So, the internal tear-up in the SWP then?
This is a tricky thread to start, but I've struggled to find an appropriate space in which to discuss it - neither Facebook nor Twitter nor partisan blogs seem the right place, and here's been a decent enough forum in the past for discussing the internal politics of the Labour party and other groups, even with people who hate them and think I'm wasting my time being a member.
So I'd be interested in what TT (and any other members of Britain's biggest Trotskyite group) are making of the big internal rows going on there at the moment. Perhaps it's none of my business, and I don't want to stoke up any sectarian stramashery, but are there wider lessons to draw?
I have always had plenty of misgivings about the SWP and they've got right on my tits at times, but I've also worked with plenty of decent people in their party too - in unions, trade councils, community campaigns etc - so I think it matters to those of us on the rest of the left who operate alongside them in common causes at times.
The actual argument seems to revolve around a serious complaint against the conduct of a member of their central committee, and how it was dealt with by the leadership, which large parts of the membership seem deeply unhappy about. It seems then to have sparked quite deep debate - with inevitable grandiose invokations of Leninist tradition, and the heritage of 1917 Bolshevism, which seems absurdly over-stretched - about how parties such as theirs operate, how leaderships are called to account, which seem to me to resonate beyond a small Trot group to tendencies in parties, groups, unions etc in general.
I doubt it's gonna fuck the wider left up, but it could have quite wide implications for the left's internal dynamic and how things are run in the future. If TT - and others - don't want to talk about it, fine, and I'll jack the thread in myself if it just ends up being trolled by "you lot are always calling each other splitters" stuff, but I'd be interested in activist thoughts on this one.
So, er, the future of the left then...
This is a tricky thread to start, but I've struggled to find an appropriate space in which to discuss it - neither Facebook nor Twitter nor partisan blogs seem the right place, and here's been a decent enough forum in the past for discussing the internal politics of the Labour party and other groups, even with people who hate them and think I'm wasting my time being a member.
So I'd be interested in what TT (and any other members of Britain's biggest Trotskyite group) are making of the big internal rows going on there at the moment. Perhaps it's none of my business, and I don't want to stoke up any sectarian stramashery, but are there wider lessons to draw?
I have always had plenty of misgivings about the SWP and they've got right on my tits at times, but I've also worked with plenty of decent people in their party too - in unions, trade councils, community campaigns etc - so I think it matters to those of us on the rest of the left who operate alongside them in common causes at times.
The actual argument seems to revolve around a serious complaint against the conduct of a member of their central committee, and how it was dealt with by the leadership, which large parts of the membership seem deeply unhappy about. It seems then to have sparked quite deep debate - with inevitable grandiose invokations of Leninist tradition, and the heritage of 1917 Bolshevism, which seems absurdly over-stretched - about how parties such as theirs operate, how leaderships are called to account, which seem to me to resonate beyond a small Trot group to tendencies in parties, groups, unions etc in general.
I doubt it's gonna fuck the wider left up, but it could have quite wide implications for the left's internal dynamic and how things are run in the future. If TT - and others - don't want to talk about it, fine, and I'll jack the thread in myself if it just ends up being trolled by "you lot are always calling each other splitters" stuff, but I'd be interested in activist thoughts on this one.
So, er, the future of the left then...
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