Socialist Workers Party

The Socialist Workers Party (nope, no apostrophe) is a far-left British political party. It publishes a newspaper called Socialist Worker, which also has an active website. It has a long history both of opposing the far-right through organisations such as the Anti-Nazi League and of pursuing entryist politics with front organisations and secret plans. It's always been a bit nutty, and in the 2010s the shit hit the fan and its eccentric system of governance was exposed as rife with mistreatment of women, rape apologism, and deeply ingrained sexism.[2]

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“”The SWP are not socialist. Their only powerbase, in the redbrick universities, suggests the term ‘workers’ is a little suspect too. They are dangerously wrong about everything, from the Middle East to gay rights. They could be easily dismissed, like people who think they’re white witches, if not for their capacity to hoodwink young people who genuinely want to change the world, and instead send them out to sell papers outside Tescos.
—Paul Richards[1]

History and views
“”[A] historical reenactment society... whose members like to pretend they’re taking part in a Communist revolution.
—Edmund Standing on the Socialist Workers Party[3]

The party was founded by Tony Cliff (born Yigael Gluckstein) and others in 1950, initially as the Socialist Review Group, based on the realisation that Joseph Stalin's Russia wasn't exactly a socialist utopia.[4] During World War II Cliff wanted the Nazis to win, hoping that an Axis victory would result in a revolution in Britain. He urged Jewish students not to join the war effort, and was interned by the authorities as a result.[5]

Right from the start (when they were thrown out of the Revolutionary Communist Party) they focused on the politics of entryism, aiming to enter the Labour Party and take control of it, as well as working with or through other leftist organisations. It launched its newspaper Industrial Worker in 1961, which became the long-running publication Socialist Worker; the party itself went through various name changes, becoming International Socialism Group (IS) in 1962 and Socialist Workers Party in 1977.[4]

The Socialist Worker website published an article by George Galloway praising Hezbollah. "I have no hesitation in saying that Hizbollah is not and has never been a terrorist organisation", says Galloway. "It is the legitimate national resistance movement of Lebanon." [6]

A number of prominent Unite Against Fascism members are part of the SWP and have been criticised for turning that group into an SWP appendage rather than a non-partisan anti-fascist group.[7]

A chap named Martin Smith was once national secretary at the party; according to Andy Newman of Socialist Unity, he was forced to step down after sexually harassing a female SWP member.[8] He was also convicted of assaulting a police officer during an anti-BNP protest.[9]

In June 2013, Socialist Worker ran a piece defending six Islamic extremists who attempted to bomb an English Defence League rally. The author argued that the planned attack was "a reaction to discrimination" and "an act of despair against racist thugs", and is, therefore, more justifiable than right-wing extremism.[10]

Rape accusations

In January 2013, Socialist Unity posted a transcript of an SWP conference revealing that Martin Smith had been accused of rape and sexual assault, and that the SWP appeared to set up its own makeshift court to try him rather than report him to the police. According to one member, identified in the transcript as Sarah B, the party had "no faith in the bourgeois court system to deliver justice". One woman whose name was removed when the transcript was posted commented that a number of people in the disputes committee had close working relationships or friendships with the accused.[11]

A number of members resigned or were expelled as a result of the scandal.[12][13] Linda Rogers of the SWP's Edinburgh branch was one of those who condemned the party leadership's handling of the affair;[14] "I have also faced the argument that the DC has investigated 9 rapes in the past," she said after writing a letter to the central committee. "I believe this argument is put forward to reassure comrades of the competency of the DC. I don't find it reassuring in the slightest; in fact, I find it terrifying."[15]

SWP members critical of the Central Committee's actions formed a faction named the Democratic Renewal Platform.[16] Meanwhile, 500 others signed a statement supporting the Committee;[17] "I can only imagine what she must be feeling about the CC getting five hundred signatures from party loyalists to affirm the DCs decision that she wasn't raped", said one former SWP member of the victim.[18]

In March 2013 a woman came forward claiming that another senior SWP member had raped her in 2011; after she reported the incident within the party, the alleged rapist was suspended and encouraged to read about women's liberation but was not reported to the police.[19]

More stories came out in due course. One anonymous woman who was in the party at the age of 18 recounted how members of one regional branch, in their thirties and forties, would host parties at their homes. Most of the attendees were teenage SWP members, some as young as 14, attracted by free food and cheap alcohol. There, the partygoers would play bizarre games involving passing chocolate cake from mouth to mouth, or a variation of Twister in which players had to partially disrobe and have themselves rubbed with baby oil every time they made a mistake. At the time she had been seeing a married SWP member who was ten years older than her; when their affair came to light within the party, she found herself slandered as a "mentally disturbed heroin addict who had relentlessly pursued him" and told to relocate to another branch, while the man was let off. "The rationale… means women in the party can never be treated fairly and young women are especially vulnerable", she commented.[18]

2016 and 2017 saw increasing calls for a boycott of the SWP and related organisations.[20][21] In 2017 the National Union of Students voted to cut all links with the SWP and proposed banning it from university campuses over its "rape apologism"; the SWP retaliated by threatening legal action for harassment by the NUS.[22][23]

Front organisations

The SWP has a history of using front organisations, often campaigning on specific issues, as ways to spread their message beyond those who would be attracted to the concept of socialist workers. Organisations accused of being SWP fronts include:

  • Unite Against Fascism[20]
  • Stand Up To Racism: accused of being a SWP front, including by prominent left-wing journalist Owen Jones[24]; organisers insist that the SWP is a part of the organisation but does not control it.[25]
  • Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League: founded by the SWP in the late 1970s[26]; the ANL was one of the founding organisations of UAF.
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See also

References
  1. http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2013/01/18/the-swp-and-all-that/
  2. The SWP and rape: why I care about this Marxist-Leninist implosion, Laurie Penny, The Guardian, 12 Mar 2013
  3. http://edmundstanding.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/on-dishonest-quote-mining-and-false-accusations-of-bigotry/
  4. [[wp: Socialist Workers Party (UK)|Socialist Workers Party (UK)]]File:Wikipedia's W.svg
  5. http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/4363/full
  6. http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9334
  7. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/may/15/theswordofrespectandthes?INTCMP=SRCH
  8. http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=7996#comment-340869
  9. http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=22359
  10. http://howiescorner.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/now-socialist-workers-party-gives-us.html
  11. http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/2013/01/what-does-swps-way-dealing-sex-assault-allegations-tell-us-about-left
  12. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ranks-of-the-socialist-workers-party-are-split-over-handling-of-rape-allegation-8448429.html
  13. http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/944/swp-why-i-am-resigning
  14. http://www.leninology.com/2013/01/letter-to-central-committee.html
  15. http://internationalsocialismuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/can-swp-deal-with-rape-allegations.html
  16. http://internationalsocialismuk.blogspot.de/2013/02/statement-of-democratic-renewal-platform.html
  17. http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/support-for-swp-central-committee.html
  18. http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/sexism-and-abuse-of-power-in-swp.html
  19. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/09/socialist-workers-party-rape-kangaroo-court
  20. Why Jeremy Corbyn should support the boycott of the Socialist Workers Party, Abi Wilkinson, i (UK), October 10th 2016
  21. Owen Jones refuses to join Trump Protest because SWP is 'a cult which covered up rape', Independent, Feb 2017
  22. Legal action threatened by Socialist Workers Party over NUS ban, Manc Union, 9 Oct, 2017
  23. SWP threatens legal action after NUS proposes campus ban over ‘rape apologism’, London Student, 2017
  24. Journalist Owen Jones blasts organisers of Saturday's anti-Trump march, Evening Standard, 4 Feb 2017
  25. Yes the SWP were at the Stand Up to Racism rally we organised – but I have spent my life arguing against the hard left, Steve Hart, Labour List, 10 Oct 2016
  26. Blood and glory, Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian, 4 Mar 2007
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