Jack Farmer: "Alex acknowledges that both his and Ian’s articles are shaped by the recent arguments in the SWP. So, in this context, what facts have recently been created by the specific form of interventionist leadership that Alex defends here? Well firstly the handling of rape allegations against a leading member led to large votes against the leadership at our January conference. Subsequently, 350 or so people have left the SWP so far since our special conference, while roughly 90 percent of our students members - including much of the youth of the party, so necessary for a renewal of our ranks - have departed, disgusted and demoralised. We are now forced to operate in an increasingly hostile environment on the left and in the trade unions; the cutting edge of that hostility is not over questions of reform or revolution or even the trade union bureaucracy, but because of our mishandling of rape allegations. Further facts have been created. On the one hand, a vocal layer of industrial cadre (concentrated in the NUT and PCS fractions) have hardened to a position of regularly calling for critical comrades to leave, or be ejected from, the party (this was said a number of times, and applauded, at our special conference in March). On the other hand, a group of oppositional comrades has sprung up, determined to fight to create an organisation fit to pursue revolutionary politics in Britain today. In broad outline, these are the facts that Alex’s form of leadership has recently created."
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 08:11:47 +0000
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