SWP Expel leading members in Respect

[cockneyrebel]

Don't you think it's vital to the future of the human race?

 

[biff curtains]

Don't you think it's vital to the future of the human race?

To be fair if it can survive the Worker's Power split it can survive anything.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Very true, very true.

 

[articul8]

He pissed me off.

It would be hard to be in a party where no-one ever pisses you off sometime!

 

[lewislewis]

Interesting stuff! The Weekly Worker will be creaming their pants over this. Anyone reckon Hoveman, Wrack, and Ovenden might form their own socialist group?

If they did, the masses would be rushing to recieve their guidance. These guys are 'high profile' figures on the left after all.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Victoria Brittain - Respect National Council
Mobeen Azhar - Manchester Respect
Paddy O’Keefe - Brighton Respect
Berny Parkes - Dorset Respect
Rita Carter - Lewisham Respect
Ayesha Bajwa - Vice Chair Tower Hamlets Respect

Does anyone know anything about the politics and background of these people? Is it a surprise that they have lined up behind Wrack?

Of the names I recognise, the most interesting are Jerry Hicks and Linda Smith. Smith has been associated with a range of SWP projects over the years, though I have no idea if she is or was actually a member. Hicks is a longstanding SWP member, and a relatively high profile one. I wonder will he be next out the door?

 

[poster342002]

Some time back on these boards, I'm sure I can remember a discussion on whether RESPECT would ultimately prove to be the final nail in the coffin of the SWP. I'm fairly sure someone or other (can't remember who, or if they even still use these boards) reckoned that the SWP still had one last major fuckup to go through before the end came - although nobody could predict just what it'd be.

I'm starting to wonder if that's what's happening now.

 

[tbaldwin]

It does seem like this could be the thing that really does for the SWP as any kind of significant left force in the UK.
But sadly the top down approach to left wing politics they represent is still likely to be the dominant force to the left of Labour.

 

[grogwilton]

Id be amazed if they expel Hicks. if Hicks got expelled, I'd leave, and I suspect so would most of Bristol which is actually a really good branch, for the SWp, Respect and StW.

 

[butchersapron]

How long have you been in the SWP grogwilton?

 

[grogwilton]

Let me think. Must thave been around the time of the first biggish stw demo so around late 2002. That makes it 5 years in my book. Im 22. But im not in Bristol, just have friends who are in the party there.

 

[GuruYoghourt]

Wouldn't they need to be socialists to do that?

 

[poster342002]

The sad thing (and it speaks volumes about the left's failure to be a force in British politics) is that the SWP was the closest thing the UK had to a far-left success story.

There was a time in the late 80s - early 90s when I really did get the impression of a growing movement that had potential and was going places. Looking back, I now realise a lot of that was just down to my own youthfull idealism, but it really did not seem to be quite so much the bizarre outfit it is today.

I think it finally started to go completely off the rails when Blair rose to prominance inthe Labour Party and the SWP completey failed to understand nature of this phenomenon and what it represented (IE, the total death-knell of leftwing or working class politics in the UK and the rise of a new yuppie-class of "proffessionals" whom they seemed to mistake as being part of the working class).

Now, the party that had the excellent slogan "neither washington nor moscow but international socialism" and told both dominant ideologies of the time (capitalism and stalinism) to get stuffed is reduced to pathetically trailing around bleating it's support for Islamist movements accross the world.

Sad. Truley sad.

 

[greenfield]

I think it is sad, in a way. I remember when I was in the SWP they thought that very soon in the first term of a New Labour government there would be a 'crisis of expectations' that would give rise to a new birth of Trade Union struggle. Other Left groups thought this too, I think? You're right Poster, all that happened is that w/c politics died a death. w/c as a serious political force has gone in the UK. And no, I don't think the postal strike proves anything different.



As a completely irrelevant gossipy asside, I keep seeing Julie Waterson in my after-work local looking much happier and less scary drinking with lots of new mates from whereever she works. I know she left the CC some time ago, did she also take a break from the SWP?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Kevin Ovenden's quite a good chessplayer as it happens. Could possibly return to the game as did Sue Caldwell...

 

[poster342002]

I remember when I was in the SWP they thought that very soon in the first term of a New Labour government there would be a 'crisis of expectations' that would give rise to a new birth of Trade Union struggle. Other Left groups thought this too, I think?

It was at this point that I began to realise they'd lost the plot and had seemingly detached from reality. I remember all too well that it was the emerging layer of new managerialist bullies in the workplace (young, new promotees on one hand and graduate-entry types on the other) who were singing Blair's praises, and not the working classes. There were those of us who never for one moment thought there's be a "crises of expectations" - because the types of people who voted Blair in would be (and were and largely are) only too happy with what he was doing. There simply were no expecations of the sort the SWP was hoping for.

all that happened is that w/c politics died a death. w/c as a serious political force has gone in the UK. And no, I don't think the postal strike proves anything different.

Sadly, I also agree on this. The current little flurry of various strikes we're seeing (which will most likely just be ignored and end in no conclusive result for the workers if not outright defeat) look more like a last, ineffectual gasp rather than a springboard to a return to strength.

 

[audiotech]

Kevin Ovenden's quite a good chessplayer as it happens. Could possibly return to the game as did Sue Caldwell...

Sue Caldwell, recognise that name. She was one tough cookie and nearly turned over a van I was in on the way to a demo in Liverpool.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Socialist Workers Party/Respect: now the bloodletting begins

Several leading members of the SWP in Respect have been expelled by the SWP leadership. This will only be the start of the purge argues Stuart King.

The clash between the SWP Central Committee (CC) and George Galloway in Respect has started to claim its first victims in the SWP. Because of the pressure of an imminent election this struggle was put on hold over the summer with two inconclusive National Council meetings. But now Gordon Brown has announced his government has two more years to run, the struggle to control Respect has broken out again in full force.

This week Nick Wrack, Rob Hoverman and Kevin Ovenden were expelled by the SWP. Nick Wrack’s ‘crime’ was to be nominated as the compromise candidate for the National Organiser post in Respect (a post designed by Galloway’s faction to neutralise John Rees as National Secretary). Clearly, even having an SWP member as National Organiser was seen as a threat to Rees Wrack wasn’t seen as reliable and therefore ordered to withdraw or resign; he refused, and got the chop. Two other known critics of the CC’s line were quickly expelled for good measure Hoverman and Ovenden.

What is now unfolding is a purge of those in the SWP who are critical of John Rees’ and the CC’s response to Galloway’s criticism of their leadership of Respect Jerry Hicks, ex-Convenor from Rolls Royce Bristol is next in the firing line having dared to nominate Nick Wrack. But there are many others in the SWP, having committed themselves to the Respect project, who are outraged at the way the SWP leadership is threatening to blow up the organisation in their struggle with Galloway.

We should be clear that, like the dispute that destroyed the SSP in Scotland, this is a largely an apolitical dispute about which faction is going to control Respect. Both sides are committed to Respect as a ‘broad non-socialist project’, a populist organisation that welcomes businessmen, Muslim faith organisations and others with quite reactionary positions on abortion, on gay and lesbian rights, religious education etc. It was only after the dispute with Galloway broke out that the SWP leaders suddenly discovered the problems with ‘communalism’ and started denouncing Galloway and his allies as rightists. This was designed to rally the SWP members and get them ready for a purge of those considered too soft on Galloway and his arguments.

These sorts of measures are nothing new to the SWP. It is an organization that cannot tolerate real differences in its own ranks, or even worse criticism of its leaders. This makes it extremely difficult for it to work in its so-called ‘special united fronts’ like Respect, it either has to dominate them or leave them (which is why the recent past is strewn with their corpses Globalise Resistance, Socialist Alliance).

In the Socialist Alliance and in Respect, SWP members not only worked co-operatively with other left forces but listened to their arguments, because it was possible to have debates and discussions around resolutions and minority positions, something not allowed in the SWP. Allowing SWP members to have such open debate is difficult for the leadership, it has to justify its positions and tactics in front of its members and this always leads to differences in the SWP. If the SWP were a democratic centralist organisation these differences could be argued out inside it, but in the bureaucratic centralist SWP people are just expelled. (You can find a longer analysis of Respect and the SA in Permanent Revolution 6).

What does this mean for the future of the SWP and Respect? Clearly a whole swathe of members of the SWP do not support the sudden critical turn of the CC in Respect. They have been educated and trained in the previous turn towards Respect and now they see the CC as destroying their work and potentially Respect itself. As in previous sudden turns (like the closing down of Women’s Voice, or the abandoning of a perspective of building rank and file union organisations in favour of Broad Lefts) those defending the previous line are quickly denounced and purged from the organisation. This time the purge will need to run deep because Respect was such a central perspective of the current leadership.

Can the SWP stay in Respect? This is extremely doubtful. With the expulsions, now and in the future, Galloway will be able to build a majority block on the National Council and probably in the Respect conference, if not this year then next. There is no way the SWP could stay in Respect under the heel of Galloway having denounced him and his allies as ‘communalists’, ‘out of democratic control’ etc. Respect is heading for a split and as George Galloway said it is staring into ‘oblivion’.

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=1726

 

[cockneyrebel]

I remember when I was in the SWP they thought that very soon in the first term of a New Labour government there would be a 'crisis of expectations' that would give rise to a new birth of Trade Union struggle. Other Left groups thought this too, I think?

I know mk12 and others always criticise Permanent Revolution for talking about the economy a lot but I'd say this is all wrapped up in the far left (virtually all of it in the UK) totally misreading the period we're in. For instance the SWP, SP, WP etc all have said that the recent credit cruch crisis representing a crisis in capitalism. One article on this here:

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=1722

But the fact is that the collapse of the stalinist states, on the back of the massive defeats of the 1980s gave capitalism a double boost. Firstly massive markets to go into all ready with free productive transport networks and a very cheap disorganised labour force and secondly defeated labour movements in imperialist countries like the UK and US. This doesn't mean the end of struggle, it means that capitalism has bought itself some time, but the markets in places like China and India won't be unending, at some point profit rates, like in the 1980s, will start to fall again.

But there is no serious analysis of this, apparently according to people like Harman in the SWP we're still in a full blown capitalist crisis and the SP say "it is clear from recent events that the global economy has entered a new period of crisis".

Well if you think we're in that kinda crisis then you would have expected massive struggles during Blair's term and Brown's term. In turn it leads to ever more desperation when that doesn't happen. But we're not in a period of crisis and socialists shouldn't be expecting massive upturns in class struggle.

That reality check doesn't mean going into pessimism like posterxxx (sorry but you are all doom and gloom) it just means that we're not in fall blown capitalist crisis and massive class struggle.

 

[cockneyrebel]

As a completely irrelevant gossipy asside, I keep seeing Julie Waterson in my after-work local looking much happier and less scary drinking with lots of new mates from whereever she works. I know she left the CC some time ago, did she also take a break from the SWP?

Nope she was at marxism this year being as grumpy and rude as ever.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

I nearly killed Julie Waterson once

 

[greenfield]

Awww, poor Julie. I thought she'd fast-tracked herself to a world of normality.

Who needs a hug?

{{{{{{Julie}}}}}}

 

[Loupylou]

It does seem like this could be the thing that really does for the SWP as any kind of significant left force in the UK.

Other than the fact they're a bunch of wankers.

 

[audiotech]

Dear, dear.

 

[dennisr]

Nope she was at marxism this year being as grumpy and rude as ever.

She works for the lecturers union - politcally we don't get on at all, but I've found her to be quite personable

 

[greenfield]

I suppose only her 'comrades' would put up with her screaming and shouting swearwords into their faces.

 

[cockneyrebel]

She works for the lecturers union - politcally we don't get on at all, but I've found her to be quite personable

At marxism she went over and took someones chair, when they objected she turned around and said "that's socialism" with scowl on her face. She wasn't too personable that day

 

[dennisr]

She wasn't too personable that day

you should have tried any form of attempted anti-fash work with her at any point in the past - yep, she has a bit of a reputation.

I keep the political differences at a distinct distance - hence the personable bit

 

[GuruYoghourt]

Just by way of a bit of education for those whose knowledge of socialism is confined to what they've been told by the leaders of left-wing, pro-capitalist parties, the class-struggle is not something that erupts from time to time, when capitalism is going through one of it's periodic slumps, but rather it is part and parcel of everyday life for a member of the working-class under capitalism. The SWP's notion of what constitutes class struggle is nothing less than a pile of romanticist hogwash where a 'revolutionary elite' sends hapless dupes to die on the barricades.

Class struggle is the necessary antagonism between those who work for wages and those who own and control the means of production. Happens every working moment of every working day.

Hilariously enough, I've heard members of the SWP upbraid those who have an accurate analysis of capitalism for not getting involved in the class struggle, when for the SWP the class struggle is just an outmoded desire for pointless and impotent violence against the state.

Somebody recently referred to the SWP as 'wankers'. Hear hear!

 

[mk12]

Class struggle is the necessary antagonism between those who work for wages and those who own and control the means of production. Happens every working moment of every working day.

Good point.