Socialist Party

Some union branches which previously nominated SWP members as left candidates in union elections have not done so this year. The motive is to register a protest against the SWP’s 18 months or so of crass mishandling of charges of sexual harassment and then rape against a leading organiser. Some of those refusing to nominate explain that in the actual vote between an SWPer and a right-winger, they will vote for the SWPer. The refusal to nominate is intended as a gesture of reprimand. It’s not clear if any significant number of left-wing union activists actually intend to vote for the right...

In his New Year's message to members, RMT rail union general secretary Bob Crow declared: "On the political landscape RMT will be backing a slate of No2EU, yes to workers' rights candidates in May offering a positive alternative to the bankers-led EU and the narrow, right wing opportunism of UKIP. We will offer the working class a real political alternative". "The only rational course", says Crow, "is to leave the EU and rebuild Britain with socialist policies". When No2EU was first launched in 2009, we argued that it was a bad move. Crow and his associates do want to defend workers' rights...

Kshama Sawant, a revolutionary socialist, has been elected to the city council of Seattle, United States. Kshama’s platform included support low-paid workers’ fight for a $15/hour minimum wage, increased rent controls, and a tax on millionaires. Her victory is all the more impressive for the fact that she beat a heavily-favoured Democratic incumbent, who had been a sitting councillors for 16 years and who had significantly greater financial resources. Sawant said: ““These exciting results show a majority of voters are fed up with the corporate politicians who have presided over the widening...

The Unite union’s defeat by Ineos at the Grangemouth oil refinery and petrochemicals plant in Scotland merits serious analysis and discussion by socialist organisations. We need to understand what happened and draw appropriate lessons in order to minimise the risk of such defeats in future. Much of the left press has been desperate to spin a narrative of a militant workforce champing at the bit to take radical action, but being held back (and, ultimately, stitched up and sold out) by a capitulatory bureaucracy. Workers Power told us: “The workers and their shop stewards, who bravely campaigned...

A culture of trying to ban people you don’t like is edging into the student left. Administrative exclusions are fairly common on the right wing of the student movement. Right-wing or “apolitical” student union officers will often find excuses for shutting down left-wing meetings and activity; but they won’t call them bans. It is on the student left that a culture of banning, more openly proclaimed as what it is, is starting to develop. Such bans are usually aimed not against right-wingers, but against others on the left. Following the Socialist Workers Party’s terrible and cynical mishandling...

There is a discussion in University of London Union about the Socialist Party's 'Socialism 2013' event, which takes place at ULU the weekend of 2 November. The discussion is taking place because of the controversy surrounding the Socialist Party's response to allegations against RMT official Steve Hedley, then a member of the SP (for more details about the case and the SP's response, see the Women's Fightback blog here ). Some on the ULU executive advocate cancelling the SP's booking for rooms at ULU. Obviously it is up to ULU's democratic structures to decide. We understand why some in ULU...

As the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) moves towards its December conference with hot dispute between its Central Committee and a large opposition faction, the Socialist Party (SP) is also immersed in conflict. The SWP dispute originates with discontent over the handling by the leadership of charges by SWP women members of sexual harassment and rape. The opposition has moved on to broader questions of SWP regime, but not yet to SWP public politics. A new article by SWP leaders Alex Callinicos and Charlie Kimber responds by claiming that the roots of the dispute lie in the opposition’s lack of...

The 17 July 2013 issue of The Socialist (paper of the Socialist Party) carried a feature “End Violence Against Women”. The feature included an extract from a booklet by Christine Thomas about the social attitudes which underpin violence against women, an account of the Campaign Against Domestic Violence (a 1990s campaign set up by the Socialist Party’s forerunner the Militant Tendency), and a list of demands to tackle violence against women. There are some problems with Thomas’s book (Women and the Struggle for Socialism) which are worth debating (for instance her attitude to sex workers...

At Unison National Delegate Conference 2013, we discussed a motion about creating “a safe space for women in the labour movement”. We also discussed an amendment about male violence against women. I am still angry about the discussion around the amendment and upset by the fact it was defeated. The original, uncontroversial, motion was about organising women in the labour movement, actively supporting young women, buddying systems and many other ways. The amendment on male violence against women should have been uncontroversial. Sadly, it wasn’t. This is the text of the amendment: “We believe...

At the 2013 AGM of the transport union RMT (23-28 June, Brighton), an appeal about the conduct of an investigation into a complaint brought by RMT member Caroline Leneghan against Assistant General Secretary Steve Hedley accusing him of domestic violence was withdrawn. That was done at Caroline’s request. The case is now “closed”. The way it was discussed over some months has re-raised questions about the conduct of the labour movement and left which need to be addressed. One general issue is the lack of knowledge, culture and expertise in the labour movement about violence against women. But...