example that cuts against community realpolitik.”
This doesn’t make any sense.
George Galloway is white, and for most of the white working class, if they have heard of Respect at all, they associate it with George Galloway. Outsdie of the few anoraks of the far left, very few people would know or care whether there where white coucillors in Tower Hamlets.
And Lindsey didn’t say having an ethnically diverse slate of candidates elected, she made special emphasis that they should have been both WHITE and SOCIALIST.
You see, what is interesting to me, is that Chris harman asks how it was that the SWP lost the argument with the middle ground. Now I know it suits you to disparage this blog and its readers, but a lot of the middle ground have been at least partially informed by the debate here and the way the SWP have argued. You woould be suprised how widely this blog is read in the movement, I am often taken aback by people quite prominent in the movement and trad eunions coming up and telling me they read it.
And that debate has been conducted in the moost extremely sectraian way by Ray, ll, Skidmarx, KrisS, et al; who are completely scornful of people who are not as left wing as the SWP.
This could have been out a stop to early on, by an authoriative statement from the SWP distancing themselves froom these types of arguments, but instead the SWP cc have preferred to ignore/condone it.
Ger Francis on said:
Redbedhead must be getting more desperate than usual when he is reduced to trying to distort anything I have written to give cover to Lindsey German’s idiotic comments.
In our context the term ‘communalist’ is used by the right wing to refer to a political orientation exclusive to one community. It implies a religious sectarianism, which is why the AWL, Harry’ Place etc use the term, and it is why it was such a disgrace when the SWP echoed the Islamaphobes to use it to slander their opponents in a faction fight.
In my experience this is a not problem we encounter. I can’t think of anyone who has got involved in Birmingham who has not been broadly secular in political outlook and ambition. ‘Communalism’ is not an issue.
What is an issue, the problem we do encounter, which is specific to South Asian communities, is the influence of extended clan based networks in providing bloc votes and influencing the selection of candidates in all parties. This system has corrupted the political terrain we operate on. It acts as a fetter on political progress inside the South Asian community, ensuring that candidates get selected not due to ability but at the beset of political operators. It is one thing for candidates to round up supporters. It is quite another when players start trading bloc votes to select candidates, one year with one party, the next with someone else, and the driver in political engagement is not politics or ideology but solely personal advancement, prestige, and the ability to wield power.
This is a system which is very deep-rooted in Birmingham, largely because the Labour party has built their inner city machine to a large degree on it. RESPECT has done unprecedented work in challenging this system. Salma’s election was historic because we made no compromises with it. But Ishtiaq’s was also a marker. The sitting councillor he stood against was a relative and from the same ‘bradderi’ as him, but we still stood anyway, despite considerable pressure not to, and showed you could win simply on a message. Also Salma’s work on exposing the abuse of postal voting is a direct challenge to the way bloc votes can be marshalled.
Now, it would be nice if SWP members should some understanding of all of this, and acknowledged the ground breaking work we are doing. But most either don’t have a clue or have become blinded by sectarian hostility. Redbedhead, in particular, has been a consistent example of both combined. I have said this to you before, but it is worth repeating. When you engage is specific discussion about the dynamics of inner city politics in the UK you simply do not know what you are talking about. And indeed how could you, sitting 5,000 miles away behind a computer in Canada. You do the SWP a much better service by dropping your knee-jerk instinctive response to defend, or make excuses for, the indefensible.
Nas on said:
Almost all the “white socialists” who were nearly elected in Tower Hamlets and Newham were SWP members. German could easily have referred to them as experienced SWP members, as Andy suggests. Her “white socialists” formulation shows an acceptance of the racialised charicature of Respect by its opponents.
The burst of candour, though, that the reason for standing for the GLA post the split (a different reason from the one given for standing for mayor) is astonishing.
Now we have it, and so do the poor sods who were whipped into the ill-fated Left List campaign (and those SWP members who “abstained”): German never once claims that she had a chance of winning a seat; the reason for standing is that the position of the SWP would be weaker had Galloway won a seat. The position of the left, of course, would have be stronger if Galloway was in the London assembly.
Over £50,000 of debt, frayed relations with important left allies, utter demoralisation of the membership and a humiliating result, and all for… all to stop someone else on the left having a “free run” and possibly being elected.
What an utter sectarian.
Sociologist on said:
“George Galloway is white, and for most of the white working class, if they have heard of Respect at all, they associate it with George Galloway.”
True.
And they associate him with his time on Big Brother.
Nas on said:
111 – or, very often, with the US Senate and with Talksport.
setting the record straight on said:
#109 Ger is absolutely right. Nor has there been any pandering to this kind of politics in Tower Hamlets which is why the claims by the likes of Harman and Callinicos are contemptible lies. In fact George Galloway and Respect in Tower Hamlets have been electorally weakened by refusing to play the same game that is played by New Labour to such effect as well as the Tories and the Lib Dems. The only known deal involving Respect with a block vote in which money actually changed hands was between Rees and the PJP in Birmingham.
swp member on said:
‘The only known deal involving Respect with a block vote in which money actually changed hands was between Rees and the PJP in Birmingham.’
Got any evidence for the money part of this?
Nas on said:
Rees used Respect money to pay the PJP’s costs for a court case they were pursuing.
Dustin the Turkey on said:
I posted this on Lenny’s blog:
“Lenny, what do you think about the latest message from Lindsey German talking about “white socialists”? (http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=321) Are you just ignoring all this because you are embarrassed at the sight of your party collapsing, or are you waiting by the sidelines to see who the victors are in the SWP before you tell him you were on their side all along?”
Took him 4 minutes to delete it.
Yes, I timed it.
Chorister on said:
Can anyone explain what the appeal would be for young people radicalised by climate change of a Marxist Leninist party?
Rosa Lichtenstein on said:
Chorister, you are probably better off asking that question at RevLeft, here:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/learning-f43/index.html
swp member on said:
‘Rees used Respect money to pay the PJP’s costs for a court case they were pursuing.’
When? What’s your evidence? The pjp court case was after the key election pacts in 04 and 05 I’m sure, so even if a donation was amde (which I’m not convinced of) it was hardly cash for votes.. Is it in the accounts? Did Rees just give them some Respect money wothout referring it to anyone or was there a collective decision? No cash came from Birmingham Respect that’s for certain.
The treasurer would have been Elaine Graham leigh I guess, and I can’t see you and her sharing secrets.
Nas on said:
119 – the information comes from Respect officer workers.
Nas on said:
One of them had an argument with Rees about doing it.
Look – Rees continues to defend this. He doesn’t deny it. Ask him.
swp member on said:
‘One of them had an argument with Rees about doing it.
Look – Rees continues to defend this. He doesn’t deny it. Ask him.’
OK so maybe a donation was made nationally – that’s a long way from saying that there was ‘a block vote’ in connection for which ‘money changed hands’.
The deal with the PJP was a political aliance around the Euros and then the Hodge Hill byelection. It formally continued into the 2005 GE, but in practice was pretty much a dead letter by then. Whatever the advisability of that pact, no-one, absolutely no-one, argued against it at the time in any Birmingham Respect meetings.
The PJP court cases were as a result of the 2004 local elections, which happened at the same time as the Euro one. I do remember they appealed for money, so maybe Rees authorised a donation nationally at that time. But this was AFTER the key election happened where the PJP backed Respect, and the implication that this was a ‘block votes for money’ scandal is, well, slanderous really. It would have been in keeping with the spirit of what everyone had gone along with, which was a political alliance with the PJP.
(Not that I’m much of a fighter for Rees these days, but the tendency people have to project their current prejudices backwards in time is something I’m very wary of, and something that i think you’re doing.)
Jenkins on said:
LG owns up to `Operation Wreckspect’ but with pride.
What’s needed is a faction in the SWP that will coalesce around a motion condemning and apologising for Operation Wreckpsect and the lies about a witch-hunt. That will condemn LG and JR but at the same time point the finger at the CC majority’s utter complicity and demonstrate that the SWP apparatus dominates the organisation and clearly has interests that are seperate and opposed to those of the workers’ movement in general. This faction should use this resolution as the springboard for a thoroughgoing discussion on perspectives, tactics, transitional demands and how to operate in a united front. It is the only way to salvage something worthwhile. I’m sure if they fail to win over the party and are expelled their group will find a home in Respect where there are many revolutionaries prepared to discuss and work with them in a fraternal manner.
David T on said:
I stand watch my Party, going down the drain
We are all at fault, we are all to blame
We’re letting them takeover, we just let ‘em come
Once we had an United Front of a Special Kind,
And now we’ve got a slum
White Socialism, for England
White Socialism, today
White Socialism, for Britain
Before it gets too late
We’ve seen alot of purges, we just sit and scoff
We’ve seen alot of break-ins, and the judges let them off
We’ve got to do something, to try and stop the rot
The Central Committe has used us – they should all be shot
Are we gonna let us both be purged?
Dropping shibboleths is what we urged.
Now our whole party is a mess
We ain’t gonna take much more of this
What do we need?
White Socialism, for England
White Socialism, today
White Socialism, for Britain
Before it gets too late
Well if we don’t win our battle,
and all does not go well
It’s apocalypse for Trotdom, and
we’ll see you all in Hell!!
White Socialism, for England
White Socialism, today
White Socialism, for Britain
Before it gets too late
Ger Francis on said:
The claim that RESPECT made a donation to the PJP is news to me. Although, if it had been raised with me in order to aid their court case, I would probably have supported it. It was a landmark court case.
However, the real story about the PJP is how, once the SWP started bandying about allegations of ‘communalism’ in Tower Hamlets, they conveniently wrote out of history their pact with the PJP in Birmingham.
The PJP were typical of ‘communalist’ politics in this country, not in the sense of the rabid sectarian hatred that often defines such parties in the Indian sub-continent, rather in the sense that their entire political orientation and horizons were defined by one section of the Muslim community.
We nevertheless entered into a pact with them, on the mistaken assumption as it turned out, that there was a left current within it we could influence and pull. We were wrong in assessment but I defend the decision because it was made for the right reasons. Rees himself would have been the direct beneficiary of this is that the pact covered the two elections he was standing in: he topped the Euro list and he was the candidate for the Hodge Hill by-election, and I suspect he would have received at least a few hundred votes in return.
It is bad enough that the SWP throw around the communalist charge as a form of abuse, devoid of any real political definition. It is worse that they use it when the connotations it carries are so defined by the Islamaphobes (like David T, who should be barred from this site). But it is the rank hypocrisy that really gets me. In Birmingham, it all clever tactics to enter a pact with a party that in practice, if not in theory, is ‘communalist’. In Tower Hamlets, where there is no precedent of any such political dealings to my knowledge, and hence even less to stick the charge to, comrades are simply slandered as communalist as a way of using a factional stick to beat them with.
It is a thoroughly disingenuous way of conducting politics, it panders to racist sterotypes of RESPECT and it discredits those who persist with it. And let’s not forget they include Chris Harman, Alex Callinicos, and John Molyneux, who have not retracted a single word of the ‘communalist’ charge, despite having no evidence to substantiate it.
David T on said:
“on the mistaken assumption as it turned out, that there was a left current within it we could influence and pull.”
Ger – how many times are you going to make the same mistake?
I mean, this is a mistake that Left wingers have been making, consistently and repeatedly, since supporting Khomeini. And that didn’t turn out brilliantly for Communists, did it?
Ger Francis on said:
There is no analogy. The PJP were not particularly religious. Now, crawl back to the hole you came out of.
David T on said:
So, let me get this right.
You should never form an alliance with members of a “particularly religious” political current, right?
*cough cough* Mohammed “Islamic Party of Britain Let’s Execute Gays” Naseem…
*cough cough cough* Salma “Freedom for Abu Hamza’s Son and Lets Have an Islamic Republic” Yaqoob….
Nothing to see here. Move along please.
Ger Francis on said:
Pay attention. I was factually correcting you in order that you might actually learn something but I should have known better. Your bigoted mind is closed, hence the regurgitation of the usual lies, distortions and slanders which have been rebutted many times including the desperate reference to Salma’s satirical student article (of over 15 years ago?) and her support for a some Brummies locked up and tortured in a Yemini jail. And please provide me with a homophobic quote from Dr Naseem?
But all this is trolling to distract. It doesn’t matter that your lies have been exposed time and time again. You are just happy to keep repeating them against Salma and any other Muslim political activists critical of imperialism and Zionism. It is for that reason Andy should not allow this site to be dragged into your little racist gutter by allowing you to post your filth.
MoreMediaNonsense on said:
Which of the facts below do you dispute Ger ? Which of the facts below are “islamophobic” ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Naseem
Mohammed Naseem is a former Respect candidate who is also Home Affairs spokesman for the Islamic Party of Britain.
Their view on homosexuality is here : http://www.mustaqim.co.uk/ipb-archive/question/ans41.htm
“Would an Islamic nation in Britain tolerate homosexuality? By tolerate I mean allow people to live their lives this way without state interference. Christianity does not tolerate homosexuality but it is not punishable by death. Would an Islamic state therefore ‘condemn to death’ Britain’s 6.6 million homosexuals?
To start with, the figure of 6.6 million (or more than 10% of the population) sounds propagandistic. Whilst few dare speak out against the practice of homosexuality due to the pressure exerted by gay rights groups and echoed in the media, the majority of the population do not regard it as an acceptable way of life. Islam condemns and outlaws homosexuality. As far as Islamic law is concerned, the rules are that the state does not interfere in the privacy of people’s homes, but it would need to safeguard public decency by preventing any public advocacy for homosexuality. Such activity would come under the heading of public incitement. The death penalty the questioner mentions only applies to a public display of lewdness witnessed by several people. ”
Do you think its right that Naseem was a Respect candidate ?
MoreMediaNonsense on said:
Naseem is shown as an executive member of the Islamic Party of Britain and their Home Affairs spokesman on their website :
http://www.mustaqim.co.uk/ipb-archive/people/muhammad.htm
Anything to say Ger ?
Brum Lefty on said:
Ger,
the PJP was one of the most deeply misogynist groups that existed in Brum.
You should not have gone near under any circumstances.
Particulary as you knew all along what they were.
David T on said:
“Salma’s satirical student article (of 15 years ago)”
Yes, establishing a religious state and chasing an anti-colonialist liberal author out of the country is hilarious. What a fabulous joke.
Of course, this was 15 years ago.
And how could she possibly have known what Abu Hamza’s son was up to in the Yemen? I imagine she was wholly shocked to find out that he was engaged in jihad training with a terrorist group.
Of course, this was 9 years ago.
We must look at what Salma has done in the mean time. She’s spent the last few years working for a party that is (according to the SWP at least) dominated by “Right Wing Islamists. she works as spokesperson for Birmingham Central Mosque, whose Chairman – Mohammed Naseemm, a major figure in Brum RESPECT – wholly co-incidentally, founded a party to create an Islamic Republic in the United Kingdom.
But this is of no relevance at all.
And, of course, it is outrageously racist to seek to smear Mohammed Naseem with the policies and publications of his own political party. Just as it would be racism to suggest that a BNP member was a racist, merely on the basis of the content of BNP policies and publications.
Um….
Look! A Zionist Spy!!!!!!!!!
Ger Francis on said:
I asked you to provide a quote from Dr Naseem in which he espouses homophobia and you could not. If David T has charges of homophobia to make against the Chair Birmingham Central Mosque, come out and make them openly, but I would advise you might want to speak to a lawyer first.
When he was a candidate Dr Naseem upheld all RESPECT’s party positions and that is all of his past that I have any responsibility to defend, and I don’t have a problem defending it. He gets picked out because he is a Muslim outspoken in his hostility to imperialism and Zionism, when many of his contemporaries have been intimidated into silence.
But again this is the same old Harry Place crap that has been rebutted many times. I am not interested in your lies. Nor do I take seriously someone who cries crocodile tears for the victims of 7/7 while cheering on Israeli jets as they drop 500 lb bombs on Lebanese and Palestinian residential areas . I have made my position clear as to what I think of you. You are racist scum who should not be allowed to post on a site which, whatever the differences the vast majority of the rest of us have, we are united in opposing imperialism and Zionism. Now, fuck off, and let us focus on the topic of this tread.
MoreMediaNonsense on said:
So Ger, as far as you are concerned the following is not homophobic ? Are you being serious ?
“To start with, the figure of 6.6 million (or more than 10% of the population) sounds propagandistic. Whilst few dare speak out against the practice of homosexuality due to the pressure exerted by gay rights groups and echoed in the media, the majority of the population do not regard it as an acceptable way of life. Islam condemns and outlaws homosexuality. As far as Islamic law is concerned, the rules are that the state does not interfere in the privacy of people’s homes, but it would need to safeguard public decency by preventing any public advocacy for homosexuality. Such activity would come under the heading of public incitement. The death penalty the questioner mentions only applies to a public display of lewdness witnessed by several people,. ”
Your dissembling clerical fascist excusing garbage is a disgrace to Left politics. Even the SWP can see that now.
Time to give it up mate – you’ve been well and truly rumbled.
David T on said:
I would advise you might want to speak to a lawyer first.
I would advise you not to make twatty threats of legal action, on behalf of mad old Mohammed Naseem. Because we’ve got Mohammed Naseem’s own party’s published position on the matter.
And can you imagine Mohammed Naseem in court? Wibbling about how MI5 and Common Purpose use hologram technology to frame up the innocent 7/7 bombers?
I’d love to see that. It would be hilarious.
In fact, the whole saga of RESPECT has been hilarious. This latest instalment has been just delicious for me – watching you lot call the SWP “islamophobes” for pointing out the plain fact that it was never anything more than a vehicle for Galloway’s vanity and a device for getting “right wing Islamists” elected.
And now, Lindsay German claiming that the failure of RESPECT was down to the skin colour of socialists!
Look Ger, you’re pretty much the only member of RESPECT Brum who isn’t connected to Birmingham Central Mosque. The game is up, and your party is over.
Good luck in the future, and try to keep yourself out of trouble.
x
Adamski on said:
There is general agreement that Lindsey German’s phrasing of “white socialists” was bad (t paling into insignificance compared to the periodic homophobic gaaffes of George Galloway MP, for example).
The general analysis she was attempting to convey was okay, but I imagine any Black, Afro-carribean or Asian member of the SWP would find the phrasing jarred with them.
I suggest this as a better version:
“the balance of forces in Respect would have been very different. If revolutionary socialists had been elected in 2006 in Newham and Tower Hamlets (as they very nearly were) then the balance of forces and level of politics in those areas would have been raised.”
I don’t think that it is racist to suggest that it was an issue that all the councillors in East London came from the same religious background, very few of them thought of themselves as socialists, or had much experience as part of the socialist movement and traditions -that things might have been improved if some of those councillors were revolutionaries, leading local trade unionists, longstanding left wing activists etc.
Anyway, as there is general agreement that the phrasing was bad, people might wish to move onto other features of the document.
I also don’t think that it is racist to critique the political traditions and leadership of various communities in Britain, to do “class analysis”. For example, one sees how a layer of Black Labour MPs and high paid bureaucrats of anti-racist local government bodies mainly from the professional classes built careers off the backs of a politicisation but have done little to advance working class struggle or give a voice to the mass of Black working calss people. One observes a whole leadership that is pro-establishment and co-opted.
One might fruitfully compare the current leadership in the light of the historical organisation of oppressed communities such as the Asian Youth Movement etc.
MoreMediaNonsense on said:
the periodic homophobic gaaffes of George Galloway MP,
Hope you have proof of that Adamski, otherwise Ger’s going to be after you threatening legal action on his behalf.
David T on said:
What about this, as a better way of phrasing things?
If we hadn’t been completely rolled over by Jamaat-e-Islami in 2006 in Newham and Tower Hamlets (as they unfortunately were) then the we would have seen world socialism, the storming of the Winter Palace, and the machine-gunning of the sailors at Kronstadt (Ed. shome mishtake shurely!)
David T on said:
How about this:
“If only we had listened to David T, we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves into this mess!”
Prinkipo Exile on said:
#137 Adamski: your whitewash to preserve your place on the Left Alternative NC doesn’t work.
“If revolutionary socialists had been elected in 2006 in Newham and Tower Hamlets (as they very nearly were)”
The problem is that according to this theory, at least two revolutionary socialists WERE elected – the two who joined the (revolutionary marxist) SWP within a few months of the election, including the one who is now in the Tories.
Four of the councillors tried to create an ‘alternative leadership’ to Galloway’s supposed supporters and were aided in this by the SWP Central Committee’s man inside the Respect officers, one John Rees. Socialist Worker carried an article supporting the Gang of Four and up and down the country, SWP members played the ‘witchhunt’ ruse.
The real problem is not that the SWP didn’t have people on the inside in the council chambers and Respect structures – it’s that the politics that lay behind their split were rubbish.
And you were foolish enough to go along with it Adamski. Do you feel vindicated now? What are you going to do when the SWP vote to wind up Left Alternative without even another meeting?
Ger Francis on said:
Like I said, if you have got charges of homophobia against the Chair of Birmingham Central Mosque, put your money where your mouth is and make them openly, in your own name. As reagrds your other comments about Birmingham RESPECT and Central Mosque, you are simply lying, as ever.
David T on said:
aboohoo, Ger. It isn’t a criminal offence to want to establish an Islamic State in which gays would be executed, you know. If it were, many of your friends would be in prison, and you’d be very lonely.
Face facts. You backed a losing horse. In fact, both the SWP and the Jamaati-RESPECT did.
You know the old saying – wouldn’t it be nice if both sides could lose? Well, they have!
I couldn’t be happier!
Hurrah! Yipee!! Happy Xmas!!!
Adamske on said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Yosef
Phil on said:
What’s needed is a faction in the SWP that will coalesce around a motion condemning and apologising for Operation Wreckpsect and the lies about a witch-hunt.
Damn right, Jenkins, but I don’t see any sign of one emerging. So far the main positions emerging seem to be
1. Pro-Rees, pro-‘united front’, anti-RESPECT
2. Anti-Rees, pro-‘new anticapitalist party’, pro-‘democracy commission’, anti-RESPECT
3. Anti-Rees, pro-‘the leadership will decide strategy’, pro-‘…but OK, we’ll see about this democracy commission idea’, anti-RESPECT
Group 3 (spokespeople Callinicos and Harman) will probably swing it, although the detail will depend on how much pressure they come under from group 2 (represented by Davidson). Group 1 (total membership: 2) hasn’t got a prayer. More to the point, none of Rees’s critics – not even Molyneux, who’s eloquent in condemning Rees’s specific errors – seem to have drawn the logical conclusion that Rees screwed up a project that didn’t need to be screwed up, and that this matters because it was a valuable project. Instead, all wings of the party seem to be taking Lindsey German’s advice for once, and “drawing a line” under the entire RESPECT experience.
David T on said:
Although if you do want to talk about Birmingham Central Mosque, we can…
Would you like to do that? We could talk about the former Imam of that mosque – Abu Yusuf Riyadh ul-Haq if you’d like. Remember when Shockat Lal, the mosque secretary, impregnated the Imam’s SECOND wife: he already had one, you see, which I think is kind of greedy.
Then there were a spate of kidnappings and murders of congregants… remember that?
Then, last year, he appeared in The Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2402998.ece
What do you reckon Ger? A possible recruit to RESPECT, maybe? Do you think he has a “left current we could influence and pull.”?
Ger Francis on said:
David T is reduced to linking to a story with about some guy who had a connection to Central Mosque in 2003 to try and spread his slander about RESPECT. We did not even exist at the time. Like I have already said: ‘As regards your other comments about Birmingham RESPECT and Central Mosque, you are simply lying, as ever.’
David T on said:
I see
So we can’t talk about what Salma Yaqoob and other members of the Birmingham Central Mosque clique were up to 15 years ago.
Or what they were up to 9 years ago.
Or what they were doing 5 years ago.
Given that 2009 is likely to be the year that RESPECT finally bites the dust, what’s the bet that in 3 years like you’ll be saying:
“Oh, don’t hold what RESPECT did against us!!! That was a very long time ago, you know”.
David T on said:
“who had a connection to Central Mosque ” = “Was the Imam”
As in “The Archbishop of Canterbury had a connection to Lambeth Palace”
Nas on said:
Ger: oh minor details like that don’t put off the witchhunter. See he wants people sacked for not revealing they were SWP members, except they weren’t. The only purpose of having the witchfinder general from HP here is that it serves to remind people just what filth they are. I would hope it would also make people ask what has gone so badly wrong in the SWP that German’s and Harman’s throw away remarks can bring cheer to the likes of HP.
David T on said:
No, I want SWP members to keep their jobs.
But I would like to ensure that they’re never elected to anything again. And that nobody ever works with them again.
Oh hang on… nobody IS ever going to work with the SWP again. So my wish has come true, in part!
Hurrah!!
Brett Lock on said:
So, Ger Francis, you’re saying it is NOT true that RESPECT’s Dr Naseem (also of the Birmingham Central Mosque) is the same Dr Naseem who is the Home Affairs spokesperson for a party whose stated policy, were they in control of the Home Office, would be to execute homosexuals?
I’m not sure whether this is funny or scary.
That link again, in case you’d like to read it once more, slowly…
http://www.mustaqim.co.uk/ipb-archive/question/ans41.htm
David T on said:
Ger Francis:
“I see no ships“
skidmarx on said:
If I were not already familiar, I would be astonished at the time spent demanding repentance from Lindsey German for the phrase “white socialists” when it wasn’t used in a public document.Not particularly wanting to make a general comparison, but this is reminiscent of the way anti-Marxists trawl through the letters and other private writings of Marx to “prove” him an anti-semite (amongst other charges). Anyone who wants to approach the question of what someone thinks like a socialist would do worse than look at the start of one of Hal Draper’s books on Karl Marx’s Theory Of Revolution where he sets out a hierarchy of probative value, starting with books published under the author’s control and ending with private titbits. If you don’t like what you read in stolen e-mails, stop reading them.
Chjh and Sasha – the rangers seem to have settled for time-and-a-half in the end, so probably won’t be parking tanks on the lawn just for now.
BarryKade on said:
Pity this thread has been derailed by David T, so I wont bother participating in it. It started in an interesting way, but now its boring shite, same old obsessives.
Btw – I have been a gay rights activist since the mid 1980’s, took a big part in the battle against ‘Clause 28’. I am an out of the closet gay socialist – and have had no problems in working with Muslims against war and poverty.
Local Muslims even provided the catering for our local ‘winter pride’ event organised by my LGBT community. They knew what our event was about and were fine with it.
But that’s life in our small northern city. The world is more complex than narrow ideologues would suggest.
Madam Miaow on said:
#15 Il: What ever the differences the idea the SWP are racist is off the planet.
From shibboleths to white socialists.
Alarm bells should have rung when Rees announced in a meeting that racism against the Chinese isn’t an issue because “the axis of racism is black and white”, and we don’t work with the Chinese because “it’s British workers” that count.
Writing off international leftists in debate as “emigre politics” should have made us go, hmmm! Trashing the UK left as the “Left ghetto” might also have given us a clue.
It’s one thing having unconscious baggage (don’t we all) due to living under capitalism and having our noggins twisted by the system. It’s quite another when Dear Leaders elevate their left luggage to holy writ and no-one challenges it.
Lenin said it’s the task of the revolutionary to make the invisible visible. The “comrades” have done exactly the opposite.
Dear Koba on said:
Madam Miaow
It is interesting to speak to the comrades of the Bolivia Solidarity network, who are Bolivians who joined the SWP, and then left when the SWP preferred to believe middle aged, white men who had read some books abot it, rather than the testimony of native Bolivian womwn speaking about their own experience
Andy Newman on said:
David T and your HP chums.
Run along now please, you are getting repetitive and boring.
I have seen Groundhog day enough times to know how it ends.
Ray on said:
“Alarm bells should have rung when Rees announced in a meeting that racism against the Chinese isn’t an issue because “the axis of racism is black and white”, and we don’t work with the Chinese because “it’s British workers” that count.”
Go on MM just make it up. You usually do.
skidmarx on said:
#156 “and we don’t work with the Chinese because “it’s British workers” that count.”
This doesn’t make sense without a fuller quotation (I wouldn’t like to guarantee it’ll make sense then).
Dear Koba on said:
#159
Sorry ray..
Did a Chinese woman interrupt the white males only club? That is bloody cheeky of her, I am glad you put her in her place.
After all, we have it on high authority that a few “white socialists” are needed, because darkies can get a chip on their shoulder, can’t they?
Ray on said:
All these accusations that the SWP is racist for wanting to have a mix of muslim and non-muslim, socialist and non-socialist candidates reminds me of when Oona King and New Labour tried to tar Galloway with the same brush. It was a cynical ploy used by New Labour then just as is now being used by the SWP haters on this blog. The politics of opportunism.
Dear Koba on said:
#160
“#156 “and we don’t work with the Chinese because “it’s British workers” that count.”
This doesn’t make sense without a fuller quotation (I wouldn’t like to guarantee it’ll make sense then).”
The context that helps it make sense is that Rees gets disappointed if attractive women comrades make it clear they are unavailable to him, and then he treats their ideas as rubbish.
Andy Newman on said:
David T and chums.
My tolerance of you on this thread is over – toddle off please.
Ray on said:
“Sorry ray..
Did a Chinese woman interrupt the white males only club? That is bloody cheeky of her, I am glad you put her in her place.
After all, we have it on high authority that a few “white socialists” are needed, because darkies can get a chip on their shoulder, can’t they?”
You make an assumption that I’m white – isn’t that racist? Secondly, as a gay man I resent a hetero like you trying to suppress my comments. If you’re gay we’ll find some other difference to bash each other. Perhaps you’re middle class or something.
See what ridiculous cul-de-sacs your seppie politics disappear into?
John Meredith on said:
“I have seen Groundhog day enough times to know how it ends.”
But it ends happily, with all problems solved!
Andy Newman on said:
Ray
the Chinese are argubaly subject to more racism, misunderstanding and prejudice in Britain than any other racial group, when a Chinese woman rasies the issue that she has encountered insensitivity to the oppression of chinese people from leading members of the left, the responsible approach is to assume that her point of view is valid.
You on the other hand immediately repsnd by calling her a liar. That is disgraceful.
Ray on said:
“The context that helps it make sense is that Rees gets disappointed if attractive women comrades make it clear they are unavailable to him, and then he treats their ideas as rubbish.”
Mods please delete this nonsense. It’s one thing having political disagreements but this is the kind of revolting lie the Murdoch press indulges in.
Ray on said:
“Ray
the Chinese are argubaly subject to more racism, misunderstanding and prejudice in Britain than any other racial group, when a Chinese woman rasies the issue that she has encountered insensitivity to the oppression of chinese people from leading members of the left, the responsible approach is to assume that her point of view is valid.
You on the other hand immediately repsnd by calling her a liar. That is disgraceful.”
So prove it then! You let people on here make unfounded accusations about socialists and then become indignant when this is challenged. You have posters on this blog accusing Rees of sexism and German of being a racist. How low can this blog sink in its campaign the discredit the SWP?
Andy, you need to seriously think about where you and this blog are heading.
skidmarx on said:
#167 “the Chinese are argubaly subject to more racism, misunderstanding and prejudice in Britain than any other racial group”
My Vietnamese neighbours are frequently referred to as Chinese by others on my estate, so my guess would be that argubabbly they are subject to more misunderstanding.
I doubt that the Chinese woman in question has been the subject of the sort of oppression the average cockle-picker might face. But I could be wrong.
Making frequent accusations is one of your less disgusting habits.
Andy Wilson / KE on said:
164: thank you Andy. We’d like a debate on the real issues here (to the extent that our dear comrades Ray & ll/jj/alf allow us.)
Dear Koba on said:
#168 “this is the kind of revolting lie ”
That would be following the definition:
lie (noun): a fact that is true but politically inconventient.
Ray on said:
“#168 “this is the kind of revolting lie ”
That would be following the definition:
lie (noun): a fact that is true but politically inconventient.”
So prove it then otherwise stop lying. You seem to find the truth politically inconvenient.
Andy Wilson / KE on said:
paranoia
par⋅a⋅noi⋅a
/ˌpærəˈnɔɪə/ Spelled Pronunciation [par-uh-noi-uh]
–noun
1. Psychiatry. a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission.
2. baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others.
3. Politics. Guiding methodology of the other side of the Respect split.
John Meredith on said:
“You let people on here make unfounded accusations about socialists and then become indignant when this is challenged. You have posters on this blog accusing Rees of sexism and German of being a racist.”
I can’t comment on Rees’s sexual peccadillos but German’s apparant belief that ‘white socialists’ are distinct from and superior to non-white socialists simply by dint of their skin colour is pretty much textbook racism, isn’t it?
This shouldn’t be a surprise, there have been a lot of voices raised for a long time pointing out the SWP’s slide into becoming a racist party.
Rosa Lichtenstein on said:
Chorister, RevLeft appears to be experiencing technical difficulties at present. Try again later.
Dear Koba on said:
Come on Ray, get with the programme.
A year ago, you accused Andy of lying for saying that Rees was wrecking Respect. Now the SWP cc are saying the same thing.
When this blog said that John Rees has accepted a dodgy chedue, you said it was a lie. Now Alex callinicos makes the accepting of this dodgy cheque the cornerstone of his critque of Rees.
When this blog said that Rees organised the press conferecne for the rebel councillors, you said it was a lie; but SU blog proved it to be true.
When this blog said SWP councillors were thinking of defecting to the Tories, you said it was a lie. But one did.
Many, many comrades know that the SWP is riddled with institutional sexism. Sticking your fingers in your ears and whistling is not a responsible way to deal with a real political problem.
Andy Wilson / KE on said:
#175: “the SWP’s slide into becoming a racist party”
This is just stupid. German’s phrase is an ugly hostage to fortune, that’s all. It is stupid, ill-considered, inept and objectively barmy, but to accuse her of racism is to pull just the kind of vile stunt she herself might consider in her desperation.
Ray on said:
“paranoia”
Is that an attack on people with mental health issues, Karen? You better watch out or the seppies will pounce on you.
“I can’t comment on Rees’s sexual peccadillos but German’s apparant belief that ‘white socialists’ are distinct from and superior to non-white socialists simply by dint of their skin colour is pretty much textbook racism, isn’t it?”
That’s very similar to the line Oona King and New Labour took when Galloway was fighting the election. Wonder why Renewal are using this now?
Andy Wilson / KE on said:
#176: “RevLeft appears to be experiencing technical difficulties at present. Try again later.”
Perhaps the Marxism 2009 organisers could have this slogan printed on a t-shirt.
Splintered Sunrise on said:
Indeed it isn’t, Dear Koba. Though wouldn’t it be much more convenient if the ethnic woman kept quiet?
Andy Wilson / KE on said:
#179: Ok, Ray, how about:
“Paranoia is a mood propeller”
(Captain Beefheart)
Any better?
BarryKade on said:
Can I just clarify a few points.
1) The SWP is an anti-racist organisation with a clear record of combating racism.
2) Lindsey German’s ‘white socialists’ comment is clumsy and stupid. She lazily implies a division of labour between ‘white socialists’ and ‘Asian Muslims’ as making up the former Respect organisation.
3) She probably meant to argue that we needed a multiracial cohort of Respect councillors elected – black, Asian and white. She probably also meant that this cohort would have been strengthened if more councillors were capable revolutionary socialist leaders – of any colour or ethnicity.
4) One of the qualifications for leadership of a socialist organisation is to be able to communicate such points clearly and unambiguously. German fails this test. Goodbye Lindsey, you are the weakest link…
5) She didnt say this in a private email aimed at people capable of interpreting her ambiguous words in the correct way. She published it in a pre-conference bulletin, which constitutes an official statement. I am writing here pseudonymously on a blog comment box in haste. Yet even here I check my words after writing to make sure they are clear. Why cant she do this in a much more important platform?
6)Beyond the ‘white socialist’ gaff, German’s contribution is poor. It comes across as self justificatory gossip. I would be more impressed to see a politically coherent account of the SWP’s problems and potentials – which then led on to some clear perspectives for the future. Then I would be impressed that we have a socialist leader who should stay on the CC.
Dear Koba on said:
When faced with the statement that Lindsey German is a racist and John Rees is a sexist, we should be all clear that Lindsey is not a racist.
Rosa Lichtenstein on said:
Andy:
“Perhaps the Marxism 2009 organisers could have this slogan printed on a t-shirt.”
Ah, the dialectical box, once more: I am both in it, and not in it.
I rather think this should be a tea shirt for Dialectical Marxism in general, though.
Ray on said:
“Come on Ray, get with the programme.”
Your method of debate is to make things up and throw it at people to see if any of it sticks. It doesn’t follow that your accusation that Rees is sexist is true unless you prove it. Your puerile taunts are rather desperate.
BarryKade on said:
Hey Ray! Several critics of the SWP CC posting here have just defended the reputation of the SWP as having a proud anti-racist record.
Does that make you any less convinced that we are not just ‘SWP haters’ who are ‘out to get you at any cost’? That maybe some of us are your comrades attempting to put forward balanced criticism?
No? Is that because in fact you are an online script or web-bot designed to churn out the same text regardless?
XXX
Ray on said:
I wonder why Dear Koba feels the need to leap to the defence of a Chinese woman but doesn’t mind putting the boot into a gay contributer to this blog? Is that because Chinese women can’t able to speak for themselves and need to be patronised by Dear Koba? Or could it be that Dear Koba is cynically using this to falsely accuse the SWP of sexism?
anticapitalista on said:
#183 I am writing here pseudonymously on a blog comment box in haste. -Barry Kade
And I really thought that was your name.
Randy Numan on said:
Is Andy Newman a member of the SWP? He comes across much more as a sort of semi-educated, TUC hack.
Andy Newman on said:
Ray
Let me explain.
Miaow was writing about her experience as a Chinese woman, of how Chinese people are marginalised and made invisible by the left. Her Chineseness is therefore directly relevent – as indeed is her gender, given the somewhat poor record of the SWP over sexism, and the constant ignoring of women who speak up and complain about it. This is not new stuff, see the article in the SWP’s 2007 Internal Bulletin by Judy Cox complaining about the sexism in the SWP, and the complaints about institutional sexism in the SWP from Jo Benefield just a few years ago that led to a number of comrades in bristol resigning from the SWP. (Not to mention the other matter.)
You called Miaow a liar.
Whereas, as far as I can see, your sexual orientaion has nothing to do with this issue whatsoever.
Dustin the Turkey on said:
“I doubt that the Chinese woman in question has been the subject of the sort of oppression the average cockle-picker might face. But I could be wrong.”
So in order for you to take Madam Miaow seriously, she will have to join the shellfish industry?
Andy Newman on said:
#192
Indeed Dustin.
And let us look at Miaow’s original point. That Rees told her that the racism aganist Cheinese was marginal, and the real axis of racism was between black and white. this was when Misow was arguing that the racism against Chinese shoud, be taken seriously
Yet then Skidmarx at #170 mocks Miaow for not understanding the very racism she was wanting to oppose.
What is interesting, is that the most sectarian SWP members here (and thank god, they are not representative of the SWP) are prepared to throw out anti-racist and anti-sexist principles in order to promote the institutional interests of the SWP.
And Chris harman ponders how the SWP lost the argument with the middle ground.
Fabian from Israel on said:
“I can’t comment on Rees’s sexual peccadillos but German’s apparant belief that ‘white socialists’ are distinct from and superior to non-white socialists simply by dint of their skin colour is pretty much textbook racism, isn’t it?” (John Meredith)
John, you are wrong, she said “Zionists” not “Jews”.
Oh, wait… I am lost.
darren redstar on said:
Andy, I think that the likelyhood that there will ever be another Marxism tee shirt is becoming more and more distant.
PhilW on said:
One interesting aspect of this whole affair is the claim that Rees and/or German shouldn’t be on the CC, because of their views or the positions they have taken in the past. The CC seems to be cobbled together on the basis of rewarding effort and accomplishments or punishing misdemeanours – and prior to the outcome of the conference as well. What happens if the conference doesn’t accept the CC’s proposed composition? Shouldn’t ALL political stands in the SWP be represented on the CC, in proportion to their support in the party as a whole? (Come to that, how is support for different political strands in the party as a whole determined?)
Ray on said:
“Ray
Let me explain.
Miaow was writing about her experience as a Chinese woman, of how Chinese people are marginalised and made invisible by the left. Her Chineseness is therefore directly relevent – as indeed is her gender, given the somewhat poor record of the SWP over sexism, and the constant ignoring of women who speak up and complain about it. This is not new stuff, see the article in the SWP’s 2007 Internal Bulletin by Judy Cox complaining about the sexism in the SWP, and the complaints about institutional sexism in the SWP from Jo Benefield just a few years ago that led to a number of comrades in bristol resigning from the SWP. (Not to mention the other matter.)
You called Miaow a liar.
Whereas, as far as I can see, your sexual orientaion has nothing to do with this issue whatsoever.”
So Andy, you take as verbatim any slander that is posted on SU? Interesting that evidence isn’t necessary just gossip and slander. Then you try to accuse me of sexism because I disbelieve and ask for evidence from a person who has consistently attacked the SWP for over a year on virtually every piece of gossip and slander posted on this blog. I don’t trust or believe her nor you for that matter.
You don’t seem to have a problem with Galloway writing about his desire to fuck one of the women on Sex and The City. Nor his attack on using Respect money to promote Respect among the LGBT community. Nor MAF’s attacks on single women. If you want to address institutional sexism why not start with the leadership of your own organisation?
The next time you want to use tokenism to shut down people who disagree with you don’t assume they are all white, heterosexual, middle class men like you Andy.
Adamski on said:
Interesting how people are now using psychoanalysis against each other. So a key buzz word of AC is “displacement” one of Freud’s’defence mechanisms’. Andy W/KE now speak of “paranoia”, forgetting that Salvador Dali use of critical paranoia as a systemnatic methodology (see also Rimbaud’s long and gigantic derrangement of the senses).
Ray on said:
“Interesting how people are now using psychoanalysis against each other. So a key buzz word of AC is “displacement” one of Freud’s’defence mechanisms’. Andy W/KE now speak of “paranoia”, forgetting that Salvador Dali use of critical paranoia as a systemnatic methodology (see also Rimbaud’s long and gigantic derrangement of the senses).”
The terms “displacement” and “defence mechanism” aren’t restricted to psychoanalytical circles and wouldn’t lead to a political opponent being labeled with a psychiatric disorder if that’s a concern. The US and Stalin devoted a lot of resources to destroying political opponents using psychiatric methods so it is unfortunate when political opponents are characterised as having a mental illness just because they don’t agree with what their opponent says.
Howard Kirk on said:
Phil W
Yes, the whole CC nomination of the slate, by the err, CC must be a serious candidate for removal if the SWP is going to function in a democratic manner. To have a CC composed more-or-less representatively of different strands of opinion would involve permanent and semi-permanent factions, and open ‘fear free’ debate throughout the party and journal/websites etc – then a method needs to be agreed to elect them to the CC. You know, the sort of thing the Bolsheviks had up and until and in the early years of the revolution.
When I was a member there were two groups:
1. Those who agreed or disagreed with the party line on various things and just got on with it.
2. Those who disagreed with it on various things and either cherry picked activity or dropped out of it. These people may eventually leave.
Either way, there was no real manner of apprehending just what the party as a whole really believed – there was no culture of debate in the party. Beyond the branch level, delegated etc would often be self-selecting as no-one who disagreed with the party perspective on major issues was sought out as a means of these organs being representative.
A few years ago a third group emerged:
3. John Molyneaux and those in agreement with his pre-conference bulletin contribution – didn’t succeed and were quite modest but it was the first cracks in the bureaucratic ice.
I think that without wholesale constitutional and change of approach to dissent, the current ‘glasnost’ may not be too effective in the long term.
Madam Miaow on said:
Just got back to find Ray and Skidmarx’s comments.
If you are asking for details, comrades, Rees’s statements were made at a Marxism planning meeting (1998 or 9) where I suggested we have someone like Stuart Hall, f’rinstance, as a guest speaker so we could have a debate around race, as SWP members and a district organiser were maintaining that UK Chinese were petit bourgeois on the basis that the “Chinese all work in catering”.
Rees’s anger seemed out of all proportion to a suggestion made in a brainstorming session. No-one challenged Rees’s ludicrous position in the meeting (although one district organiser present made clear her sympathy afterwards). I found this truly shocking.
The army of senior cadre with whom I shared my concerns — including but not limited to John M, Colin W, Sabby S, Julie W, Sheila M, and certain parties who participate on this very blog — seemed embarrassed and a bit shame-faced, but wouldn’t be drawn into discussing the issue. Only one told me that Rees’s position on Chinese was a crock and expressed their worry and solidarity. I wonder if you can guess who that was.
There was no way open to raise this in the party. No-one would tell me how to approach the Control Commission and acted as if the very notion of taking a CC member to it was in itself outrageous, telling us a fair bit about “democracy” in the organisation. (I was later told that speaking directly to a control commission member isn’t enough — you have to put it in writing, although they neglected to tell me this at the time.)
Those statements were never discussed or retracted. I later wrote about it in Tribune and at UK Left Network. The party leadership chose to ignore these incidents rather than have the debate and clarify where they stood. This is not healthy, not democratic, and fails to keep a check on creeping prejudice. When it leaks at the edges, like it did back then, it’s a good time to catch it. Otherwise these attitudes set like concrete and end up falling on our heads. Just like now.
#159 Ray: Go on MM just make it up. You usually do.
And you base this on what, exactly, Ray?
#169 skidmarx: I doubt that the Chinese woman in question has been the subject of the sort of oppression the average cockle-picker might face…
Always good to know where people are coming from in debates like this.
Making frequent accusations is one of your less disgusting habits.
You sound strangely intrigued. You asking me out on a date?
Ray on said:
“And you base this on what, exactly, Ray?”
I’d like to know what your evidence is for your accusation that the SWP is racist towards Chinese people. So far we only have the word of an ex-member who is hostile to us and uses every opportunity to attack the SWP based on claims made about her personal experience rather than on politics. Based on your history on SU I don’t trust nor do I believe your version of events.
Madam Miaow on said:
Ray, I’d rather this and several other serious issues had been dealt with inside the organisation at the time. In the absence of a hearing within the party, I felt compelled to take my concerns outside. A bit like Rees and his latest missive, actually.
darren redstar on said:
MM don’t take a no nothing trotbutt like ray seriuosly, he has just accused ME of being a Gallahwayite!!
Louise on said:
Ray: “Go on MM just make it up. You usually do”.
It’s when I read comments like that Ray that I’m certain the left is up shi*t creek! This just smacks of defensive behaviour. Why do you conclude that MM has ‘made it up’? Is this your way of telling a Chinese woman to shut the hell up and go away? Is this about silencing women into submission because the truth is just too unpalatable. Hey, it is easier to swallow the official line from the cultish leadership.
It’s about showing comradeship and solidarity with people who have been burnt out and used by these organisations. And believed! To me it only too obvious what kind of ‘leaders’ shaft good activists. Maybe it isn’t to you Ray.
PhilW on said:
#197: Thanks, Howard for your response on SWP structures. It sounds like they will have to improvise pretty fast to get through the conference without a split as they don’t seem to have any mechanisms for reflecting the debate in the structures of the “party”. This is assuming that those who oppose the apparatus are able to get significant representation at the conference. Will this happen?
Nas on said:
philw – good point. It’s likely that the apparatus will get its way, But it is badly weakened .
KrisS on said:
Andy #108
Can you tell me which posts of mine you’re referring to? Ta.
Darren on said:
# 198
. . . maintaining that UK Chinese were petit bourgeois on the basis that the “Chinese all work in catering”.
FFS, someone coming out with a bullshit line like that has never worked in catering. That is pitiful.
Seán on said:
Darren, don’t you remember the petit bourgeois plongeurs in Orwell’s Down and out in Paris and London?
Ray on said:
“Maybe it isn’t to you Ray.”
No it isn’t and you don’t seem to see the irony in attempting to to shut me up by accusing me of sexism when I challenge someone who is making accusations that the SWP is racist toward Chinese people.
Louis Proyect on said:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/the-fight-in-the-swp-part-three-chris-harman/
Geoff Collier on said:
Can I ask what action Madam Miao proposed on the issue? Was it a unionisation drive amongst Chinese restaurant workers? And did you propose anything similar to anybody else after you left the SWP? Was that successful?
Danny on said:
# 199 Ray notes
‘So far we only have the word of an ex-member who is hostile to us and uses every opportunity to attack the SWP based on claims made about her personal experience rather than on politics.’
If you don’t base your politics on personal experience, of exploitation, oppression and injustice, what do you base them on? Textbooks? The wisdom of great leaders?
I reffered earlier to Neil Davidsons acknowledgement of the problem that the SWP had created a large pool of hostile ex-members who remain socialists and share their experiences with other socialists.
I dont know if there are any Davidson supporters here but those who share his analysis might want to think how they can build bridges. A bit of honesty and humility might be a start
Mr History on said:
Of course, there’s a very good reason the Left don’t take seriously discrimination against the Chinese, and even feel they can be casually dismissive — it’s because the Chinese, despite being in the UK almost longer than any other still-visible minority, and being ghettoised, do not see themselves as victims. So the Left calculates they are quite unsuitable as pawns in their Great Game, and ignores them. If only the Chinese rioted, or failed in schools and blamed “The System” …
Darren on said:
Sean,
it’s a long time since I read that book – despite it being the Orwell book that I enjoyed reading the most – so you’ll have to fill me in.
Cheers
Madam Miaow on said:
#210 Geoff.
Thanks for asking. Yes, I repeatedly pointed out that there were plenty of working-class Chinese who we should be working with, hence the arguments over whether the entire UK Chinese community were petit bourgeois or not.
In the mid-1990s I’d worked with the Chinese Information and Advice Centre, whose staff saw the most horrendous conditions among the poorest Chinese in the UK.
I became aware of Jabez Lam, whose unstinting, defiant attempts to unionise Chinese workers in this country had earned him beatings and threats.
We worked together on the 2000 Foot and Mouth disease protest (government and media tried to scapegoat the Chinese, accusing them of starting the FMD outbreak) when we shut down Chinatown, and the heavily publicised march to the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, following intense negotiations, resulted in a public apology and vindication from Minister Nick Brown. On top of this victory, some Chinese were politicised by the event. Despite my bombarding the Centre with information, the SWP wasn’t interested, although some good individuals in the Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers were supportive, and members of the Socialist Alliance were great, making sure there was a banner on the march.
When 58 Chinese were found dead in a lorry at Dover, only the same few individuals in CDAS seemed interested. I sent out press releases on this for the CDAS, one of the SWPs organs, and yet the party still barely stirred their stumps.
At last, the SWP finally responded when I sent them a press release telling them about the Diamond Five strikers in Chinatown, and another one informing them that Chinese cocklepickers had drowned in Morecambe Bay and they were still searching for bodies. That was, as with the Dover 58, a truly harrowing event. It was imperative that we stopped the families being further victimised by the legal system and media as well as by the criminals. The party weren’t involved, although the paper may have picked up on it and Marxism has hosted Nick Broomfield’s Ghosts.
I was delighted to see the SWP at last engaging with Chinese workers. It was a partial success with the Diamond Five feeling bolstered. However, wider unionising work was set back by unnecessarily heavy handed arrogant behaviour.
Thanks, Louise, for your post at 202. I should also thank Ray and skidmarx for illustrating so graphically the sort of thing you can expect when you stand up for yourself and challenge oppressive behaviour.
Wishing a white Christmas to all white socialists.
Lobby Ludd on said:
Ray:
“…someone who is making accusations that the SWP is racist toward Chinese people.”
I thought that the accusation was against one individual, and was rather more nuanced than an accusation of racism. I thought also that ‘the complainant’ was disappointed by the lack of consideration of those concerns from other SWP members.
Ray, you seem serially to defend the SWP against accusations that have not been made. Why do you do that?
Seán on said:
Sorry, Darren. That was my vain attempt at irony. The plongeur was, if I remember correctly, the low of the low in a kitchen: the dishwasher.
babeuf on said:
I remember two BNP members infiltrated the SWP a couple of years ago. If only so as not to give the game away, even they would have steered clear of the disgraceful statements Ray and Skidmarx have made against Madam Miaow.
“Tribunes of the oppressed” for them is just another meaningless piety that counts for nothing against the dubious prestige of the organisation they still imagine to be the keepers of the revolutionary flame.
Although I’m puzzled: I thought such robotic defenders of The Party would now welcome exposure of Rees’s impressive portfolio of shortcomings. Is it because Rees is still nominally a CC member until Conference? Or is it because Ray and Skidmarx are auditioning as Reesite mavericks? Or is it just because MM is an uppity working-class ethnic woman?
Who knows? And who cares?
(A pity no word of solidarity from Rosa who must have seen what was going on.)
Dicker Ticker on said:
Was there ever really a serious SWP debate about whether Chinese people were generically ‘petit bourgeios’ or not..? It seems incredible.
If so it belongs up there with the notion of same sex relationships as petit-bourgeios deviation and family housing as counter revolutionary praxis.
jimban on said:
this site is really hitting the gutter. honestly, it is the pitts.
non-partisan on said:
if only jimban…if this were the pitts and we were all unionised workers…just think of power of the class that could be unleashed by these clarifying discussions…alas just socialists trying to discuss and clarify a political approach that be both unifying and effective, difficult i know, but surely worth the candle?
anticapitalista on said:
#217 WTF are you talking about?
Are you suggesting that Ray and skidmarx are BNP infiltrators of the SWP?
babeuf on said:
#221 – Yawn … get off your high horse and try reading my comment.
anticapitalista on said:
MM
http://socialistworker.co.uk/archive/1738/sw173802.htm
reality on said:
David T is a supporter of the genocide of the Gazans and an apologist for imperial murder. He is fash.
anticapitalista on said:
#222 Go to bed if you are tired. The comment is crap. Why mention the BNP?
jimban on said:
What I cannot figure out is the following. There is this massive indigination about the SWP on this site from a few people. But when issues around George Galloways attitude to Gays and Women are raised the same people go off the deep end in their defence of the MP. Now it doesn’t really matter if you are a Respect member or not most would agree Galloway is not the best defender of Gay and Womens rights. On the latest attack on a womens right to choose he wouldn’t even vote for the policy agreed by Respect, which is a good policy. Why don’t the same people who attack the SWP raise these issues with their own high profile MP. I am aware that this wasn’t even discussed by the conference recently held. It seems odd that the MP is not seen as accountable. Now whatever shortcomings of the SWP at least there is at long last some real debate about accountability. I personally welcome this overdue debate, the question is will it happen inside Respect?
Karen Elliot on said:
#195: “Dali use of critical paranoia as a systemnatic methodology”
That is absolutely right, Admaski – the SW leadership (aka Lindsey and Rees) are developing a systematic method whereby they paranoicaly project their prejudices onto the world and then paint a picture which corresponds to that vision. I, however, would not celebrate this as a triumph of modernism, but would fight against it within the party as a failure of the enlightenment.
anticapitalista on said:
#227 “I, however, would not celebrate this as a triumph of modernism, but would fight against it within the party as a failure of the enlightenment.”
LOL, but neither you nor Adamski can fight it within the party as neither of you are SWP members.
So who are you trying to persuade in the SWP to do the fighting?
Nas on said:
Karen: That’s not a Rorschach, “it’s a pictorial representation of the order of Lindsey’s mind” – yes, I can imagine German, Rees, Smith and Orr in a reimagining of the Edward Albee classic – sort of “Who’s Afraid of Arlette Laguiller?”
Nas on said:
I’m told that there was a time when the answer to the question “Who’s afraid of Lindsey German?” would have been the entire SWP centre. Not any more.
llame on said:
jimban = ll = jj = falsehood = ridiculous SWP apparatchik, who is more concerned with trying to dishonestly destroy debate than in winning people to socialism.
What a fool. Hey, out of interest, how are the SWP’s operations in Birmingham going?
Karen Elliot on said:
#228: “So who are you trying to persuade in the SWP to do the fighting?”
Er, well, ‘anticap’ – I am trying to persuade the comrades who are following this argument. Believe me, there are lots of them, albeit that they are currently forbidden to speak here. I talk to them regularly. They enjoy that this argument takes place, even though they are moderately ashamed of the people who are currently representing them. Though that will pass.
The Raybot on said:
“even though they are moderately ashamed of the people who are currently representing them”
So, because I am gay you are saying that I should be ashamed, is that it?
It’s amazing how you RR members try and claim that we are racist, but your homophobia is clear for all to read.
anticapitalista on said:
#232 “…albeit that they are currently forbidden to speak here…” by who(m)?
Has Andy banned them? .. snigger..snigger..
“… even though they are moderately ashamed of the people who are currently representing them..”
There is nobody representing anyone here.
Ray on said:
“#217 WTF are you talking about?
Are you suggesting that Ray and skidmarx are BNP infiltrators of the SWP?”
It’s the pathetic level this site has descended to. Anyone who defends the SWP is characterised as a sexist, racist nazi. I’ll be accused of being a homophobe next.
Challenging a Chinese woman to provide evidence of the SWP’s anti-Chinese racism is characterised as sexist and racist yet its acceptable on SU to ridicule and make personal attacks against Lindsey German and Weyman Bennett.
Time to leave this bunch of sectarian hypocrites to stew in their own mess, methinks.
Rosa Lichtenstein on said:
#222 — Babeuf: I have in fact only read parts of this thread, and had not seen the disgraceful comments about MM you mention.
Although I am not in the SWP, I count myself as a supporter, and deeply regret the fact that we have comrades like these who bring shame on the party.
babeuf on said:
Cheers, Rosa.
Ray on said:
“I’m only one of many activists who came into the movement with an open heart, ready to learn and eager to work, only to have our labour appropriated by the little pashas, to be thieved from, and find ourselves fallen under some sort of power droit de seigneur, especially if you were unfortunate to find yourself on Rees’s Gaddafyesque Praetorian Guard of women.”
This is only one of many mendacious accusations made by Madam Miaow about the SWP. In case anyone is unaware a “droit de seigneur” is a term now popularly used to describe an alleged legal right allowing the lord of an estate to take the virginity of the estate’s virgins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_de_seigneur
That type of slander is the province of the tabloids and not part of political debate on the left which is why I am not willing to take MM’s accusations seriously unless she provides evidence.
Rosa Lichtenstein on said:
Ray, we are past caring what you think — except that you are continuing to bring disrepute on the SWP.
RobM on said:
238- Ray, the term she used was “power droit de seigneur” clearly implying something different from what you are trying to allege.
Think about a little bit- you really don’t have to defend Rees anymore since your own bosses declared open season on him. You can happily accept he is a racist sexist git, pretend you knew that all along, paraise the Central Court for going to war with him and none of his crimes will ever stick to the SWP as a whole. try it.
jimban on said:
“You can happily accept he is a racist ”
the idea that John Rees and the SWP are racist is an insult. RobM if you want to liberally throw cheap insults with really devalue its meaning then carry on but you do yourself and Respect no favours. If Rees and the SWP are racist then I can’t understand why people like Galloway in the past, Benn, Corbyn let alone Mozzam Begg and Winston Silcott have spoken on joint or SWP platforms at many public meetings. Perhaps you don’t think these people have the wisdom of yourself to spot racism or just maybe you are a complete idiot.
jimban on said:
The track record of the SWP on fighting racism and fascism is second to none. The type of sectarian haedbangers like RobM suggest that Respect has completely lost the plot. RobM doesn’t mind sexism when it comes from Galloways mouth, then its ok and fine. What a hypocrite!!
darren redstar on said:
scary how far the stalwarts of the swop will descend into rascism and defence (or should that be defense?) of racism. almost as far as they would descend in their defence of sexism and Islamic reaction when they were allied to to the galloway.
darren redstar on said:
A few years back I was a member of leeds district SWP, and we were in the under attack from combat 18, the first attacks were upon two gay men who lived on a council estate- the responce of the district was to dismiss their pleas for support as ‘hysterical’ as the line at the time was that the fash were an irrelivance- is this what you mean by “The track record of the SWP on fighting racism and fascism is second to none”?
later one of my comrades was attacked on a paper sale by a fascist with a hammer, he still bears the scars, he was expelled for ‘factionising and over estimating the threat from the fascists’. is this what ‘The track record of the SWP on fighting racism and fascism is second to none’?.
The line started to change when a certain members of the IS editorial board was targetted- the police were called and, in response to the ‘kind detectives’ query “do you know of anyone else who might be targetted?” handed over over the complete SWP membership lists for Yorkshire to the police- is this what ‘The track record of the SWP on fighting racism and fascism is second to none’?
of course the line was reversed when Cliff himself was attacked at a public meeting but perhaps Weyman Bennett’s behaviour on behalf of the UAF, which consists of setting up deals with the cops and demanding that local activists be arrested are what you mean by ‘The track record of the SWP on fighting racism and fascism is second to none’?
Passing Leftie on said:
In my experience the SWP tend to tar with the same brush anyone on the right and far right, but never with action, only with words. The slogan shouting has to stop. It is not enough to hope that by going “The BNP are scum” without explaining your alternative vision. Shouting “Nazi filth!” at vote counts does little either.
There is a reason why the BNP are gaining the support of white, working class voters, and indeed why the BNP almost won a by-election n Cumbria this week from nowhere, and won a Boston council seat from nowhere a couple of months ago. The “The track record of the SWP on fighting racism and fascism is second to none” talk is getting the far-left nowhere.
The BNP have a seat on the GLA for a reason, too; they worked for it. We know now that the Lindsey German candidature was a spoiler, while the BNP took the election seriously and were awarded for it.
The left and far-left are in a dire situation, it seems to me. There seems to be little real chance of a national left vote in the European Elections, will there be something in place for the General election?
I very much doubt it.
Spectators often see more of the game…but only the players on the field score.
ll on said:
“There is a reason why the BNP are gaining the support of white, working class voters,”
Umm a bit of stero typing here, remember the middle class is its key component, as evidenced in socialist worker following the leak of its membership list.
Darren you can make up any amount of bullshit stories as you see fit. If you think the SWP is a racist organisation it seems a bit odd that it has been central to UAF and the ANL in the past. You no doubt have your criticisms of these organisations as not being good enough etc etc but do really expect me to believe these are also racist organisations? What about Kevin Ovenden, was he a racist when he was int he SWP and no when he left? You see Darren, I am afraid your hysterical overblown fucking lies do not impress. Now if anyone wanted to dismiss the oppression of Gays I could think of a better candidate than the SWP , perhaps G gives a clue.
By the way, what has Respect done recently over the Nazi’s, fuck all on the website, fuck all in its paper……….Oh thats right, build up Searchlight who publish racist articles by New Labour junioe ministers and tout Islamaphobic arguement as some form of strategy against the Nazi’s!! Fucking grand!!
prianikoff on said:
The thread’s melting down and allowing right wingers like “Passing Leftie” to spread demoralisation and defeatism by suggesting the dumbshit BNP “deserve” their vote.
Whether you agree with their politics or not, my most recent experiences of the SWP were that they were taking racism very seriously, working with black trade unionists and promoting black candidates in local elections.
Whether R.Lichtenstein regards himself as a “supporter” of the SWP is neither here nor there. I’d see him as a thoroughgoing enemy of Marxism along the lines of James Burnham. He operates as a troll and makes no practical links between his “anti-dialectical” fixation and practical politics.
“Babeuf” strikes me as being a bit disturbed with latent violent tendencies and probably three pierced nipples.
Michael Rosen on said:
On the specifics of LG’s comment re ‘white socialists’: the problem is that even the explanations and exegesis on what she said still leaves the fact that the whole framing of the matter is a racist way of expressing things. If you go in for electoral politics (and revolutionary socialist groups don’t have to!), then you start to tie yourself into concepts such as ‘how do we look?’, ‘does my minority look big in this?’ and so on. This has the corrective of diluting the marxist left’s situation of being ‘right but unpopular’ but has the snag of wanting to look right, rather than be right.
It looks to me as if LG has got herself into a terrible mess trying to say that there was a need for socialists who were white. Why was there such a need? Who says there is such a need? When is such a need ever wanted or necessary? Why? I can’t find any satisfactory answers to this. If the explanation is electoral necessity that’s racist bollocks too. Who’s to say that in the time we were all united (ahem ahem) that Salma couldn’t have won a constituency vote?
I think the least worst thing you can say about LG on this is that it’s ‘opportunist’. A WRP woman once called me that. Actually she called me a ‘bourgeois opportunist’ (i think it was because I was supporting the Shrewsbury pickets…oh hell I forget now), but anyway…I didn’t think I’d find it a word that seems to fit (only in part) what LG was saying here.
Michael Rosen on said:
I think a distinction can be made between the fact that LG has made this comment and what the organisation as a whole is/says/does.
Passing Leftie on said:
But it is not bullshit. I am no supporter of the BNP (and there is the line about protesting too much, I know, but seriously, I am not), but I see the denial suffered by many in the left and far-left when it comes to the BNP successes.
The leaked membership list showed there are many middle class members, I accept that. But supportes? Voters? The estates on which I grew up are traditional, working class areas; doing the “doorstep challenge” will soon tell you which wing of the political spectrum is talking the language of the two-up/two-downs…
darren redstar on said:
the ignorance of the swappies continues. Yet another assumes that to critisise them means to support the Islamist bloc of the great bullshitter gallahway.
The SWP has USED opposition to racism and fascism when convenient to boost recruitment to THE PARTY. It has then cynically dumped whatever campaigns once the maximum available recruits have been made and moved on to the next issue. The constant referral to the SWP’s role in the ANL mk1 as a touch stone to the party’s anti racism/ anti fascism is particularly crass seeing as the party activists who provided the real backbone of the anl wereexpelled en masse for taking fighting fascism seriously when the party had decided thatit was time to dump it and move on.
I deliberatly ommitted the names from my previous post, but as this has simply enabled twats like II describe inconvenient facts as lies.
ok can any passing swappies please explain why sue Bond was removed from the editorial board of the ISJ?
or why zoe and john were expelled from leeds swp?
Bringing up the ‘Great’ kevin ovendon is also odd- would this be the same kevin ovendon who in the course of being fast tracked inside the party as a pliant black activist whose book on malcom X was considered so poor that a ‘white socialist’ had to completely rewrite it?
PBi on said:
re: 248
Personally I don’t think LG is a racist as such, but she makes an ill-chosen remark. Why? It’s a reflection of the alientation and remoteness of the SWP CC from the real world of work and getting involved in real day to day struggles.
LG may have stood as a Mayor of London – but popping up for electoral activity is not the same as being stuck into consistent work in the community or the workplace – year after year after year – where everyone gets to know you, your strengths and weaknesses – and where you have to admit mistakes because you would (rightly) be regarded as a nutter and untrustworthy if you didn’t. LG has lived in Hackney for perhaps 30 years. Is she as well known there for being a political activist as Salma is in Birmingham, achieved in a much shorter space of time?
The SWP can parade their ‘achievements’ but giving yourself a pat on the back isn’t the same as other people, outside the organisation, giving you a pat on the back. Which happens more often?
What has struck me about all four of the documents that have now been published is how stuck in the mid 1980s internal language of the SWP they all seem to be; how conservative they all are in terms of the tasks of socialists in organising within an extreme crisis of capitalism; how unimaginative the solutions being put forward; how turgid the language.
There are half hearted attempts to address the organisational culture of the SWP, but none take it anywhere near far enough. Will the political and social bullying of comrades stop? Judging by the tone of a lot of what’s been published here, it’s likely to get much much worse. Is there going to be a real assessment of levels of class struggle? Are there going to be truthful debates at conference about the real state of the branches? No- most of the protaganists are already massaging figures and positions to promote and protect their own egos rather than the overall interests of the organisation – let alone the interests of the class.
One final poinŧ. There is already a huge amount of mud slinging going on at the top. As this intensifies one can only hope that they are all squeaky clean; because you should never lie to the class. Somehow I doubt it.
Michael Rosen on said:
re 249 …but then that depends on what the organisation says about LG and her comment, I guess. I think the last time I heard of a phrase like ‘white socialists’ is amongst the layer of socialists who appeared in Australia in the early 1900s. They had a whites-only socialism idea that would keep out the Japanese and ‘deal with’ the ‘aborigines’. (see Humphrey McQueen’s excellent work on this.) Sometimes phrases are haunted by their predecessors. LG should have known that too.
RobM on said:
242- amazing isn’t it?
I deliberately responded to Ray in the kind of over the top way that he and jj /ll / alf/jimbam like to behave on theis site and I am called a sectarian headbanger.
Fair enough, takes one to know one etc. lol ! LOL!! LOL-O-FUCKING-LOLLY -LOL-LOL I TELL YOU!!!
external bulletin on said:
Michael – again, I generally agree: For a start, people can use sloppy language, and the organisation may not agree with what that person said.
However, Alex Callinicos was accusing Salma of “communalism” last year, and during discussions with SWP members kept counterposing “Muslims” with “workers”. Now, once again we can say “but what he meant was…”, like people have done with Lindsey here.
But we’ve got Alex’s “communalism”, his “Muslim notables” comments, Lindsey’s “more extreme elements” comments from last year, and now Chris Harman talking of “right wing Islamists” becoming a problem in 2005.
If we want, we can choose to find all of these to be isolated cases and that the words didn’t quite mean what they look like.
Trouble is, many SWP members last year felt that the organisation was pandering to Islamophobia in its internal arguments, and since then the language has become more resolute.
This doesn’t mean the SWP is racist. Of course it isn’t. And neither is Lindsey. But, as others have said, using language whose parameters have been set by the right and the pro-war liberals is pandering to racism, even if not racist in intent.
Socialists have a special duty to take care over their language. We don’t just talk about “terrorists”, for example, because we understand the ideological imperatives behind such words.
In the same way, if we mean “experience socialists from the SWP”, to say “white socialists” is astonishing. But even the other phrases – “right wing Islamists” etc. – need to be used carefully.
Why? Because the state, the entire liberal media and the pro-war liberals want to shatter the alliances between disaffected Muslims and the left. And the best way to drive a wedge between us is to confuse the language, to set up ideological weapons which are used against us, so that those who are outside the influence of the left become further alienated from us.
It’s had a lot of success.
Andrew Coates on said:
#156, on Bolivian soldiarity.
Reminds me of when I first came across Lindesy German. Campaign to Defend the Portuguese Working Class. Set up by the Portuguese Workers’ Co-ordinating Committee – with whom I worked (as a teenager) very closely during the Carnation Revolution. Come the Campaign launch, and demos, arrival of LG: instant expert on Portugal! IS in the lead, full of experts (tough luck for Portuguese workers).
End of Revolution.
IS fucked off.
RobM on said:
And, of course, if you read what I wrote (LL- you can read can’t you?) I didn’t call Rees any such thing. I merely pointed out that it is surely now OK for the former Rees loyalists in the SWP to have a go at him- in fact it is almost mandatory if you want to keep in with Harman and Callinicos. I could equally have used the words ‘baby-eating murderer’ in respect of Rees and the point would be the same…
Andy Newman on said:
Unfortunately the SWP are ill served by those like Ray who are leaping to their defence here.
For example, Miaow is known to many of us personally, and even those who don’t agree with all of her political assessments do recognise that her account is factually true.
I have no question in my mind that Lindsey German is NOT a racist, and the SWP is NOT an organisation that colludes in racism. However, what Lindsey has revealled is sloppy and racially insensitive use of language, that if she was actively involved in the wider trade union movement she would not have made this sort of mistake. For example, even in nominally right wing trade unions, there would be equalities conferences and training for activists and you wouldn’t encounter this language.
So the question is, why is the SWP cc (the vanguard?) so behind the curve of the prevelenet social democratic values in the organised labour movement?
Similarly, the scandal that will not go away is the institutional sexism in the SWP, a level of sexism that would not be tolerated in a trade union; or it has to be said in the Labour party.
David T on said:
Were I the supremo of a Trot Groupuscle, my harem would be multi-faith and multicultural, in line with my commitment to an open liberal and pluralist politics.
Darren on said:
#264
“Were I the supremo of a Trot Groupuscle, my harem would be multi-faith and multicultural, in line with my commitment to an open liberal and pluralist politics.”
I guess that would make a change from your current harem of little green footballers that make up HP sauce’s comments box.
David T on said:
They’re not massively attractive, I have to admit.
Danny on said:
#238 ‘That type of slander is the province of the tabloids and not part of political debate on the left which is why I am not willing to take MM’s accusations seriously unless she provides evidence’.
I wouldnt really want, or encourage anyone else, to ‘name name’s’ here. If you want evidence for that sort of thing though I would corroborate MM’s experience from what I have saw myself.
Personally I do think the SWP has a problem with sexism, it was never more publicly obvious than in its support of the ego formerly known as Tommy Sheridan. Its hard to see how any organisation that abuses power and denies it’s mistakes in a patriachal society like ours wouldn’t have.
I do not believe myself that any SWP members are any more consciously sexist or racist than the rest of us here, but they are not neccessarily being very self-aware here either. Maybe just having their internal debates dragged into the open is a start though.
What I really think is missing from the comments here is how the current crisis in the SWP can lead to a situation that takes us forward as socialists, and how we can all shape this development
JimPage on said:
“The thread’s melting down and allowing right wingers like “Passing Leftie” to spread demoralisation and defeatism by suggesting the dumbshit BNP “deserve” their vote.
Comment by prianikoff — 23 December, 2008 @ 10:19 am 2
As to the GLA, they mobilised nationally, were well organised and worked hard for their win. They nominated their candidate early, and were campaigning since November 2007 for a May 2008 electiion. They put out about a million leaflets manually in London and were rewarded for this effort
As for demoralisation and defeatism, to post how well the BNP are doing out of the recession in electoral terms, which is becoming evident over the last month, is neccesary to focus the left on what can happen if we dont get our act together, quick. To recap, in the last month they have polled as follows, Bridlington 24%, Sedgefield 28.7%, Whitehaven 40.1%, Coalville 30.9% and Boston 42.1%
Meanwhile, the SLP polled 11 votes in Sedgefield, and Welsh Communists 12 in a by election in Rhonnda……..
Passing Leftie on said:
JimPage – I am grateful for your post, because it shows the facts behind my observation (and hopefully proves that people who call it “batshit crazy” or whatever it was need to open their eyes!)
The BNP are polling well, very well, in areas like Cumbria and Boston where they are going from a standing start. This is at a time when, as this post and elsewhere shows, the SWP and other left organisations are failing to organise anything like enough to combat the rise of the right (both mainstream and extreme).
We are 6 months away from two elections, where the BNP are likely to make some significant gains (at a County level, I expect dozens more Cllrs).
Every breath in my body will be spent fighting the right and far-right as best as possible, but with the current state of the left so clearly tattered and broken, in the end my vote can only go to the mainstream parties…
skidmarx on said:
#202 “Always good to know where people are coming from in debates like this.”
Does that sentence mean anything?
“Making frequent accusations is one of your less disgusting habits.
You sound strangely intrigued. You asking me out on a date?”
Actually that was meant to be directed at Andy Newman. Sorry to disappoint you. And no, I’m not asking him out either.
Jenkins on said:
Danny #267: I think if a faction were to emerge in the SWP that repudiated the Respect witch-hunt narrative and the whole Operation Wreckspect thing and apologised for it that would denote a huge step forward and signal a determination to learn from past mistakes. On that basis, a revolutionary core, independent of the party apparatus, determined to openly discuss perspectives, tactics, transitional demands and how to operate in United Fronts might save the SWP for revolutionary Marxist politics and be a major blow to the scourge of sectism in the workers movement. I think the Revolutionary Regroupment people in Respect have a big roll to play here in trying to connect with comrades in the SWP who might adopt this perspective. I think they should be trying to outline a potential resolution for the SWP’s congress around this perspective.
prianikoff on said:
#268 If the BNP are picking up votes it’s due, first and foremost, to the impact of the Recession. Imagining that being “anti-racist” is enough to deal with this situation politically is simply not viable anymore.
The BNP are quite capable of adopting superficially “leftist” slogans to conceal their basically rightist, pro-capitalist agenda. We have to get away from “anti-racism” as an end in itself and start fighting for socialist politics.
In areas where jobs are shrinking away, you have to fight for *Jobs*!
If employers are still employing large numbers of casualised cheap labourers (like Boston, Lincs) you have to stop the employers using cheap labour.
This now runs straight into arguments about *why* capitalism is in recession.
A popular explanation for the economic crisis is required (remember Hugh Kerr’s popular explanation of the HFA, which sold 250,000 copies?)
A programme which counters the crisis of capitalism with a series of immediate and transitional demands needs to accompany this. (The IMT’s one could be improved on , but is better the the PbP Charter, because it makes such political links)
I don’t regard issues of outright betrayals as something that can be conveniently forgotten, but if the socialist left weren’t so insular and sectarian it would be openly working together on a common programme, instead of splitting on minor tactical questions and raking over the ashes of who said what 10, 15 or 20 years ago.
The BNP’s solutions are for simpletons and dupes. They simply ignore the inherent problems of capitalism wich continually generate economic crisis and racism, blame immigrants and try to exclude them from the labour force. Potentially, they could adopt policies of ethnic cleansing and genocide in the future, whatever mask they currently are wearing.
Sucessful fight backs against lay-offs by immigrant labour can counter this, as happened at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago.
But it’s also necessary for the whole labour movement to adopt such policies, because no ethnic minority in Britain has sufficient social weight to be able to lead the whole of the population on its own.
Andy Wilson / KE on said:
I’m surprised that no one has yet commented on some remarkable similarities with another infamous power-couple.
“Lord Black’s darkest hour, they predict, will be her finest.”
On the other hand, maybe that’s a totally duff steer.
Tim Giggler on said:
All this “John Rees’ droit de seigneur/Gaddafyesque Praetorian Guard of women/harem” nonsense: does this mean that MM was once asked “if she now wanted to be the cat” (in a Scottish accent maybe)? Need I zza zza gabor, I mean, say any more?
Tim Giggler, Surrey
Molotov on said:
I hope that Galloway himself will enter the lists in this debate because, and not for the first time, events are vindicating him, and fast.
I know, and am in a position to know, that Galloway when he wrote his now blindingly obvious August letter, he had NO intention whatsoever of “witch-hunting” the SWP, still less of blowing up Respect. Why would he wish for the latter by the way,he was at the time the organisation’s only MP (the first left of Labour MP in England for sixty years)and had a fighting chance of being re-elected into what might (even yet) be a hung parliament.
He regarded the SWP as important to the organisations hopes, not just (though there is no discredit, far from it, in this)because the very sinews of Respect were provided by the SWP, sinews he would have needed to be re-elected, but because he was mindful of the need to expand Respect’s hegemony (in electoral terms)on the British left which could only be done by ADDING to the sum of the organisation not tearing it all up and starting again. Besides he had good relations with, and admired, the capacity of the likes of Jackie Turner and Sheila MacGregor, Paul McGarr and Eileen Short,Dr Kambiz and others in TH SWP.Although his relations with the tops of the SWP were limited (deliberately?)by John and Lindsey (I remember with astonishment him telling me that he had NEVER had a conversation with either Alex Callinicos or Martin Smith, and this FOUR years after the foundation of Respect!)he even maintained that he had friendly relations with the hated Chris Bamberry).
The August letter was just what it said on the tin. It was an attempt to make Classic Respect MORE effective not destroy it. I know that because I was there when it was written and was a party to the entire discussion which took place as he wrote it. It was born of three concerns. The parliamentary by-election in Ealing Southall (in which so “witch-hunting” was his attitude to the SWP that he tried hard to persuade Lindsey German to be the Respect candidate – not only did she turn him down but she and John fucked off to Korea for the duration)the council by-election in Shadwell TH in which only in the final furlong (though importantly)did the SWP get over the fact that their candidate had not been selected and the reckless attitude of John Rees to financial matters, only two of which he published in the letter. The third, the OFFU cheque he considered far too dangerous to put in writing.
It was Martin Smith who told Kevin Ovenden that the SWP would “go nuclear” over the letter. Only once the SWP had, behind Galloway’s back,ordered two-thirds of his parliamentary staff to walk out of his employ,and begin the moves to rig the forthcoming Respect conference, did Galloway step up his strategic response. And even then he stopped way short of nuclear (unlike the SWP CC over Rees now)
For more than a year he didn’t even mention the SWP after the split and even then only in passing. He continues to say that John and Lindsey “picked him up off the floor and put his feet back on higher ground” after the Daily Telegraph affair and said just last week that he would have the SWP back. When a wag said “only on Versailles terms”, Galloway replied, “no, more like Brest-Litovsk”
sonic on said:
Bye Lindsay, you’ve had your moments of course, but this pile of poo..
well sadly
no
x
S
Ray on said:
“For example, Miaow is known to many of us personally, and even those who don’t agree with all of her political assessments do recognise that her account is factually true.”
Where’s the evidence then? You say a lot of things that aren’t true. Why should anyone believe you about this without evidence?
Andy Newman on said:
Ray
“where is the evidence”
There cannot be trial by blog. In what forum can evidence be produced?
When Jo Benefield (30 years in IS/SWP and a well respected industrial militant) complained to the SWP about gross sexism from a long established SWP member P**e W**rd*n, there was a kangaroo court where four men ( and no women) heard her (including Pat Stack and Martin Smith I believe), including P**e W**rd*n himself, and Jo Benefield was the one criticised, and there was a whispering campaign about her being hysterical. As a result a number of long term women members left the party – including a highly resppected former labour councillor who had been in the SWP for 15 years or more, and the woman who headed the Respect list for the 2004 Euro elections.
If an employerr treated a complaint about sexism in that way, the union would be all over them. But you have lower standards fro the SWP than you do from a cpaitalist employer!
Last year Judy Cox wrote an article for the SWP’s pre-conference bulletin complaining about institutional sexism in the SWP. So it can hardly be news to you.
Miaow actually did complain to a number of leading members, inclusing cc members, and was told to keep quiet.
The same approach of the cc blocking a complaint and pressurising a woman to keep quiet was used over the more serious matter many years ago.
So you want evidence, but even when comrades have tried to use the SWP’s official mechanisms to raise sexism, they have been blocked, pressurised or ignored; and there are well documented cases of women comrades leaving the party over the question.
Ray on said:
“There cannot be trial by blog. In what forum can evidence be produced?”
But that is exactly what you’re doing. Because MM is your mate you claim she is right that the SWP operates a policy of “droit de seigneur.” Where is the evidence?
You boast about democracy in Respect but resort to slander and gossip on your blog to smear individuals and organisations on the left. The game is up Andy, Respect is dead in the water and you have nowhere else to go.
Andy Newman on said:
Ray
The “don’t look over her, look over there” defence can only work so many times.
Despite the fact that the SWP has no mechanisms for taking complaints of sexism by leading cadre seriously, then you are saying that women who have experienced such sexism should not use other forums to publicise it?
Provide a forum, and the evidecne will be produced. But don’t tell the women to shut up about their experiences.
Danny on said:
Ray the evidence is that other people here have confirmed MM’s experience, let it go.
Andy Newman on said:
#227
Ray, you say abouy me:; “You say a lot of things that aren’t true”
name one thing I have said that has been shown to be untrue.
Ray on said:
“Provide a forum, and the evidecne will be produced. But don’t tell the women to shut up about their experiences.”
Why not publish it here? You’ve done so with other private information such as the Internal Bulletin. What are you afraid of?
“Ray the evidence is that other people here have confirmed MM’s experience, let it go.”
So one individual case that was not proven is evidence is it? What about the opinion of thousands of other male and female comrades in the SWP? Yet you think MM and Andy who have an axe to grind reflect truth and honesty about the SWP? Give it a rest.
“name one thing I have said that has been shown to be untrue.”
Where do I start? You claimed that you wouldn’t post the IB and then did.
external bulletin on said:
What happened to believing the victims of oppression, Ray? Or does that only apply when the SWP isn’t in the equation?
Nas on said:
Ray – it really is unwise to press this. If the current fight in the SWP turns really ugly, believe me, you don’t want to be encouraging this stuff to bubble up.
Paul Hunt on said:
Hi all,
I have read most of these documents, and am still struggling to work out what, if any, are the principled political positions involved here between Rees, German, and the rest of the leadership.
Did the whole CC agree with the closing and breaking up of the Socialist Alliance in favour of respect? How many spoke up when Lindsey German said at the Respect founding conference that the SA failed because it was ‘too socialist’?
Or have I missed something?
PH
Madam Miaow on said:
Ray,
I feel a degree of sympathy with you. There’s obviously a lot of pain and anguish behind your anger, cocooning you from what is becoming evident to many others. However, you’re not the only one who has had to come to terms with parent figures not being perfect. This is something that waves of leftists over the past century have had to deal with: the god that died. When the penny drops, Ray, I hope you will be one of the ones who doesn’t make the rightward trek in reaction.
I didn’t imagine my first short post at #156 would push buttons to such a troubled extent and see me centre-stage when it is Lindsey’s document and how we learn from past mistakes and move on that should be central to this discussion.
But while I have your attention, Ray, imagine a different scenario: that we’d had the debate around SWP attitudes towards UK Chinese; that cadre had said to Rees, don’t be so stupid, of course there are working class Chinese in Britain and we should be working with them. What would have been the result? Rees and the others who supported his view would have learnt something, I would have felt less alienated when they realised that the mere fact of being a UK Chinese didn’t make me petit bourgeois, and we could have shaken hands and come out of it better all round.
But such is the fear that party leaders might occasionally be wrong that an opportunity to move the cadre forward was missed.
Having fixated on my case, you deserve to hear my other concerns.
I don’t think it is right that I should have established and run the entire national Marxism, Globalise Resistance, LSA, SA and anti-war press operations (until Andrew B turned up) from 1999 to 2003, single-handed (apart from some SA press releases from Mike Marqusee and the overlap with Andrew), full-time (16 hour days during campaigns) and unpaid. As Mike remarked at the time, I was doing the same job as the Countryside Alliance’s six full-time paid press officers and their assistants in organisations of a similar size.
I don’t think it is right that I went into debt to ensure that our side was fighting fit in the media. I do not think it acceptable that all the groundwork for the STWC press was done by me alone (with Mike’s releases) so that certain individuals could grab personal kudos and prestige for themselves and their friends when they realised something was up for grabs. It was not good leadership for Rees to refuse my repeated pleas to find someone to share the load with me, or at least allow me to travel around the country running media workshops for the SWP and SA.
It’s even more of a shock to discover that there was dosh enough to pay a decent wage to the leaders, but they couldn’t even sort out one of their cheap transport deals for me.
It’s all very well being described by Paul Foot as “the best press officer in the country”, or my political and personal behaviour as “exemplary” by Rees, but that doesn’t pay the bills.
It does not feel good being treated as coolie labour. Surely you know deep in your heart that to demand of any comrade, let alone a working class ethnic woman, that she be docile and servile in the face of exploitation, is corrosive and the antithesis of all that is revolutionary.
On top of doing all that work, which plenty on here can verify, I found that Rees had put me on the editorial board of the Socialist Review without any consultation, and then he suddenly told me that I was SWP press officer. How much more of my life was I supposed to hand over to him? When I very politely turned down Rees’s patronage, as I had my own work to which I wished to return, I found out what happens when Daddy doesn’t get his own way.
Anything else you want to know, Ray. Or may we return to the subject of this thread?
ll on said:
[content deleted]
ll on said:
[content deleted]
Nas on said:
Some SWP members must feel rather miserable that they’ve incubated such monsters as him.What an indictment.
Nas on said:
ll – what filth you are.I doubt you’re I fact an SWP member. You’re simply trying to discredit them.
external bulletin on said:
And with post 288, “ll” goes from being a nasty sectarian to a real peddler of filth.
Don’t ever call yourself a serious activist again. You’re effectively threatening a witch-hunt of George Galloway.
If you people don’t get your own way, you cry “witch-hunt” but happily try to start witch-hunts of your own.
ll on said:
[content deleted]
ll on said:
I see comments that the SWP are racist are not deleted but anything thing about Galloway is seen as out of limits. What a travesty.
Stockwell Pete on said:
II, give it a rest please. You are doing yourself and the SWP no favours at all here. MM is raising very serious issues, some of which I know a little bit about, and I believe that she is telling the truth in every respect. The SWP has been a “top-down” organisation for at least a quarter of a century now and bullying of comrades does occur on a regular basis.
I have been an SWP member in the past – in the 1970s for a long-ish stint, and then again in the late 1980s and early 1990s for a while – and I have retained some friendships with current SWP members. They have told me about another case(I assume it is a different from the ones already mentioned anyway)of sexism being covered up by the party in north London. I will not mention any names but the story is that a female SWP member complained about sexism from a male comrade in her branch. She was brushed off and told not to make a fuss. Then, unbeknown to her, members of the branch committee she had spoken to bundled the errant male comrade into a van after he came out of a pub – and one comrade in particular gave him a good hiding. He was then dumped out of the van back on to the pavement. I was told all this by an SWP member who I trusted and I was incredulous – but he insisted that it really had happened.
The incident made much more sense to me a few years later when I was standing outside a national SA meeting in Birmingham with another “oppositionist” when the SWP comrade who had done the “duffing up” came and stood a couple of yards away and proceeded to glare at us for a few minutes, presumably to try and intimidate us from raising arguments at the meeting, I suppose.
Nas on said:
This is a serious point: could SWP members who know ll, if he is a member, talk to him about the damage he’s doing – not least to his own state of mind.
swp member on said:
I don’t know II. People should bare in mind that any swp member who posts on here is doing so off theor own bat, and speaks only for themselves. Also anyone can post on here and pretend to be an swp member whether they are or not.
Including me of course. But I actually am one. Honest guv.
Theo Saurus on said:
Some porkies on this site. The story of the ‘errant SWP member being dumped out of a van wins first prize.
Stockwell Pete on said:
# 298
Have I won something at last? What is it? Marvellous!!
belboid on said:
I’m intrigued by the comment in the original article about the document from Sheffield – especially as I’m an ex-swper from there. Any chancve of that appearing on line?
David Ruaune on said:
Madam Miaow is one of the best political satirical writers and stylists in the English speaking world – and that’s coming from someone who is not into chinee girls.
Rosa Lichtenstein on said:
#252 — Prianikoff:
“Whether R. Lichtenstein regards herself as a “supporter” of the SWP is neither here nor there. I’d see her as a thoroughgoing enemy of Marxism along the lines of James Burnham. She operates as a troll and makes no practical links between her “anti-dialectical” fixation and practical politics.”
[Incorrect pronouns corrected.]
There are no links between your core theory and ‘practical politics’, except negative ones — unless you can show otherwise.
In fact, I can show that this ‘theory’ has only ever had a negative affect on Marxism:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm
And I am nothing like Burnham — again, unless you can show otherwise.
Let me remind you that there are far more counter-revolutionary and anti-socialist dialecticians than there are otherwise: namely the Stalinists and the Maoists.
And it’s no good telling us they ‘misuse’ the dialectic, or that it is a ‘wooden’ creed in their hands, since there is no way to tell if this ‘theory’ has been used correctly or not, or non-woodenly, since it can be used to defend anything you like and its opposite, owing to the fact that it glories in ‘contradictions’. So, it can and has been used to ‘prove’, for example, that the former USSR is a socialist state, a degenerated workers’ state and a state capitalist regime.
Finally, may I remind you that the vast majority of comrades here who are criticising the SWP are just as much in love with this ‘theory’ of yours as you are. The lot of you are prepared to argue over everything and anything, but not dialectical dogma. Oh no — it is *far too sacred to question* (to such an extent that this post will probably be deleted), even though it has presided over 150 years of almost total failure.
ll on said:
“I will not mention any names but the story is that a female SWP member complained about sexism from a male comrade in her branch. She was brushed off and told not to make a fuss. Then, unbeknown to her, members of the branch committee she had spoken to bundled the errant male comrade into a van after he came out of a pub – and one comrade in particular gave him a good hiding. He was then dumped out of the van back on to the pavement. I was told all this by an SWP member who I trusted and I was incredulous – but he insisted that it really had happened. ”
then launched him onto the space shuttle and was last seen orbiting around Mars or Uranus since thats where you are speaking from!!
For fucks sake, I think we will have to have some stories about the SP and their summer camps next when they ran with an iron glove the LPYS. Includes burning down an IMG campers tent lol
But hey you lot carry on. Theres only a world crisis. Good to see Respects national woolies campaign has managed 2 stalls in the whole of the UK Involving about 15 members. Fucking realignment of the left my arse lol
Jenkins on said:
ii #303, you think that’s a fabrication? You should try the SWP’s witch hunt narrative.
David Ruaune on said:
Rosa is right to challenge the pretentions of Hegelian Dialectics within the field of Logic and makes a good logical case for regarding dialectics as nonsense. I don’t agree with Rosa’s idea that dialectics is significantly responsible for a lot of the failures, but nevertheless I tend to agree with Rosa more than say Andy Newman (a man and his team who I respect massively for what he has done with this site) – much as I think Rosa is a humourless cow, I think that she has a point over dialectics being crap; much as I like the intelligent people on this site, when it comes to philosophy, and Logic, you make Rosa look good.
Maybe create an uberthread for arguments over dialectics? Must admit, I felt a bit ashamed and embarrassed for the left when Rosa came in on Hogo Blanc’s contribution.
Andy Newman on said:
Sadly Nas, ll really is an SWP member.
This is an uncontrovertible fact as he has posted details of things discussed at SWP national council meetings before they were made public knowledge anywhere else.
Also ll has been specifically defended by other SWP members. like Ray (who accused Liam Mac uaid of being a hypocrite for banning ll)
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2948#comment-97514
Leading canadian IS member Shawn Whitney has also defended ll using apolitical abuse against me, in a thread following an article that I did not even write:
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2948#comment-97478
Stockwell Pete on said:
#303 “then launched him onto the space shuttle and was last seen orbiting around Mars or Uranus since thats where you are speaking from!!”
No, that’s just plain silly. I am still in Stockwell and I am relating to you all that I was told by a very responsible SWP member. And I have already won a prize for this extremely valuable public service.
You see, to extend MM’s “medieval analogy” a bit further, you could say that the SWP has districts that are run a bit like “fiefdoms” these days, couldn’t you? And the local “lord” and his “retainers” are in charge of discipline (among other things) and they are then answerable to the “monarch” and his/her “court” (i.e. the CC). Where I live we have Lord Paul and Lady Jan – and they are very wonderful and very clever (so there is no need for them to discuss politics with grubby oiks like me at all) and if I am very lucky I occasionally get to see them in the supermarket in Clapham . . .
Blimey, this red wine is good – time for another re-fill.
Have a good Xmas break, comrades!! You as well, II. Ha-ha-ha!!
TurkishTVwatch on said:
Sorry to tear you away from your very important mutual recriminations, but in the real world there has reportedly been an operation in London by the British police directed at the Turkish Kurdish community and at least one person has been arrested in what the pro-government Turkish daily Milliyet calls a “major blow to the PKK”. The name of the arrested man is given as Salman Bozkurt.
Nas on said:
Andy: I accept your explanation over ll – can’t say it makes me feel any better, though. It makes me feel worse. For sure there’s a pressure to get into a gang mentality in politics. It’s an overhead you carry from trying to organise.
But the kind of comments from ll betray a severe degeneration, a contemporary degeneration. It poses a number of profound questions.
The Raybot on said:
I notice that allegations that SWP members are Gay Nazis from outer space are allowed to remain on this blog, but true stories about Galloway taking money from Commie Nazis are deleted.
I am never posting on this blog again. Again.
Andy Newman on said:
#309
Nas, i agree.
What is needed is a statement from an authorative SWP member distancing themselves from these sorts of puerile, disruptive comments.
anticapitalista on said:
Like post #310?
Andy, why did you post his name is #306?
It is completely irrelevant.
If he wanted to give his name he would have done, just like many poosters here who prefer (for whatever reason) not to do so.
Are you going to ‘out’ others too?
darren redstar on said:
btw if anyone who posts here is a ‘burnhamite’ then its probrably me.
anticapitalista on said:
Oh, and Andy, you post info from the SWP before they are made public knowledge. Does that make you a SWP member?
Nas on said:
#311 That would be helpful, Andy. They could do that and then, understandably, say that they would not engage in any further discussion or respond to baiting. Those who fixate on the SWP will moan that they can’t get into a slanging match. But the rest of us will be relieved of ll and can discuss matters in a more serious manner.
Andy Newman on said:
#312
But his identity is relevent, as he is a leading member of the IS; and he has also defended the apolitical abuse from ll.
I don’t know how to establish the politically relevant fact that a leading member of one of the SWP’s international sister organisations ahs appoved of ll’s method without saying who it is; otherwise wouls have Ray twittering about “prove it”
Shawn has used his own full name in the past when posting on John MOlyneux’s blog, and has used his name in publications by the canadian IS. So there is cleatly no security issue related to using his name.
Andy Newman on said:
Incidently,. anticapitalista
I acknowledge that ll is unrepresentative of the SWP, so I would have thought that SWP supporters like yourself would be happy to distance yourself from him.
Nas on said:
Andy – you’re absolutely right over the Canadian bloke. He’s assumed responsibility for utter shit – all on the basis that it’s my party right or wrong.
anticapitalista on said:
#316 so just write ‘a leading member of IS Canada’ who posts as redbedhead.
I’m sure you know the real identity of posters with pseudonyms and they may be well up in other orgainisations, but you don’t ‘out’ them eg Molotov
#317
ll’s posts can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he is not unique.
I mean do you really think that SWP mwembers or supporters would like to engage in serious debate here?
The climate is awful.
Anyone trying to defend the SWP gets shot down in flames, so it is pretty pointless commenting, which is probably why the vast majority of SWP’ers who do pop in here to read the threads (some of them are very useful BTW), don’t bother contributing anything.
Michael Rosen on said:
If SWP members really are posting away like crazy here, aren’t they breaking with party discipline? So I’m not sure how that makes one such person ‘representative’…
Nas on said:
anti-cap, anti-cap, anti-cap: time to investigate why a Canadian full-timer and an emigre in Greece keep coming here to defend things they know nothing about – remember the Ahmed Hussain business?
Michael: John Rees broke party discipline – several times – so if it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for the rest of us! On a more serious note: if I were you I’d go for a bit more equidistance, y’know, between the SWP on the one hand and lots of other serious people on the left on the other. Bro Serwotka didn’t do that over what happened in Respect. He’s damaged because of that now. And so are the left as a whole.
Andy Newman on said:
Michael #320
I agree that ll is not representative; but what he is doing is very damaging to how people are perceiving the SWP.
Chris harman is quite correct that the SWP lost the middle ground n the debate over Respect, and a small part of that was played by the antiics of their key-board warriors.
The SWP would be doing themselves a favour at this stage by publically distancing themselves from the likes of ll.
Nas on said:
#322 – and so would Michael.
Andy Newman on said:
anti cap
“I mean do you really think that SWP mwembers or supporters would like to engage in serious debate here?
The climate is awful.”
But it didn’t used to be. To a certain degree the climate was set by SWP trolls who deliberatly tried to disrupt this blog – most of whom have now moved on.
There is also the uncomfortable truth to face that some people expressing hostility to the SWP are in fact quite representtaive of waht a lot of activists outsdie the SWP think, based upon their expereince.
There is a paradox of people having a great deal of respect fopr individual SWP militants, and being impressed with the SWP’s ability to do things well; and despair at the way the SWP sometimes behaves.
The Raybot on said:
And now the witch-hunt of the SWP begins again. Nas makes hysterical demands for the entire IST to be “investigated”, no doubt to paralyse it and turn it into a weak organisation. Nas wants to destroy not just the SWP, but the whole of the left around the world.
And now the witch-hunters are demanding that we “repent” and reject our finest activists like LL, all for what? For pointing out that Galloway is a Commie Nazi?
This blog is now run by the direct descendents of Hitler and Healy, and I am never posting here again. Again.
Michael Rosen on said:
nas, I thought I was making an objective comment that didn’t side with anyone. I was making a factual observation. I wasn’t defending or attacking anyone. I was gently suggesting that if something going on is unrepresentative, then it’s probably not a great idea to construct hypotheses on such evidence. Just stick to the documents. That’s all.
er, nas, you don’t have to read the whole thread but I think you’ll see i did make a comment about LG’s document. y’know, something mild and reflective, like ‘racist bollocks’…
James N on said:
Please, do actually stop. Call it my early xmas prezzie. Thanks lovie.
redbedhead on said:
Boy-o, no wonder my ears were ringing today. I was being talked about. Well, just for the information of Nas and Andy – I’m not a “leading ISer” and I’m not a full-timer – except in the sense that I have a full-time job (as a waiter). Andy linked to a mention of my name as a Steering Committee member from, uh, 15 years ago. I haven’t been a member of that body in almost a decade. I’m afraid “leading member” isn’t a lifetime title like “knight” or “PhD”. I’m still a member of the IS and I support the politics and perspective – in case you hadn’t figured that out – but I’m not even on a branch committee. I am active in the anti-war movement. Now, would you like to know my favourite foods, or perhaps some job references?
As to my defense of “ll” – Andy, you are delusional. Here’s part of what I wrote in the post you linked to:
“You call it intimidation for ll to (admittedly stupidly) go on about your public school education – but then allow attacks on others because of theirs or because they are/were university students. You want people to be sensitive to your issues but if they’re in the SWP they’re fair game for any and all comers.”
ie. I called his/her comment stupid but pointed out that you were being hypocritical because you allow personalistic comments about SWP members (or people who support them on this or that issue), even defending those attacks. In other words your concern for high standards is selective.
The same thing applies with your refrain “redbedhead who posts from 5,000 miles away” in relation to my arguments about Respect – since you have written extensively on the liberation movement in Tibet, the PDPA in Afghanistan and the Maoists in Nepal. Or is it only acceptable to comment on movements in the Third World but not have opinions on those in Britain?
anticapitalista on said:
#321, who is defending what exactly?
I haven’t coomented on the contents of the leaked bulletins, and I have no intention of debating it here.
Maybe after conference.
#324 Maybe that is the case with some people who post here, but the vast majority of the posts relating to the SWP are extremely hostile.
Nas on said:
Michael – my apologies if I’ve misread. But look. You took sides. You were invoked, along with Serwotka, as justification for the veractiy of the Rees/German-driven SWP line last year. And it was a disastrous line. It has severely weakened the left. German – a committed socialist – has now ended up confiding that the purpose of her standing for the GLA (as opposed to mayor) was that Galloway should not be given a free run and that it would be a set back for the SWP if he was elected. You cheered, Michael, like the rest of us three years ago when Galloway was elected. You’re a bit older than me and have seen more defeats. But in explaining them, don’t we need to look at our own decisions during them if we took part? If not, isn’t it amoral, ahem, bollocks?
redbedhead on said:
“name one thing I have said that has been shown to be untrue.”
See my comment above. “politically relevant fact that a leading member” “full-timer” etc etc
Michael Rosen on said:
Oh I’ve said my piece on this, nas. Yes I thought at the time that SWP-Respect was less wrong than George and Respect Renewal.
I’m not sure why LG’s statement that she wanted to defeat GG electorally is some kind of trump card in this matter. Once this whole section of the left discarded antielectoralism for enthusiastic electoralism then this kind of thing happens. People try to beat each other and, the usual pattern for the far left, is that everyone is weaker as a result.
On another thread I highlighted four key issues that make the far left weak and that we’d do much better to spend our time addressing those than trying to work out went wrong on this or that day or this or that time. To my mind, the split happened because the left is weak, not because of issues that matter more than what’s going on in the wider society. Even with George’s victory (of course I cheered like crazy. I actually like George personally!), the far left was still incredibly weak. Remember the old mid twentieth century CP had three electoral bases, Glasgow, Merthyr and Whitechapel…along with some other strongholds too. Post CP the far left hasn’t got anywhere near that. Ever.
Mike on said:
The truly upsetting thing about the various incidents related here and elsewhere concerning bad personal behaviour by current and past SWP members is the sheer hypocrisy of some of the parties involved. Claims made by one party are considered true and the individual concerned is then meant to be treated as a pariah for ever. Meanwhile other individuals, who are rumoured to have behaved badly on several occassions, are given a free pass as they are ‘leaders’. As for the authority of the so called Control Commission excuse me while I vomit.
Even so we need to put many such incidents behind us and discuss seriously and as positively as possible the positive developments now taking place in the SWP. Simply because much of the ritique of the CC Minority is couched in personal terms, as is their defence of their actions, is no reason why we cannot hail the positive steps forward being made by a section of the cadre of the SWP.
Doing so will, of course, be difficult for many comrades but it must be done if new relationships are to be formed regardless of whether we favour the SWP or the populist Respect. Lets remember we do need to work together in the unions and campaigns on a daily basis and that is what counts.
Andy Newman on said:
Shawn
#328, #331
You were a national steering committee member of the IS. whether or not you are currently on a committe, clearly you are an experienced leading cadre in that organisation.
I never said you were a full timer.
And you simply did defend ll’s method, as can be seen from reading the thread in full that I referred to.
remember, that that was an article written by someone else that i have no editorial control over, and where I had only made one comment, that was a weak joke. And there was an unprovoked and disgraceful series of personalised abusive comments directed at me from ll, that you defended.
redbedhead on said:
“whether or not you are currently on a committe, clearly you are an experienced leading cadre in that organisation.”
Huh? Your conception of “leading” seems to owe more to the monarchy than to Marxism. I’m afraid you don’t get to call yourself leading in my books – and I suspect my comrades in the IS would agree – unless, you know, you’re leading something. Just having experience doesn’t make on leading or a cadre. I may well lead again in the future – pending time commitments – but at the moment. I’m an inactive member. I haven’t been to a meeting in quite some time. I very clearly speak only for myself and not for any leading members, committees, perspectives, covens, what have you.
And, no, I didn’t defend “ll”s comment. Here’s the full post of what I wrote:
“What a load of hypocrisy and self-projection onto others.
“Andy you say the vilest things, make accusations – for instance about the former status of ll, which none can verify since he/she uses a two letter acronym that gives no indication about who they are. You allow prianikoff’s sexist comments about a woman named Bunny. You allow slanderous personal remarks about her – in fact a whole article dedicated to attacking her, with comments beneath about how she is a public school girl, about her vile temperment, etc etc. But you delete anyone who disagrees with you in a way that you dislike and call it trolling.
“You call it intimidation for ll to (admittedly stupidly) go on about your public school education – but then allow attacks on others because of theirs or because they are/were university students. You want people to be sensitive to your issues but if they’re in the SWP they’re fair game for any and all comers. If you’re going to dish it out you really ought to learn how to take it – along with the rest of the lot on here.
“This site has nothing to do with debate, it is simply a spleen site for attacks on the SWP that frankly smack of political penis envy. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is some occasionally good articles – generally posted by Derek Wall.”
In case it’s unclear, my point was not to defend what “ll” said – I thought it a rather childish approach to making his/her point. I think, in general, the level of personal abuse on this site is stunningly high and makes it’s name more of an ironic comment than a statement of intent. And, you are the moderator – you have set the tone, not just by what you say explicitly (though often enough explicitly as well) but also by the mandate and goals you have set for yourself, for instance your mission to reduce the influence of the SWP throughout the Left and “society in general” as I believe you put it recently. If you think that the central (or secondary or tertiary) problem with the workers’ movement, the left, etc. is the SWP is it any wonder that the general tone here is conducive and attractive to those who want to rubbish other left groups and their members. Frankly, it’s a shame since there is some interesting analysis that people bring to the table – even Ger the perennial bully says interesting things. Too bad his modus operandi is to demean and insult his opponents – as badly as anything “ll” says (though perhaps with better spelling.)
’nuff said. And if you want to call me Shawn, rather than “redbedhead” because it will annoy or “out” me to some committee or something, well, I could care less. I chose to use a pseudonym before I realized the whole thing was so contentious and before I ever heard of this place.
Andy Newman on said:
Well we have strayed a long way from the original topic, so i am going to let Shawn/Redbedhead have the last word, and close the thread.