Rees, German, and Nineham resign from SWP Central Committee

Submitted by martin on 18 January, 2009 - 3:16 Author: Gerry Bates

At the SWP conference on 10-11 January, Lindsey German, Chris Nineham, and John Rees resigned from the Central Committee (Rees jumping before he was pushed, since the outgoing CC had already proposed his removal).


More on the SWP crisis here
This means that for the first time ever the SWP has "kings over the water" - a dissident alternative leadership-in-waiting - within the organisation.

The issues between those who resigned and the CC majority around Martin Smith and Alex Callinicos arose mostly from the Respect debacle. The Smith-Callinicos group accuses Rees of freelancing. The Rees-German-Nineham group accuses the Smith-Callinicos group of "revisionism" and "retreating" from the SWP's method in recent years of "charging forward" into successive "united fronts" (in fact, small SWP-controlled popular-front-type efforts).

The situation must remain tense, since German and Nineham run the Stop The War Coalition, the SWP's major current "united front", day-to-day. As we've seen over Gaza, the approach of the "popular front" (with Islamic chauvinists and clerical fascists) is still going strong there despite the Respect experience.

The SWP plans a further special conference next spring.

Socialist Worker, edited by Chris Bambery, who has allied with Rees, German, and Nineham in some of the disputes on the CC but remains on the committee, has printed muted (but by SWP standards unusually frank) reports:

The SWP CC majority has so far supported the "People before Profit" charter, but argued that it is of limited use, and can't really become an STWC-type "united front".

The argument there may sharpen now, since at the Socialist Teachers' Alliance meeting on 17 January SWP teachers were pushing, not the SWP's own "People before Profit" charter, but the "People's Charter" initiated by the Communist Party of Britain and Morning Star, and backed by RMT general secretary Bob Crow.

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