SOCIALIST UNITY

27 November, 2008

THE SWP CC SACKS JOHN REES?

Filed under: SWP — admin @ 12:09 am

is it true?

282 Comments »

If this is true, PLEASE keep up informed.

Once again, *if* this is true I wonder how the SWP CC will spin this?

Comment by googlebot — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:25 am
To any SWP members reading this DO NOT post on this thread it serves no purpose what so ever.

Comment by friendly lefty — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:26 am
#2 you have been told!

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:27 am
It is indeed true. The speculation now is whether German, who along with Rees was not at the meeting, will resign in solidarity. Technically, he’s not been removed. He’s just not being put up by the central committee for reelection at the conference in the New Year. The story is that Chris Bambery and Chris Nineham were the two who voted to keep him on.

I suppose all the loyalists who defended the Rees-German line will now be preparing to rally to their cause at the conference (not). No. I guess we’ll get a string of them blithely ignoring what they said yesterday while they blame everyone else for picking on them. How about for once they look at why they so slavishly followed such disastrous policies over the last period.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:28 am
I told you about this in the summer.

Comment by Chris Nineham — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:30 am
#2 No, that’s right. They can go and post on a blog which is friendly to the SWP, which I’m sure will be discussing it. Or they could go to their party meeting and get the new line from the centre. They could try talking to one another, but they need to be careful: they don’t want to get accused of sectarianism or factionalism or going outside the norms of party democracy.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:35 am
Comment #2 is revealling. An SWP loyalist is so modest about the relevence of their party that they think it would serve no purpose to consider why John Rees might have been defenestrated.

Surely this is a reflection that the SWP CC are admitting mistakes had been made, and therefore there should be some public accounting of what they consider to have been correct and what was wrong, so that they can only do the correct bits in future?

It apparently serves no purpose for anyone else on the left to know what the SWP are thinking.

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:37 am
We are cheering in Greece

Comment by anticapitalista — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:38 am
Oh and if that is a bit too cryptic for some readers, search for posts by nas.

Comment by anticapitalista — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:42 am
#1 The spin appears to be: things could have been better handled in Respect and there are lessons to learn all round. Rees, however, prevented the party from coming to terms with the mistakes (very small in number and dwarfed by Galloway’s wrecking behaviour). He did this by holding the leadership to ransom through threats to resign and whatnot. Then, instead of smoothly carrying out an instruction to withdraw from the leadership of the Left List, he told that outfits august national committee that he was being forced out against his will.

So he’s been turfed out for breach of discipline. That’s a neat solution. It means there’s no need to discuss the politics of this inside the SWP. There are no political disagreements, just breaches of discipline that need to be dealt with through sackings, expulsions, and giving people a good talking to. The up and coming leaders can appear even handed. They expelled some pro-Respect members last year and now they’ve booted off the leadership the man who piloted them through the split with Respect and the launch of the Left List.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:42 am
#8 If they’ve kicked out the people who wanted to stay in Respect, and kicked out the guy who led the walkout from Respect, who the hell is left? The people who never wanted to be in Respect in the first place?

Comment by Strategist — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:54 am
On the subject of “public accounting”, I bet this is the sort of thing that doesn’t get debated:

http://www.democracyplatform.org.uk/Godward.htm

Comment by Madam Miaow — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:00 am
In my last post in, another thread, I called for Rees to be sacked. Of course I am echoing the belief of the many, both outside and inside the SWP. I also called for an apology from the SWP cc. It will now be easier to give or will it?.

However, One of the chief splitters “Scud Missile” Bambery, the one who was urging a nuclear strike against the progressive movement. (Many Respect members are in the progressive movement).

He was also shouting witch-hunt by fellow lefts on the SWP. I hope their conference condemn the authors of those splitting remarks. Only then can we have some sort of reconciliation but that will take trust and time.

Their conference is the first place to start

” Scuddie” Bamberry” had a locker full of fifth columnist tools, that the SWP sectarian membership and supporters like Jim Monaghan tried blindly to give credence too. By association Jim, its now egg on your face Jim.

Comment by optimistic Larry Nugent — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:01 am
No doubt a parachute of some kind will be arranged for the defenestrated Rees, especially if German joins him in solidarity and oblivion. This will contrast with the treatment meted out to others who have lost favour.

But if Nemesis is correct in #8, Rees is being scapegoated for the disaster the SWP created around Respect without any honest accounting for what happened.

The fact is that the SWP CC as a whole were responsible for this whole sorry episode. Rees led it of course, but the rest were eager followers. Without their active support, he would have been powerless. And as Callinicos’s article in International Viewpoint demonstrates, the SWP CC continues to peddle the same old lies used to bust up Respect in the first place.

I am still curious to know what evidence anyone has for Galloway’s alleged “alliances with Muslim notables” which the SWP CC found so intolerable. After all, they positively celebrated Rees’s alliance with the PJP with thousands of pounds of Respect members’ money. And I am also curious to know why Francois Sabado of the LCR appears to endorse Callinicos’s slurs against Galloway in his response to Callinicos. Perhaps one of Sabado’s fellow thinkers in Britain could enlighten us on this one.

Comment by stop the witchhunt — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:04 am
But - is he going off the cc because of the split with Respect - or for launching the venture in the first place?

Rees’s was the CC member most associated with the strategy of extending the ‘united front’ tactic into the electoral arena and some associated more long term broad left organising. So this, apparently has now turned out to be a promising failure - smashed by deteriorating objective conditions (and we might add - the organisations own conservatism and accumulated political culture).

Which way now? They (the CC) talk about future united left initiatives as a possibility - but in practice, is the old conservative party regime restored? A regime of stand alone party building which has over the decades often delivered the (limited) dividends of sect recuperation, maintenance, sustenance and even growth.

Even though down in number and bewildered, they can easily regenerate, Dr Who like, by absorbing a new generation of students who don’t remember their mistakes of two or three years before.

But now times is changing fast, the capitalist system is entering some deep convolutions with their potential points of rupture, and thus enormous new challenges for socialists arise, so new things can indeed happen for the SWP and all of us. But the SWP just leaps forward into the next phase, studiously avoiding a real debate about what was good and what was bad about the strategy around the Socialist Alliance and Respect. That’s a pity, because of course its the only way to really develop and grow, and have a chance of understanding the next phase of battle. I suppose when its safe, an official party historian of the near future will spin the story of Respect and John Rees this way or that, depending on what new perspectives they (and we all) can plausibly develop meantime.

Comment by barrycade — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:41 am
ocialism and Left Unity

A critique of the Socialist Workers Party
Well worth a read available from Socialist Books
Peter Taaffe

Socialism and Left Unity - click for larger picture of cover

This book is for socialists who are aware of the policies of the SWP, including SWP members who can still be won to a genuine Marxism. The wrong methods of the SWP hinder the task of rebuilding the labour movement on socialist and Marxist lines.

Price £6

Comment by Bilko — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:26 am
Interesting that this site has witnessed long posts proving that the SWP is not a democratic organisation. I’m not a member - and to tell the truth, I don’t know in detail how their voting systems work - but presumably, some kind of *voting* procedure has taken place? And that the Central Committee members aren’t there for life? And that they are accountable for their actions? And that what people do and say is taken into consideration when people vote?

I write this without knowing any inside story on who voted which way, or what it is that John is supposed to have said or done which, in SWP terms, meant that a majority of those voting thought that he had to go. But it seems a bit ripe that people come here to condemn how the SWP is run and when it shows itself capable of carrying out a democratic act to change itself, the same people say that this too proves how crap the SWP is. Why not be honest and accept that marxist left organisations of any kind are and always have been incredibly difficult to run. Neither society as a whole, nor the methods of mainstream parties offer suitable blueprints. In trying to create new models for socialist organisations, we always run into problems re the top-down versus the bottom-up models; there is the problem of ossified leadership; the constant potential for wreckers and provocateurs screwing things up from inside; there is the desperate need for involving people who are at work and yet devoting the kind of time that such organisations require is beyond the capabilities of most people who also want to have a strong personal relationship (which may or may not involve a party member) and/or kids; and so on. I saw all this with my own parents when I was a kid. I’ve witnessed these things seeing the rise and fall of eg the IMG, other fragments and factions etc etc. This week has seen the death of an old friend of my father’s, Brian Pearce, someone who was a brilliant marxist writer, translator and essayist but who ended up in a party of one. I mention this because he was someone who critiqued the old CP (which he had been a devoted member of) tried to join or found other groups/parties etc. I’ve noticed that it’s very much easier to be ‘correct’ about what should or shouldn’t be done than it is to be part of a left organisation that is trying to organise, respond, run itself,lead, produce materials, develop theory, relate the theory to the past, present and future, keep itself coherent, together and, yes, ‘disciplined’, etc etc. I should know it’s easier, because I don’t belong to any such organisation.

Comment by Michael Rosen — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:29 am
Thanks for that Michael, you said what I was thinking. But much more clearly than I was thinking it.

Comment by KrisS — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:32 am
Mike, whilst I recognise what you say it still remains that the ‘Respect’ split was a debacle for the ‘left’ whatever way you figure it.
Rees was perhaps the fall guy for the SWP failure to make the most of what’s now becoming apparent was a time-limited opportunity to build the basis of a mass broad based organization to the left of Labour.
So do we give up or try again ?

Comment by Halshall — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:40 am
Judging by the toxic nature of some of the comments on this thread and on previous threads concerning the SWP, somebody happening upon this blog for the first time could be forgiven for thinking that John Rees was the very incarnation of evil. He’s not. He’s a dedicated socialist and marxist who made some wrong turns politically, which have damaged his party and the left in general. He did so with good intentions, but as the saying goes, ‘the road to hell…’

It takes bottle to lead, to step forward into an arena in which every word and action is scrutinised by friend and foe alike. Any deficiency in his leadership reflects a deficiency in the structures of the organisation he belongs to. Their failure to hold both him and Lindsey to account throughout the last couple of years, to control their actions, has brought about the current debacle.

The heady days of the antiwar movement circa 2003 are over. For too long the leadership of the SWP have been living off those heights, constantly trumpeting Feb 15 as a huge success due to their own political nous and actions. It was not. The success and size of Feb 15 2003 was almost solely a result of objective conditions. That said, it was right to take the success of Stop the War back then into the electoral arena with the formation of Respect. At least they dared. In hindsight Respect’s failure (and it has failed despite the efforts of its supporters and adherents to claim otherwise) was due to a misreading of Stop the War’s success in 2003 as the beginning of something. In truth, and again in hindsight, it was the end of something.

John Rees is a casualty of that failure. But he isn’t the only one. The left in its entirety has also been a casualty.

Comment by John — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:46 am
Michael - off topic

Enjoyed your performace the gig at the QEH on Sunday.

Only probelm is with the music - didn’t really work for the children around me or indeed me.

But the idea was good and you were great - even if we disagree about the Swep

Comment by The Vengence of History — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:49 am
Halshall, in answer to your last question: of course I’m in favour of building left organisations. To tell the truth, I’m not convinced that the causes of the split are to be found directly in the actions of any of the individuals concerned. The ‘moment’ was the imminent declaration of war and the immediate aftermath. I don’t accept that there were specific actions that could have or should have been taken by specific individuals (George, John, Lindsay) nor even by specific organisations (Stop the War, SWP, etc) which would have fundamentally affected what happened next. I think that the political environment we live in is extremely hostile and unpromising to root-and-branch political organisations of virtually any kind. In general, people find it much easier to respond positively to single-issue campaigns, single-issue activity at a local level, or at a workplace level, or, as I say, to a single clear-cut issue like the war. At present, most people I know of any age are extremely suspicious and wary of any organisation offering the ‘total’ analysis, the ‘total’ ‘way’. I deduce from this, that there was no ‘correct’ way that the massive mobilisation of the anti-war movement could or should have gone. It was what it was. And we’re back where we were before. I think that it’s fairly pointless trying to find out ‘what went wrong’ basically because I don’t think anything was done particularly wrongly (!). There was no magic formula to transform what happened into something else. We should be looking at the overall political environment, yes, the balance of class forces, and seeing why it is that people behave like that, and how we could or should relate to that environment. Studying what John said on august 3 or George said on april 9 and who walked out of which room is, to my mind pretty pointless.

Comment by Michael Rosen — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:56 am
It can’t be true, cos I’ve looked at all of today’s online papers and there’s nothing there.

You know, if Mark Collett of the BNP were to be stripped of his post (yes, yes, comparisons truly are odious), I’m sure we’d read something about it in the Guardian, the Indy, and possibly the Times. That says something about the relevance of the radical left today, alas.

Comment by Another Dave — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:59 am
#15 As usual Michael Rosen enters the thread to attack the SWP’s critics. The point, Michael, is that the sacking of John Rees is not the SWP hoolding its leadership accountable. It’s the SWP leadership blaming an individual for its collective failure over Respect and attempting to avoid an honest accounting of the debacle. Do we not have a right to point this out? Rees, of course, deserves what he is getting, but it really doesn’t make it democracy.

Comment by stop the witchhunt — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:03 am
TVOH, thanks for your comment re QEH. Part of the motivation behind the concert was and is (the tour goes on) to introduce children to jazz. I don’t suppose that that is any easier a thing to do than to introduce children to any music form they haven’t heard before. Benjamin Britten struggled with the same ideas. I take your point though. If you think the children around you weren’t ‘getting it’, that’s a shame. Some people seem to think that their kids ‘got’ at least some of it! We’re ‘workshopping’ it in some places, so that the children get a chance to make that kind of music too.

(others please ignore this digression, though in a funny sort of way, it’s related. Art (in this case jazz and poetry) is one of the ways in which we alter our view of the world, and if you experiment with new forms, that in itself is to my mind a minor social/mental change.)

Comment by Michael Rosen — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:05 am
And Michael, I’ve just read your two posts. Your description of what seems to be a bureaucratic manoeuvre as “a democratic act”, and your line that it’s now “fairly pointless” to determine what went wrong with the anti-war movement, are worthy of some of Britain’s biggest company directors. Indeed, I heard virtually the same line being spouted by some incompetent boss yesterday on the Beeb. No accountability. No responsibility. Mistakes were made. Now move on, there’s nothing to see. The only difference is that (thankfully) Rees won’t get a half-million quid payout.

Comment by Another Dave — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:06 am
AD, if you want to reduce what I was trying to say to ‘lack of accountability’ then that’s fine for you. I was, I thought, trying to make a different point about ‘our times’. When we socialists/marxists look at political events of the past, we make huge efforts to be global and holistic about things and the role of individuals tends to recede. We notice that fundamental shifts in eg the way people work, or the effect of mass conscription etc etc are extremely important and yet when we come to analyse the events of 2003-8 in the world of the far left, we dispense with this method of analysis and think that what happened is all down to ‘the failure of the SWP’ or, for that matter, ‘the failings of George Galloway’. I just don’t buy it. It’s not a matter of either the SWP or George being ‘accountable’. There is something going on in the way in which the mass of people (the very people who are oppressed and/or exploited) view politics and view political action. It’s been a slow development over the last thirty years but I think it’s much, much bigger than any of this other stuff.

Comment by Michael Rosen — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:15 am
Michael

Thanks for replying and yes while looking at the world in a new way is by definition does not fit into the scope of this thread.

Happy to chat about it off site because my concern is that………….I think I’m gonna start taling about Euroimprov which really would be a digression

Could be here all day and need to do some work………..

Comment by The Vengence of History — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:16 am
10 to 2? I thought the central committee was a bigger body than that? Or was this the executive committee?

Comment by Red Deathy — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:27 am
Michael #25

I diagree with your analysis, which seems to me far too abstract and vague. The failure of the left over the past few years has been a failure of analysis of the objective factors that is necessary for correct praxis. The antiwar movement had/has no roots in the working class; by definition it is an amorphous cross class movement driven by moral outrage rather than material necessity. Attempting to transmute it into a left alternative to Labour has proved a huge blunder which has helped put the left back years.

But let’s not underestimate the power and resources of neoliberalism in all of this. They control the media, the courts, the state, and the current economic downturn will have to be sustained and run far deeper than it has up to now before the working class will move to any meaningful extent.

The current crop of left wing parties and leaders simply lack credibility to take us forward in the current period. This is the inevitable result of the series of splits and acrimony that has occurred in direct response to the contraction of projects such as SA, Respect, and the SSP.

The choice now is the ability of the left within the Labour Party and the trade union movement to reassert itself, or something new, another attempt at left unity. If the latter, which seems more likely at present, then my view is it will have to be formed and led by the collective left wing leadership of the RMT, FBU, and PCS. They alone now have the required legitimacy within the working class.

Comment by John — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:35 am
John, yes it’s abstract and vague because I’m not writing an article, I’m throwing out suggestions for further thought. Having said you ‘disagree’ you then point to something which completely concurs with what I’m saying! ie your second para! So much for ‘disagree’ing with me.

Comment by Michael Rosen — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:42 am
The Central Committee is the excecutive committee of the SWP. You are probably thinking of the National Committee which is a larger body of SWP members which looks after the rubber stamp on behalf of the CC.

Comment by RobM — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:44 am
RobM,

cheers, thats it, ta. So, presumably, the NC could reverse this decision and put Rees back on the slate?

Comment by Red Deathy — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:53 am
StW said: Rees, of course, deserves what he is getting …

Indeed he does. Rarely has anyone so handsomely deserved a knighthood for services to the British state. 10 years of entering into left unity projects and methodically screwing them up, while stabbing in the back any individuals who prove too talented or effective. A splendid job for Her Majesty, H.M. Government and for all those who own and run the country.

And thank the good Lord in Heaven that the SWP CC has restored itself to full credibility in the massed ranks of the Left (well, more rank than massed). The CC obviously can’t be held responsible for going along with Rees for all this time while he controlled them by means of his evil hypnotic powers.

Such a shame The Algebra of Revolution will be off the SWP approved reading list now. It’s packed with useful tips to help the comrades turn on a sixpence yet again.

Comment by babeuf — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:12 am
#31 The National Council is unlikely to meet before the Annual Conference in January and, if it did meet, it wouldn’t put Rees back on the slate. Not one member voted for Rees and German in a previous National Council when Rees was removed from the Left Alternative, although a couple abstained. And the Conference will confirm the recommendation of the CC. It always does.

Michael Rosen is right that things have been much more difficult than many on the left claimed. They usually are. But even if nothing anyone did would have made any real difference to events, which seems an exceptional form of fatalism, it would not excuse some of the actions that have been taken.

For example, it would not excuse the phoney witch-hunt nonsense, the ignorant denigration of erstwhile allies, the hysterical reaction to justified criticism, the lies, the real witch-hunt against some SWP members and the hubris which produced the Left List. And it does not excuse the fact that lies continue to be peddled as fact, witness Callinicos’s latest musings on the outlook for the left in Europe.

In fact, we don’t know just how much of a differnce better decisions at crucial times might have made. It could be argued that George Galloway should have resigned from the Labour Party and announced the launch of a new anti-war party at the height of the anti-war agitation when two million people were on the street, rather than several months later after he was expelled, and that this would have produced a much stronger dynamic in favour of the new formation.

It is incumbent on the serious left to analyse honestly what mistakes have been made in the past in order, one would hope, to improve the chances of avoiding them in the future. The problem is that the SWP, still the largest of the far left parties in Britain, even if it is not very large, is not having that honest accounting despite the sacking of Rees. That bodes badly for future practice. It’s not alone in this, of course, but this thread is about the SWP, Rees and Respect.

Comment by stop the witchhunt — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:26 am
It apparently serves no purpose for anyone else on the left to know what the SWP are thinking.

The SWP and indeed the extreme Left as a whole serves no purpose.

No useful purpose, that is.

It is very good at attacking liberal pluralists, stirring up intercommunal hatred, and generally titting around in a nasty way.

But, let’s face it. We’re talking about a ‘movement’ which is essentially a medium sized club, whose members are mostly lunatics.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:36 am
It could be argued that George Galloway should have resigned from the Labour Party and announced the launch of a new anti-war party at the height of the anti-war agitation when two million people were on the street, rather than several months later after he was expelled, and that this would have produced a much stronger dynamic in favour of the new formation.

That could be argued, of course.

But then George Galloway would have to be a person whose primary motivation was something other than taking money from the Islamic Republic of Iran to propagandise for them, while telling attractive and exotic women that he is a hero to the worlds 1.5 billion women.

Can’t you see that you’re living in a fanatasy world?

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:39 am
haha “women” = “Muslims”.

Although, obviously, it is the “women Muslims” that George is particularly keen to impress.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:40 am
David T

You are a repulsive piece of shit. Why don’t you go back to the swamp from whence you came and do us all a favour?

Comment by John — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:48 am
David

You do write a lot of nonsense sometimes.

George is a talented and dynamic character who could have found many easier ways to make money than take up left wing politics, particularly as he has always been prepared to adopt position that are unpopular even within the left.

If he was motivated primarily by money, wouldn’t he have made his peace with the Labour right years ago, and slithered up the greasy pole to ministerial office, company directorships, and all the baubles? He certainly is talented enough to have done that, but instead he has committed himself to a punishing schedule of public meetings, unglamourous work as a constituency MP, and building a base of support not among the most powerful and richest people in the land who could reward him financially, but among the most disadvantaged and excluded communities, who can offer him no reward except their respect and his personal satisaction that he is working to overcome injustice and speak for those who would otherwise be without voice

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:56 am
#37 On that I think we can all agree

Comment by stop the witchhunt — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:56 am
A black day for whatever desk at MI5 deals with the far left.

Comment by Dear Koba — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:58 am
But I’m right, aren’t I?

What has all of this achieved?

You’ve got a “Left” movement, that is absolutely riddled with people whose politics - were they white - would be far to the right of the BNP. You’ve actually made an electoral alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami, and a political alliance with Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood, despite the fact that these people not only despite liberal democracy - they hate socialists too.

The one winner in this whole process is George Galloway, who is taking money from the Islamic Republic of Iran!

And, today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is going to execute an innocent Kurdish teacher, Farzad Kamangar:

http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=917&theme=rights&country=iran

Is George going to do a PressTV special on this?

Of course he isn’t.

You’ve been had for chumps, and when somebody points it out, all you can do is slag them off.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:01 am
George is a talented and dynamic character who could have found many easier ways to make money than take up left wing politics

He has!

It is called “Working for the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

Or is that “left wing politics”? If so, explain to me how you came to that conclusion?

If he was motivated primarily by money, wouldn’t he have made his peace with the Labour right years ago, and slithered up the greasy pole to ministerial office, company directorships, and all the baubles?

Have you never spoken to Left wing Labourites from Scotland? Why do you think they didn’t rally to Galloway’s defence, when he was being hauled over the coals by Labour? It wasn’t because they were intimidated into silence by the leadership.

It was because pretty much anybody who has ever worked with Galloway, just doesn’t trust him.

As for “company directorships”… well, you know, most companies have policies on taxi expenses and the like. When company directors cock around, they’re quickly and quietly sacked. There’s less scope for the sort of political grandstanding and libel-writ-threatening that Galloway goes in for, whenever his colleagues decide that they’ve had enough of him.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:06 am
Yes David, the corporate world is a model of financial rectitude and a self-denying service ethos.

Comment by Dear Koba — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:09 am
StW (#33) said: It is incumbent on the serious left to analyse honestly what mistakes have been made in the past in order, one would hope, to improve the chances of avoiding them in the future.

Glad to hear it. Since you’ll need a starting point, this is as good as any:

http://www.democracyplatform.org.uk/Godward.htm

(as usefully pointed out already in #10 by MM)

Or would that be too awkward? Rees’s former little helpers are, after all, scattered well beyond the ranks of the SWP.

Comment by babeuf — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:10 am
Peter Taaffe has written a critique of the SWP has he? That reminds me of the scene in one of the Planet Of The Apes movies. “Ape kills ape.”

Comment by Kevin Williamson — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:10 am
Anyway: back to the topic after David T’s excursus down the sewer of his own mind.

Michael Rosen’s is a curious logic. The whole of the left is weak and riven by division. True. His response is to denigrate those who call for some coming to terms by the largest component of the left with its failings in the hope that it can overcome at least some of them and help construct a healthier and more effective politics.

That’s really odd, especially as it’s the part of the far left that he is closest to, writes for and helps raise money for. Good friends don’t let their friend get behind the wheel drunk.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:15 am
#45

Yes - I am writing a review of it at the moment.

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:17 am
Yes David, the corporate world is a model of financial rectitude and a self-denying service ethos.

Oh, it is utterly crap.

But when a director of a company is thought to be up to no good, they are shoved out, usually without that much fuss, and without the accompanying chorus of the director’s supporters rambling on about Zio-con plots to rule the world.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:18 am
#48 ‘…when a company director is thought to be up to no good, they are shoved out…’ Sure David, sure. Your animus towards Galloway has consumed your mental processes. Time to go and troll somewhere else.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:22 am
He’s on PressTV, paid for by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Meanwhile, his employers are about to execute an innocent Kurdish teacher.

And you’d rather attack me.

Can you not see that something is wrong here?

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:26 am
david T,

Let us see where this logic leads.

You say: The Iranian government does a bad thing, GG works for Iranian state TV, so GG is a bad man.

The UK government had a shoot to kill policy in the war in Ireland, it invaded Iraq illegally, and has been complicit in extraordinary rendition and torture. John Sergeant worked for the British state TV, so John Sergeant is a bad man, and so therefore is Bruce Forsyth, uncle cobleigh and all.

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:45 am
David T #50

And Fox News is owned by a right wing plutocrat who used his considerable influence to support an illegal invasion and occupation of a Muslim country responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children, many of them undoubtedly teachers. And this right wing plutocrat is a major supporter of an apartheid state called Israel responsible for the unremitting suffering of the Palestinian people in violation of international law and all norms of human decency.

Your thoughts?

Comment by John — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:45 am
See, David T. Addled by animus. Stop before it’s too late.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:53 am
A bit of a coup to find a recent pic of Roger Rosewall to accompany the shocking news.

Comment by Darren — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:56 am
John and Andy #51 and 52. Absolutely true. But isn’t it then even more important that someone on the left sets a better example?

Is it unreasonable to ask for a point of view on the execution rather than ignore it? Is it that he doesn’t care or is the problem that George would feel this would render him vulnerable? This is surely a valid matter for debate.

How do leftists make a stand? And over which issues? Isn’t this conundrum at the heart of this thread?

Comment by Madam Miaow — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:57 am
No, Press TV is the propaganda arm of a theocracy. It is not a public service broadcaster, like the BBC. It is not a private company.

Come on!

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:00 am
Isnt the BBC the propaganda arm of the Anglo-British Protestant theocracy?

Comment by Kevin Williamson — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:07 am
Of course it is, dear.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:08 am
Madam #55- It is patently ludicrous to expect the left in this country to succumb to the anti-Iranian campaign partly fuelled by our own government in order to demonise the regime. It follows a pattern employed by every ruling class since time immemorial to justify invading, colonising, bombing and murdering colonial peoples.

Iran is not a country I would choose to live in, but the reason it’s an Islamic Republic is because the vast majority of its people support it that way. Iran’s experience of the West and our so-called civilised values are of coups, the support and propping up of barbaric dictators like the Shah, and the expropriation of their resources.

I would suggest that our enemy is at home.

Comment by John — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:16 am
#55

As we all know George galloway is in principle opposed to the death penalty, so obviously he would be opposed to each and every execution.

But why is it about george galloway? The USA executes more people than iran, the USA executes children, the USA has by far the greatest prison-industrial complex in the world with about 780 out of every 100000 people in prison, compared to about 175 per 100000 in China. The USA has a network of torture centres around the world. But British politicans who have a relationship with the US government or media are not continually asked their views about Guantanamo or extraordinary rendition.

You could make an argument that the left shuld boycott the mainstream media, becasue of the BBC’s propaganda role over the war in Afghanistan for example. But we wouldn’t crticise a leftist for appearing on newsnight, even thogh the same edition of newsnight might uncritically report that a US missile attack on pakistan had killed a “terrorist” who had never been convicted of any crime in a court of law.

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:16 am
JOhn : ” the reason it’s an Islamic Republic is because the vast majority of its people support it that way. ”

That doesn’t actually match my experience of talking to Iranian refugees in this country, but it is up to the people of Iran to change the government, not up to self appointed Western “saviors”

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:17 am
So, again, what does ANY of this have to do with the fact that Galloway works for the propaganda arm of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

You know full well that Galloway would and could never say, on PressTV, that the Islamic Republic of Iran executes its political opponents on trumped up charges.

And that’s not because he’s worried about “succumbing to the anti-Iranian campaign partly fuelled by our own government in order to demonise the regime”.

It is because he is in the pay of the IRI.

Oh yeah, you’ll get some platitudes about how Galloway opposes the death penalty, generally, all right. But - just as he did over the hanging of two young gay men - he’ll parrot back the lies and propaganda of the IRI.

You have to ask yourself: is that what YOUR Left ought to be doing? Are you prepared to be lead by a spiv and profiteer, who works for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s propaganda arm, in order to defeat, ahem, “imperialism”?

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:24 am
It would appear that the SWP CC is conducting it’s own version of a Serious Case Review and has already taken disciplinary action against the Social[ist] Workers who have very nearly ’caused or allowed the death of a child’… The ‘Child’ in this case is RESPECT.
Thankfully the childs mother Salma and the childs father intervened decisively a year ago to save the baby and remove it from the ‘care’ of the Social[ist] Workers.
Some of the best Social[ist] Workers knew the mother and father were acting in the best interests and either resigned or were sacked for speaking up.

I am glad Mr Rees has got the sack maybe he can apply for a job in Harringey Council where his arrogant bombastic style would serve him well?

Health Visitor’s report that Salma and George’s baby is now recovering well from past trauma but unless it recieves some new blood soon the child is at risk of failing to thrive or meet developmental milestones.

Maybe Mr Rosen could visit and play a bit of Jazz to stimulate new neuronal connextions.

As for Mr Rees he has in my view got off lightly.

Comment by mark anthony france — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Andy: ‘That doesn’t actually match my experience of talking to Iranian refugees in this country, but it is up to the people of Iran to change the government, not up to self appointed Western “saviors”’

Speak to Cuban-Americans in Florida and you could say the same with regard to socialism in Cuba. Refugees can’t speak for 70 million people, Andy. The Islamic revolution in 1979 was a popular revolution, that we do know for certain. Regardless of the problems that exist within Iran today, and just as with our own or any other country there are problems, the one thing that unites the Iranian people is their resistance to US and British imperialism.

Comment by John — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:27 am
Odd, then, that the Council of Guardians has to disqualify literally thousands of politicians - some serving - from standing in election, every time they have one.

Strange that they have to imprison and torture trade unionists, opposed to the regime.

Because if the IRI was really that popular, why would they have to do that?

The thing is, I can just about understand why those on the far Left defended Stalin, even when they knew that he was a genocidal bastard. You could at least convince yourself that, at the end of the day, you’d have ‘true socialism’.

But remind me again what the point is of this slavish lying to protect the reputation of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:30 am
And when George and the left embrace the Imams and Islamists for their cultural diversity, for their community support, for their compassion towards the downtrodden and the oppressed, and when the Imam and the Islamist goes back to Tehran or Cairo or Arabia and stones that girl to death for the crime of falling in love with a boy, then the douchebag reactionary lefties and the Galloways have absolutely nothing to say.

David T. — you will not get sympathy for dissidents rotting in Iranian jails slated for execution from this sorry crowd I see here - Andy Newman, Nemesis, Michael and the rest of the reactionary proto-fascists deracinated intellectuals who have turned against the tradition of the enlightenment and liberalism.

Bunch of sorry Islam sucker - with their head guy working for the theocratic fascist government of Iran, and the rest of them defending him. This left deserves to die, and I am so glad that I no longer belong to it and that it has been reduced to its current sorry state.

A set of group-idiots, ignorant of ecnomics and science who never understood the difference between idealism and materialism, or for that matter, the difference between rationalism and empiricism. A bunch of free loaders who never had a productive job in their whole lives (invariably working for the state at some level), parasiting on other folk’s hard earned income — and then opinionating about what is wrong with the working class — that they despise and find so contemptible.

David, do you want to bet that not a single one of these leftofascists here has a decent, productive, and non-freeloading job deserving and honestly earning what he is getting paid?

Comment by Hamid — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:31 am
#64

For sure, my refugee friends have been iside Iran’s gaols so they are not the biggest fans of the government - and even they say they would go back and fight for Iran if it was threatened.

But the revolutiom was a long time ago, and I really don’t think the government is popular.

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:33 am
Peter Tatchell, Mike Mendoza (a former Talksport presenter who is strongly pro-Israel), Andrew Gilligan… just some of the people who have worked for Press TV. Are they all shilling for Tehran? C’mon, David T, your mind’s rotted. Personally, I’d be happy if Galloway’s programmes were on Sky’s own channels or the BBC. The wider the audience the better.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:33 am
Andy Newman: The UK government had a shoot to kill policy in the war in Ireland, it invaded Iraq illegally, and has been complicit in extraordinary rendition and torture. John Sergeant worked for the British state TV, so John Sergeant is a bad man, and so therefore is Bruce Forsyth, uncle cobleigh and all.

You fucking idiot is comparing the liberal democratic UK state with the theocratic fascist state of the Islamic Republic? What a douchebag.

Your idiocy reflects that of the fucking reactionary left that has turned its back on liberal democracy and equality in its disgusting quest for political power. How many women did your imam friends force marriage lately?

Comment by Hamid — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:37 am
#66 ‘David, do you want to bet that not a single one of these leftofascists here has a decent, productive, and non-freeloading job deserving and honestly earning what he is getting paid’: Hamid, David T is a lawyer. I don’t know about your rationalism, but you’d be well advised to brush up your empiricism if you are to avoid wild ‘opinionating’.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:38 am
#69 ‘fucking reactionary left’. And you started so well, Hamid. There we were hoping you would give us a disquistion on the antinomies of Western thought.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:39 am
No fan of Galloway, but I viewed Dave Douglas being interviewed on his ‘Real Deal’ programme last week. I assume now that DavidT thinks Douglas is also a supporter of the theocratic regime in Iran and that when the programme moves to the Sky platform, as announced, Murdoch is too?

Comment by Theo Saurus — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:42 am
John #59: ” It is patently ludicrous to expect the left in this country to succumb to the anti-Iranian campaign partly fuelled by our own government in order to demonise the regime. … I would suggest that our enemy is at home.”

Never said it wasn’t, John. But socialists should be able to hold more than one thought in their heads, otherwise look what slips in.

Someone with George’s oratorial skills should be able to hold fast to a principle and expose western hypocrisy at the same time. In fact they reinforce each other. Otherwise it looks slippery.

Comment by Madam Miaow — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:42 am
John what about fox TV?

And you fucking douchebag is comparing a fascist theocratic state owned propaganda mouthpiece (Press TV) to a capitalist outfit that has to earn its keeps and compete in the marketplace of ideas - being none of hundreds of voices in a liberal democracy?

You lefties here are sure of a super dim wit.

Fucking douchebags, is all I can see.

SAY IT IDIOTS: “we support the fascist Islamic state of Iran, with all its muder of dissidents and stoning of women, because its oh so authentic. And because its like fox news and Westminster.” SAY IT YOU DOUCHEBAGS.

Comment by Hamid — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:43 am
61, 64 etc. Of course the Iranian regime is disastrous, above all for the Iranian people, and socialists should show solidarity with its victims. But one of the main factors bolstering and consolidating support for that regime within Iran is precisely the external “threat” that its leaders can point to. There is nothing like a siege mentality to stifle and marginalise dissent at home. Western sabre-rattlers and their little echoes on the cruise-missile left are, unwittingly, some of the regime’s greatest allies.

The only people who can overthrow of the Iranian regime and replace it with something better are the Iranian people themselves. This is not a question of “anti-imperialism” but simply of historical experience. Western interventions in Iran’s neighbours have served only to replace appalling regimes by something even worse - the breakdown of society and the economy and rule by whoever happens to have a gun locally.

Comment by Francis King — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:47 am
Hamid and DavidT,
It’s a lie to say that the UK left supports the clerical/fascist Iran regime.
Protests and demonstrations supported by UK trade unions have taken place here against repression of striking Iraninan workers and so have demonstrations against that regime’s barbaric repression of LGB people.
I would say that the overwhelming majority of the left see the Iran regime as the enemey of the working class every bit as much as the ruling classes of the UK and US.
There is a small minority on the left who argue that the British left should concentrate all of its opposition on the British and US ruling class and should not speak out against the Iran regime but leave that to the Iranina working class.
That position is wrong, but, as well as being a minority position on the left, that position is still a long, long way away from supporting the Iran regime.

Comment by Karl Stewart — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:50 am
45# “Peter Taaffe has written a critique of the SWP has he? That reminds me of the scene in one of the Planet Of The Apes movies. “Ape kills ape.””

Do you have an actuall concrete example to show how SP practice in broad lefts, electoral alliances etc is similar to the SWP?

Comment by Neil — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:56 am
“Meanwhile, his employers are about to execute an innocent Kurdish teacher”

See, there’s his problem; he’s Kurdish. I mean, he wanted George to like them, he’d try another ethnicity. I mean, a whole load of Kurds got gassed once and George just told their murderer he was courageous and indefatigable.

Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:58 am
OK then, fair enough Karl.

I accept that.

However, FFS, Galloway!!!

I mean, I shouldn’t really fuss about this, because Galloway kind of makes my argument for me. But I do, because it is just… wrong.

This isn’t really about the betrayal of the Left. The far Left is so small anyhow, what it says or does doesn’t really matter that much. Galloway’s audience is NOT the Left.

Have a look at his supporters, the people who turn up in larger crowds than the left to cheer him on, with “religious” chants, and you’ll see very clearly what sort of tumbril you’ve hitched yourself to.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:58 am
“Western interventions in Iran’s neighbours have served only to replace appalling regimes by something even worse - the breakdown of society and the economy and rule by whoever happens to have a gun locally.”

I know a couple of Iraqi Kurds who would disagree with you.

And we have no idea what level of support there is for the Iranian government because the free expression of political opinion is forbiddden in that sad and beleaguered country.

Comment by John Meredith — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:58 am
Comedy gold. The soap opera that is the SWP continues to amuse. Political careers always end in failure, but in Rees and German’s case they began and continued with defeat too.

Loving it. I’m really loving it.

Oh, and to follow on from Hamid’s point, it was the swuppies who support to marginalise leftist groups hostile to the Iranian regime, as part of their doomed policy of whoring themselves out to the MAB and other fundamentalists. Look where that got them?

Comment by sackcloth and ashes — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:58 am
what a sad blog this site has become

Comment by gui — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
80: “I know a couple of Iraqi Kurds who would disagree with you.” I’m sure you do. The position in Iraqi Kurdistan seems to be somewhat less dire at the moment than elsewhere in Iraq and - most importantly - many Kurds may see it as a bridgehead for the eventual unification of all Kurdistan. There are winners and losers in all situations. Which category the Kurds will fall into remains to be seen.

Comment by Francis King — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
We seem to have wandered off thread, ie: Rees’s sacking and what it says about the SWP cc’s role in the Respect split and beyond.

Forget the trolls comrades.

There are negative aspects* to the objective situation as Mike R says, otherwise there would be greater confidence in the W/C (*like the last 30 years), some of it seems to have taken it’s toll on the external (and internal) workings of the SWP, particulary the cc; the question is how does the ‘left’ go forward from now ?

Breaking Brown’s pay limit still seems to me to be paramount.

Comment by Halshall — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:22 pm
Hamid:

‘SAY IT IDIOTS: “we support the fascist Islamic state of Iran, with all its muder of dissidents and stoning of women, because its oh so authentic. And because its like fox news and Westminster.” SAY IT YOU DOUCHEBAGS.’

Reply:

You just did, and much more emphatically than I ever could. Now how about a lie down and a wee cup of tea to take the edge off?

Comment by John — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:27 pm
There is a serious point here: what are the real reasons for this sacking? I for one would like to know a political explanation.

In the meantime admirers of John Rees can only lament and weep:

http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/so-farewell-then-john-rees/

Andrew Coates

Comment by Andrew Coates — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
Here’s hoping that this will stimulate a good debate with in the SWP (yes maybe that’s a long shot).

The Ress haters on this blog should remember that what ever the many faults in the way he handled Respect (and many thy are), oddly he actually represents the more positive outward looking wing of the SWP in terms of moving forward.

It would be a positive thing if he was defended by SWP members at their conference. Unfortunatly the slate system is quite powerfull in stopping indiviual rebelions - I was at the conference when Moylenu ran on a slate that was the same as the other slate just with himself added - bizzare.

Anyway, I never thought I’d be saying this after the last year but DEFEND REES (the alternative is worse!)

Comment by Joseph Kisolo — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
#89 That makes a lot of sense, Joseph. There’s a big danger that the SWP now lurches into propagandism and stunts. Callinicos’s ‘muslim notables’ line might also end up encouraging sections of the SWP to soften what was a good position on relating to radicalised muslims in Britain.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
Andy I think you’re views on the SWP have always been too harsh, but I admit you have improved in your analysis.

In any case - this was a good thread just to see Comrade Newman paint the walls with David T’s tired squabbles.

Comment by Futurecast — 27 November, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
tralalala-lala la. la.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
“I mean, a whole load of Kurds got gassed once and George just told their murderer he was courageous and indefatigable.”

Galloway met Winston Churchill?

Comment by McGazz — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
David T are you a lecturer? (I seem to recall people saying you were) If so I feel sorry for your students, having a hack and pretentious reactionary bore for a teacher. Few have it more brutally upside down than you. Go inhale some copies of the Daily Mail and save yourself the time of posting.

Comment by Futurecast — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
No he is a lawyer -

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
Maybe John Rees can become a lecturer. Callinicos can help get him a job, if they haven’t fallen out too badly.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:18 pm
What would he lecture in? He knows nothing.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
Hasn’t stopped your career progression, David T, has it?

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
Re Andy #95 - A lawyer? Oh FFS. So much for veritas and gravitas?

I had him down as a policeman or a prison warder - you know, a profession that attracts people who want to punish people for their own illicit desires.

Comment by John — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
True.

Comment by David T — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
#95 Andy Newperson.. yes David T is a Lawyer and when he should be going through his briefs or whatever it is he is being paid to do…. he is always on Facebook desperatly trying to make friends or trolling the web making enemies.

I am just going to the phone now to tell his boss.
I hope he gets the same treatment as John Rees.

Comment by mark anthony france — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:43 pm
#102

i don’t think that is a very good precident, as i am nominally “at work” right now!

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
Employers are vicariously liable, under the respondeat superior doctrine, for negligent acts or omissions by their employees in the course of employment.[1] For an act to be considered within the course of employment it must either be authorised or be so connected with an authorised act that it can be considered a mode, though an improper mode, of performing it. Courts sometime distinguish between an employee’s “detour” or “frolic”. For instance, an employer will be held liable if it is shown that the employee had gone on a mere detour in carrying out their duties, whereas an employee acting in his or her own right rather than on the employer’s business is undertaking a “frolic” and will not subject the employer to liability.

Comment by mark anthony france — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
“I am just going to the phone now to tell his boss.
I hope he gets the same treatment as John Rees.”

And when they came for me there was noone left to speak out.

Comment by reverend sock puppet — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
103# Andy…. any vacancies …. or is that a stupid question/

Comment by mark anthony france — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
The sacking of Rees is not really evidence of democracy asserting itself in the party, as it follows the traditional CC model of ‘oligarchy tempered by assassination’. But the wider situation is more encouraging, since the CC are sacrificing Rees now because they hope it will help them quell the storm of criticism that is brewing among the members at large. Normally SWP conferences are world-historically tame affairs, and yet for the first time in living memory there is a chance that the next conference will witness a full-on movement among the members to hold the leadership as a whole to account and address the bizarre. The chances are slim, imho, but they are real.

Comment by Karen Elliot — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
#107 That is interesting. I’ve heard there are rumblings in the SWP ranks, but nothing close to a storm of criticism. I hope you’re right. Are you in a position to spell things about a bit more fully? A movement to hold the leadership to account and create a much more healthy political culture would be very welcome.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
Does this have any financial implications for him, BTW? Was he also a paid full-timer?

Comment by Another Dave — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
#109 Yes. The financial implications for the Rees-German household are extreme. One or both (if she resigns in solidarity) will have to get a job.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
110# Nemesis…maybe Rees and German can get a bursary to train as Social Workers and go on to work in Haringey in Child Protection?

Comment by mark anthony france — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
110# Nemisis… is their mortgage with Northern Rock?

Comment by mark anthony france — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
Apologies, I hit ’send’ in mid edit…. #107 should read;

“… hold the leadership as a whole to account and address the bizarre cult of the CC that Cliff initiated and which has become something of a hallmark.”

And I should add that, while I’m normally keen to push myself near to the front of any queue lining up to criticise the SWPs leadership, the game is very much worth the candle, as the SWP contains many of the best revolutionary militants and intellectuals I’ve met. Their notion of party discipline, and the scale of their hubris, is frankly weird, yet I still prefer the members of a broken SWP to anything else on offer on the Brit left. It might be better for those on this list simply to wish good luck to anyone in the SWP who is seriously considering these problems and inclined to do something about them. I certainly wouldn’t want my own criticisms to give succor or encouragement to some on this list whose real beef with the SWP is that they remain revolutionary communists. Whether the party is capable of regenerating itself is precisely what remains to be seen, but I have no doubt that if that were to happen it would be a major victory.

On Rees himself, I don’t get all the crocodile tears about his ’sincerity’ and ‘commitment’. For as long as I’ve known him (over twenty years) he has seemed to me to be a revolutionary careerist, prepared to pull almost any stunt, to say anything, to further his own position. Whether or not you feel sorry for him is up to you - but that his fall from grace is good for the left is beyond serious doubt.

Comment by Karen Elliot — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
I trust his union will be defending him…

Comment by Another Dave — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
#108: “Are you in a position to spell things about a bit more fully? ”

Nemesis, I’m afraid I don’t have any information other than what’s in the public domain - but you’d have to radically underestimate the SWP membership not to see something major coming down the line, given the events of the last year. For a long time there it surprised me how much the members were willing to put up with from Rees in the interests of party discipline, but his demotion, although it is surely intended to assuage criticism, also effectively removes the requirement to curtail it any longer. And you can bet that those who have been unhappy with Rees’s leadership won’t stop short at simply congratulating the CC for finally seeing what was obvious to everyone else a long time ago.

Comment by Karen Elliot — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
#115 Thanks, Karen. I hope that proves right. My fear, however, is that with Rees a scapegoat, all the mistakes and bad feeling can be dumped on him and he group around Martin Smith can simply appeal for loyalty while spinning a tale that they were against the Rees-German axis all along but did not have the strength to act. I’m sure a number of SWP members won’t go along with that.

But, equally, the full time apparatus and the hacks who are loyal to the leadership whatever it does will. My view is more pessimistic than yours. I think it’s more likely that there will be no accounting, but I hope I’m wrong.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
Infamous muckrakers fulfill their allotted role, bless them

Comment by Karen Elliot — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
fsck, sorry, that’s very old news

Comment by Karen Elliot — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
I know one significant district in effect called for Rees’s head. Maybe they can be the kernel of some kind of spirited floor revolt at the conference. They will have to face down Smith et al saying that everything is in such a parlous state that the party cannot afford an open argument; better to keed it to the corridors and one to one chats and all that.

Various people who are unhappy are going to have to show they are made of much sterner stuff than they were last year. I’m thinking, for example, about the crew over at Lenin’s Tomb. Most of them are not unintelligent (there are some cringeworthy hacks as well, to be sure). But they all went along with the Left List hubris and Rees’s fabulating about the split in Respect. I hear third hand that quite a few of them are unhappy and are even saying that they didn’t really believe the nonsense they regurgitated last year.

That’s good. But they are going to have to speak out loudly now if they want to avoid being in the stifling sect which they are said privately to fear the SWP turning into.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
Andy, not to interrupt your sectarian little hate-fest, but I am a little surprised you would allow comments (like 42.) that insinuate that comrades work for MI-5. I distinctly recall you being all upset about suggesting this about you in the past, even in jest.

Comment by christian h. — 27 November, 2008 @ 2:58 pm
christian h: I didn’t read it as implying that. But I can see how it could be read to. Either way, it was a sharp sarcastic comment. I don’t think it’s worth calling the umpire in over. Much more importantly, how do you think the SWP will develop post the Rees era? What kind of direction do you think it should go it?

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:02 pm
The question, surely, is whether Rees will do a Molyneux and put forward an alternative slate, with him on it. The alternative is a spell in the wilderness until he is invited back (a la Mandelson).
Of course, to fight his effective expulsion from the CC is a high risk strategy- he risks exposing his own unpopularity / weakness if he cannot get enough support to make a challenge viable and if German or Bambery back him it could sink them too.
On the other hand, in order for Seer John to get the backing of a sizeable minority in the party he would need to come out with an alternative set of perspectives and may risk splitting the party along a number of different faultlines.

When are the pre-conference bulletings out?

Comment by RobM — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
You don’t get it Christian, anything accused towards the SWP is fair game. Mention anything towards Respect and its off limits.

Comment by ll — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
Nemesis
Are you going to speak out about Galloway backing new labour in by elections against the left, praising Darling, writng sexist clap trap and fawning over Livingstone.. come to think about it, no one said a word at the conferecne (rally) no wonder it was 50% down on last year yawn yawn

Comment by ll — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:09 pm
What about Mark France NC member of Respect wanting to sack social workers and planning a delegation of Respect members to march with those demanding Haringay local govt workers be sacked. He seems to belive this is a progressive thing and backs murdochs scapegoating.

Comment by ll — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
#124 No, ll. This is a thread about developments in the largest far left party in Britain. You and David T can go and troll somewhere else. Some of us care about the SWP getting out of a cul de sac and not imploding into sectarian isolation.

RobM: I think the bulletins are out now. I don’t see Rees putting up a fight. I also don’t see him coming back after a suitable period in the wilderness. No. It’s the end for him as far as I can see.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:14 pm
#125 what about, what about, what about… what about the topic of this thread.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:15 pm
So, II (or LL, or 11, or whatever)…

John Rees sacked from the CC. Good thing, or bad?

Comment by Another Dave — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
126, shame, I would have liked to see JR putting up a fight (if only to see him get a bit of a mauling)

In fact I had visions of Karen Elliott blowing the dust off that stack of red pamphlets he keeps under his bed and donating them to John to sell at Marxism…

R.

Comment by RobM — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
I might be wrong, RobM. It’s just my take.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
126 + 129. Maybe he’ll apply to join Respect.

Comment by Another Dave — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:26 pm
I think this is what is known in the trade as ‘Doing a Wohlforth’.

Comment by Another Dave — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:26 pm
#128

Good IMHO

Comment by ll — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
# 133. Thanks for that. And why do you think it’s good?

Comment by Another Dave — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
I’m filling up as I write this. How can they treat the British Lenin like this? Or perhaps, with Lindsay, the Karl and Rosa of the British working class. He could have been a councillor for Pete’s sake but for a few hundred votes. Ungrateful wretches.

Comment by Doug — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
‘But for a handful of votes, he left us, just for a for a helmet to pose on his bike’

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
Good point about the CPGB/Weekly Worker. There must be much weeping and nashing of teeth over at Conrad towers today.

Their biggest problem is that the blogs can push far left gossip much faster than their outdated weekly gossip sheet model every allowed them to.

Their secondary problem is that they seem to have become confused about the reasons why anyone looks at the Weekly Worker and have started filling the thing with idiotic bilge (otherwise known as their crazed views on politics and their fabulously dull “theoretical” articles). Nobody goes to your website to read the Great Leader’s views on Jesus Christ or some witterings from a pseudonymous student about climate change, you fucking idiots! Give the punters what they want!

Back in its heyday they understood this. And they knew that if they couldn’t get any decent gossip, they could just make some up. Nowadays the only gossip they have is about the AWL or the Campaign for a Marxist Party and nobody fucking cares about the CPGB/WW squabbles with either of those grouplets. You could put all three of those organisation’s entire membership on a single decent sized bus.

Comment by Irish Mark P — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
Those of you who shrug off the fact that Galloway receives a paycheck from the Islamic Republic of Iran: please take a moment to watch this clip from Iranian state TV. And even if you believe the translation from Farsi to English was manipulated by Mossad agents, at least look at the damn pictures.

Comment by Gene — 27 November, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
It’s quite stunning that you guys don’t even notice how pathological your behavior is. I suppose most of you were comrades once, working for a better world and putting the interests of the working class first. Now, you are hateful fools, obsessed with the internal affairs of those more successful at organizing the fight than you are. You find nothing wrong with suggesting comrades work for the Security Service (this used to be a big no-no, I believe). You base a whole thread of vicious slander on information gleaned from one blog comment (that is, a rumor - and no Andy, a rumor that turns out correct is still a rumor). Your mindset is basically that of the stalker - unhealthy, really. Just snap out of it.

Comment by christian h. — 27 November, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
#131…Another Dave… I can only speak for myself and not the rest of the RESPECT National Committee but if John Rees and Lindsay German wanted to apply on line to join RESPECT I think they should be er… I’m searching for a more appropriate word than welcomed… er… accepted.
For that matter any other ex-member or current member should be welcomed back into membership.

We cannot, especially, in the current burgeoning, economic crisis which contains so many dangers and potential opportunities dell on past trauma.

We can learn the lessons and move on in the knowledge we will not make the same mistakes again.

Salma Yaqoob the founder and leader of RESPECT is a psychotherapist…. very, very patient and capable of rehabilitating offenders so long as they have self awareness and tell the truth.

Even George is enough of a gentleman to shake hands, and forgive if not forget. Just like he shook hands with Mark Steel at RESPECT conference even though Mark had said some rather unflattering things about George.

If John Rees Joined RESPECT we might even select him to stand in Basildon as a candidate on a ‘Social Workers are Great!’ Platform.

Comment by mark anthony france — 27 November, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
I usually don’t post anything regarding sectarian scraps. However, it is really extraordinary that this kind of thing is considered some sort of revelation. Trotskyists and Leninists are incapable of working for the creation of a broad left party. There will always be the narcissism of small differences on just about everything. Then there are the ego-trippers who think they’re Trotsky or Lenin (or even Stalin). Add Galloway to this combustible mix, and that’s about as lethal a cocktail as you’ll ever put together. For pity’s sake, what did people think was going to happen?

The sooner the hard-working and brilliant comrades who are members of the SWP and Socialist Party and a few other groupings refuse to submit to the “intellectuals” and instead forge a broad party (something like the Labour Left) that can actually achieve things, the better. The “intellectuals” can then go their merry way and rant their deranged “revolutionary” nonsense at Speakers’ Corner. That would be a happier state of affairs for all. I recommend this motion.

Comment by Tawfiq Chahboune — 27 November, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
#140. Funnily enough Mark, I agree with you. But I’d keep a watchful and loving eye on him for the next, oh, 20 yearss.

Comment by Another Dave — 27 November, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
“Trotskyists and Leninists are incapable of working for the creation of a broad left party.”
This is quite simply not true. Certain organisations that claim to stand in a Trotskyist or Lenninist tradition have certainly proved they are difficult to work with. Their record speaks for itself. But you have just made a sweeping statement and provided nothing to back it up. The Socialist Party as Militant worked in left coalitions in the Labour Party for decades while still defendign our ideas. Who set up the SA that achieved some small modest sucess, before it was wrecked by the SWP’s rule or ruin approach? Not the SP.
Just ask any of the independent lefts at the latest CNWP conference if the SP always takes a my-way-or-the-highway approach to other organisations and they will tell you no.

“The sooner the hard-working and brilliant comrades who are members of the SWP and Socialist Party and a few other groupings refuse to submit to the “intellectuals” and instead forge a broad party (something like the Labour Left) that can actually achieve things, the better.”
Can you name a specific “intellectual” or “intellectuals” in the SP leadership who supposedly rule over us? Don’t make sweeping statements, name names please.

You are perfectly entitled to make any criticism of the SP that you like but do not tar us with the same brush as the SWP, that’s just lazy, and if you do have criticisms have specific examples you can point to, then we can have a sensible discussion about them.

Comment by Neil — 27 November, 2008 @ 4:50 pm
“Who set up the SA that achieved some small modest sucess, before it was wrecked by the SWP’s rule or ruin approach? Not the SP.”
That doesn’t make any sense does it.
I should have said it was the SP that set up the Socialist Alliance but it wasn’t the SP that wrecked it in the end. That was the SWP.

Comment by Neil — 27 November, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
#143 - Can you name a specific “intellectual” or “intellectuals” in the SP leadership

No.

Comment by Inigo Montoya — 27 November, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
Moderately amusing. 6/10.

Comment by Irish Mark P — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
#145 Inigo please see comment #2

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
#139: I really don’t understand this Masonic Marxism which treats the revolutionary party as a private club. A decent party would do pretty much everything in public, especially when it argues, and would be begging for public attention, with different factions fighting openly for support, inside and outside ‘the party’. Also, a decent party would expect the rest of the left to debate it’s every move, because they are taken seriously.

I’m familiar with the idea that public fights are exhausting and painful, but I like Trotsky’s idea that complaining about them is like a bird complaining about air resistance.

Not to mention the fact that it should be obvious by now that keeping things under wraps only defers the moment when they erupt, and makes the eventual fight all the more damaging (or, alternatively, it means that those fights are never had, and nothing is learned.) In other words, while a militaristic, ‘walls have ears’ approach to party discipline may be good for morale in the short term, making everyone feel like a steely soldier of the revolution even when they are really only a bookstall organiser from Pontefract, it is not a serious approach to winning real influence. To achieve the latter, you have to convince people that you are worthy of exercising leadership because you can be trusted to speak truthfully and stand up for what you believe in. The current approach is rather cowardly, since it takes far more real discipline and confidence to defend yourself in public than it does to simply denounce your critics as scabs, mensheviks and wreckers. A revolutionary party should never be the private concern of it’s members… such privacy is the hallmark of a sect. Actually, it is idiotic (… derived from the Greek ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs (”person lacking professional skill,” “a private citizen,” “individual”), from ἴδιος, idios (”private,” “one’s own”).)

Comment by Karen Elliot — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
# 146, yeah Andy, I was being flippant and was only kidding. Apologies to the SP comrades.

Very surprised at what people know or think they know about what’s going on in the SWP. I mean, getting the news about John was pretty quick off the ball but I thought you lot would have better intelligence about what’s going on in the rest of the party than you seem to have.

Comment by Inigo Montoya — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
145# “#143 - Can you name a specific “intellectual” or “intellectuals” in the SP leadership

No.”

Yes that’s always been a problem for us in Militant/SP, we’ve never had any great big “intellectuals” with fancy professorships at top uni’s or anybody can quote Slavoj Zizek or Gramsci on the hegemony of the ruling clas, in our leadership.

Instead, poor us, we’ve been forced to rely on thinking workers who’ve never even been to academic wine and cheese parties or even a Bookmarks garden tea party. Instead they’ve only done plebian things like sat on Labour Party NEC’s and done battle with Kinnockites, led joint shop stewards committees of car workers, led Apprentices strikes of thousands, not to mention led the last mass movement of the working class to actually defeat a sitting government.

And yet despite all these dificencies we have been crushingly right about perspectives for the SA, Respect and political representation in general, perspectives for the 90’s (1930’s in slow motion) and because I am feeling indulgent towards you in your time of difficulty lets not even talk about the Poll Tax, eh?

Strange that.

Comment by Neil — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
#149

Well you did use to have Andrew Glyn back in the day, did you not?

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:21 pm
True although I would say he had left the Millitant by the time most of the big events I talked about above had happened (although he was always very friendly to the organisation), even then I don’t think he was ever on the Executive committee.

Even though Inigo is taking the piss it’s still amusing to see him preen after the disasters his “intellectual” leadership has led his organisation into.
I’ll happily put the perspectives from the last decade from our organisation beside the stuff his intellectual leadership has produced any time you like.
(Although that might be difficult as all major statements including some of the internal conflicts with the Militant/SP are available here: http://marxist.net/resources.html for anyone to see and judge themselves, can the SWP say the same?)

Comment by Neil — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
#150: Glyn? Callinicos would eat him alive

Comment by Karen Elliot — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
nothing worse than having intellectuals in the leadership of the revolutionary movement - like Trotsky, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxembourg, Liebknecht… what workerist nonsense.

Comment by redbedhead — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:44 pm
#89 I am with Joseph on this. It will be a defeat for the whole left if the SWP internalises itself and looks for scapegoats, especially if this leads to members and branches getting alienated from the opportunities to make national politics. Comrades outside the SWP should understand that bad news for the SWP does not equal good news for the rest of the left. The party is a key component of the left in Britain and, as we have already started to see, its partial demobilisation and internalisation have had bad results for the organisations it has taken a leading role in. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that focussing a discussion on the membership of the CC and other organisational questions will help the SWP to turn outwards and link up with the broader opportunities for united class-struggle action.

Comment by Duncan — 27 November, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
Intellectual dominating the SP/CWI?

Peter Taafe surely?

Comment by AndyB — 27 November, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
#79 Neil - The operational differences of Trotskyist organisations may vary from group to group but they have all internalised similar political approaches. They initiate front organisations then entrench their own members into positions of authority/leadership. Its part of a broader strategy to prove that their particular organisation is the leadership-in-waiting of the working class. SP/Militant and the SWP have adopted this approach for decades. This is hardly man bites dog news. Its not my kind of politics but each to their own I suppose.

Comment by Kevin Williamson — 27 November, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
“I’ll happily put the perspectives from the last decade from our organisation beside the stuff his intellectual leadership has produced any time you like.”

Yeah, the control freakery of Militant and the SP means you lot flounce off in a huff as soon as anyone wants to play with your ball. At least the SWP tries to work with others even if it doesn’t work out ultimately.

“…lets not even talk about the Poll Tax, eh?”

I’m glad you didn’t have the gall to mention how Militant went on TV to condemn the Poll Tax rebellion. Best left in the dustbin of history, that one.

All this speculation about Rees is amusing because it’s done in the belief that this somehow vindicates Galloway. It highlights the inward and self-obsessed nature of Renewal.
I love the impassioned pleas to the so-called “angry” SWP masses. With these exhortations of religious conversion mixed with sectarian bile (and your Labour light politics) is it any wonder that SWP comrades (or anyone else for that matter) aren’t flocking to be converted?

Comment by Ray — 27 November, 2008 @ 6:29 pm
ray #157

please refer to comment #2

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
#2 is right but I felt compelled to help Neil with his amnesia about the Poll Tax. As for the rest of it, if gossiping about the SWP makes you feel relevant, knock yourselves out.

Comment by Ray — 27 November, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
#153 — did you not read what your leaders wrote?! No commenting on this from anyone in the IST, and that includes members includes the Canadian IS. Surely Abbie will have to remind you of the importance of proper Bolshevik discipline at your next steering cmte meeting.

Comment by 30s in slow motion — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
#157: “All this speculation about Rees is amusing because it’s done in the belief that this somehow vindicates Galloway”

Condemning Rees doesn’t imply supporting Galloway. I know, as I’ve tried it. Your formulation perfectly mirrors the sectarianism you complain of, since you assume a dualistic universe in which you either support Rees or you support Galloway. Fortunately we are not obliged to choose between the two. Certainly I don’t think that the SWP CC see it that way, unless you are inclined to believe that they’ve suddenly gone soft on Galloway, in which case you are going to have to kill them all, I suppose. And if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.

“the so-called “angry” SWP masses.”

Are you saying that the SWP membership aren’t angry about Rees and his handling of Respect, and that his co-leaders are the only ones who have criticisms? If so, you should be insisting that they explain themselves. If not, you should pipe down.

Comment by Karen Elliot — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:18 pm
This thread amply demonstrates just how nasty and misnamed this blog is.

Do you lot seriously believe that every member of the SWP CC is incapable of taking an honest decision in the best interests of their party and the left?

Comment by vomitorium — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
Rees is to speak at an “SWP rally” in Hackney on December 3, if flyposting in that part of London is to be believed.

Comment by Cynical observer — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:39 pm
Neil - intellectual pretensiousness and anti-intellectual workerism are both fundamentally weaknesses for the British left. The SP is all the poorer for not reading Gramsci. The SWP is the poorer for not reading Gramsci well enough.

Comment by michaelC — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:40 pm
The number of people who comment on such threads with minimal knowledge or understanding of the facts never ceases to amaze.

What we have is a proposal to remove John Rees from the SWP leadership which will be voted on in January, but it’s hard to imagine that it will not be easily endorsed.

The reasons for the proposal aren’t fully clear as even SWP members have had no more than brief verbal explanations. A fuller explanation may be expected when the leadership puts forward its proposed slate at SWP conference. However it would be surprising if some comment isn’t made in the SWP’s Party Notes before then to provide some kind of answers to the questions that comrades will inevitably be asking.

This said, it wouldn’t be way off the mark to infer that Rees is being punished for decisions that he made in his role as a leader of Respect and its successor bodies.

Can we expect to see big internal upheavals in the SWP in the months ahead ? Er … no. There have been contributions to the Internal Bulletins on the subject of internal democracy, and one may think that the decision to oust John Rees for past “mistakes” which the SWP leadership has never acknowledged even to its own members would reinforce the argument that more vigorous accountability was needed. But there is no great movement for change within the party. Many of the members disgruntled by the party’s actions during the Respect split have already left, to be replaced by a newer, younger layer of members, who in the absence of any culture of internal discussion have no reference point from which to critique the leadership.

Some who hold John Rees accountable for the demise of the Socialist Alliance and the catastrophic split in Respect will feel entitled to gloat at this latest news. Perhaps they should think again. John Rees was personally responsible for the SWP’s biggest and most serious engagement in United Front work since the 1970s, and his leadership helped to marginalise the entrenched opposition within the party to electoral work. Now it is the leading advocates of United Front work within the SWP leadership who have been marginalised and defeated. If this means, as many fear, that the SWP will increasingly plough its own furrow in the times ahead then this will come as another blow to the cause of left unity.

Comment by red mole — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:40 pm
Inigo Montoya in post No.146 implies strongly that there is something more interesting going on in the SWP, apart from the shafting of John Rees. Oddly, the SWP’s conference bulletins don’t seem to have found their way to a public website this year, so it isn’t easy to find out if that’s true or if it’s just a wind up.

In the absence of any hard evidence to the contrary, I think it’s safest to assume that this move isn’t all that significant. The power shift in the SWP came a couple of months back, when Rees was removed from the Left Alternative leadership. That move was a result of a political disagreement over the prospects of the Left Alternative front and the prospects of some kind of broad electoral front more generally.

This to me seems to be the natural working out of the consequences of a struggle at the top that’s essentially over. Mixed in with a bit of scapegoating. I doubt if Rees has the support to wage a serious struggle or even to be a figurehead for one.

This is likely to just be a minor incident in the wider repositioning of the SWP back towards selling the paper and recruiting.

Comment by Irish Mark P — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
While I was writing that post, “red mole” said much the same thing in a more coherent way. I am curious though as to what precisely is being said about internal democracy in the bulletins?

(On another note, who said that “the SP don’t read Gramsci?” What an odd claim.)

Comment by Irish Mark P — 27 November, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
No SWP internal bulletins up? This is a job for the Weekly Wanker!

*Faster than a speeding MI5 photocopier

*Able to leap tall “Berufsverbots” in a single bound

*Fighters for truth, justice and the British Way

*Wherever bicycles are menaced by International Communism, the Weekly Wanker will meet the crisis by publishing all the relevant internal documents, naturally without permission, of course…

Comment by Cynical observer — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
Mark - your own comrade Neil was mocking intellectuals who can quote Gramsci. I must say I don’t see much evidence of serious thought about ideological reproduction and its implications for left strategy anywhere in SP writings. Just militant labourism redux.

Comment by michaelC — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
So farewell to another machine man. Rees acted not in the interests of the working class but in the interests of the SWP. In fact, not in the interests of the SWP but in the interests of the only legal faction in the SWP, the small ruling, bureaucratic clique. He was found wanting in that regard thanks to those who kept Respect alive and exposed the SWP’s shortcomings and now its Stalinist third-periodism all the way although we are likely to discover that all human life was there under the stifling bureaucratic regime. Let’s hope the best of them, the sincere activists, find their way to exemplary as opposed to their previous sub-reformist or ultra-left Bakunin anarchist politics and that they don’t end up on the right with the other pro-war, pro-imperialist cultists such as the Matgamna zombies or apologising for reformist police criminality and class collaboration. The sects were possibly necessary during the cold war but they are clearly now an infantile disorder and a danger in the current situation. The SWP are, with the other sects and cults, responsible for disorganising and demoralising the left and more importantly the revolutionary left. Read Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky in the raw. Fuck the Stalinist, post-modern Gramsci (a true machine man). Learn something and learn to apply it in a way that doesn’t alienate the working class or play to opportunism but expresses their interests. Get political, get connected, get serious.

Comment by Goodbye — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
Well if he was, he’s sadly out of his step with his own organisation which actually peddles Gramsci’s work on its bookstalls.

Comment by Irish Mark P — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
Gramsci (a true machine man) - what bollocks, didn’t stop him rotting in jail.

Comment by michaelC — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:15 pm
There are almost more posts here than the sum total of all the left outside the SWP.

Comment by Hospital Worker — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:25 pm
#173, that’ll be back to #2 then !
You’re wrong, the Scottish Socialist Party has 1,200 members.

Comment by Eddie Truman — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:29 pm
#165: Red Mole - there’s no evidence I know of that Rees is being attacked for advocating the turn to electoral intervention: he’s been deposed because of the way he messed up such interventions. So, it seems the SWP is thinking precisely about how to turn successfully outward, rather than the opposite. While I have no inside knowledge, I wouldn’t assume that the internal ramifications of the Respect split are over. The cdes may be overly fond of the prone position when it comes to their CC, but they will have noticed that, while Rees may be the perfect embodiment of a certain problem, responsibility for all that has happened cannot be placed entirely at his door. That doesn’t mean that there will be a fight, but it may mean that there is at least some serious reflection and an attempt to change things. I remain to be convinced that that’s simply wishful thinking.

Comment by Karen Elliot — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:45 pm
Red mole and Irish Mark P (165 & 166) speculate that this news is likely to mean thst SWP moving away from engagement with the rest of the left and back towards party building etc.
I’m not so sure that it’s as tidy as that. I think that the loss of significant and experienced figures is leading them into a period of disorientation, in which they appear genuinely unsure of what path to take next.
An example of this is the way that SWP is facing left in PCS but, at the same time, facing right in amicus. Outside of industrial matters, while of course it is right in principle to protest against the bailout, the SWP-organised “anti-capitalist” protests have appeared unfocussed and lacking a clear aim, even a bit silly at times.
It all seems to me to express inexperience, uncertainty and confusion.
At the SP/SWP debate a couple of weeks ago, the SP speaker Hannah Sell argued that the root cause of the current SWP disorientation lay in its failure to see the collapse of the Soviet Union as any kind of negative experience.
Since hearing that analysis, I’ve been thinking that perhaps this explains the SWP being out of step with the rest of the left and with the objectively promising political situation beginning to develop now.
The rest of the left went through a period of profound disorientation through the early 1990s, while the SWP was on something of a high.
Now that the situation has altered with the collapse of so-called “free-market” ideology, and the politics and economics of socialism are once more seriously on the political agenda, the SWP seems unable to react to this with a serious strategy for advance.

Comment by Karl Stewart — 27 November, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
The whole problem of the SWP and most other would-be Marxist groups is that they allow the pseudo-intellectuals to dominate, and they become merely the extreme left wing of petit bourgeois politics. Militant and the Socialist Party represent the left-wing of working class politics. Any honest person who looks back at recent history will see the record of Militant and the SP on the miners strike, Liverpool Council, Poll Tax and recent trade union struggles - while the SWP ‘intellectuals’ were writing poor quality academic articles for their middle class audience. The SWP give socialists a bad name.

Comment by Andy — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
That’s a little bit simplistic Andy, there’s plenty of decent working-class militants in SWP too - I know quite a few myself.
What we need to do is win them - and others on the left - to the idea of a serious workers’ party.
Let’s not forget that the SP/Militant - although it has been right to identify the workers’ party idea as the essential task for now - has made errors too, as we all have.

Comment by Karl Stewart — 27 November, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
‘Much more importantly, how do you think the SWP will develop post the Rees era? What kind of direction do you think it should go it (sic)?’

Simple answer - it will go right down the shitter, in the same direction it’s been heading in over the past decade. Enjoy the view past the u-bend, comrades.

Comment by sackcloth and ashes — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:03 pm
‘Much more importantly, how do you think the SWP will develop post the Rees era? What kind of direction do you think it should go it (sic)?’

Simple answer - it will go right down the shitter, in the same direction it’s been heading in over the past decade. Enjoy the view past the u-bend, comrades.

Comment by sackcloth and ashes — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:03 pm
#176 That’s interesting, Karen. My soundings over the last 24 hours suggest a conflicted picture among the serious SWP members you refer to: a determination to hold the leadership to account and a lack of alternative combined with a hope that they will be rehabilitated.

I guess it all comes down to what’s meant by turning outwards. That in turn depends on an assessment of the current period. Proclaiming anti-fascist demos and fight back Thursdays (followed by Fridays, followed by… repeat to fade), storming buildings in the City which have no economic purpose, declaring the imminence of the dichotomy between reform and revolution (while adopting an increasingly sub-reformist set of ‘demands), telling the French they are too left wing and the Germans too right wing, shimmying left in the PCS and NUT(while schmoozing right in Amicus)… none of this amounts to tuning outwards.

I hope they can regroup and reengage. But I fear it will be a long winter before they see the spring.

Comment by Nemesis — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
Why do people keep making up silly udernames to post crap about the SWP? Or is it the same person making up lots of silly usernames? And why hasn’t anyone from the Socialist Party mentioned Pilkington glass in the long list of SWP crimes?

Comment by KrisS — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
What’s Pilkington Glass???

Comment by Karl Stewart — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:19 pm
I’m sure I’ve told you before. When I were a lad, and in the SWP as it goes, it was one of the things some older Militant comrades used to have a pop at the SWP about. I’m damned if I can remember the details, though. “Red unionism”, maybe.

It used to go along with their line about the SWP “welcoming troops” in the six counties. And I’m sure there was another one, but I can’t think what it was.

Comment by KrisS — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:24 pm
“Any honest person who looks back at recent history will see the record of Militant and the SP on the miners strike, Liverpool Council, Poll Tax and recent trade union struggles - while the SWP ‘intellectuals’ were writing poor quality academic articles for their middle class audience. The SWP give socialists a bad name.”

Ah yes the Militant
Derek Hatton and his long struggle which ended up wearing Armani suites and voting for the Tories, praising Thatcher

The Poll Tax.. Ahh yes those were the days when thousands took on the state and the militant threatedn on national tv to grass up the names of the “Rioters”. In the wake thousands of poll tax activits condemned this scabbing.

But you say there was the miiners strike.. yes but as soon as it ended they attacked Scargill for not holding ballot, joining in with the labour right wing. Also when the witchunt began with Scargill the Militant didn’t support him famously saying there was something dodgy going on.

Recent trade union struggles is also quoted.. ummm like the PCS when the Militant now the SP lead the way to stop workers taking strike action.

Shall we mention the issue of the Falklands war where the militant suddenly found themselves incapable of opposing Thatchers war.. thats right they bottled it as usual. Come to think of with regards to the war in Iraq they have done next to fuck all.

Well I also remember Section 28 .. of course Gay Rights was never there strong suit. In fact they were often homophobic and sexist wankers. Militant would not get involved in the section 28 campaign.

Black sections in the Labour Party.. couldn’t support their right to organise siding with the right.

And yes Derek God Bless him did go round Liverpool and hand out the sack to thousands of council workers. What an arsehole.

Peter Taffe, I once saw him speak yawn yawn whilst dressed in a shell suit lol no word of a lie, Those were the days Militant members had to pretend they were all scousers and scallys.. I think they eld day school on perfecting their accents.

Wankers like the one quoted above think being a worker is being sexist, drinking heavy and not reading any books cos “Workers don’t do that” what a patronising arsehole. By the way Andy which class background did Mark, Engels, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Gramsci come from.

Comment by ll — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
The SP members are becoming kind of annoying, punching the SWP to win some disoriented members is their new strategy to go from a thousand members to a thousand and fifty?

Comment by Anonymous — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
#186

It is a shame that the SWP is represented in this discussion by ll.

It is also a shame that sensible memebrs of the SWP choose not to distance themselves from him.

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
Pilkington Glass was the centre of a very big industrial dispute sometime around 1970. The International Socialists had (rather unusually) a significant influence over some of the workers involved, particularly on the strike committee. The IS encouraged the workers to split from their union and establish a new one, which they did with disastrous results.

It was one of the stupider moments in the history of the IS/SWP, and one which had very real consequences. However it was a very long time ago and the industrial strategy of today’s SWP has very little in common with the attitudes of the IS in those days.

Comment by Irish Mark P — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
The SP or its fore runner certainly didn’t have an exemplary record in the Poll Tax struggle. They did to it what the SWP did to the anti-war movement. Split it down in to manageable chunks until there was nothing left.

As for the current discussion in the PCS. The SP leadership called yet another pointless demoralising 24 hour strike to impress the stalinists which nobody was going to support and which pissed everybody off and the SWP criticised it for calling it off. Pure posturing by both tendencies.

Comment by Goodbye — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:35 pm
#189

Irish Mark P.

The militant version of what happened at Pilkington’s is a bit of an urban myth that has become embellished in the telling and retelling.

But it was a long time ago, and not worth rehashing.

Comment by Andy Newman — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:35 pm
Yeah, that sounds about the kind of story a couple of the older Militant chaops would come out with.

Those were the days.

Comment by KrisS — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
You’re right, Andy, the details aren’t really important. It’s the method, which hasn’t changed much over the years, as far as I can see.

Comment by KrisS — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:37 pm
#164 Is this part of JR’s farewell tour? Tickets now available from Coborn Road, E3 and all good music stores. Come and hear John Rees on “SWP: I won’t pay for their crisis” and “Hell no, I won’t go”. Hurry. Tickets susceptible to short-selling. It must be a supreme irony that he is advertised as speaking with one of the ten who voted him off the Central Committee and who is not noted for their political insight.

Personally I am in sympathy with those who say that Rees did have talent and was the driving force behind ambitious outward turns by the SWP. But he was hoist by his personal failings, which included an absurdly over-sized ego, authoritarianism, bullying and, ironically, a lack of backbone to see the project through.

There is little evidence that the SWP is about to resume a more coherent strategy, pace Karen Elliott’s hypotheses.

Comment by john rees must stay — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:38 pm
aaaaaaaaaaaagh! Capitalism implodes and even Woolies disappears….and the SWP descend into faction fighting…good timing!

Comment by PBi — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:40 pm
“II” At post (186) is a more extreme example of political disorientation. But, as Andy makes clear at (188), “II” is, thankfully, not typical of the SWP.

Comment by Karl Stewart — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:41 pm
…oh, and I forgot to say - if you haven’t seen it - check out page 18 of todays Gruaniad…

Comment by PBi — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:43 pm
the only non organisation that is going to lose by
infighting and also by a degree of delight by those
on the so called left in the crisis by the swp is the working class

Comment by mick collins — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:55 pm
Just to be fair, there are some good socialists in the SWP, mainly those active in the unions. But it is the SWP organisation I was critical of. And one of that organisation’s greatest failings is that it takes in some good people and teaches them to learn from the pretend intellectuals of the leadership rather than real life, leaving them disoriented and detached from reality.

Comment by Andy — 27 November, 2008 @ 10:59 pm
Do you think the root cause of the SWP disorientation stems from its failure to recognise that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a negative development?
Their view that this represented a victory was a unique view on the left.

Comment by Karl Stewart — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:06 pm
#200 Karl, you raise an interesting question. IMHO, it was not the SWP’s state cap theory that was the root cause of its current travails. That theory immunised many of its members to the pessimism that infected the orthdox Trotskyists, never mind the Stalinists.

It was rather that they did not recognise or cynically disregarded the fact that working class politics has been in a prolonged downturn following the defeat of the Great Miners’ Strike. Added to this was the fact the SWP did not take on board that the demise of “actually existing socialism” represented for many on the left a fundamental defeat for the socialist project.

In that sense, the state cap theory contributed to an over-optimism which the SWP has become stuck with (by contrast with its pessimism in its growth period of the mid to late 1980s).

Comment by when is the downturn an upturn — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
This bit of what you say is interesting. That, for the SWP, state cap theory “immunised many of its members to the pessimism” that engulfed the rest of us in that period.
The rest of the left went through a prolongued period of self-doubt, political demoralisation and a degree of disorientation, but not the SWP, who had - apparently - been “proved right.”
In retrospect, this period was useful, even beneficial for the rest of us, we learned self-criticism, questioned our methods, theories, beliefs etc, but not the SWP, who had been “proved right.”
I think you’ve got something when you say that they became over-optimistic and now, after losing a whole layer of experienced and senior people - and, it seems, expelling or removing from leadership anothe rlayer - after a damaging split from Respect, which followed the collapse of SA, there does seem to be something of a problem there.

Comment by Karl Stewart — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:35 pm
Is this site really serious? OK, hacks [like me] spend precious time
reading the occasionally interesting, but otherwise [generally] banal
“left-wing star-trekkie” type posts.

It’s all so marginal…How many of you think anyone, ANYONE, within
the grassroots labour movement has even heard of John Rees? The latter, from my understanding, has never stood for a elected position in a workplace branch, or indeed for anything with any kind of real accountability.

Yes, I have read his various pamphlets, all decent left ideas etc etc. Analysis is fine, but what…..WHAT influence/interjection/leadership have him and his like had, aside from being good local activists in booking coaches to demos/educators of middle class university students?

get a reality check comrades.

Comment by Dem O'Cracy — 27 November, 2008 @ 11:40 pm
Dem O’Cracy: you are, of course, so superior to the run of the mill grassroots labout types. You have read the Rees pamphlet: they have not.

Comment by Nemesis — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:02 am
News reaches me that there are significant figures in the SWP who say they are going to make an issue out of Rees’s sacking. They apparently want to push for root and branch reform. Maybe there’s more at stake here than some of us thought.

Comment by Nemesis — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:12 am
Will you shut the fuck up nemesis, if you are an swp member that is?

Comment by Dave — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:42 am
That’s you told Nemesis.

Comment by Irish Mark P — 28 November, 2008 @ 1:42 am
206 - That comment is quite brilliant. So, Dave, Nemesis should shut the fuck up, if he is an SWP member? In remarkably few words, you’ve summed up the general tone of debate on Socialist Unity! Well done - have a biscuit!

Comment by steffaction — 28 November, 2008 @ 2:53 am
Given the scale of interest in the career of John Rees, when all we have to think about if the potential meltdown of global capitalism, I have established a seperate site on which the discussion can be taken forward:

irrelevant-trot-bollocks.com

Comment by Mark Foster — 28 November, 2008 @ 3:50 am
200 odd comments by so-called comrades who have nothing better to do than get excited by rumors of the imminent demise of their main enemy. The ruling class? No. The SWP. Don’t get too delirious, though. As it has for 40 years, the SWP is going to survive when the Stalinists and light-weights on this blog have long since vanished down the tubes. IMG - gone. RCP - gone. WRP - gone. CP - a joke. Militant - pathetic as ever, but at least still standing. RR - won’t exist two years from now.

Comment by christian h. — 28 November, 2008 @ 7:50 am
Is it that the Theory of State Cap was right?
of course unlike you bunch of wankers we were never fooled like the militant to belive syria and Iraq and Burma were workers states. Thats right They really argued this shit. Don’t worry about workers being in the gulag thats the miltants proleterian outlook for you. Those dreadful SWP and their middle class ways think workers being exploited and shot at when going on strike is some form of evidence that these countries were not workers states. What would they know compared to the mighty Miltant.
By the way where is Deggsy Hatton now?
Well remember the Miltant saying the Workers of Liverpool owed him a great debt.. how right they were. Sacking thousands of workers!! what a scab, defended by the miltant.

Comment by ll — 28 November, 2008 @ 8:08 am
#208

Steeffaction, clearly not the sharpest pencil in the box, seems to misunderstand.

Comment #206 telling Nemesis to shut up if he is an SWP member is not from someone hostile to the SWP, but I presume an SWP member upset that nemesis is breaking party discipline.

And what a charming and welcoming impression of the SWP ll and Christian h give - they have contempt for the rest of the left.

Fortunatly there are many good militants in the SWP, but they are ill-served by the shrill sectarians who represent the SWP on the blogs.

Comment by Andy Newman — 28 November, 2008 @ 8:35 am
Oh dear II - you’re so desperate to change the subject, you resort to patently ridiculous abuse. Hatton may have been many things - but “scab”? I don’t have much time for the workerist attitude of Andy (#178), but it doesn’t mean they were wrong to point out the flaws that were hard-wired into Respect’s DNA from the beginning.

Comment by michaelC — 28 November, 2008 @ 8:45 am
# 211 Where’s Degsy Hatton?

Last seen playing Split the Kipper with Roger Rosewall, I hear.

Comment by Another Dave — 28 November, 2008 @ 9:01 am
Dave: Clearly the news of a potentially wider and deeper revolt in the SWP is something you want kept quiet. I don’t know why. It is likely to enhance the reputation of the party, not diminish is.

Comment by Nemesis — 28 November, 2008 @ 9:10 am
JR has a book coming out on John Milton, the study of the revolution of 1649 is a good move for any marxist worth his or her salt.

Comment by Adamski — 28 November, 2008 @ 9:41 am
The usual unbelievable hysterics from Swappies. I still haven’t stopped laughing at Ray accusing another organisation of control freakery. The fact is John Rees behaviour over the last few years has hardly been out of sync with the general approach of the SWP leadership. The veering from ultra-left posturing in the PCS (I wonder why) to tailing bureaucracies in other unions is simply a reflection of their isolation from the class. As for their antics in the UAF - well their credibility is rapidly going further down the toilet as a result. T

he descent into irrelevant sect continues, so ll, Ray and all the others can kick,scream and bitch all they like about the SP but the brutal truth is the SP are increasing in influence because we’re getting the politics right more often than not.

Comment by Doug — 28 November, 2008 @ 10:49 am
The funniest thing about the CWI v SWP bitching is that in Scotland you’re both members of the same organisation.
Ha ha.
I wonder what Peter Taaffe’s pamphlet will say; “this is except for readers in Scotland”.

Comment by Eddie Truman — 28 November, 2008 @ 11:00 am
While some non-SWP orientated discussion threads do sometimes veer off-topic and towards gratuitous SWP-criticism, this thread is specifically a discussion about the SWP, so people can’t really complain at critical/analytical comments made here.

We’ve heard some very defensive reactions from SWP members/supporters in response to criticism and to attempts to identify the ppolitical cause of its current crisis, but what view do do SWP members/supporters have on this?
What do you see as the underlying political root cause of your party’s current crisis?

Comment by Karl Stewart — 28 November, 2008 @ 11:14 am
“Well remember the Miltant saying the Workers of Liverpool owed him a great debt.. how right they were. Sacking thousands of workers!! what a scab, defended by the miltant.”

Can someone from the Militant comment on this? My impression at the time was that, within the Militant, Hatton had been for calling the strike and not backing down (hence the affection for him from G&M branch 5 and those sections of the Militant who wanted not to back down.) Of course he turned out to be a charlatan (ll - where is Gary Bushell now, btw? and didn’t you have a member of the SWP just leave to to go directly into the Tory party?), but the comments from the SWP supporters on this count seem to be ignorant and wilfully sectarian.

I was the SWP organiser in Liverpool for a while and, despite the fact that no one in the Militant would confirm or deny it, that was the impression I got from the Militant in G&M5 (who were fantastic socialists, by and large, and did not at all fit the sectarian image being painted here of Militant members enthusiastically scking council workers - they *were* the council workers…)

#216: “JR has a book coming out on John Milton”

Please God, say it isn’t true….

Comment by Karen Elliot — 28 November, 2008 @ 11:19 am
So poor old Milton’s going to get the Rees treatment. Oh dear - a hell made of heaven.

Comment by Nemesis — 28 November, 2008 @ 11:29 am
Actually I’d encourage people from the SP not to get dragged into detailed discussions of Liverpool or whatever other issues ll and christianh are trying to raise. Not because I think that there’s anything “secret” about internal discussions from more than two decades ago, but because these issues are deliberately being raised as a distraction from the main topic of this thread.

I understand that Andy will be sticking up a review of Peter Taaffe’s book today and no doubt the same SWP members will show up on that thread with similar bluster, but at least in a more appropriate place.

Comment by Irish Mark P — 28 November, 2008 @ 11:35 am
I wonder why Milton appeals to Rees?:

“horrour and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The Hell within him; for within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly
By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair,
That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.”

Funny that?!

Comment by MichaelC — 28 November, 2008 @ 11:50 am
He’s doing Milton? Ker-rist! Does he know no irony?

I flagged this up last year:
http://madammiaow.blogspot.com/2007/11/better-to-reign-in-hell-than-serve-in.html

…
As Gods, and by their own recover’d strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
Said then the lost Arch Angel, this the seat
That we must change for Heav’n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since hee
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from him is best
Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields
…
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
…
Groveling and prostrate on yon Lake of Fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amaz’d,
No wonder, fall’n such a pernicious highth.
For Daddy, the witchhunting bastard, made me doeth it.

Comment by Madam Miaow — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Or JOhn Rees’s current situatin:

he with his horrid crew
Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe
Confounded though immortal: But his doom
Reserv’d him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain [ 55 ]
Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes
That witness’d huge affliction and dismay
Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate:
At once as far as Angels kenn he views
The dismal Situation waste and wilde, [ 60 ]
A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great Furnace flam’d, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv’d onely to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace [ 65 ]
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

Comment by Andy Newman — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
“England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
O raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power”

Love and Rage, Adamski

Comment by Adamski — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
But on a serious note, most marxists would do well to do a crash course in the writings of Christopher Hill and Edward Thompson, two heroes of mine.

Comment by Adamski — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
As EP Thompson wrote, “Talk of free-will and determinism, and I think first of Milton. Talk of man’s inhumanity, I think of Swift. Talk of morality and revolution, and my mind is off with Wordsworth’s Solitary. Talk of the problems of self-activity and creative labour in socialist society, and I am in an instant back with William Morris”

Comment by Adamski — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
Good point Adamski,
Studying the 17th century gives an important insight into England’s own history of struggle and revolution - we actually did it all first.

Comment by Karl Stewart — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
Well, there’s something for everyone in Milton:

“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.” L’Allegro, l.96

Comment by Karen Elliot — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
There is also some advise for JOhn Rees’s supporters in the SWP as well:

Either to disinthrone the King of Heav’n
We warr, if Warr be best, or to regain [ 230 ]
Our own right lost: him to unthrone we then
May hope when everlasting Fate shall yeild
To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife:
The former vain to hope argues as vain
The latter: for what place can be for us [ 235 ]
Within Heav’ns bound, unless Heav’ns Lord supream
We overpower? Suppose he should relent
And publish Grace to all, on promise made
Of new Subjection; with what eyes could we
Stand in his presence humble, and receive [ 240 ]
Strict Laws impos’d, to celebrate his Throne
With warbl’d Hymns, and to his Godhead sing
Forc’t Halleluiah’s; while he Lordly sits
Our envied Sovran, and his Altar breathes
Ambrosial Odours and Ambrosial Flowers, [ 245 ]
Our servile offerings. This must be our task
In Heav’n, this our delight; how wearisom
Eternity so spent in worship paid
To whom we hate. Let us not then pursue
By force impossible, by leave obtain’d [ 250 ]
Unacceptable, though in Heav’n, our state
Of splendid vassalage, but rather seek
Our own good from our selves, and from our own
Live to our selves, though in this vast recess,
Free, and to none accountable, preferring [ 255 ]
Hard liberty before the easie yoke
Of servile Pomp. Our greatness will appeer
Then most conspicuous, when great things of small,
Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse
We can create, and in what place so e’re [ 260 ]
Thrive under evil, and work ease out of pain
Through labour and indurance. This deep world
Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst
Thick clouds and dark doth Heav’ns all-ruling Sire
Choose to reside, his Glory unobscur’d, [ 265 ]
And with the Majesty of darkness round
Covers his Throne; from whence deep thunders roar
Must’ring thir rage, and Heav’n resembles Hell?
As he our darkness, cannot we his Light
Imitate when we please? This Desart soile [ 270 ]
Wants not her hidden lustre, Gemms and Gold;
Nor want we skill or Art, from whence to raise
Magnificence; and what can Heav’n shew more?
Our torments also may in length of time
Become our Elements, these piercing Fires [ 275 ]
As soft as now severe, our temper chang’d
Into their temper; which must needs remove
The sensible of pain. All things invite
To peaceful Counsels, and the settl’d State
Of order, how in safety best we may [ 280 ]
Compose our present evils, with regard
Of what we are and were, dismissing quite
All thoughts of warr: ye have what I advise.

Comment by Andy Newman — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
If Andy had more wit and sharpness, the title of this article would have been:

WHO SHOT JR?

Comment by Adamski — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
you are just showing your age.

Comment by Andy Newman — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
We know who shot JR: Martin Smith with Alex Callinicos loading the amunition.

Comment by Nemesis — 28 November, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
yes but who is going to hold Galloway to account
calling for votes for new labour in scotland
BB
£300,000 per year wages
jumping on the ross brand bandwagon
etc etc etc etc
praising new labour economic policy!!
whilst Rees may need to look for a new job I fear so will Hoveman and Ovenden lol

Comment by ll — 28 November, 2008 @ 3:15 pm
“II” bless him, seems to be stuck in some kind of time warp with this obbsession with George Galloway, when many of us who contribute to this site have nothing to do with the Respect Party and are not Galloway supporters in any case.
But he, on the other hand, purports to belong to a party which supported Galloway against people who made all of these criticisms that he’s making now.
Hypocritical??

Comment by Karl Stewart — 28 November, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
Shortly after the fall of the East German regime, the Spartacists launched a ‘Free Erich Honecker Campaign’ here in the UK. I wonder if we should follow their example and rally round JR? You could start an online petition Andy ;o)

Comment by Ruth Maslow — 28 November, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
Andy Newman is lying, as usual. As I have pointed out many times, I am not in the SWP. I have never been in the SWP. I have never been a member of any IS organization or former IS organization. It is therefore Andy-typical dishonesty to claim I represent the SWP in any way, shape, or form. As Andy can see from my IP, I live in Los Angeles, CA. It is incredible that a so-called socialist would repeatedly resort to blatant lying.

In fact, of course, even SWP members are simply that - members. They don’t speak for the SWP as a whole anymore than Andy speaks for RR or the SP comrades here speak for their whole organization. Andy’s insinuations to the contrary are only a not-so-clever attempt to paint the SWP as a monolithic (or, as Andy’s New Labour friends would say, “totalitarian”) organization without internal democracy.

Mark P (Irish) also is mistaken. I didn’t bring up any issues of the SP, besides calling them pathetic, admittedly a childish insult. I assume Andy’s drunken ditties are taken as serious analysis by the resident haters?

Finally, it is Andy and the gang who have complete contempt not only for the “rest of the left”, but in fact for the working class itself. This is manifest from their priorities: as I stated, it is clear their main enemy is the SWP, not the ruling class.

Comment by christian h. — 28 November, 2008 @ 6:56 pm
Ruth Maslow @ 237. You will know doubt recall that the Sparts also impishly floated the idea of getting a little unit together of their members to support the Soviets in Afghanistan - they gave it the working title of the Yuri Andropov Brigade. Perhaps we should encourage the formation of the John Rees Brigade.

Suggestions as to where they should be posted will be gratefully received.

Comment by Another Dave — 28 November, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
christian h:

“As I have pointed out many times, I am not in the SWP. I have never been in the SWP. I have never been a member of any IS organization or former IS organization.”

This is truly touching, Christian. Somebody living in Los Angeles unflinchingly more ‘loyal’ than the average SWP member. Have you thought about joining the SWP’s international current?

I am particularly taken by your view:

“Finally, it is Andy and the gang who have complete contempt not only for the “rest of the left”, but in fact for the working class itself. This is manifest from their priorities: as I stated, it is clear their main enemy is the SWP, not the ruling class.”

That kind of analysis is surely vital to your as yet unfound comrades.

I live in Patagonia, myself.

Comment by Lobby Ludd — 28 November, 2008 @ 9:21 pm
Andy,

I wouldn’t say this any of this constitutes a Paradise Regained, but whose Paradise Lost is it? And none of these characters makes for a decent (if that is the mot juste) Satan. Another important to remember: Satan has all the best lines.

Comment by Tawfiq Chahboune — 28 November, 2008 @ 10:03 pm
“a full-on movement among the members to hold the leadership as a whole to account and address the bizarre.” (Karen Elliot) - Christ even I’d join that - I always thought they weren’t surrealist enough.

Comment by David Ruaune — 29 November, 2008 @ 2:36 am
Thing is David your lovefest in Respect is about to go belly up. Andy arguing that Repsect is in crisis and if results are not good at the election then its curtains, he of course blaming to ISG, more Trot bashing and saying they stiched up the conference. From what I can glean there was a bust up of the type of conference and its timing. One needs to assume that Galloway et el didn’t want a conference you don’t get told in this open organisation. Anyway whatever faults the SWP have they are no where near Respcet. With National Exec member Mark France mobilising the Respect troops for the Baby P march to call for local govt workers to be sacked and scapegoated its a pathetic sham. Andy says the whole Repsect thing is depressing, not for me, its bloody hilarious!!

Comment by jimban — 29 November, 2008 @ 3:03 am
“Even George is enough of a gentleman to shake hands, and forgive if not forget. Just like he shook hands with Mark Steel at RESPECT conference even though Mark had said some rather unflattering things about George.”

Mark France national Exec Respect

I thought for one minute he was going to mention someone else Galloway shook hands with but alas no…………Wonder how many Repsect members he got lined up to march with the bigots.

How did Respect conference vote for this half wit France, he is calling for workers to be sacked and for Respect to march to demand sacking of social workers. He cried crocodile tears about the Baby P case and then uses it as a way of cracking a “Joke” what a sick bastard France is. He finds the Baby P case funny apperantly!!

Comment by jimban — 29 November, 2008 @ 4:10 am
optimistic larry nugent: [” Scuddie” Bamberry” had a locker full of fifth columnist tools, that the SWP sectarian membership and supporters like Jim Monaghan tried blindly to give credence too. By association Jim, its now egg on your face Jim.]

I dont even know Chris Bamberry and have absolutely no knowledge of who’s who in the SWP and what goes on internally. Nothing I have ever said here ior anywhere else could leace me with egg on my face over anything that happened re Chris Bamberry and/or John Rees (dont know him either).

I am now convinced that you are confusing me with some other Jim Monaghan who holds a view on these events.

I am not capable of holding a view on these individuals or what went on in the SWP.

I have no opinion on John Ress or anyones ele’s role in the SWP and have no idea whether this move is the right thing or not.

To you Larry, anyone who doesnt join in the cartoon mythical monster creation and constant petty attacks on the SWP must therefore be in the SWP.

I have attended one SWP public meeting in the last year and spoke at one CWI (SP) meeting during that same time. My involvement with the SWP in Scotland is the same as it is with any other member of solidarity.

The last time that I attended a meeting alongside SWP members in England would be more than 20 years ago. Unlike many people here who attack the SWP I have never been a member.

I will add being a ‘bamberry-controlled fifth coumnist’ to the many other things I have been accused of by people who have no idea who I am or what I do.

Are you confusing me with someone else? Seriously, you sre so wide of the mark you must be thinking of someone else.

Comment by Jim Monaghan — 29 November, 2008 @ 7:32 am
#244…jimban… I feel that it is a good thing that the SWP has sacked John Rees… feel that the traumatic, twists and turns of recent months can become a cathartic experience for the left.
I don’t understand what you are saying… I haven’t cried ‘crockdile tears’ over Baby P’ I am not a ‘half wit’ nor am I a sick bastard’.
I am afraid that it is you who appears as the ‘bigot’ here.
I have not call for the sacking of ’social worker’
I have proposed that we as Socialist should support a set of 5 proposals Starting with a Full Public Inquiry.
In the Baby P case Health Visitors, PCT Mental Health Worker, Family Welfare Association Workers, GP’s, Social Service Assement Workers, Social Workers NHS Paediatricians, and all of their respective managers clearly failed to make a correct assessment of the risks or and as fare as I am concerned this raises questions about all their levels of competance.

Just as questions of John Rees Competance have been raised in the past… and ignored… the left appears to be hiding it’s head in the sand over the implications of the Baby P case.

You ask ‘how did Respect Conference vote for this half wit France.’

Well I can answer that the Conference held an election for a 50 seat NC about 60 people stood in the ballot I got 64 vote about half the votes of Salma Yaqoob. I was elected.

I am accountable for my actions. I wrote the article on Baby P in my personal capacity and under my islamic name Abu Jamal.

If anyone in the Labour Movement believes I have broken some sacred principle by proposing to support the Justice4Baby P March…. Then level some coherent charges… and propose some sanctions…

but do not… and I repeat do not insult me.

I have a great deal of patience but like all human beings constitent affronts to my sense of self worth or dignity will eventually lead to a decisive response.

Comment by mark anthony france — 29 November, 2008 @ 11:59 am
A 50 seat NC for a party the size of RESPECT!
I guess only about 140 people voted at the ‘conference’that was open to all members (and supporters).

A bit top heavy isn’t it. 50 NC members!

Comment by anticapitalista — 29 November, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Abu Jamal - “Socialists should support the calls for the resignation and or sacking of the key professionals engaged in this case.”

Mark Anthony France - “I have not call for the sacking of ’social worker’”

Comment by M — 29 November, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
Mark Anthony France is entitled to have a view, whether rightly or wrongly, on the Haringey social workers.
But he should apologise for using this tragic case to make a sick joke about John Rees.
That was just revolting.

Comment by Karl Stewart — 29 November, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
Yes, we had a proper election. No slates, no guarantees of seats for any individual or any organisation in advance. An open election, with an open nomination process, a ballot paper with all the names on it for voting as per first-past-the-post (50 places available), and a secret ballot. No exclusions, no shenannigans, just simple democracy. It’s remarkable that it some on the left find this so objectionable - it makes their Stalinoid organisational methods look terrible by comparison.

Example - the dropping of John Rees from the SWP CC before the conference, with everyone knowing it is a done deal because of the slate system. In Respect, as according to this precedent, that would not be possible, because Rees could nominate himself for the NC/CC whatever the other leaders say, and could not be excluded from the ballot. And given that our system involves a secret ballot, no one could prevent those who supported him from electing him to the leading body, if enough were so inclined.

It was John Rees who once said that ‘the slate system was the worst system in the world - except for all the alternatives’. I wonder if he still thinks that?

A slogan prominently displayed at the Respect conference was “This is what democracy looks like”. It’s rather odd the antagonism this produces, from people who evidently fear democracy - SWP hacks and other like minded people.

Comment by ID — 29 November, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
You’re missing my point ID. It isn’t about how the voting was carried out, but the fact that about 140 people voted for a 50-member NC for an organisation with a tiny membership.
Do you not think that a 50-member NC is ‘overkill’?

Comment by anticapitalista — 29 November, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
No, not really. It is meant to be a broad leadership body, and to draw in as much new talent as possible. It doesn’t elevate its members to any kind of ’star’ role as happens in so many left groups with pretentious leaderships, but it does give a chance to a wide range of people. What’s wrong with that?

Comment by ID — 29 November, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
#252 “Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians” come to mind.
The old RESPECT had how many NC members?

Comment by anticapitalista — 29 November, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
“I have a great deal of patience but like all human beings constitent affronts to my sense of self worth or dignity will eventually lead to a decisive response.”

Ooh, scary!

Comment by reverend sock puppet — 29 November, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
#249… karl stewart…. what was the ’sick joke’ I made about John Rees?? i don’t remember making any jokes.

Comment by mark anthony france — 29 November, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
(111) “maybe Rees and German can get a bursary to train as Social Workers and go on to work in Haringey in Child Protection?

(140)”If John Rees Joined RESPECT we might even select him to stand in Basildon as a candidate on a ‘Social Workers are Great!’ Platform.”

Comment by Karl Stewart — 29 November, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
Well democracy is democracy - Rees has been out of favour for a wee while and in fairness no wonder the REspect strategy really did not go wee. Surely not getting voted onto the CC is the least thing that could happen, will this mean he is no longer a full timer though?

As for making jokes about Rees/German and child protection social work - get a fecking grip! Child protection is actually far to serious a subject to be making light about and really I think Haringey have their own bag of troubles without wishing people who can not select a strategy and see all the potential threats and risks onto them.

And as a social worker, I think a wee bit empathy and understanding about a job that is very difficult would not go a miss.

Comment by Cat — 29 November, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
#255…Yes I did say that but it is not a ’sick joke’ …. I am making the assumption that they already have first Degrees at least so possible re training for a career in ’social work’ is a viable option. Haringey like many London boroughs have trouble recruiting social workers to work in child protection so… John and Lindsay may have a better chance of gaining employment in this area and field than in other’s …. it is not a sick joke but a helpful suggestion.

John always seemed keen to become a ‘councillor’ and as he didn’t have much luck in birmingham or other areas in arranging deals with black and minority ethnic community leaders maybe a bold and audacious approach to win hearts and minds in an overwhelmingly white working class Ward in Basildon… might be educational?

#256 Cat… I certainly would not like John Rees to engage in frontline social worker in the Child protection field without complete and full training and a proper induction… Hopefully, the capacity to retain a critical distance while making an holistic assessment of situations in collaboration with others in a multi agency environment where other contributions and viewpoints are intergrated into a strategic plan and there are no power struggles or jocking for leadership would also positively impact on how John performs in his political ‘hobby’ outside of work.

If John does decide to retrain as a Social Worker then I hope his experience is better than my young cousin. He entered a 3 year BA Hons in Social Work at College in Worcestershire. He was the only male on the course and he was socially ostrised by other trainee social workers.. to such an extent that he felt ‘bullied’… when he raised this with tutors.. his concerns were ignored… eventually he left…. He describes himself as a ’socialist humanist’ and he used to assist his mother for years caring for young people with severe physical difficulties… a very intelligent compasionate young man.

He describes the people who targeted him at college as ‘despicable bullies’…[these women are now praticing social workers]… and the senior practioners who he had hoped would at least investigate his concerns as ‘cowards’.

Comment by mark anthony france — 29 November, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
#256… Karl.. my comments may have been ironic “Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eironeía, meaning hypocrisy, deception, or feigned ignorance) is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or discordance between what one says or does, and what one means or what is generally understood. Irony is a mode of expression that calls attention to discrepancy between two levels of knowledge. In fiction, it is a demonstration of the distance between the character’s knowledge and that of the audience.” from wikipedia.

but not sick

Comment by mark anthony france — 29 November, 2008 @ 9:54 pm
“Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians” come to mind.
The old RESPECT had how many NC members?”

Approximately the same as today, since the consitution is unchanged in that aspect. More to the point is that broadening out the leadership and the use of democratic methods to select it makes the formation of a self-perpetuating clique less likely.

When are the SWP going to allow the kind of democratic elections for their leading bodies that Respect now has? When are they going to get rid of the undemocratic slate system?

Comment by ID — 29 November, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
#240 “Somebody living in Los Angeles unflinchingly more ‘loyal’ than the average SWP member.”

I’ve noticed that the further away from events an SWP supporter is, the more likely he or she is to follow the CC’s line on the Respect split. I guess this is because they are more likely to rely on the one-sided SWP communications regarding the split, rather than personal accounts from comrades who attended Respect branch meetings themselves and may have a more balanced view of events.

Comment by Jon — 29 November, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
I enjoyed this one

http://croydonian.blogspot.com/2008/12/real-split-between-communists-and-trots.html

Comment by The Vengence of History — 4 December, 2008 @ 9:06 pm
#260 If the SWP had the same electoral system as RESPECT, it would have an NC of 2000+!

Comment by anticapitalista — 4 December, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
“More to the point is that broadening out the leadership”

YES BUT THEY ARE ARGUING THAT SOCIAL WORKERS SHOULD BE SACKED AND MEN GET A RAW DEAL COMPARED TO THE OPPRESSED MAN!! Great leadership that is!!

Comment by alf — 4 December, 2008 @ 9:54 pm
“#260 If the SWP had the same electoral system as RESPECT, it would have an NC of 2000+!”

Um, the Left Alternative constitution says that it will have an NC of between 35 and 50.

I can’t seem to find your complaints about that. Can you point me to them?

Comment by comparison? — 4 December, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
#265 If that is true (got a link) then yes it is ridiculous IMO.

Comment by anticapitalista — 4 December, 2008 @ 11:23 pm
266. There you go AC, have a look

http://www.respectcoalition.org/index.php?ite=2034

Comment by JFK — 4 December, 2008 @ 11:32 pm
4.2) The implementation of national policy and national activities between conferences will be carried out by the National Committee (NC). The NC will have between 35 and 50 members to be determined by annual conference..

and with a recent LA national conference of 90 people, would you care to work out the proportions of the NC to attendees

Comment by Bill Bo Baggins — 4 December, 2008 @ 11:39 pm
#267 Thanks for the link.
33 names, not quite the 50 in RESPECT, but still, IMO, a bit of an overkill. I would have thought 20-25 would be better.

Comment by anticapitalista — 4 December, 2008 @ 11:41 pm
#268 about the same as the RESPECT one.
RESPECT 50 NC members elected by approx 140 people.
LA 33 NC members elected by as you say 90 people.

Comment by anticapitalista — 4 December, 2008 @ 11:44 pm
264 “More to the point is that broadening out the leadership” says Alf.

Lucky old Left Alternative, they’ve got Adamski on their NC.

Comment by Bill Bo Baggins — 4 December, 2008 @ 11:56 pm
anticapitalista - while you’re about, do you agree with Callinicos’s critique of the LCR? I happen to think he’s right in suggesting the LCR embrace Melenchon and the breakaway from the Parti Socialiste. The German comrades in the IST think so too. I imagine you don’t, as it might lead to an argument for joining the Synaspismos formation.

It would be good to argue these things through politically. An intervention by the Greek comrades in the very messy debate in Britain could lift the political level.

Comment by Nemesis — 5 December, 2008 @ 1:04 am
#261 “I’ve noticed that the further away from events an SWP supporter is, the more likely he or she is to follow the CC’s line on the Respect split.”

I’ve noticed that those who opposed the SWP in Respect will use any excuse to de-legitimise the arguments of SWP supporters.I don’t see any evidence provided that SWP supporters in the thick of it are not following the CC’s line.

Comment by skidmarx — 5 December, 2008 @ 10:25 am
as has been pointed out, there’s something for everyone in Milton, so perhaps Rees will learn something. Also, I hear that his book on dialectics may get a reprint.

Comment by Karen Elliot — 10 December, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
In the meantime, it seems that SWSS have marked the tragic passing of a fine career with a special, commemorative poster.

Comment by Karen Elliot — 11 December, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
Karen,

do you have a lot of time on your hands?

Comment by Andy Newman — 11 December, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
#276: Andy - being in London rather than Athens, it’s very quiet in the office today

Comment by Karen Elliot — 11 December, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
You could always occupy the Greek Embassy, ‘Karen’.

They wouldn’t be expecting someone to do it again so soon after the last occupation. You’ve got the element of surprise. Take down the Greek Flag and play some Neu and Can at high volume to repel the London bobbies.

Comment by Darren — 11 December, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
#278: Darren, these days even coppers like Neu and Can… These days I’m thinking that only Peter Brotzman or Albert Ayler does the trick.

Comment by Karen Elliot — 12 December, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
Does SWP stand for Sly Whisperers Party

Comment by animalmagic — 6 January, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
i like it, ive seen this cleaky back stabbing bunch hanging round in pub corners whispering about whos not said the correct thing in the last branch meeting

Comment by freebee — 6 January, 2009 @ 7:12 pm
Stupid Wanking Puppets

Comment by Yunus Baksh — 11 October, 2009 @ 12:08 am

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27 November, 2008

THE SWP CC SACKS JOHN REES?

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