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British SWP disintegrating further....
 international |
miscellaneous |
other press
 Tuesday February 16, 2010 18:34 by reject
After the recent expulsion of Lindsey German... further leading members have had enough!! 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 British working class.
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
SC
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
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Comments (15 of 15)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15Lindsey German: Why I resigned from the SWP
http://luna17activist.blogspot.com/2010/02/lindsey-germ....html
That 'disputed' Stop the War meeting: setting the record straight
http://luna17activist.blogspot.com/2010/02/that-dispute....html
It is sad that martin smith had such great distain for Lindsay German despite years of loyalty to the swp. The only thing he said when she resigned was cancel your direct debit. It also shows there complete distain for those in the anti war movement that aren't fitting their life round the will of the swp 'central committee’. I just hope the Irish swp aren’t as bad?
The resignation from the Socialist Workers Party of 42 members of the Left Platform, including leading figures such as Lindsey German and John Rees, delivers an important opportunity for SWP and Left Platform members alike to reconsider critical elements of their political tradition.
If activists can re-examine the underlying political reasons for the crisis that has culminated in these resignations, then this can be an occasion for a radical recomposition of the far left in Britain, at a time when the strengthening of the revolutionary movement is a burning necessity as the ruling class lines up for a sustained offensive across the board.
If on the other hand the Left Platform sticks to its current statement of policy, refuses to commence a critical re-examination of the SWP’s fundamental politics, and fails to elaborate a new set of policies and a programme for the working class struggle today, then it will either collapse as its members drift into individual campaigning activity in the broader movement, or end up as part of a new combination with opportunist groups unable or unwilling to mount a coherent challenge to the reformist leaders of the Labour movement today.
Full article: http://www.workerspower.com/index.php?id=47,2279,0,0,1,0
It will be interesting to see what impact this split in the British SWP will have in Ireland. The political position and trajectory of the Irish leadership of the SWP is very similiar to that of those who have left the British SWP, such as John Rees and Lyndsey German. Could this result in the Irish SWP breaking its international links with the British SWP and instead realigning themselves with Rees and German?
Yeah I know you aren't in the SWP - or even the same country.
But honestly people would respect you more if you got the basic fact straight.
(Although in fairness journalists never do on real papers so toy-town Indi-journos have a right to be wrong I suppose.)
"After the recent expulsion of Lindsey German..." says your headline. Listen:
Lindsey wasn't expelled! She stropped off in a huff.
She resigned from the CC after the SWP rank and file turned against her useless boyfriend because he made a consistent fuck up of everything he touched.
WE (our party) sacked him - she flounced off.
It is our right (politically that is) to ditch bad leaders, and hers to argue against it. But not hers to hold us to ransom.
It was petulant bullying behaviour and Martin Smith called her bluff. If she wants to behave like this then goodbye, we don't want you both (Rees truly was an arrogant prick who sullied the movement with his hubris). And also to the sad60 she took with them (not much after 37 years is it).
(and funny after writing all those books on feminism she can't see the man infront of her).
she wasn't expelled. from anything (although she was asked to abide by our conference decision and stop factionalising.)
Fair enough points James .But it would have been better to have heard them from someone in the Irish SWP which hasn’t as far as I am aware issued any statement at all about the split in Britain. (Although in fairness the toy- town Irish SWP has always taken its line from the dominant faction in the British group so perhaps they are just waiting for the dust to settle )
If the Irish SWP has in the past tended to follow the Lindsay /Rees faction’s trajectory, and if Lindsay is a petulant bully enthralled to “an arrogant prick “ then James might be able to get some idea of what we have to put up with over here in Ireland . Would there be any chance of you expelling your Irish section as an act of international solidarity James ?
Yes James this is typical SWP lets just explain a major political split as a dispute over a bad worker or leader! Bullshit.. This is a political split that has been developing since the collapse of Respect. It reflects the serious political mistakes made by the collective leadership of the SWP, not just Rees and German - Martin Smith and all of the rest fully supported what went on in Respect and the Stop the War Coalition. Unprincipled alliances with right wingers like the Liberal Democrats, and communalist Muslim organisations, and political opportunists who ended up in the New Labour and the Tories. None of you opposed these tactics, there wasn't one voice of opposition raised either in Britain or Ireland!
Now the leadership of the Irish SWP are doing the exact same thing with People Before Profit in which they want to do deals with right wingers, politicians who support coalition with the bosses parties and who vote for cuts in public services.
Personally abusing John Rees or Lyndsey German is a very poor response. Why don't you try to politically explain what has gone on, or is it that the SWP haven't had a real political debate and discussion around the issues in order to learn from the mistakes made with Respect. If they haven't that would not surprise me, the SWP have habit of just ditching ideas, strategies, programme and tactics without any discussion and they then just pretend it all never happened. This did this in Ireland in relation to the national question when they dropped support for the Provos armed struggle and calling for votes for Sinn Fein without ever giving an explanation of why.
When someone resigns from the Party the organisation is required by law to inform the person it is their responsibility to cancel the direct debit. Following this another message was sent expressing regret at Lindsey's decision. Please get your facts right befrore you start writing utter crap.
When I left the swp I didn't receive such an email.
But even if it was true it doesn't exuse the manner in which it was sent. The fact is that Smith was pushing her to resign and got exactly what he wanted- the letter of regret was only an afterthought, to save face when other swp members found out about the correspondance.
"When someone resigns from the Party the organisation is required by law to inform the person it is their responsibility to cancel the direct debit. Following this another message was sent expressing regret at Lindsey's decision. Please get your facts right befrore you start writing utter crap."
This is simply not true. This is the line invented to explain away the obnoxious email from Martin Smith. IMO, what probably happened is that he told someone else about it in the leadership afterwards and they realised they should send something a bit more conciliatory and therefore had to explain the first one. But it simply has no basis in fact - very few if any of those who have previously left the SWP or other parties have received such an email.
Martin only wrote the other 'conciliatory' email after the original bank statement became common knowledge in the blogospere....
This has nothing to do with the SWP in Ireland of course.
Nothing.
Andrew I am assuming you are a member of the SWP in Ireland. It is not true to say that this has nothing to do with the SWP in Ireland. The SWP in Ireland and Britain are two national sections of the same organisation. These issues concern every member of the SWP around the world. Your party in Ireland is run in the same bureaucratic way and is equally politically dishonest. What have the Irish leadership of the SWP ever said about Respect except to wholeheartedly endorse it when the SWP were still involved. Now that is has fallen asunder and the British SWP has split in the aftermath the Irish SWP are silent and it seems are telling their members this has nothing to do with us. That leading members of your international leave after 37 years of membership is something you should be asking questions about. Lyndsey German was a member of the SWP before your party in Ireland even existed. Does it not concern you at all why she has left and why Martin Smith dismissed her leaving with an insulting email and a refusal to politically answer her claims?
It's not true to say that everyone in the SWP was wholeheartedly in favour of many of the things that happened as part of the Stop-the-War / Respect projects. I was at many SWP branch meetings and national meetings where misgivings were expressed about certain aspects e.g. the uncritical public attitude towards some reactionary Islamic organisations and the whole Rees-German theory of the 'united front of a special kind'. But we need to remember that Stop the War has magnified and given vent to the huge anti-war sentiment and without Respect we could have seen a much worse retreat into Islamic fundamentalism from Muslims and racists such as the BNP would have been able to exploit the war to deepen racial divisions much more than they have so far managed to do.
Rees and German did some excellent work - let's not forget - but in the end were given too much leeway.
Reality is always messy - the SWP has made an overdue course correction and has also belatedly recognised that despite the formal democracy in the party's constitution, all too often members at branch level felt uncomfortable about raising disagreements.
What SWP members do is to say - ok, I may not agree with all of this but let's give it a go and see what happens. Surely, the alternative is paralysis ?
Before we get too smug about this we have to answer the very serious charge that th British SWP's CC ordered Lindsey not to speak at a STWC meeting. Thereby countermanding the democratic wishes of the united front grouping. This is regardless of your views of the Respect debacle. Remember, no reason was even offered for this order, which implies an absence of politics and debate. You can make the charge of "Factionalism" now and relate this to the debate at Conference. But, no such charge of factionalism was made in the e-mail from Martin Smith... there was no reason suggested at all! Was this for legalistic reasons?
Is this the sort of democracy that would or should be tolerated a workers councils, when Bourgeois parliaments are replaced? Should party members only be allowed to speak out on one side of the argument. Now that's hardly 'democratic'.
If they are allowed to get away with this without criticism from within the SWP, or if we daren't even allow our members to criticise, well then it's "Darkness at Noon", and it's already too late comrades.
Irish members don't have to cravenly follow the line of Smith... time will tell and a motion has yet to be passed or defeated. I'm sure I speak for many socialists from whatever organisation who refuse to be duped by these sort of Stalinist maneuverings from cowardly bureaucrats. Shameful.