Meeting of former SWP members

January 10, 2008 at 5:30 pm

norwegian

the isg has sunk to a new sectarian low, i see. You really are beyond contempt.

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January 10, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Hospital Worker

Of course, it would not be possible to arrange such a meeting of ex-members of socialist resistance, as they have never had much of a membership to speak of anyway. 13 people to sell the new “Celebrity Respect” paper is frankly pitiful.

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January 10, 2008 at 6:14 pm

Across the pond socialist

It’s a great idea and many thanks to Liam for posting this.

There are many, many, many ex or current SWPers who have been disgruntled with what has happened and with how socialists should organize. Discussions like these are crucial.

The response by the SWP-bots is predictable though lamentable. I expect this comment box to be inundated with such comments by the die-hards who are unwilling to question the CC line. After all, what’s so dangerous or wrong with ex or current SWP members meeting and discussing their political experiences? The SWP prides itself in following the Bolsheviks, yet how un-Bolshevik are these negative comments?

In fact, these comments owe more to another, less palatable socialist tradition. I’m thinking of Stalinism if you don’t already know.

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January 10, 2008 at 7:54 pm

Tina

Ger Francis writes:

“Ex-SWP members who express criticism are inevitably described as ‘bitter’, ‘cynical’ or, as in my case, driven by ‘hatred’. Maybe some are like this, but then maybe some have reason to be. In general however it is a cheap put-down”

And one that Ger in his former SWP days has never been guilty of I suppose….

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January 10, 2008 at 11:06 pm

Liam

Tsk tsk Tina.

Norwegian, what is your point? Would you rather that the comrades dropped out of political activity?

My view is that it’s better that they remain active in socialist politics and that one of the things that will facilitate this is an opportunity to review their recent experiences and work out what to do next. What’s wrong with that?

They would probably have preferred to advertise the meeting with a full page advert in SW but that probably not an option that’s open to them. Instead they can now use 21st century technology to organise. As should be obvious to anyone familiar with this site some political traditions have a slightly different attitude to political pluralism. Sorry if that upsets you.

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January 10, 2008 at 11:29 pm

jj

perhaps Ger will get them to join socialist action!

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January 10, 2008 at 11:39 pm

Ger Francis

The only role jj appears to play on these blogs is to regurgitate gossip. Try some politics instead.

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January 11, 2008 at 12:14 am

jj

seemed to have touched a nerve it just seems likely you have jumped into the camp of socialist action by your transformed politics.
by the way when will RR exec be elected I see they are due to meet this weekend to look at KL etc. Any chance of letting your members decide??
I know thats old fashioned view in your world but hey give it a go.
Am I right in hearing your 2 cllr’s in B’Ham voted different ways recently in a council meeting regarding single status?

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January 11, 2008 at 5:21 am

Tom

If Ger Francis has joined Socialist Action, I think this is important news. If it is true, then why try to hide it? And if Respect Renewal’s two councillors in Ger Francis’ home turf vote different ways on anything in the council chamber, this is even more important. It is important because it demonstrates that Respect Renewal is not in the least bit democratic. On the contrary, it is nothing more than a flag of convenience for those who cannot abide by democratic decisions in Respect nor anywhere else. If it turns out that one of these councillors voted in a way that is anathema to all right-minded socialists, then the electorate in Birmingham needs to have this pointed out to them. And the rest of Respect Renewal’s members around the country need to know. That way they will be able to reassess their membership, which they would want to do if they are genuine socialists. Why does Ger deem these issues as gossip? His attempt to side step them in this manner suggests that he has something to hide. Maybe in order to shed some light on what is going on in Respect Renewal in Birmingham, socialists will have to conduct entryist work. Then we could post their internal documents onto blogs specifically designed for this purpose: an SWP version of Andy Newman’s aptly-named named ‘SUN’ blog.

By the way, Ger’s refusal to deny his having joined Socialist Action speaks volumes. As does the secretive nature of his new friends. Maybe we should set up a group for all ex-members of Socialist Action. Maybe Ger would like to post the details of these individuals so we can get in touch with them. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t.

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January 11, 2008 at 8:30 am

Bystander

“Maybe in order to shed some light on what is going on in Respect Renewal in Birmingham, socialists will have to conduct entryist work”

Great idea Tom. Why don’t you get one of your alter egos / voices-in-your-head to do it? I suggest ‘Mary’ would be up to the job?

I’ll have a word with Q and see if we can get some false documents made up. And maybe a poisonous pen.

Meanwhile, in the real world…

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January 11, 2008 at 10:01 am

Ger Francis

jj: you were wrong in your description of my motivation being one of ‘hatred’; you are wrong that I have joined SA; and you are wrong that about any division between our cllrs on Single Status. Again, drop the gossip, try some politics. You will get more respect for it.

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January 11, 2008 at 10:44 am

Ger Francis

jj: ‘Am I right in hearing your 2 cllr’s in B’Ham voted different ways recently in a council meeting regarding single status?’

Apparently it is recorded in the minutes that on an amendment to a motion regarding single status, Cllr Ishtiaq abstained. I have not seen the minutes myself, but I am assured by both councillors, and somebody who was in the gallery at the time of the vote, that if this is the case, it is an inaccurate recording of what happened at the meeting. If true, it won’t be the first time the council have got something wrong.

What is funny about all of this is when I was in the SWP it proved extremely difficult to get any SWP members, including nearly all their union representatives, to take any interest in the working of the council at elected level. Even trying to get any briefings out of them as union reps so that she could better articulate the union case inside the council was like trying to get blood out of a stone. Now, caught up with sectarian zeal, they are pouring over the minutes, desperate to try and trip-up the most left wing grouping on the council. It is indicative of a pretty sad degeneration.

Anyway, this is all a deliberate distraction by those who never speak about their own track record in building Respect, but are desperate to try and discredit one of the few areas in the country where we have been succesful. It won’t work.

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January 11, 2008 at 11:20 am

Birmingham Respect Member

Just a point of clarification re the single status vote:

When this was raised at our committee meeting last night, Ishtiaq was certain that he had voted to oppose the council on single status, and certain that he had voted the same way as Salma.

The councillors vote electronically, and observers can see the result in lights on a panel. One of our members who was sitting in the gallery confirmed he had seen that both councillors voted the same way, and that he certainly would have noticed had they not done so.

Whether this is a problem with the electronic voting system, or an error by the minute taker, it is not an accurate reflection of the opinion of the councillors. Both of them oppose the council on single status and will continue to do so.

By the way, any innaccuracy in the minutes did not have any effect on the result of the vote on the resolution or amendment.

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January 11, 2008 at 1:28 pm

Prinkipo Exile

The minutes of the Birmingham Council meeting on 4 December **DO** show Cllr Ishtiaq as abstaining in the vote against the Tories on single status, while Cllr Yaqoob was against.

If this is an error in minuting it should be taken up with the council and, if necessary, a public statement made that this was not what was intended. As the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of the Tories (61 For 37 Ag 2Ab) the vote of the Respect councillors made no difference to the outcome.

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/democracy/Pages/MeetingSearch.aspx?FromDate=04/12/2007&ToDate=04/12/2007&MeetSubType=141

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January 11, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Ger Francis

The inaccuracy in the minutes will be addressed. The following statement has been issued from Cllr Salma Yaqoob and Cllr Mohammed Ishtiaq in support of tomorrows demo.

“We believe it is a disgrace that in the name of a national equal pay deal the City Council is trying to cut the wages of thousands of already low paid staff.

It says it does not have the cash to pay, but refuses to demand that the government pay the shortfall.

It is a scandal that Gordon Brown can pay £24 billion- nearly £1,000 from every taxpayer – to bail out the bankers of Northern Rock but he refuses to allocate cash to compensate for fair pay in Birmingham.

This new pay and grading system was supposed to drive up the wages of our lowest paid council employees.

Instead, according to the councils own figures, over 3,000 mainly women cleaners will be getting miserable increases of up to £99 a year – less than £1.50 per week after tax. In addition, many more council workers are suffering huge cuts to their pay packets.

We stand shoulder to shoulder with the 16,000 council workers refusing to sign these imposed contracts.”

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January 11, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Ex SWPer

As a former SWP member who still yearns to be involved in activism, I’ll be at the meeting!

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January 11, 2008 at 7:12 pm

Kevin Ovenden

Ger

It’s an excellent idea to hold such a meeting. I think there will be widespread support for it, judging by the responses I’ve heard and the similar suggestiions that have been coming from comrades over the last couple of months.

I understand that Martin Smith accepted in late November that 70 people had left the SWP over the leadership’s fostering of a split in Respect.

The indications I have are that the figure is significantly higher than that.

Meeting up would also encourage those inside the SWP who are thoroughly demoralised by the course the party has gone down.

As for your question to Norwegian, Liam: you’ve answered it. The SWP leadership and its supporters would far rather that those whom it has expelled or driven out of the SWP dropped out of political activity entirely (or turned up as employees of Stephen Byers or something). One of their unspoken fears is that for the best part of a decade in England the SWP’s USP was that there was nothing much on the left between it and the Labour left, which is in secular decline.

Now, if there is a vibrant left formation which has elected representatives, a press, a pluralistic method of working and a purchase way beyond the traditional far left, then that can seriously undermine that claim.

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January 11, 2008 at 7:15 pm

Digger

Before you start some witch hunt against the UNISON member who took the minutes at the Brum Council meeting in December, as someone present in the gallery my recollection is that Councillor Ishtiaq wasn’t in the chamber when the vote was taken, hence the abstention recording.

As you can see from the statement both Respect (Renewal) Councillors oppose the Council on this issue and its best to debate the real issues we disagree on.

I note that Ger can’t resist the temptation to attack the SWP UNISON members centrally involved in leading this dispute. Yet more evidence how the split in Respect weakens the movement, rather than strenthens it.

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January 11, 2008 at 7:17 pm

steveR

Ger where do you get the information about 16,000 refusing to sign – i was told at a unison stewards’ meeting that “a mole in the HR dept” said that 60% of council staff have REFUSED the new contract, ie sent it back “refusal”. in my small workplace, most did nothing, ie did not sign but these aren’t included in the “60%”. As the size of the affected workforce is certainly a lot higher than 27,000 something doesn’t add up.

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January 11, 2008 at 7:21 pm

steveR

…and Ger, don’t say you BELIEVE any of that council-crap spiel about the pay-and-grading review.

Cllr Rudge on BRMB said that the council workforce is 51,000-strong; i thought it was more like 45,000
and it’s said that “40,000” redundancy notices (“termination of contract” notices) have been issued

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January 11, 2008 at 7:26 pm

Kevin Ovenden

“This new pay and grading system was supposed to drive up the wages of our lowest paid council employees.”

So this kind of statement – to be found in any trade union bulletin or in any left propaganda around these kinds of issues – is now greeted with “don’t say you BELIEVE any of that…”

This is braindead stuff and driven by bog-eyed sectarianism.

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January 11, 2008 at 8:26 pm

Stuart King

Meeting of ex-SWP members

Ger Francis has proposed a national meeting of ex-members of the SWP. This sounds a very positive proposal. There are many generations of expelled/resigned members of the SWP still active in politics – from the 70s, 80s, 90s etc – who could contribute to a sensible discussion of what was wrong with the politics and internal organisation of the SWP and how it developed over the decades.

Out of this maybe we could come to a better understanding of the problems of building a revolutionary alternative in Britain today. Obviously ex-SWP members have gone their different ways and are now in many different organizations and none, but it would still be useful to hear the different experiences and analysis of all these comrades – some of the contributions on the Socialist Unity website already demonstrate this.

Maybe a series of regional-local socialist forums/discussion groups could take this initiative forward as well. Maybe such meetings could also attract SWP members who still want to remain in the organization but are willing to think critically.

I was in the SWP from 1969-1975, being expelled with hundreds of others in the 1970s ‘purges’ and certainly would be willing to come to such a national meeting and have responded positively to Ger’s invitation.

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January 11, 2008 at 8:57 pm

Ger Francis

Digger is well aware of my frustrations with SWP Unison activists for not briefing our councillors so that they are better able to intervene in the council chamber and raise union concerns. Salma never understood that while they have councillors prepared to fire on their behalf, SWP Unison activists showed little interest in providing them with any ammunition.

My comments were related specifically to that issue, and not to the role of SWP activists in the current dispute which, from what I can see on the outside, is very commendable. So lets nail that one before it goes any further.

Digger says in relation to the council that the split weakens resistance. Yes, but then he should look closer to home if he wants to do something about it. The commitment of the Respect councillors to work with SWP unison activists in raising issues inside the council has not changed one iota since the split. What has changed is the SWP’s attitude towards the Respect councillors, which has considerably worsened.

If the split is hindering work within the council, it is only because SWP sectarianism is allowing it to.

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January 11, 2008 at 9:27 pm

Digger

No Ger, what has changed is that when SWP activist in UNISON and outside attend Respect members meetings in South Birmingham they are denounced as unfit to work with.

We could all nitpick over past issues, for example I drafted 4 letters for Salma on Council Housing, none of which were sent, despite this being a crucial issue in Birmingham. I even gave out Respect leaflets that referred to “social” housing, the New Labour term for their alternative to Council Housing.

The fact is that it when SWP members are referred to as dwarfs and leeches, there is a blowback from such rhetoric.

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January 11, 2008 at 10:13 pm

Derek Wall

We can argue all we like but it is important to campaign on common goals such as opposing Birmingham City Council attacks on the workforce.

Surely no problem in doing this…there are a lot of people across Birmingham in different parties and none campaigning on cuts, ‘restructuring’…..defence of council housing.

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January 11, 2008 at 10:24 pm

Ger Francis

Indeed Derek. Whatever name calling has taken place in the context of an internal Respect dispute, and I have never heard anybody say SWP members were ‘unfit to work with’, it should be totally irrelevant to how SWP UNISON activists operate. Yet Digger appears to be saying that SWP members in Birmingham city council are not going to brief Respect councillors to take up their members concerns because of this dispute.

Our councillors have big issues with the SWP, but are prepared to work with them for the better interests of the council staff. But the SWP are not. Instead, they are allowing their differences in Respect to spill over and infect their union work.

I would suggest Digger take a step back from the frenzy of a faction fight and look at where the logic of SWP sectarianism is now taking him.

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January 11, 2008 at 10:40 pm

Andy

Stuart King: “I was in the SWP from 1969-1975”

This would be the organisation launched on 1st January 1977.

shome mishtake shurely?

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January 12, 2008 at 12:42 am

Kevin Ovenden

Andy

That is actually priceless. I shall refer Stuart to this point should the need arise.

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January 12, 2008 at 9:47 am

tonyc

How odd that Digger should play this game.

See, someone I was formerly close to on the tube in the SWP has been going round denouncing me for recent activities.

But we got together the other day to discuss how to fight an attack on tube workers by management.

See how it works, if you’re not sectarian? I think the guy has behaved in a really rotten way, but I still know who is in the same universe as me politically. Before we started discussing things, we agreed to put all of that out of bounds, cos it was irrelevant to what we had to do.

You, on the other hand, seem to have a desire to use words like “witch-hunt” (see your post above) at the drop of a hat, and to put words into the mouths of people who haven’t said them.

This is fairly typical behaviour from you and the people who take your position on the blogs.

Sad, really, and desperately childish. I see this in the wider SWP, where a key layer of RMT activists is now totally ignored by the SWP cos of our position over Respect. Martin Smith has even told the one tube worker who supports the leadership to effectively cut out any SWP member who doesn’t – so even within the SWP’s ranks, they’re willing to let their actions on Respect spill over into wider political activity.

As always, the tube workers are an example to the movement though, and we’re ignoring this nonsense at work. We may profoundly disagree, and we may have been smeared by the SWP but we’ll work with any serious activist who knows where the real fight is.

Perhaps Digger can explain why, when I’ve been personally smeared by 3 CC members of the SWP, local organisers and on-the-ground members, I’m still not just happy to work with the same on-the-ground SWP members, I think it’s vital that I do.

Where’s the “blowback” (your term) there?

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January 12, 2008 at 11:14 am

Derek Wall

‘Stuart King: “I was in the SWP from 1969-1975″

This would be the organisation launched on 1st January 1977.

shome mishtake shurely?’

International Socialists to the SWP…its like the Ecology Party to the Green Party or Respect to Respect Renewed….again lets not nit pick.

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January 12, 2008 at 11:50 am

Matthew

Stuart’s proposal should be welcomed, but why’s he been waiting for 33 years to get together with ex-comrades. Maybe he could organise something himself and issue an invite. i’m the response will be good.

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January 12, 2008 at 12:38 pm

cameron

Can ex-members of the SWP now in the CPGB come along if they show their Respect cards Ger?

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January 12, 2008 at 11:55 pm

top tip

No Derek

The change of name from IS to SWP also carried with it a change of political culture and perspective, and was must be seen in conjunction with the IS expelling a large part of its industrial base a couple of years earlier.

The difference is between a small group who thinks it can contribute to building a socialist party, and a smal group that that thinks it already is a socialist party.

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January 13, 2008 at 12:16 am

DCM

“There are a considerable number of ex-members already involved”

Bet you don’t need both hands to count this ‘considerable number’.

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January 13, 2008 at 11:42 am

Nice – so Stuart seriously takes Ger up on the offer and gets bad-mouthed and teased.

Liam, if you are serious about supporting Ger’s initiative then perhaps you should have clarified that it only applies to ex-SWP/IS members who Ger and his buddies approve of. This can’t be taken seriously!

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January 13, 2008 at 12:46 pm

RobM

TWP77- I might be wrong but I thought Stuart was a member of something like PR and does not, to my knowledge, support Respect, OR the Renewal faction.

So how, on that basis, can he be considered ‘serious’ in taking up Ger’s offer above.

Just read again what is being proposed- it is premised on the idea that ‘Ex-SWP members have invaluable experience and a role to play in this new project’

Somehow I think that rules out Stuart, Cameron, Mike Pearn etc. Hell, even Jim Denham could say he was ex-SWP and should be allowed in!

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January 13, 2008 at 1:10 pm

Ok Rob but let’s be realistic then – Ger is not actually inviting all ex-SWP members to a meeting – what he is doing is inviting all ex-SWP members who have not joined any other organisation since leaving the SWP. This is different from the “open” proposal that others are making it out to be.

If he simply wants to gather around ex-SWP members who already agree with RR and its project instead of seeking to genuinely rebuild the left then he should say say and not pretend that this is some kind of open invitation to all ex members.

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January 13, 2008 at 2:23 pm

bill j

Actually, and who knows we might be putting words in his mouth, it appears that Francis is inviting ex-SWP members who have joined RR.
In other words its a party caucus.

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January 13, 2008 at 5:45 pm

Matthew

You know reading is quite important to debate and Ger wrote:
“GG, Salma and the rest of us are attempting to renew Respect so that it can fulfill it original aim: to be an alternative to the parties of bombing and big business, and to seek to progress the totality of the left, and not just or part of it. Ex-SWP members have invaluable experience and a role to play in this new project”
and that was the context for the invite. There was no pretence. The only pretence comes from those who have access to a new-found truth and really just want an oportunity to share it. They are still lovely people and can issue their own invites to meetings that will rebuild the left.

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a very public sociologist

January 13, 2008 at 5:49 pm

Perhaps a way round this would be to have a national meeting of ex-SWP members, followed by a meeting of those who support Respect Renewal? Sounds sensible to me.

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January 13, 2008 at 7:05 pm

RobM

A national meeting of exSWPers would be fun. Bloody pointless, but fun nonetheless. I am sure it would be immensely popular (we missed a trick not doing it as a Christmas party) – such that a real problem would be to identify those who really are ex-SWP and the gatecrashers who just came for the cabaret and sausage rolls.
I really don’t know why, in 30 years, no-one has called one before and I can’t understand why members of other little groups are so keen on the idea now (you’ve moved on so, er, move on…)

What I do know is that Ger’s proposal, and that of the Manchester and other comrades has nothing whatsoever to do with the above.

It seems to me it is essentially a meeting of those comrades who found themselves outside of the SWP recently over the Respect debacle or who may have dropped out in the relatively recent past or who may still be inside the SWP but highly critical of the leadership or regime.
Crucially, it is a call to those comrades who were and are supporters of Respect and before it the Socialist alliance, as centres for left regroupment, and who are now primarily in the orbit of the Renewal faction.
I suppose other individuals might be welcome to attend but they should be aware that it will be a meeting of comrades with a serious committment to building a broad left formation like Respect and not a recruitment knocking-shop for professional sectarians.

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January 13, 2008 at 7:50 pm

bill j

“Crucially, it is a call to those comrades who were and are supporters of Respect and before it the Socialist alliance, as centres for left regroupment, and who are now primarily in the orbit of the Renewal faction.”

So that’s just about everyone then.

And what is;
“a recruitment knocking-shop for professional sectarians”?

btw I never was in the SWP or IS so have no personal interest. (Just thought I’d declare my interest before I was accused of wanting to enter a knocking shop.)

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January 13, 2008 at 9:41 pm

cameron

RobM makes a valiant attempt at setting the invitation list so wide that it seems only to exclude the ‘sectarians’ like myself. However, it falls down on the following grounds.

1. People like Rob Hoveman were central in killing the Socialist Alliance. There is no obvious connection between those who were dissllusioned by the demise of the SA / rise of Respect and those now supporting RR.

2. What about ex-members of the SWP in Scotland? Can those who opposed joining the SSP in 2001 come? Or those who thought the SWP sabotaged the SSP (no one in RR from the SWP in England spoke out)? Solidarity members only? Or none from Scotland welcome since RR only organises south of the border?

3. What about people liked Andy who have moved out of the IS tradition (no bad thing necessarily) and has strangely embraced a version of eurocommunism?

I could actually list several other reasons.

It isn’t about wanting to get in (a simple job to perform anyway). Its about recoiling in some horror at another embyonic left formation founding itself in the most closed, cliquey way possible.

Ger performing the role of doorkeeper to the meeting might just turn off some of those you want to attend.

Of course have purely private,internal meetings. No probs with that. Any serious group starts with these and I’m sure they have happened, even if taking place in the pub.

But the way nature of this invitation has been sent out is bound to lead some to think that no lessons have been learned from the SWP experience.

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January 14, 2008 at 12:25 am

jj

the rr cllr says he voted against and another person present stated he wasn’t in the chamber to vote. ummm seems one is telling porky pies. Perhaps Ger could let un know what really happend. I mean RR states it there to back resistance but leaving the chamber is a bit of a problem if thats what happend is it not? The size of the vote is not the issue its wether RR can be trusted to back 100% those resisting cuts.

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January 14, 2008 at 10:23 am

johng

first item on the agenda…’problems with the invite’. second item ‘lessons of the invite’. third item ‘the legitimacy of invite factions’. fourth item ‘colloquim on the importance of openess’. AOB.

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January 14, 2008 at 10:26 am

johng

a few days later an inspiring report from Liam. Which will include the lines ‘All of us changed our minds several times in a completely genuine way’.

This will be followed by an insane fight about exactly what this proves.

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January 14, 2008 at 10:42 am

top tip

Cameron

I am flattered to be considered an entire category in my own right. I intend to go to the meeting if I can arrange childcare.

The terms of the meeting are quite clear to me. It is a meeting of people who have been in the SWP who are broadly sympathetic to the arguments of those of us working in Respect.

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January 14, 2008 at 10:43 am

andy newman

oh yeah – that was me

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January 14, 2008 at 10:55 am

Matthew

Cameron can call and organise a lovely meeting as well. The way, the truth, the light all beckon.
johng doesn’t have to call a meeting, but we know he also has access to the way, the truth, the light.

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January 14, 2008 at 1:25 pm

RobM

Cameron seems to think i was making an attempt to set an invitation list- not true, I merely speculated on the type of genuine punters a meeting of this sort might attract. There are probably others, as he points out.

It is hard to take Cameron seriously when he refers to Rob Hoveman as being involved in ‘killing’ the Socialist Alliance.
If the SA was murdered, it was strangled to make way for Respect- an organisation of which Cameron claims to be a supporter.

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January 14, 2008 at 2:15 pm

cameron

I guess Sue Blackmore isn’t invited.

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January 14, 2008 at 2:18 pm

cameron

I guess Sue Blackmore isn’t invited

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January 14, 2008 at 2:23 pm

I meant my comments seriously. Indeed it is curious why no one has called a meeting before now but it is an inititative to be welcomed if it is truly open.

For example, there is going to be the first ever “Trotsky Conference” taking place in the States this year which will be mostly made up of ex-US SWPers. Already the discussion list has proven very useful and informative as ex-members discuss a number of issues about the left in the US and their political conclusions based on their experience in the US SWP.

This is a good initiative and involves ex-US SWPers who both are and are not in groups. This is the only way to have a conference like this – it must be an open affair where every ex-member is allowed to have their say. Surely if ex-members are now in groups and their experience in the SWP led them to becoming a member of said groups then that should be discussed?

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January 14, 2008 at 3:30 pm

johng

“johng doesn’t have to call a meeting, but we know he also has access to the way, the truth, the light”

In general this sort of thing might be considered a sectarian jibe but in my case its obviously just true.

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January 14, 2008 at 3:31 pm

johng

I don’t think they’re going to let the AWL in TWP.

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January 14, 2008 at 3:48 pm

RobM

Who is Sue Bl…re?

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January 14, 2008 at 4:27 pm

cameron

Oops. Its Sue Bl…ll. Sorry.

Ger will vouch for her.

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January 14, 2008 at 4:32 pm

Jay Woolrich

Sue Blackmore on the other hand is a neuroscientist who started off as an investigator of the paranormal – so she might well be a useful addition to the roster.

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January 14, 2008 at 5:01 pm

RobM

Ah! I see- I thought perhaps Comrade Diaz had made a mistake with her name but then he posted it again 3 minutes later…

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January 14, 2008 at 8:16 pm

Stuart King

Well I did’t think a positive response to a proposal to have a meeting of ex-SWP members would cause such a stir! Obviously upper most in some comrades minds is how to exclude people from such a meeting rather than seeing it as an opportunity to draw socialists into a discussion. Perhaps this tells us something about why the far left in Britain is so small and getting smaller.

Political clarity is always a good idea, so if comrades are planning a national meeting of ex-members of the SWP inside Respect Renewal they should perhaps say so (although what Respect Renewal will think of having an SWP Mark II formed in their midst is anyone’s guess). Of course such a meeting would be narrow, would exclude other socialists in RR, socialists and ex-SWPers in Respect, all the socialists and trade unionists who dropped out of the Socialist Alliance because they thought that Respect wasn’t the way to go, etc. But maybe that’s what comrades feel comfortable with.

But if they thought of moving outside their comfort zone maybe they should consider organising slightly broader meetings. Why not try local meetings in Manchester, Birmingham, London for example? Focus them around real issues that the split in Respect and the SWP have raised – How does the internal regime in the SWP relate to the crisis in Respect and of the left in general? Do the splits in Respect and in the SSP mean broad left parties are doomed? Is the ‘reform versus revolution’ debate just irrelevant today? The Campaign for a New Workers Party and the LRC – how does the left campaign/fight together? If such meetings were full of ‘the strange and the sad’ (the Jim Denham’s that haunt the left) well we would have failed. But if they were well chaired, organised, broad-based they might produce a resonance on the left.

Why now? Because the Respect debacle is probably the most serious crisis in the SWP for 30 years – not because of the numbers expelled, but because its major tactic fought for in the last several years has gone down in flames leaving many members bewildered. Do the ex-SWP cdes want to relate to this or put their heads down and “build the party” again in RR?

PS I do know I was expelled from IS but the idea that IS/SWP were two different organisations is laughable – do you think Chris Harman thinks he has led one or two organisations since the 1960s?. Only socialist trainspotters would care that the name was changed over 30 years ago.

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January 14, 2008 at 8:38 pm

Liam

Stuart, no more catty remarks about this site’s core readership please!

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January 14, 2008 at 11:22 pm

andy newman

Stuart:

” do know I was expelled from IS but the idea that IS/SWP were two different organisations is laughable – do you think Chris Harman thinks he has led one or two organisations since the 1960s?. Only socialist trainspotters would care that the name was changed over 30 years ago.”

Ask Roger Protz.

A number of former Is comrades will admantly tell you they were never a memebr of the SWP.

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January 14, 2008 at 11:44 pm

I used to share an organisation with John Palmer, Richard Kuper and Stephen Marks, all of whom were ex-IS but none, I think, ex-SWP.

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January 15, 2008 at 8:25 am

fran

http://books.google.com/books?id=S3mBjtBR-3wC&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=windscale+new+name&source=web&ots=w9R0Aft4Cs&sig=upPukiaBpqk8aRrEWhXdzayNxi0

Changing the name Windscale to Sellafield certainly fooled everyone. There has never been a nuclear accident at Sellafield. And there are no potatos or tomatos in the United States. when these fruit and veg are imported from Britain, they miraculously change into tomatos and potatos. Although spelt the same, their pronounciation is different. Ergo, they can’t be the same things. When people in cyberspace participate on blogs and give themselves names other than what appears on their birth certificate, they become different people. And when the Electoral Commission explains that Liam, Kevin, George, Salma have to remove the word “Respect” from their name, their party will be a completely new party, and entirely seperate from Respect, and Respect Renewal.

BTW, I was a member of the SWP. Do I get to attend this meeting? Apparently not, because my poliitics are the exact opposite of Ger Francis’. Those who resigned from or were expelled from the SWP (since it rebranded itself) have no common program. Ger only wants to stitch together a network of those who can act as support for each one another, in in particular Ger Francis. He knows, (as does Ovenden, Hoveman, Wrack and co) that as isolated individuals their shelf life within Respect Renewal is coming to an end. My heart bleeds. As for Alan Thornett and his “Trotskyist” bag carriers, they will also be told to liquidate themselves. Stop acting like Russian Dolls. Stop caucussing. Stop voting as a bloc on issues like abortion or anything else. Until you agree to stop acting like a party within a party, there will be no votes of any significance in Respect Renewal. No votes that George might lose. Thornettt et al had better settle for the role of George Galloway cheer leader. Otherwise, they had better move aside so he can appoint a new set of “key” people.

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January 15, 2008 at 10:50 am

when the Electoral Commission explains that Liam, Kevin, George, Salma have to remove the word “Respect” from their name, their party will be a completely new party, and entirely seperate from Respect, and Respect Renewal.

I look forward to the day when RESPECT/SWP and RR go their separate ways. I don’t think the decision would necessarily go exactly that way – I think there’s a chance that, in the case of a dispute within the electoral party whose elected MP is George Galloway, and which is registered to fight elections under the banner of “RESPECT – George Galloway”, the Electoral Commission might decide in favour of the faction which includes George Galloway.

But that’s secondary. I’m just glad to see that somebody on the R/SWP side of the argument is acknowledging that there is a dispute and that the Electoral Commission will eventually have something to say about it. The question is whether those concerned sit on their hands and wait for the EC to toss a coin, or try and come to an agreement among themselves.

BTW, I was a member of the SWP. Do I get to attend this meeting? Apparently not, because my poliitics are the exact opposite of Ger Francis’.

I don’t think anyone’s stopping you going. There seems to be an extraordinary amount of confusion on this thread between who’s eligible to attend and who will actually want to attend. This is such an elementary distinction – it’s hard to imagine any situation where group B would be identical to group A – that I can’t help wondering if all the bafflement being expressed is entirely genuine.

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January 15, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Matthew

How can you have the exact opposite politics of Ger? Does that make you a, youknow, fascist?

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January 15, 2008 at 1:31 pm

andy newman

On the queston of whether the IS is the same as the SWP.

Is a catapillar a moth?

Is the CPGB the CPB ?

If there was no disjuncture would Peter Sedgwick have written the artcile “The SWP Fraud”, in the SWP Internal Bulletin #1, in February 1977?

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January 15, 2008 at 3:26 pm

djn

Post the bulletin andy, post it!

Why don’t you just post all the bulletins you have?

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January 15, 2008 at 6:58 pm

Stuart King

I have not read the Sedgwick article but maybe the “fraud” he was referring to was that the name change made no difference, the organisation remained the same.

But Andy, it was over three decades ago – does anybody care? Isn’t it time you moved on?

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January 15, 2008 at 7:51 pm

RobM

Form someone who claims to have been in the SWP (sic) as late as 1975 Stuart King is remarkably ignorant of Peter Sedgewick’s politics and his position a couple of years later!

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January 15, 2008 at 8:36 pm

Andy

Stuart.

It would not be remarkable for a younger or less experienced comrade to be ignorant of the debates in the IS in the 1970s, but your whole bid to be included in discussions was that you had been in the IS and therefore had relevent expereince.

You now show that you had almost no grasp of the political debates in the IS during the period around when you were in it, and after you had just left.

So you are franklynot being honest when you say you want to participate on the basis of your own expereince of membership of the IS. I might say: “it was over three decades ago – does anybody care? Isn’t it time you moved on?”

In truth you want to seel us the Trotskite snake oil, the value of which can be seen by the fact that your PR group today has less members than thr Left Opposition did when you were expelled in 1975. After 30 years effort on your part!

that is what you devoted your life to. i hope you think it was worth it.

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January 15, 2008 at 11:48 pm

bill j

Lol.

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January 16, 2008 at 12:58 am

peterm

Those interested in past writings by socialists, like Peter Sedgwick, can sometimes find them sprinkled around the internet in archives and other collections. Just a google away.

For example:
Peter Sedgwick (Leeds District), The SWP Fraud, Socialist Workers Party Bulletin, No.1 February 1977.
Transcribed by Mike Pearn.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/sedgwick/1976/12/fraud.htm
Also available are other writings by him from 1954 to 1984.

A valuable resource, I would think, for socialists of all stripes and especially useful for those of us unfamiliar with his contributions. I will certainly take the time to see what he had to say since I’m not familiar with all the details of that time. Perhaps it will prove useful for others to read it as well….?

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January 16, 2008 at 1:12 pm

johng

“Trotskyite SnakeOil”.

Oh wars.

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January 16, 2008 at 1:54 pm

Come on, John, nobody likes Trotskyites – not even Leninists (maybe even especially not Leninists). (That’s how I remember it, anyway – the last time I was rubbing shoulders with Fourth Internationalists I think there still was a degenerated workers’ state to argue about.) It’s all in the suffix.

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January 16, 2008 at 2:33 pm

andy newman

Exactly, JOhn G will be defending the Posadists next.

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January 16, 2008 at 3:44 pm

johng

I’ll always remember a talk by Paul Foot in which he described how Jimmy Reed wrote an article describing ‘Trotskyite’ as some strange foreign weed. Foot was very funny as he often could be.

But in some ways watching the appearence of these rather strange revivals of eurocommunism and bits and bobs of 80’s nostalgia, I’m in mind of some sort of strange post-modern politics, where nothing is as it seems.

curiouser and curiouser. I can remember the Eurocoms the first time round. Their bite was a lot worse then Andy’s bark.

Almost makes me long for the real thing.

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January 16, 2008 at 4:16 pm

Summary

So, gentlemen, the debate so far:

1) The important thing for the British Left is to try to organise all the SWP’s ex-members and attract existing members with the intention of precipitating a split in that organisation.

2) The important thing for the British Left is that we can’t give the SWP an inch, especially since they are responsible for our predicament.

3) The important thing for the British Left is that the SWP is in no sense like the SWP/is a direct continuation of the SWP.

4) The important thing for the British Left is that Roger Protz was once a member of/was never a member of the SWP.

5) The important thing for the British Left is that in 1977, an internal bulletin of the SWP contained severe criticism of the party’s new direction.

6) The important thing for the British Left is that the SWP is horribly sectarian and indulges in gossip, while we are delightfully yielding and absolutely refuse to discuss the minutiae of such a rancorous sect. Please send in your donations.

Best of luck.

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January 16, 2008 at 5:15 pm

bill j

You left out

7) The important thing for the British Left is that Andy is free to insult whoever he chooses, whenever he chooses.

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January 16, 2008 at 5:58 pm

johng

No, no 8) is much more important. People change their mind in a genuine sort of a way about all these issues over and over again.

It does remind me a little of anarchists going on about freedom at the same time as having the most rigidly hierarchical and tyrannical set of habits imaginable. The shared value between them and various forms of left reformism being one of complete unaccountability combined with lots of talk about pluralism etc.

On another (but related) note if you want personality cults and other kinds of authoritarian unpleasentness I’ve always thought that the best place to go is the Labour Party. And I don’t just mean Blairites either. Ferret like behaviour abounding.

In that sense the revolutionary left has always had an unfairly bad press. And whilst Andy’s right to be sarcastic about me defending PR (sorry comrades but its true that I don’t feel a lot of political affinity) there is just something deeply unpleasent about the tone of all this. On the whole there is just no need for it.

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January 16, 2008 at 6:23 pm

bill j

Sorry I didn’t realise you were defending PR!
I’m sure that won’t stop Andy tho’, it is after all his purpose on earth.
As for political affinity, then well, it depends what you mean doesn’t it? I would say I have a lot of political affinity with most SWP members, albeit, certain barriers stand between us,
most of which are, in my view, exaggerated for effect.

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January 16, 2008 at 6:48 pm

That ‘Summary’ wasn’t even right enough to be funny. It was wrong enough to be slightly irritating, though, so I’ll trample all over the atmosphere of light-hearted badinage which I know John is trying to generate with this po-faced amendment.

1) Some commenters on a blog somewhere find it of interest to try to organise all the SWP’s ex-members, although nobody’s talking about attracting existing members, let alone trying to precipitate a split in that organisation. (Although it would be jolly exciting if they were. Is there a memo I haven’t seen?)

2) Some commenters on a blog somewhere have expressed hostility to the SWP. Naughty them.

3) Some commenters on a blog somewhere believe that the SWP is a direct continuation of IS. Others don’t.

4) Some commenters on a blog somewhere find it of interest that Roger Protz was once a member of IS but was never a member of the SWP.

5) Some commenters on a blog somewhere find it of interest that in 1977, an internal bulletin of the SWP contained severe criticism of the party’s new direction.

6) Some commenters on a blog somewhere believe that the SWP is horribly sectarian, while at the same time freely confessing to a trainspotterish interest in the minutiae of the aforesaid rancorous sect.

And, er, that’s it. In short, I’m not really sure where you’re going with that, ‘Summary’, although if I read the general drift of your remarks correctly an appropriate rejoinder might be to point out that, if you see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and you see where that dog’s crapped on the grass, that’s you, that is.

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January 16, 2008 at 7:04 pm

andy newman

Bill J : “The important thing for the British Left is that Andy is free to insult whoever he chooses, whenever he chooses.”

Well it pays to have a specialism.

Sorry, I just don’t take anyone remotely seriously who tries to occupy political space to the left of the SWP!

PR and WP are especially good value for money in the humour stakes becasue you take yourselves so seriously.

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January 16, 2008 at 7:42 pm

anne

Phil wrote

“Come on, John, nobody likes Trotskyites – not even Leninists (maybe even especially not Leninists). (That’s how I remember it, anyway – the last time I was rubbing shoulders with Fourth Internationalists I think there still was a degenerated workers’ state to argue about.) It’s all in the suffix.”

Andy responds “Exactly”. I’m glad someone knows what your drivelling on about. The Trotskyists are Leninists. Full stop. It is possible that your last sentence is distinguishing between Trotskyists and Trotskyites, but what point you are trying to make is lost on me. As for everyone hating Trotskyists (assuming you are not distinguishing between the insult used by Stalinists and the terms used by Trotsky’s supporters… What about Liam and Thornett? And the rest of the ISG’s supporters deemed “key” members by Galloway? Do they hate Trotskyists? As for degenerated workers’ states no longer existing.. Well, what about Cuba, China and North Korea? Admittedly, the slightly different qualifying adjective is used “deformed” rather than “degenerated.” Additionally, not all Trotskyists agree that these states are indeed any form of workers’ state. The SWP, for example. However, the problem still exists. And even if they had all disappeared, there remains the important question of how to designate them. After all, if they were qualitatively superior, then we need to popularise them vis-a-vis capitalism. Personally, I am with Chris Harman on these questions. So, apparently, is Francis, Ovenden, Hoveman, Wrack, Newman. Or did their support for the theory of state captialism melt into thin air the moment they misplaced their party cards?

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January 16, 2008 at 8:16 pm

andy newman

Does anyone think that Anne might be Tom Delargy?

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January 16, 2008 at 8:48 pm

johng

sorry wasn’t intending to be insulting to PR.

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January 16, 2008 at 8:50 pm

johng

Phil,

I suspect not being lighthearted about this particular thread might be bad for the health.

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January 16, 2008 at 10:36 pm

Tom: I’m glad someone knows what your drivelling on about.

Me too. I hate it when nobody understands what I drivel on about.

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January 16, 2008 at 10:56 pm

bill j

No probs John, I didn’t think that’s how it was intended.
As for Andy “the rudest person you’ve never met” Newman, of course that’s entirely different.

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January 16, 2008 at 11:53 pm

Liam

90 comments on what I thought was going to be a quick point of information. Perhaps one or two of the contributors to this thread could find a pub where you could all meet up to chew the cud. Or set up a blog.

Here’s something to excite you all. Socialist Resistance books is republishing Jim Higgins’ book “More Years for the Locust -The Origins of the SWP”. It’ll be ready in 2-3 weeks.

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January 17, 2008 at 12:20 am

Hurrah! I know I could read it online, but anything beyond a couple of thousand words I always want to print off anyway.

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January 17, 2008 at 2:50 am

djn

“Here’s something to excite you all. Socialist Resistance books is republishing Jim Higgins’ book “More Years for the Locust -The Origins of the SWP”. It’ll be ready in 2-3 weeks.”

*sigh*

Save yourself the money:
http://marxists.org/archive/higgins/1997/locust/index.htm

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January 17, 2008 at 10:19 am

andy newman

Well done for reprinting the Higgins book.

it is particularly useful in its discussion of the early years. In terms of the later split with the IS opposition, Higgins doesn’t really adress the degree to which the IS’s transitional appriach to the shop stewards movement wa sbeing overtaken by events, and therefore up to a point Cliff was no more wrong than they were. He also glosses over a bit the fact that he was as complicit in creating the machinery that turned against him as anyone was.

Geberally, in trms of a political account of what it was all about, i would say Martin Shaw’s artcie from 1978 has stood the test fo time better:
http://www.martinshaw.org/is.htm

Interesting that in Ian Birchilll’s 1978 reply to it in Socialist regsiter, Birchill concedes that factually Shaw is largely correct. So we must simply judge whether the last thirty years have been kinder to Birchill’s or Shaw’s interpreation

(in the interest of balanc,e here is Birchill’s article (PDF)
http://socialistregister.com/socialistregister.com/files/SR_1979_Birchall.pdf )

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January 17, 2008 at 9:30 pm

Stuart King

I think we should thank Andy for drawing Peter Sedgwick’s article to our attention, even if he did not dare quote from it. Let me:

“The case made for the SWP was partly an element in this ‘electoral strategy’. Otherwise there is no particular reason to start an SWP at this moment, there is no particular reason, on the other hand, not to start an SWP. Since we cannot, in the present bad political climate, change class reality very much, the conclusion is drawn that we have to perform changes on the name of IS itself, in the delusion that this is some step towards the actual construction of a revolutionary socialist workers’ party…

International Socialists are not yet a Socialist Workers Party, and will not get one whit nearer to that position in the working class by some fancy rallying and pseudo-inauguration. Forward with the IS!”

So what is the “fraud” Sedgewick is referring to? The fact that to change the name makes no difference to the reality of the organisation, its strength, implantation in the working class, influence etc.

We should also note that this is a polemic against the decision of the IS/SWP leadership to stand in elections “in a vacuum of industrial militancy”. The result Sedgewick said would be a pathetic showing and demoralization – he was to be proved right.

Our modern day electoralists should take note. Of course people like Andy and the SWP leaders did a few years ago. The solution they decided was to not stand as revolutionaries, indeed not even as socialists, and get heaps of votes. That didn’t work either!

By the way Andy has that Socialist Unity group grown since you left the SWP or is it still the same one-man band?

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January 17, 2008 at 10:24 pm

andy newman

The socialist unity network was never a group in the sense you mean Stuart, it has been a loose affinity network.

You misread Sedgewick. the question was that the SWP ws not just a switch in electiralist strategy, read Cliff at the time, he saw the electoral strategy as part of a rapid growith in size ansd infleunce,, recruiting tens of thosunads in a few months.

So the SWP was not only a break from the IS, but a failure.

Only once that balloon popped did the SWP have to revert to a routine like the IS.

What it represented was a break from a certain idea of transitional politics in the IS, that saw the shop stewards movemtn as a potential transiational organisation (see Steve Jeferries in Internatioal Socialism #76 March 1975), to an organisation that had no transiatioonal strategy other than “building the party”.

Nature was reversed, a butterfy became a caterpiller.

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January 17, 2008 at 10:53 pm

bill j

Electoralism certainly was a failure. But how is it possible to mis-read this;

“What we are short of, comrades, is not new initials but a new phase of class action. ”

How apt.

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January 17, 2008 at 11:20 pm

PRPRPR

What about PR? Galloway needs one version, which is why he hires an apolitical agent, which he shares with racist moron jade Goody. The working class needs a different version: electoral reform. And some contributors to this blog have felt the need to trade in workers’ power for a third version. I am not, by the way, taking sides in this split.

As for electoralism, it is never a case of whether to exploit the opportunties presented by standing, but the basis upon which to do this. The IS/SWP either should have conducted entryist work like the rest of the Trotskyists or they should have exposed Labour’s left flank in the electoral arena. Peter Sedgewick was wrong in what he argued, just as the IS had been prior to standing in elections and then abandoning this tactic. The problem the SWP have still to solve is how to extend an olive branch to reformist workers for to the right of Trotskyism, but far to the left of New Labour. Workers want to exploit any opportunity to give Brown (and Blair before him) a bloody nose. However, it is essential to carefully select an electoral program that entices workers who have no intention of joining a revolutionary party. This requires the method of the united front, workers’ government. However, it is essential for the new organisation to be democratic. This is the only way to make an organisation that does not split over and over again. By justifying a substantial lack of accountability on the basis that there is a fundamental split between reformists and revolutionaries, Harman has given everyone an excuse to ignore all votes they don’t win. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Establish a democratic working class party, where the SWP will fight for their position, but accept votes that go against them, and grant minorities an opportunity to organise themselves to win hegemony within the broad workers’ party, and minorities won’t split away at the earliest opportunity. The SWP has taken a sizeable step in the right direction (at the point where the ISG does the opposite), but they still have a foot in the wrong camp.

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January 18, 2008 at 1:02 pm

adam

Andy still peddles nonsense. Let us grant that when the IS adoopted the SWP nomenclature, other changes, less cosmetic changes did in fact take place. I for one am prepared to concede this. However, what does this say about the basis upon which Ger Francis is letting ex-SWP members come together? Supporters of Ger’s proposal insist that the cut off point is this particular name change. We are told that those who left the SWP prior to this name change cannot come to this meeting. However, what about those who left within hours of the name change? Has the SWP not undergone many, many changes since the name change? Yes, it has. A very large percentage of those who have left in the last three decades have abandoned politics altogether or are careerists in the trade unions or Labour Party, or have moved still further to the right. What makes them more eligible to attend this meeting than PR members? The answer is obvious. Ger Francis has no connection to anything that was positive in the IS/SWP. If any half-decent socialist manages to get into this meeting, one of the first things they will do is insist that Ger Francis is voted off as coordinator of this group. And, for such audacity, Francis will expell them. Before or after this, the rest of the assembly will turn on each other as they discover that they have nothing in common. At least nothing that will hold them all together. If this meeting ever gets off the ground, it will split immediately into a variety of factions. Ger will walk away with Ovenden, Hoveman, Wrack and a handful of other members of Respect Renewal who are already in contact via facebook. Maybe Ger will tell us how many attend this meeting (if it ever happens), how many agree to stay in contact, how many remain in contact, exactly how much joint activist the latter engage in, and what proportion (roughly) of ex-SWP members are attracted to Ger Francis. My guess is that this proposal will be quietly dropped.

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January 18, 2008 at 4:54 pm

We are told that those who left the SWP prior to this name change cannot come to this meeting.

Are we?

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January 18, 2008 at 4:55 pm

bill j

If indeed you are right (Francis hasn’t said yet), then that obviously explains Andy’s enthusiasm for exaggerating the differences between the IS and the SWP.
It doesn’t really help him tho, there are still plenty of ex-SWP members who aren’t in RR.
Having said that, if the meeting was limited to ex-SWP members only, then it would still be a step forward.

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January 18, 2008 at 5:21 pm

If indeed you are right (Francis hasn’t said yet), then that obviously explains Andy’s enthusiasm for exaggerating the differences between the IS and the SWP.

Eh? If Ger Francis hasn’t said ex-IS comrades aren’t invited, then presumably ‘we’ haven’t been ‘told’ any such thing. So ‘adam’ is either lying or mind-reading – but if it’s the latter, that might explain why Andy backs the IS left critique of the SWP. Clear as dialectical mud.

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January 18, 2008 at 7:54 pm

Well it would be helpful if Liam gave us his opinion on what he thinks about the matter since I suspect that his intention in posting it was to encourage the idea.

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January 18, 2008 at 8:55 pm

adam

‘Phil’ makes his points with his usual ineptness. Nothing he says ever make any sense to me. He says that Francis has not ruled out IS members joining. If that is the case then why did he not intervene to clarify the situation when every George Galloway supporter who welcomed his proposal denounced members of the IS who also welcomed this proposal? Every one of you have denounced PR members because they were members of the IS three decades ago, but seem happy to allow those who quit the SWP a matter of hours after the name change proposal was passed. All the legitimate arguments that have been used to reject Stuart King’s participation in this meeting must apply equally to others who waited until after the name change before tearing up their party card. The idea that there is some unifying principle around which members of the SWP can unite is too rediculous for words.I was a member of the SWP, and am no longer a member. Can I come to this meeting? This is a rhetorical question. If told I can attend, I will argue for Ger Francis being removed as coordinator of this ex-SWP members’ group. The ex-SWP members who are considered “key” members by George Galloway are in no better than the eurocommunists of Marxism Today. Maybe I am being unfair to Ger Francis. Maybe the only reason he has not responded favourably to the appeals of PR members to participate in this gathering is because he has been too busy to read this blog. I very much doubt it though. My guess is that he has seen it, and it has sent shivers down his spine. He won’t touch PR members with a bargepole any more than he would let me join his ex-SWP members’ group. For we would operate within this group the same way Galloway’s supporters operated within the SWP: as entryists.

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January 18, 2008 at 11:19 pm

Liam

TWP, my opinion on this is of no significance but here it is.

I hadn’t realised how alive the IS/SWP issue still is. It’s not my political tradition and I can offer no insight on those differences.

The major recent event which persuaded people to leave the SWP was Respect. The comrades who have been through that experience should analyse it collectively. A spectrum of views and conclusions will probably emerge.

After that consenting adults can do as they see fit.

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January 18, 2008 at 11:42 pm

Andy

Liam

The issue of whether or not the SWP was a disjuncture from the IS is really not a live issue, but the history of what went wrong is obviously relevant for many of us who spent years building the organiation.

It is thereofre a fairly obscure discussion, and one that the PR comrades don’t seem to have a handle on, they were after all expelled for having a programatic conception of transuiational politics, different political trajectory from either the Cliff side or the Higgins/Protz/palmer side.

Much more relevent is that they have a different political project from most people who are likely to be interested in the recent expereince of ex-SWP members committed to Respect, or interested in resepct.

I am bewildered by their apparent sense of entitlement to come to a meeting, and even more bewlidered by TWP’s interest.

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January 19, 2008 at 12:24 am

If told I can attend, I will argue for Ger Francis being removed as coordinator of this ex-SWP members’ group.
…
we would operate within this group the same way Galloway’s supporters operated within the SWP: as entryists.

Rrrright. To recap, Ger calls a meeting of ex-SWP members to talk about regrouping in the wake of the RESPECT split. You’re hostile to RESPECT as it was founded, hostile to RR and hostile to Ger’s proposal, but you object to being excluded from it, even though you acknowledge that if you *were* included you’d use disruptive methods to try to turn it into something completely different.

I think what you may be missing here is that it’s actually possible for there to be more than one group of ex-SWP members. What we’re looking at here isn’t the One True Successor Group for Ex-SWP Members, it’s a meeting being organised by a specific person and in a context set by a specific political project. If you don’t like that person and don’t have any interest in that project, it would seem sensible not to attend.

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January 19, 2008 at 1:05 am

Ger Francis

Thanks Phil. So good it is worth reposting:

‘I think what you may be missing here is that it’s actually possible for there to be more than one group of ex-SWP members. What we’re looking at here isn’t the One True Successor Group for Ex-SWP Members, it’s a meeting being organised by a specific person and in a context set by a specific political project. If you don’t like that person and don’t have any interest in that project, it would seem sensible not to attend.’

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January 19, 2008 at 10:01 am

bill j

So no news then. It’s a party caucus.

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January 19, 2008 at 10:06 am

Ok then that’s settled. That should have been stated from the outset. It wasn’t clear that this was a call for recent ex-SWPers from the original posting.

Andy – I am “bewildered” that you continue to be amazed everytime I express and opinion on anything having to the with the British left.

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January 19, 2008 at 11:01 am

Martin Ohr

oh my god, I thought the whole original post was a joke and that all the commenters were in on the joke.

The thought that a set of ex-swpers would be arguing about who qualifies to attend a meeting of ex-swpers to discuss how best to organise a faction in an popular front split from the swp is beyond parody.

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January 19, 2008 at 1:17 pm

Ger Francis

bill j and twp77: the post was very clear:

‘GG, Salma and the rest of us are attempting to renew Respect so that it can fulfill it original aim: to be an alternative to the parties of bombing and big business, and to seek to progress the totality of the left, and not just or part of it. Ex-SWP members have invaluable experience and a role to play in this new project.’

In short, if you are interested ‘in this new project’, get in touch, if not don’t. PR, Workers Power or whatever you call yourself are hostile, and your expressions of interest are disingenuous.

This meeting is not ‘a party caucus’. I would welcome those ex IS/SWP members who maybe have not been involved in Respect but who are sympathetic to it, and to playing a role within it.

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January 19, 2008 at 4:36 pm

bill j

We know what we call ourselves. What do you call yourself?

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January 19, 2008 at 5:14 pm

Ger – Excuse me but Stuart’s original reply – if you care to look at it – was not hostile in the slightest. On the contrary it was rather complimentary of your idea and it was his reply to the post which received the hostility from your comrades. You seem to seem Stuart “hostile” simply due to the fact that he is in another organisation.

If you and other RR members are actually serious about re-building the left then perhaps you should take comrades seriously who respond positively to your invitations. If, however, you are going to exclude people from the get-go then you should make that known. Nowhere in the original post does it say someone has to be a member of Respect Renewal to participate. If that’s the case then fine. But please don’t try to construe this as though PR comrades have done anything wrong by simply responding to your “open” invitation.

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January 19, 2008 at 7:26 pm

Ger Francis

twp77 – You are right. Stuart’s post was not hostile. Just disingenuous. Elsewhere he writes: ‘Respect remains a political organisation that no workers or members of the left should give support to in elections or otherwise,’ while repeating the usual ultra-left guff about ‘communalism’:

http://www.permanentrevolution.net//?view=entry&entry=1773

If somebody is going to spout this kind of sectarianism nonsense, it is irrelevant to me whether they are an ex-SWP member or not.

If you want something sensible to read, start with Salma’s demolition job of the ultra-left critique of Respect. There is a lot of wisdom in it:

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1406

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January 19, 2008 at 8:28 pm

andy newman

Ger’s original post said:

GG, Salma and the rest of us are attempting to renew Respect so that it can fulfill it original aim: to be an alternative to the parties of bombing and big business, and to seek to progress the totality of the left, and not just or part of it. Ex-SWP members have invaluable experience and a role to play in this new project. There are a considerable number of ex-members already involved and comrades from Manchester have suggested that we should all meet. I think it is good idea. The agenda is open.

BUt TWP interprets this as

If you and other RR members are actually serious about re-building the left then perhaps you should take comrades seriously who respond positively to your invitations. If, however, you are going to exclude people from the get-go then you should make that known. Nowhere in the original post does it say someone has to be a member of Respect Renewal to participate.

and to Liam

, if you are serious about supporting Ger’s initiative then perhaps you should have clarified that it only applies to ex-SWP/IS members who Ger and his buddies approve of. This can’t be taken seriously!

this is why I am a bit suprised by your attitude TWP, why do you say it cannot be taken seriously?

I think having some discrimination about who you think it is fruitful to have political collaboration with is more serious. Otherwise in adition to PR, and thrCPGB perhaps the sparts and the Brarite CPGB(ML) should be invited?

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January 19, 2008 at 10:07 pm

Well Andy if you had your way it looks like no one who is in any current far left organisation is welcome.

Why can’t it be taken seriously? Well for starters because I thought the fundamental purpose of the Respect project as it existed, and as you claim it now exists in Respect Renewal, was to draw forces together on the existing left as well as attracting new forces – at least that is how Liam always explained the project to me.

I have seen very little of any attempt to do this sort of thing, particularly from you Andy. In fact what I have seen is a lot of bile and nastiness directed towards nearly every far left organisation that currently exists (so much for “discrimination”!): PR, CPGB, AWL, SWP and so forth.

Where exactly do you think the people are going to come from the build your new mass organisation if all you continue to do is alienate those who are on the left currently? Where is this army of cadre who have been educated in the labour movement in Britain going to come from? Do you honestly believe that people who have had accusations, hostility and bile thrown at them for simply being Trotskyists are going to suddenly come running into the arms of RR?

This is why I say this project can’t be taken seriously if it were going to be a true attempt to unite the far left (Ger has clarified that indeed this was not what he was attempting to do – fair enough).

You completely disregard my comments about the efforts in the US currently to have a serious regroupment of ex-US SWP members. It has proven a useful exercise and promises to be a good conference precisely because it was decided early on that no former members would be excluded and the everyone would be allowed to argue their politics at the conference.

What this means is that various ex-US SWP members in the states from groups like Socialist Action (US), Solidarity (US) and the US Green Party are going to come together and have a serious discussion about the way forward for the US left. That’s the type of initiative I would like to see here in Britain. Clearly, that is not the type of initiative that comrades in Respect Renewal are interested in – and I do honestly think that is a shame.

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January 19, 2008 at 10:40 pm

andy newman

TWP

This meeting was never intended, and never suggested by anyone to be an attempt to regroup the far left. It’s more limited remit was clear from the beginning.

Neither was the discussion ever about whether those groups were welcome in RR, nor indeed am I in any authority to say who is welcome in RR or not.

However it is quite clear that those groups have no particular affinity with the whole project to build a broad left of labour party filling the space of social democracy. They have different priorities and projects, we will see whch projects are most succesful judged by their impact in the workers movement.

With regard to your US example, there is no prospect of left regroupment based upon a programatic or ideological converegnce unless that is first underpinned by a sustained period of practical cooperation around real life issues. So a conference would be of academic interest to some, but would generate no new momentum to break the logjam.

I think you are unfair to bundle the SWp in with PR. AWL, CPGB et al. Despite its faults, and the misleadership, the SWP often plays a constructive role.

Of course some individual members of the groupiscules also play a constructive role in the movement (George B for example) but this seems to me to be despite rather than becasue of their party membership.

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January 19, 2008 at 10:42 pm

Derek Wall

Hopefully they will back Cynthia…by the way, do you mean the ex IS members or the ex-actually USA SWP which comes from a very different political tradition….socialist worker as a newspaper is run by a group that split from the UK SWP and I think works with the Green Party in the US

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January 19, 2008 at 11:29 pm

andy newman

I think the initiative TWP is referring to is the SWP(US) of Jack barnes.

The ISO former sister org of the SWP(GB) is indeed working now with the Greens, and ISO member Todd Chretien, stood as the Green candidate for the Senate in California.

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January 20, 2008 at 12:45 am

George B

Andy – back-handed compliments to her partner are not going to gain you points in TWP’s book, though I am somewhat surprised to learn that my notoriety stretches to Swindon. My recollection is that we have only met once when I thought you mildly cynical but quite comradely. What a difference some 16 months has made.

You are right, by the way, that the conference to which TWP referred is for ex-members of the Socialist Workers Party (US), which has published ‘The Militant’ for nearly 70 years (a very sorry shadow of its former self) and, as I understand it, other interested comrades.

For some time now, the organisation has indeed been under the autocratic control of Jack Barnes, but was founded by one James P Cannon, the wielder of an eloquent pen, who would undoubtedly be dismissed in your world view as one of the original peddlers of ‘Trotskyite snake oil’.

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January 20, 2008 at 10:57 am

bill j

Nor in anyone else’s, which leaves us to ask what is the point of the ex-SWP/IS Respect Renewal regroupment of the left within the not-regroupment of the left which is Respect Renewal?
Andy “the post datum and factum Stalinist” Newman, in what appears to be a sorry attempt to recreate a popular front albeit with the shadow of the bourgeoisie, but without the working class, wants to build …well lets be honest it changes by the day.
Francis wants an electoral vehicle for George Galloway, Salma Yaqoob and assorted acolytes.
Which of course leaves the ex-SWP/IS members who really do want a regroupment of the left in a broader party.
In their respect, if you want my personal opinion, then I think organising a left faction/caucus within Respect is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, given the divergent class forces within it, and the likelihood of trouble ahead.
But the last people I’d want in such a faction are Francis and Newman, who let’s be honest, have a different, much narrower and in fact peculiar political perspective altogether.

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January 20, 2008 at 11:34 am

Ger Francis

RR ‘appears to be a sorry attempt to recreate a popular front albeit with the shadow of the bourgeoisie’. This is profound stuff. Keep it coming. The last time I had any contact with the Sparts was in Dublin over 20 years ago. I had forgotten how funny they could be.

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January 20, 2008 at 1:34 pm

bill j

Er…not quite Ger. I said that was Andy’s project, as for yours well its not quite the same is it?
In your case it doesn’t seem to amount to more than an electoral vehicle for GG and SQ and assorted hangers on, (maybe yourself?)
Which is why, if any socialists are thinking about making common cause with yours truly, I’d say be careful.

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January 20, 2008 at 2:59 pm

Halshall

I’m intrested if such a group is formed, not as an old comrades assoc or social club, but for the primary purpose of seeing where we go form the Respect – SWP debacle.

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January 20, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Halshall

Sorry about the spelling.

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January 20, 2008 at 3:32 pm

andy newman

George

You underestimate your fame. I hear good things said about you regarding work on the NSSN committee and with asylum seekers through friends and comrades who come accross you,

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January 20, 2008 at 3:35 pm

RobM

“Which is why, if any socialists are thinking about making common cause with yours truly, I’d say be careful.”

Thanks for the warning Bill, I am sure we will steer clear of you!

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January 20, 2008 at 4:16 pm

bill j

English grammar never was my strong point.

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January 20, 2008 at 9:37 pm

Halshall

Andy,
thanks for the links to the Shaw / Birchall articles.

Looking at them in the context of when they were written, (almost 30 years ago) I get a first impression that IB wins on points by a clear margin.
However looked at now and in the light of the Respect Mk 1 fiasco, I get the distinct gut reaction that the SWP is not at all the party it was then.
Now it seems that MS is vindicated !
IB was one of the 1340 who signed the loyalty pledge.
Asked if he signed out of reflective conviction or unthinking loyalty, I’d say the latter without doubt.
Still we could invite him to the club to see what he has to say, and whether he’s open to persuasion ?

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January 20, 2008 at 9:53 pm

james

Once more in sycophantic mode, Andy Newman tells George

“You underestimate your fame. I hear good things said about you regarding work on the NSSN committee and with asylum seekers through friends and comrades who come accross you”

Kiss of death, George. Check your back for knives

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January 20, 2008 at 10:31 pm

james

Ger Francis responded to Bill J’s accurate assessment of his and Andy Newman’s perspectives. He responded by dismissing them as the delusions of the ultra-sectarian Sparts. Francis is blind to politics between his narrow Galloway/Livingstone horizon on the one hand and, on the other, the Sparts. Francis is too dishonest to admit that he would have dismissed Marx and Engels at the time of the Communist Manifesto as raving lunatics. He would have repeated this when Marx drafted the Critique of the Gotha Program for his German supporters. He would have dismissed Engels’ criticism of Kautsky et al for suggesting that there could be a parliamentary road to socialism. Indeed, he would have dismissed Kautsky for not being satified with capitalism, and insisting on standing candidates against liberals. Lenin and Trotksy also demanded that elections had to be used to popularise workers’ power and the expropriation of the expropriators. All this is outdated nonsense, Francis insists. Maybe Francis would like us to believe that Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotksy were right in what they argued at the time, but this is all outdated now. But none of us believe him. He insists that even when there is a chance of socialists using the London elections to make the case against the tweedle dum, tweedle dee of Blairite and Cameronian capitalism, socialists need to choose the lesser evil. Francis insists that he is well placed to entice three decades of former SWP members. But on what basis? On the basis of support for his wretched anti-socialist politics. Thanks, but no thanks.

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January 21, 2008 at 12:01 am

Stuart King

Ger Francis clarifies that he only wants to invite ex IS/SWP members who support George Galloway’s Respect Renewal to his meeting. He needn’t book Westminster Hall then.

But Ger what is the purpose of this meeting? To organise a socialist faction in RR? To push it to the left? To found a new group on the British left? To win it to Socialist Action and the battle against “Trotskyites”?

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January 21, 2008 at 1:23 pm

TLC

This thread shows an incredible lack of clarity from people who claim to be socialists and marxists. Go back and read the invite. it’s clear that the meeting is about allowing ex-SWP members who support RR to get together and have an open discussion about the the Respect renwal project and socialist politics within it.. No attempt has been made to entice three decades of ex-members for some grand project.

Those who have used this thread to disparage the idea ooutlined in ger’s comments show why the left has such a bad name with the people we wish to influence and work togther with. If you don’t support the ideas behind RR don’t come to the meeting. Why not have a day off, dig the garden, go shopping, sell a paper or two but, please, stop whinging about not being invited to a meeting you don’t wish to attend!

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January 21, 2008 at 10:13 pm

sharif R

TLC is being disengenuous, or possibly simply thick. I’d be amazed if there are more than a couple of dozen ex-SWP members in Respect Renewal. Most of you will all know each other already. By reputation if you have not already met. Ger and co launced their spoiling rally on the day of conference in order to cement the split. Having realised that Wrack, Ovenden, Hoveman and the handful of other leading dissidents had pretty much zero support within the party, they demanded negotiations with those they had told to fuck off. Rees and the rest of Respect’s leadership clearly decided not to negotiate with the enemy. The alleged olive branch has been extended out of sheer desparation. Ger’s comrades are battle weary, disillusioned, on their last legs. The SWP members of this opportunist rabble are particularly worried. Lacking any left-wing, working class pole of attraction as a bargaining counter against those who were recruited solely on the basis of their religion, Wrack, Ovenden, Francis and co must feel particularly vulnerable. Even more so than Thornett’s group. Therefore, John Rees decides not to get the lawyers involved. Galloway’s fan club jumped off the Cliff without a parachute. Falling to his immanent political death, Ger calls out to the very large numbers of ex-SWP members. He did this in the vain hope they might rally to this desparate man, and break his fall. However, those us paying any attention, are told we are not worthy to help him. That’s fine by me. Some people are beyond help.

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January 22, 2008 at 8:34 am

TLC

Nice piece of quality analysis, sharif R.

I can name at least 12 ex-members of the SWP in my own Respect Renewal branch.

But don’t let reality get in the way of your diatribe. It wouldn’t be so much fun, would it?

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January 22, 2008 at 12:56 pm

andy newman

Sharif R are you Tom Delargy?

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January 22, 2008 at 1:09 pm

andy newman

So let me get this straight.

it is OK for me to be described as a Stalinist. depsite the fact that I have no affinity whatsoever with Stalin’s politics.

But people get realy upset about being called “Trotskyites” despite the fact that they are followers of Trotsky?

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January 22, 2008 at 5:13 pm

bill j

Who says you have no affinity with Stalin’s politics?
That seems a rather bizarre claim given your defence of Stalin’s government in the 1930s, your dismissal of Trotskyism and use of insults, “Trotskyite snakeoil” comes to mind, designed to demonstrate an affiliation with Stalinism.
And that’s just the history!
Never mind your terrible “Stalinist” politics for the present.
Its a bit late to back track now.

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January 22, 2008 at 5:39 pm

andy newman

Bill

This is a frankly dishonest account of our debate here:

New Political Party in France ? The Cubans are interested

I distanced myself totally from Stalin, you howwevee supported the positions of the United Left opposition which were at least no better than Stalin’s.
In particular you argue that the Russian government should have put international revolution as a higher priority than preventing catastrpohic famine.

By the measure that I am stalin you are Pol Pot.

So name calling gets us no-where.

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January 22, 2008 at 6:08 pm

bill j

Stalinite snakeoil.

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January 25, 2008 at 10:17 am

Halshall

I see that so far there is no further mention of a club or faction (in RR) for ex SWP / IS.
Does this mean that the idea was just a piece of flim-flam?

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January 25, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Bystander

Nobody was suggesting a club or faction in the first place so I think you might have confused yourself with a bit of self-inflicted flim-flam.

What was proposed was a meeting. I believe this is still in the offing and I expect interested parties will be given details in due course.

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January 25, 2008 at 2:12 pm

Paul

Andy Newman has just dismissedt the United Left opposition an organisation that never actually existed; he presumably is amalgamating out of sheer ignorance two distinct organisations. Let’s not make too much of this error, which pales into insignificance in the context of the rest of his post. The left Opposition and then the United Opposition that embraced the supporters of Zinoviev and Kamenev was no better than Stalin, according to Andy Newman. Trotsky and Zinoviev’s support for international workers’ revolution was the program of Pol Pot! Andy Newman is one of those who wants to bring ex-SWP members together. But he only wants to gather those who share his mindboggling ignorance of the fact that the SWP has always backed the Left Opposition and the United Opposition as representing the continuation of the politics of Lenin and the entire Bolsheviks from the time Lenin won the party to his April Theses, and in most respects tracing their lineage all the way back to Lenin’s first political interventions and the Marxist movement from the Communist Manifesto. Newman, Francis, Ovenden and co have ZERO prospects of getting this support network for ex-SWP members together. And that is because whenever they locate an ex-member, he or she will respond to the sheer ignorance of these people with a shrug, at best. And if any of them chose to take the time to straighten out Andy and the rest of Ken Livingstone’s bag carriers, Andy, Ger and co would tell them to f*** off!

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January 25, 2008 at 2:25 pm

Paul

Actually, on rereading what Andy wrote, I discover that I was being too generous. Not only does Andy denounce Trotsky’s Left Opposition (and the United Opposition that embraced the supporters of Zinoviev and Kamenev, although he is unclear as to the difference between the two groups) as no better than Stalin, with his slave labour camps, mass murder, crushing of trade unions, no contested elections, an atomised population, anti-semitism, Great Russian chauvinism towards the non-Russian population, harsh punishment against homosexuals. I failed to spot the inclusion of the words “at least”, which clearly indicate that Andy thinks Trotsky may have been even worse than Stalin! That is worse than the man who murdered all opposition to him, including those who foolishly chose to ignore Lenin’s advice to have him removed from office. Newman’s politics are the politics of Popular Front Stalinism. End of.

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January 25, 2008 at 2:55 pm

Paul

Comrade Newman denies he is a Stalinist, although that is precisely what he is. Specifically, he is an advocate of Popular Front Stalinism. One difference though is that the Stalinists were a highly disciplined force where ever they organised, and they had genuine links in the working class movement at the time of the Popular Fronts in France, Spain etc. Those who advocate Andy’s politics inside Respect Renewal have no coherence. That is why they are so angry at the SWP, and denounce their collectivists approach as Russian Doll tactics. Stalinism is one of several defining trends within Galloway’s supporters, alongside small businessmen, anti-abortionists, and sundry other reactionaries. These forces have acted as a ball and chain on the SWP. Finally liberated from them, they can mount a challenge that socialists should back. The choise between Lindsey and Livingstone is the choise between Luxemburg and Berstein. As a Popular Front Stalinist, it is no surprise where Andy Newman sets his stall. All those who reject Stalinism, and who are proud to stand in the tradition of the Left Opposition should back Lindsey German. It might not be too late for the ISG to come back to their senses. PR members should reassess the potential for Respect to move in the direction once promised by the Socialist Alliance. It is vital for Respect to establish a long-term relationship with the Socialist Party and their CNWP. The ISG, PR, SP and everyone who stands in the tradition of the Left Oppostion will no doubt back Lindsey German in the first vote. However, it is vital to start negotiations to limt the potential for comrades standing against each other in the GLA elections. There should be no macho posturing, and brinkmanship. Comrades should work inside Respect and the CNWP to knock heads together, rather than crossing fingers and hoping for the best.

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January 25, 2008 at 3:21 pm

Bystander

Blimey Paul, calm down!

Come back Tom Delargy, all is forgiven.

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January 25, 2008 at 3:53 pm

Liam

Paul SR will probably call for a first preference to Lindsey German and a transfer to Livingstone if she does stand though it’s looking less likely. The STV system makes that transfer possible and we are pretty certain that hundreds of thousands of workers will follow our suggestion once they hear about it.

However LG’s organisation has repeatedly demonstrated that it is genetically incapable of building a broader party style formation with other forces. That’s what the split was about. You’ll will find that very few people are willing to be guilt tripped into voting for her by presenting her as the 21st century Rosa Luxemburg. This should be a period for reflecting on how the SWP has cheesed off everyone it has worked with rather than denouncing them as counter revolutionaries.

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January 26, 2008 at 6:34 pm

dear Koba

I agree with Andy

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