If memory serves, Ernest Mandel was referring to a particularly irritating bunch of Belgian Maoists when he said, “we must not be sectarian to the sectarians”. This is, generally speaking, good advice. By contrast, Seamie from Turf Lodge, a proletarian with a view of proletarian democracy which was arguably somewhat less theoretically developed than Mandel’s once remarked of a political disagreement “those arseholes need to have a conversation with six men with hurley sticks”.

I reflected on the relative merits of these two approaches yesterday evening at a protest called by a range of organisations in support of the Palestine Action hunger strikers.  

A possible proof of the existence of a loving and benevolent God is that you can go for years without encountering Fight Racism Fight Imperialism (FRFI). This outfit has set itself the mission of being the most deranged and obnoxious shower on the British far left.

Speaker after speaker reminded us that some of the hunger strikers are reaching a point where death is not far off. Only three types of people would see speeches on this subject as an opportunity to shout down people on the platform. The first type is Zionists and their supporters. They weren’t openly there. The second type is provocateurs trying to disrupt a narrowly focussed solidarity campaign. The third type is head-banging, cultish sectarians who hold the existing movement in complete contempt but have nothing to offer the people who engage with it.

Of course, another option is that they are an admixture of all three.

How else can you explain the sustained attempts by FRFI to heckle John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn and Nadia Whittome? For some reason, McDonnell got louder and more prolonged barracking than anyone else. I have no idea what was being shouted but they did a fairly good job of making him inaudible at times. A weariness in his tone suggested that he’s come across them before.

It was one of the most revolting displays I have ever seen at a political event. Back when the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four were in prison, those of us who were trying to organise public events for them in England could count on one hand the number of prominent Labour people who could be relied on to speak. John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn never once cowed to the pressure not to support the prisoners. It is perfectly reasonable to criticise Corbyn and McDonnell for all sorts of things, but only liars and the delusional can accuse them of not being on the right side of virtually every progressive campaign and struggle in the last fifty years.

Last night was worse than being of no help. If there had been family members or friends of the heroic hunger strikers present, they could only have been appalled and distressed by a base and attention seeking display of everything hideous about cultish leftism. It was akin to walking up to the bedside of a dying person and insulting the people who were trying to save their lives. Those buffoons showed no understanding that this is a real life and death fight between a pro-Israel British state and a group of young activists whose politics involve a lot more than behaving like drunken louts.

Much more impressive was Maxine Peake’s participation in the demonstration. She is a woman who knows about hunger strikes, having played Dolours Price, a Republican prisoner who was on hunger strike and force fed for 200 days, in Say Nothing which is currently being shown on Channel Four. She was standing in the crowd manifesting support and solidarity just by being there.

As someone whose formative political experience was the 1981 hunger strike, I can say with absolute confidence that if they’d tried that bollocks then it would have been Seamie’s rather than Mandel’s approach that resolved the matter.