SWP

The SWP / IS tradition

The Scottish left: the strongest nationalists

“The Labour Party in Scotland has been wiped out.” That was the verdict of the Socialist Party Scotland (SPS) on the 2015 general election. The next step was: “The trade union movement must now prepare to build a new mass party for the working class.” In alliance with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the SPS had stood ten candidates in Scotland under the ‘Trade Union and Socialist Coalition’ (TUSC) banner. Their votes ranged from 0.2% to 0.7%, and amounted to only 1,772 in total. But that did not constitute a “wipe-out”. The slump in the Labour vote in 2015, explained the SWP, demonstrated...

The curious incident of the left that didn’t bark

Instructing a stolid and unimaginative official detective, Sherlock Holmes drew his attention to “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”. His stooge, or feed, responded: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” The curious incident of the left in the Corbyn time is something like that. Not that the left has done nothing. But so many groups on the left have failed to do so many things. Almost all have failed to get involved, or to try to get involved, in the reviving local Labour Parties, or in the efforts to build a live Young Labour...

Fight Brexit all the way

On 29 March, Theresa May will trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, starting the clock on the UK leaving the EU. Unless the UK and all the EU states agree to a special extension on negotiations, the UK will quit the EU in or before March 2019. Already, the Brexit vote is leading to stresses on migrant workers, and an increase in nationalism and xenophobia in the UK; and strengthens the worst, most right-wing elements in the ruling class and their political party, the Tories. The labour movement needs to carve out a pro-worker, pro-migrant vision of the future, with ties as close...

Brexit: nightmare for bosses? Or for us?

Despite evidence of rising racism, as well as the likelihood of severe cuts to working class standards of living, the two main left groups in the UK continue to peddle much the same nonsense about Brexit as they did during the referendum. The Socialist Party editorial of 1 February focuses on the Brexit “nightmare for the capitalist establishment in Britain”. It is as if the pending dismantling of rights and current rise in xenophobia did not exist. The Socialist Party interpret a YouGov poll showing 57% support for leaving the EU single market and 56% support for leaving the European Customs...

Experiences of the left

Kosova and a union conference (1999) Patrick Murphy Friday, April 2 Arrive at the National Union of Teachers Conference in Brighton expecting a lively and constructive weekend. Teachers are deeply angry about the Green Paper proposals for performance related pay. Yet it is hard to think about anything but the unfolding crisis in Kosova. The previous week I had been to an involved discussion on the issue. This conflict is not reducible to the well-worn slogans — ‘the main enemy is at home’, ‘stop the war’, etc. Politics starts immediately with a Socialist Teachers Alliance (STA) meeting. The...

Kimber’s contradictory consciousness

The Brexit vote was “a bitter blow for the establishment, big business, the international financial institutions, the rich and the politicians” says Charlie Kimber, writing for International Socialism Journal. This gives the impression, ″with minor exceptions″, that the ruling class was united in their support for remaining in the EU, which is clearly a fantasy. Cut through the pseudo sociology in Kimber’s analysis and you are left with two points. The leave vote was primarily a revolt against the establishment and was not dominated by racism or hostility to migrants. What evidence does Kimber...

Stumbling to the left

I was broken from the instinctive middle-class Toryism handed down from my parents by reading Marx — Capital, and two paperback books of selections — when I was 14. My family was well-off — dad a GP, mum a dentist. There were few books in the house other than my dad’s medical textbooks, but I became a bookish child (my sister and my brother, not so much). My favourites were Kasner and Newman’s four-volume The World of Mathematics and the collected works of Dickens, both given to me by the only even quarter-bookish person in my parents’ social circle, the head teacher of a secondary modern...

Socialist Worker drops “stop the bombing”

In Socialist Worker (18 October) Charlie Kimber says Mosul will be “the next city to be razed by imperialism”. He does not, however, make a direct call on the US or UK to end their bombing in support of Iraqi government forces. In the past, the SWP would have said “stop the bombing”, while (mildly) criticising Daesh’s rule. Kimber says “Isis’s rule has been appalling”. He adds that fighting “civilians are now terrified of the air and artillery assaults and the gun battles in the streets” — but plainly shies away from any “Hands off Daesh” line. He does not call for an end to the assaults. He...

Civilisation, backwardness and liberation

What is the attitude of Marxists to "backward" and "underdeveloped" countries and peoples who are being assaulted, occupied, or colonised by a more advanced but predatory civilisation? No-one expressed it so clearly and so forcefully as Leon Trotsky: "What characterises Bolshevism on the national question is that in its attitude to oppressed nations, even the most backward, it considers them not only the object but also the subject of politics. Bolshevism does not confine itself to recognising their 'rights' and parliamentary protests against the trampling upon of those rights. "Bolshevism...

What’s wrong with “Stop the War”?

The Stop The War Coalition enjoyed its heyday around the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but has regained some prominence since David Cameron’s government first proposed the bombing of Syria in August 2013. Feeding on perceptions that UK involvement in the Middle East has led to prolonged campaigns of bombing, loss of life, and the creation of unstable regimes, with very little of the humanity supposed to exist in “humanitarian intervention”, the STWC has called a number of demonstrations and got some media coverage for its opposition to the UK and US involvement in coalition bombing of...

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