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Why we are resigning from SWP: an open letter

This comes from Luna 17. The letter – which was emailed to Martin Smith, Socialist Workers Party National Secretary, around lunchtime today – is signed by 42 SWP members. A further 18 people who have resigned from the SWP in recent weeks endorse it too. The full lists of names appear at the foot of…

Liam
3–5 minutes

This comes from Luna 17.

The letter – which was emailed to Martin Smith, Socialist Workers Party National Secretary, around lunchtime today – is signed by 42 SWP members. A further 18 people who have resigned from the SWP in recent weeks endorse it too. The full lists of names appear at the foot of this post.

‘We are writing to resign from the Socialist Workers Party. We do this with great sadness but the events of recent weeks leave us with little choice.

The immediate reason for our resignation is the attempt by the Central Committee to stop Lindsey German, the convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, from speaking at a Stop the War meeting in Newcastle. This demand was justified by the claim that the meeting was ‘disputed’ or bogus. In fact, it was a properly constituted Stop the War public meeting, agreed at two consecutive Tyneside steering committees. Two SWP members tried to block the meeting because it clashed with a party branch meeting. The Stop the War meeting was a success, but was boycotted by the local SWP. The Central Committee demanded that Lindsey should not go to the meeting and ‘reserved the right’ to take disciplinary action if she attended.

Such sectarian behaviour does enormous damage to the standing of the party in the movement. Unfortunately, it fits into what is now a well-established pattern.

For many years, the SWP has played a dynamic role in the development of mass movements in Britain. The party made an important contribution to the great anti-capitalist mobilisations at the start of the decade, it threw itself into the Stop the War Coalition and was central to the Respect electoral project. These achievements were dependent on an open, non-sectarian approach to joint work with others on the left and a systematic commitment to building the movements.

The SWP leadership has abandoned this approach. The task of building broad, political opposition in every area to the disasters created by neoliberalism and war is now subordinated to short term party building. We believe this undermines both the movements and the prospects of building an open and effective revolutionary current in the

The most glaring mistake has been the SWP’s refusal to engage with others in shaping a broad left response to the recession, clearly the most pressing task facing the left. Even valuable recent initiatives, like the Right to Work campaign, have minimised the involvement of Labour MPs, union leaders and others who have the capability to mobilise beyond the traditional left.

An authoritarian internal regime has developed as a result of this change in direction. In the run up to the recent party conference, four members of the Left Platform opposition were disciplined, three of them expelled. Since the conference, four of the remaining student comrades at the School of Oriental and African studies in London have been effectively pushed out of the party. A comrade in Newcastle was given an ultimatum to resign from a key position in the local movement in January. He resigned from the party and 10 comrades left in protest at his treatment. The use of disciplinary methods to ‘win’ arguments is completely foreign to the traditions to the SWP and should have no place in the socialist movement.

For these reasons we are now submitting our resignations. We do not do so lightly and we will of course remain active socialists and revolutionaries. We all joined the party because we felt it would make us more effective. Sadly, we now feel that is no longer the case. We have, however, enormous respect for the many fine comrades in the SWP and we regard it as essential to continue to work with SWP members in the unions and campaigns, since we all share a broad agreement on the need to confront recession, war and fascism. We remain convinced of the need for revolutionary socialist organisation. In fact, the need for a radical political alternative and resistance on a massive scale has rarely been more urgent.’

William Alderson

Sian Barrett

Christophe Chataigne

Kate Connelly

Margi Corcoran

Adrian Cousins

Anita de Klerk

Noel Douglas

Reid Dudley-Smith

Mark Ewington

Camille Fairbairn

Sam Fairbairn

Neil Faulkner

Des Freedman

Jo Gough

Elaine Graham-Leigh

Maham Hashmi

Madeline Hennigan

Penny Hicks

James Hilsdon

Feyzi Ismail

Sean Jackson

Naz Massoumi

Narz Massoumi

James Meadway

Brendan Montague

Jackie Mulhalen

Chris Nineham

Samantha Carwenne Oxby

Henry Parkyn-Smith

Dan Poulton

Tia Randall

John Rees

Kirsty Richardson

Steve Sacre

Angela Selleck

Mark D Smith

Guy Taylor

Carole Vincent

John Whearty

Tom Whittaker

Hesham Yafai

The following have resigned in recent weeks and would like to endorse this statement.

Elly Badcock

Will Bowman

Jane Claveley

John Cooper

Adam Cornell

Kevin Deane

Tony Dowling

James Kennell

Dave McAlister

Jack McGlen

Viva Msimang

Matt Richards

Sara El Sheekh

Caitlin Southern

Lindy Syson

Owen Taylor

Mark Tyers

Sonia Van De Bilt

26 responses to “Why we are resigning from SWP: an open letter”

  1. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    Hey, Meaders! The SWP’s loss is, well, somebody’s gain.

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  2. modernityblog Avatar
    modernityblog

    I assume, that given the mass resignations, they will try and start their own group?

    SWP Mk II ? Not a good name, perhaps they’ll go back to the International Socialists name?

    Or could it be enteryism into Respect?

    Whatever they do they’ll have to build up some momentum and money or they’ll fade away.

    They could try the Green Left?

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  3. EddM Avatar
    EddM

    SWP 2.0!

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  4. Derek Wall Avatar
    Derek Wall

    The ISO in the USA are pretty good comrades with a growing interest in ecosocialism and good fraternal relations with the USFI and Green Party, so that might give them some ideas.

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  5. John Mullen Avatar
    John Mullen

    I am in another country so it is difficult for me to judge the rights and wrongs of all this. But I have been in revolutionary politics for many long years,and supposing the leadership quite wrongly stopped someone speaking at a meeting, I can’t understand how this could be a point for group resignation. You resign in a group when you think 1) that the mistakes of the leadership will almost certainly never be corrected, even in a few years time and 2) when you have somewhere else to go.

    When you build an opposition faction (I know about doing this) as well as very good and sharp elements you also inevitably attract a bunch of assorted dicontents. The resigners must all be in one of these two categories, i would think, and that means, to me, that it is a very small group and fundamentally not viable as a separate small group.

    It’s sad, and I think you should join again in a year’s time.
    in revolution
    John Mullen

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  6. John Mullen Avatar
    John Mullen

    Sorry, read “discontents”

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  7. Duncan Chapel Avatar
    Duncan Chapel

    John, I am not so sure. Sadly, there’s no minimum size for a small group to sustain itself. And consider the Mutiny event, which was organised and supported by many London folk in the group that just left. They gathered around 130 young workers and students: that shows the elan and organising potential of that team. Also, if the SWP continues to step back from STWC, excludes the faction from SWP public events, totemises them internally, marginalises them in events of the SWP’s key alliances and generally creates clear space between it and them, then the SWP will itself turn them into a pole of attraction.

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  8. Jason Avatar
    Jason

    I’m not so sure it is sad, John, except perhaps on a personal level.

    Granted it will have been a painful decision for many and friendships will be strained perhaps to breaking point. But sometimes painful decisions have to be made.

    What is needed objectively is to build direct action movements of workers, of working class service users to begin to take on battles and win. Socialists argue within these movements for the most radical form of democracy possible- having collective discussions, making collective decisions, openly and democratically by votes when there’s disagreements and link this with the socialist society we seek to create where services are run under the direct democracy of the working class.

    This is far more important than building this or that socialist group and actually in the long term by open, honest, patient work to break down the prejudice many have (and not always unjustifiably) against the left we will do far more to build a socialist group and eventually revolutionary party within a revitalised working class movement.

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  9. entdinglichung Avatar
    entdinglichung

    when this continues, who will be left in the SWP in two years?

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  10. Mark Victorystooge Avatar
    Mark Victorystooge

    There is no lower limit in size. There was a husband and wife team who called themselves the “Red Star Collective” and intervened in the USA around the American Indian Movement and other things.
    Mind you, their effectiveness may have been helped by the fact that they were also FBI agents.

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  11. modernityblog Avatar
    modernityblog

    entdinglichung,

    Martin Smith!

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  12. martin ohr Avatar
    martin ohr

    seems to me like a very feeble resignation letter justifying very feeble resignations.

    If anything the internal regime is less authoritarian since cliff’s death simply by the fact that there is some space to argue and no pope decreeing each new opportunistic turn.

    It makes no sense for the resignees to form their own group, since the first logical task of such a group would be to fuse with the SWP but demand minority rights- since they share 100% the same politics and methods. It certainly makes no sense for there to be an swp splinter with indistinct politics. Presumably those involved will fall away from revolutionary politics and concentrate instead on being leaders within the former SWP fronts for a short time, before joining the mass ranks of embittered ex-swpers.

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  13. Jason Avatar
    Jason

    I don’t agree that it’s feeble. It certainly hasn’t made a full break from the methods of the SWP but the basic reason is sound- too many left groups are more interested in building themselves than building the movement.

    If socalism is ever to mean anything it should be about encouraging the initiative of working class communities to take action for ourselves, the self-emancipation of the working class by direct action and participation.

    The statement contains some encouraging comments. Of course how far the new group- and it is I think in contrast to Martin essential that socialists organise in a group or current- are different in reality will only be proved in practice.

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  14. modernityblog Avatar
    modernityblog

    It might be feeble but what else could they do? Hang around to be expelled, or to jump than be pushed.

    Obviously it makes every sense to form their own group, to try and maintain their own political cohesion, from their point of view.

    To the rest of us it may seem peculiar, but I imagine we’ll see a lot more of them and they’ll probably have a fairly good Internet presence if Ady Cousins has a hand in it.

    Counter Fire was probably one of the better SWP initiatives in the last few years, although I can understand why the Central committee were probably not very happy with it, you get the impression that they’d really haven’t quite grasped the Internet, or even PCs, and how they can be used to communicate to the masses.

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  15. Derek Wall Avatar
    Derek Wall

    “Red Star Collective’ were they indigenous marxists like Hugo Blanco?

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  16. Duncan Chapel Avatar
    Duncan Chapel

    Hi Derek,

    No, the Red Star Collective were Gi and Jill Shafer, two of the
    FBI agent provocateurs placed inside Wounded Knee. Take a look at: http://bit.ly/Wounded_Knee

    Duncan.

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  17. skidmarx Avatar
    skidmarx

    Jason – It certainly hasn’t made a full break from the methods of the SWP
    Perhaps because you might think that should be their agenda, but it isn’t relevant to them.

    I’d actually agree with most of what martin ohr and modernity say, except modernity’s first paragraph: there was maybe the option of accepting the majority decision.

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  18. Mark Victorystooge Avatar
    Mark Victorystooge

    That’s right. They were FBI agents. The name just sounded nice and left-wing. Their actions were part of COINTELPRO.

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  19. Mark Victorystooge Avatar
    Mark Victorystooge

    Sometimes the spectacular failures of the British left (visible enough to anyone who follows left blogs) make me wonder whether “Red Star Collectives” have something to do with it, and if so, how much. Whereas in the 1970s, some light was shed (though not enough) on US intelligence machinations, nothing like that has happened on this side of the pond.

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  20. modernityblog Avatar
    modernityblog

    I doubt the spooks had much to do with the fuck ups on the British Left, they’d have to be a lot more organise and canny than they are now, if that were the case.

    Rather the British Left with its bickering, pettiness and hubris was perfectly capable of fucking things up all on its own.

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  21. alf Avatar
    alf

    well let us stop fucking up and reverse habits of a life time.

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  22. Mark Victorystooge Avatar
    Mark Victorystooge

    Perhaps. But scathing though I can be about the British left, I have trouble believing that its pretty unbroken history of screwing up is a purely natural occurrence, unaided by state intervention.
    I am in the Netherlands at the moment, and the security services here have some previous when it comes to setting up ostensibly left outfits. In the 1950s, they set up a fake Communist Party to compound the real one’s post-Khrushchev secret speech crisis. In a fit of self-congratulation, the Dutch security service published a book in the early 1990s describing what it had done decades before. Later, a fake Maoist one was set up as well, even getting invited to send official representatives to China etc. There was even a “Guardian” article about the latter one. Apparently, when a member of the latter who had joined in good faith complained, not realising it had been a state creation, the leader of the group called him as an “idiot”.
    If the Dutch were doing it, who is to say similar goings-on didn’t happen on the left in the UK, just across the North Sea? And who is to say it is not happening right now?

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  23. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    In case anyone’s interested Lyndsey German is now speaking at next weeks convention of the left in manchester

    http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2965

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  24. Ronnie Avatar
    Ronnie

    I am afraid to say that Lindsey and John are testing their own medicine now. When many SWP activists were expelled in the past because their criticisms of lack democracy in SWP neither John nor Lindsey were taking side democratically.

    If Lindsey and John set up their own organisation then that is a clear reason that they left the SWP for personal reasons rather then political.

    I have not seen a shred of political difference that Lindsey and John said so far.

    If I am wrong then correct me please.

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  25. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    That was then.
    This is now.
    Who knows what the future holds?

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  26. Vincent Avatar
    Vincent

    I wish the comrades well. Those of us who have been through splits or expulsions in the past know how demoralising it is in the aftermath of such experiences.

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