Storms and Tea Cups

You didn't need the powers of Nostradamus, Mystic Meg or Ted Grant to predict the resignation of the SWP's remaining Left List councillors this week. This must surely mark the end of the SWP's attempt to substitute themselves for the genuine alliance of (small) forces Respect once represented.

I cannot begin to describe how disappointed, disgusted and incredulous I am with the SWP's behaviour these last 10 months. But for all that, I've not found it in the least bit surprising. What the party has seemingly forgotten is that revolutionary socialist politics is a serious business. In early 21st century Britain our task is incredibly complex and drawn out. There is no more a noble project than building the new society of associated producers. And there is nothing more essential and necessary now capitalism is consuming and destroying the very ecology that makes our civilisation possible. But our class, the only viable vehicle for socialist transformation is weak, fragmented and disorganised. Putting the socialist case in this context demands organisations and activists are serious about our politics and how we put them across. It means long term work in workplaces, communities and on the streets. It requires we draw deep from the experiences of comrades past and present so we can learn and utilise effectively the opportunities events place before us. It puts the left in a position where we have to cooperate with each other and whatever new forces are thrown up by the never-ending struggle. All of this is the bottom line against which the left in Britain should be measured.

For the SWP, as Britain's foremost revolutionary organisation (at least in terms of membership and profile), a unique responsibility devolves to its shoulders. But instead of responding constructively to the difference of opinion in Respect it went completely off the rails. What we have seen this last year is an abject lesson in how not to do socialist politics. There was the ludicrous witch-hunt claims, where Galloway's mild criticisms of the way the SWP leadership ran Respect was read as a systematic attempt to expel them from the organisation. Then the duplicity, lies and gerrymandering over November's ill-fated national conference. The ludicrous statement "against the witch-hunt", which stupidly put a substantial list of SWP members into the public domain. The sectarian attempts to make Galloway a persona non grata in the anti-fascist and anti-war movements. The whole Organising for Fighting Unions cheque fiasco. The sectarian folly of the Left List election campaign. The 'ourselves alone' calling of last week's Love Music Hate Racism march. The defection of Ahmed Hussain, a sitting SWP councillor to *the Tories* in February, and now the departure of Oli Rahman, Rania Khan and Lufta Begum. You've got to ask yourself, is all this indicative of a serious approach to politics?

It reconfirms for all of us who are wary of the SWP that once again its leadership cannot be trusted to work with other socialists in a comradely and cooperative way. Again, it shows its main preoccupation is preserving its organisational, as opposed to political, integrity.

I wrote those words back in October. I could never have dreamed the SWP would show itself up in the fashion it has done. But it did and shows no sign of stopping. The SWP has been tested not by world-shattering events but by proverbial storms in political tea cups. And it has been found wanting.