Workers' Liberty

A funny tale agreed upon?
By Sean Matgamna

Read this article here.

Sean Matgamna here concludes his article exploring the early 80s' campaign of vilification of Socialist Organiser, forerunner of Workers' Liberty and Solidarity, by the Workers' Revolutionary Party (WRP). The article is a response to the criticism WL has received from the SWP and other parts of the left for refusing to regard Labour MP George Galloway as a respectworthy member of the labour movement.

Sean Matgamna continues his article on “the last time we were heresy-hunted” with a survey of the labour movement organisations and individuals who backed the campaign against Socialist Organiser (forerunner of Solidarity) in 1983 by the Workers Revolutionary Party, then a high-profile, pseudo-Trotskyist organisation with a daily paper with some influence in the labour movement, Newsline.

Sean Matgamna continues his article on 'The last time we were heresy-hunted', dealing with the campaign against us in 1983 by the Workers’ Revolutionary Party — then a high-profile group with a daily paper, Newsline — for pointing to circumstantial evidence that they were being funded by the Libyan and Iraqi dictatorships. They were — the truth came out soon after, in 1985, when the WRP imploded — but that did not stop them campaigning, or a section of the “broad left” supporting their campaign.

By Sean Matgamna

Because of our attitude to George Galloway MP, supporters of Solidarity and Workers' Liberty find themselves especially unpopular just now with certain sections of the pseudo-left.

Gerry Byrne responds to Dave Spencer and 'Salma Mackenzie' on the 1984 WSL split.

See also Sects democracy and revolutionary unity

A further response to Dave Spencer's article and letters in WW.

by Gerry Byrne

Dave Spencer’s extraordinarily self-serving explanation in the WW is that Workers Fight /ICL /WSL was all fine and then turned overnight into a sect – the AWL. That’s not how I remember it. Dave allows that none of the attempts at uniting the left were predatory exercises, that they were entered into sincerely.

In Weekly Worker 466, Dave Spencer gives an account of the history of the AWL, in which he concludes that after our split in 1984 with the 'Thornett group' (now in the ISG) - when Dave himself left - we became a 'sect'. See http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/466/awl.html

Clive Bradley replies