Liam redux

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Stop The War Demo

Well the doctor says that the two toes I lost to hypothermia aren’t essential for walking though he fears my chances of doing the 100m sprint in 9.3 seconds again are slim. Christ! it was cold and not even my flash Columbia jacket made by child labourers in Vietnam could keep me warm. Socialist Party…

Liam
2–3 minutes


Well the doctor says that the two toes I lost to hypothermia aren’t essential for walking though he fears my chances of doing the 100m sprint in 9.3 seconds again are slim. Christ! it was cold and not even my flash Columbia jacket made by child labourers in Vietnam could keep me warm.

Socialist Party event – I can’t be arsed

I had thought that I might go to the Socialist Party’s Campaign for a New Workers’ Party event today. I can’t be arsed. These characters are so sectarian that they don’t participate in local Stop the War groups and this week I’m told that they have set up their own campaign to defend the national health service. They are depressingly predictable.

Yesterday’s demonstration was impressive. It was and more militant and lively than the previous one. Perhaps people were trying to keep warm. Respect’s profile was disappointing. The party that emerged from the anti-war movement should have pulled out all the stops for a demo just a few weeks before the council elections. You really had to go looking for evidence of an organisation which has thousands of members and a small apparatus. I know that my branch did not discuss its intervention apart from e mails reminding us to go. Considering that there are 400 paper members in Tower Hamlets alone a serious attempt at organising was possible. It was left to one overworked member of the SWP to try to cobble a contingent together.

From the point of view of Socialist Resistance our intervention in yesterday’s demo was one of our best. We had well staffed stalls at the assembly point and in Trafalgar Square. The supplement we produced as a taster of our politics was widely distributed and comrades seem energised by the political period. With Respect under performing the way it is the value of a paper like SR to hold together a group of people with clear views on socialist democracy and a new working class party is unarguable.

A busy week lies ahead so check back for updates. Respect ward and branch meetings on Monday and Tuesday. A SR thing on Wednesday and on Thursday the residents’ association.

Thanks to Mrs Doyle for the crowd photo and the that really is Yvonne Ridley with a Venezuealan flag.

6 responses to “Stop The War Demo”

  1. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    I’m a bit baffled by the paragraph here about the Socialist Party. Firstly because it makes no sense in the context of the post, it’s as if it was part of another article that somehow ended up here. Secondly, and more importantly, it makes little political sense.Is there anything “sectarian” about not bothering to participate in the few remaining, dwindling local Stop the War groups? In my experience they are at the moment little more than demoralising get togethers of the usual suspects. Socialists and socialists have limited resources I’m not at all sure that turning up to swap leaflets with a few ageing pacifists and a couple of hysterical SWPers is a good use of time or energy.Also not sure what you are talking about regarding the NHS campaigns. There are loads of them, mostly restricted to one locality (and in many cases led by Socialist Party members). The Socialist Party’s view is that all of the many and various NHS campaigns should unite into one democratic, national organisation – something which hasn’t happened yet.On the upside, I doubt if you were missed at the Campaign for a New Workers Party conference. Alan Thornett gave the “soft” version of the Respect line, the one where with all due humility he accepts that while Respect is utterly fantastic it isn’t yet the finished product. And frankly one contribution like that is all anyone should have to put up with in a day.

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  2. Liam Mac Uaid Avatar
    Liam Mac Uaid

    You’re right. It was a bit of stream of consciousness writing and if I’d been producing it for wider publication I’d have done it differently. One of my points was that I’d got chilled to the bone and couldn’t face leaving the house on Sunday. The more important point is that the SP’s method at the minute is very sectarian. They have a few comrades in this part of the world. Not once since the war started have I seen them participate in STWC activities or distribute STWC leaflets at tube stations. It’s always done as part of their SP party building activity.The same thing is true for the NHS campaign.There is a big one with an emerging profile with support from the likes of Dobson. I think that is where they should be fighting their corner.As for the conference itself it’s disappointing that it did not pull in wider forces. Serwotka was right when he said that their needs to be a dialogue between the SP and Respect. I think the SP comrades would find it more productive than a dialogue with the CPGB and some of Workers Power. The council elections will be a good test of all this.

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  3. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    I can’t comment on the involvement of one particular Socialist Party branch in one particular Stop the War group for the obvious reason that I don’t know anything about it. I can however comment on the Socialist Party’s general approach towards anti-war activity – which has been consistent and at times effective.The Socialist Party has as its first priority the raising of socialist, class based, arguments against and analyses of the war. It does that within the Stop the War Coalition structures where that would be possible and useful and outside of it where that is easier. As the Stop the War Coalition has withered, the latter approach has become more dominant. It is not, in our view, enough to distribute generic liberal arguments against the war which no vicar could object to. And given the political collapse of much of the far left, if we don’t concentrate on putting socialist arguments nobody else will.I could of course give a list of the various anti-democratic procedures which the Socialist Party has been on the receiving end of in the Stop the War Coalition, but really that misses the central point. The real issue is political, is it enough to build a liberal anti-war movement? Is it enough to have a movement where every liberal or reformist or religious activist argues for their politics but socialists limit themselves to bland condemnations of American aggression? In my view it isn’t. And there’s nothing sectarian about trying to go beyond that.On your other points:1) I have no idea which of the multiple NHS campaigns you think is “the big one”, nor do I know who you are talking about when you say it has support from “Dobson”. This is perhaps an occupational hazard for left activists, the particular campaign we support always seems to be the “real” campaign and the fact that most people have never heard of it is brushed aside.3) On Respect, I’m sure it will do well in the Council elections in much the same areas it has already done will in. I’m equally sure that it will make relatively little impact elsewhere.From the point of view of the Socialist Party, we have tried ever since the first rumblings about Respect were heard, to take part in a dialogue with and about it. So far it’s been pretty much a monologue – we were excluded from the initial discussions and about the only responses we have gotten from it since have been along the lines of “we are the answer, join us”.The reasons why we won’t join Respect have unfortunately remained valid. It has no democratic structure or life. It has no clear orientation towards working class representation, instead seeing the working class as just one potential support base amongst many. It has ditched even the rudiments of a socialist programme. Its welcome decision to reach out to British Muslim communities has been done on an unprincipled and in fact dangerous basis. Instead of seeking to win working class Muslims over, it has gone to the supposed “community leaders” who are supposed to produce a block vote. Instead of making class appeals it has at times verged into straightforward religious appeals.

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  4. Liam Mac Uaid Avatar
    Liam Mac Uaid

    I think what this boils down to is how small groups of socialists choose to relate to much larger groups of people. Most socialists I know would like to see the American and British imperialists defeated and humiliated in Iraq. They also give varying degrees of critical support to the Iraqi resistance. To insist that the Stop the War Coalition endorses these views is wrong. This would only minimise the active movement against the war. Working with these broader forces necessitates sitting through meetings with all sorts of pacifists, vicars and eccentrics. If you don’t engage with forces to your right in a united front you don’t build a movement and, at the moment, most people are to the right of us. It’s limiting and sectarian to use an imperialist war predominantly as a party building opportunity. It also miseducates the people you do recruit.There is nothing new about socialists being on the receiving end of anti-democratic procedures and demagoguery. You should have heard some of the names Socialist Resistance supporters were called at the Respect conference. It’s not really an excuse from walking away from a political fight. As a movement broadens these toy town Stalinist antics become less possible. Thought they gave a scary glimpse of what it must be like to be a SWP member who disagrees with the leadership.I think the main reason Respect’s internal life is so fragile in many parts of the country is that the main participating organisation has tried to replicate its own structure inside it. I’ve fought a battle to establish something that resembles a Labour Party GC and have a labour movement style meeting calendar. This is often replaced by meetings that are called at short notice at silly times at the weekend. The weight of people from a more traditional labour movement tradition is still comparatively light. Do you abstain or fight?I’ll take up some of your other points in the near future. In the meantime here is the link to the principal NHS campaign.http://www.keepournhspublic.com/

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  5. Liam Mac Uaid Avatar
    Liam Mac Uaid

    I think what this boils down to is how small groups of socialists choose to relate to much larger groups of people. Most socialists I know would like to see the American and British imperialists defeated and humiliated in Iraq. They also give varying degrees of critical support to the Iraqi resistance. To insist that the Stop the War Coalition endorses these views is wrong. This would only minimise the active movement against the war. Working with these broader forces necessitates sitting through meetings with all sorts of pacifists, vicars and eccentrics. If you don’t engage with forces to your right in a united front you don’t build a movement and, at the moment, most people are to the right of us. It’s limiting and sectarian to use an imperialist war predominantly as a party building opportunity. It also miseducates the people you do recruit.There is nothing new about socialists being on the receiving end of anti-democratic procedures and demagoguery. You should have heard some of the names Socialist Resistance supporters were called at the Respect conference. It’s not really an excuse from walking away from a political fight. As a movement broadens these toy town Stalinist antics become less possible. Thought they gave a scary glimpse of what it must be like to be a SWP member who disagrees with the leadership.I think the main reason Respect’s internal life is so fragile in many parts of the country is that the main participating organisation has tried to replicate its own structure inside it. I’ve fought a battle to establish something that resembles a Labour Party GC and have a labour movement style meeting calendar. This is often replaced by meetings that are called at short notice at silly times at the weekend. The weight of people from a more traditional labour movement tradition is still comparatively light. Do you abstain or fight?I’ll take up some of your other points in the near future. In the meantime here is the link to the principal NHS campaign.http://www.keepournhspublic.com/

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  6. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    Yes of course it boils down to the question of how socialist interact with larger groups of people. Do we do so by limiting our political arguments to those acceptable to the most backward elements? Or do we work with whoever we can, while at the same time openly and clearly arguing for socialist politics and putting a class analysis? The latter in my view is the real content of the term “united front”.I’ve no problem with *working* with liberals and vicars. But I’m not going to pretend to *be* a liberal or a vicar. If I’m going to stand outside a tube station passing out leaflets about the war, I’m going to hand out leaflets which give a socialist analysis rather than ones which limit themselves to liberal platitudes. In a united front everyone argues their corner and freely criticises the politics of the other participants. In the Stop the War Coalition everyone argues their politics, except most of the socialists involved!One of the most notable things about the Stop the War Coalition is that when the SWP (and their “socialist” hangers on) did everything they could to hide their politics and, crucially, to prevent anyone else who might actually raise socialist ideas from getting anywhere near a platform. When the Stop the War Coalition had a mass or semi-mass character in some areas it was often worth putting up with the anti-democratic practices for the chance to interact with the people involved. Now that most local groups have disappeared or withered to a small core of liberals, oddballs and sectarians-pretending-to-be-liberals, I don’t think that going to those meetings is likely to be a very good use of scarce resources. The question of whether you “abstain or fight” is always a concrete one – there’s no point in waging a “fight” if there’s nothing of value to fight over.That’s a nice campaign website you pointed me towards. I don’t know what makes you think its “the principal NHS campaign” though, other than the fact that SR/ISG supports it. I’ve never heard of it and it is pretty much invisible on a national level – just like most of the other campaigns.

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