When Trot groups implode
Even my seven-year-old realises that playing the ‘it wasn’t me, dad’ card is a spectacularly dumb move if I actually catch her pulling her kid sister’s hair. Not that Daddy’s Little Princesses fight very often, you understand. They are good girls. Respect national secretary John Rees, on the other hand, is not only not the [...]
SWP: central committee justifies expulsions
This is how the central committee is justifying the expulsions of Rob Hoveman, Kevin Ovenden and Nick Wrack to the wider membership in this week’s ‘Party Notes’ bulletin: Party discipline Last weekend 3 SWP members – Rob Hoveman, Kevin Ovenden and Nick Wrack were expelled from the SWP. Kevin and Rob Kevin and Rob are [...]
SWP expulsions: democratic centralism in action
Democratic centralism in Britain has always operated on a hammer and anvil culture; the three men expelled from the Socialist Workers’ Party this weekend are only the latest victims. The number of serious socialists in Britain kicked out of small political parties they have loyally devoted themselves to building – simply for their temerity of [...]
SWP purges Respect cadre: results and prospects
Few long-time observers of the British far left will be in the least surprised that the Little Yagodas of the Socialist Workers’ Party central committee have purged the cadre most centrally involved in the last turn they themselves ordered the organisation to undertake. Read details of the expulsions of Nick Wrack, Rob Hoveman and Kevin [...]
Socialist Worker-New Zealand attacks Callinicos
Here’s a bit of Bank Holiday knockabout Trot sectariana, specially for those of you who can’t get enough of that sort of thing. The central committee of the Socialist Workers’ Organization in New Zealand – the Kiwi section of the International Socialist Tendency headed by Britain’s SWP – has produced a remarkable May Day statement. [...]
Socialist Worker on Somalia
So … has Britain’s largest revolutionary socialist organisation really adapted its politics to Islamism since establishing Respect? Let’s consider this portrayal of the recent takeover of Mogadishu by the Union of Islamic Courts, published in the latest Socialist Worker: ‘For the first time for many years there is a sense of relief and hope among [...]
Cliffism auf Deutsch
Florian Kirstner – leader of Linksruck, the German offshoot of the British SWP, until his expulsion in 2001 – reveals to German leftwing newspaper Junge Welt the recruitment tactics mandated by none other than the late Tony Cliff himself (pictured above): ‘Linksruck hatte immer etwas von einem leninistischen Pfadfinderbund. Das war Ahmed und mir bei [...]
