Statement by UCU members in solidarity with Ukraine (still open for signature)
UCU Ukraine solidarity organising meeting (hybrid), 5pm, 17 June
Some sections of the left have welcomed the vote by last month’s UCU annual congress to adopt a motion which incorporated the Stop the War Coalition (STW) line on Ukraine.
The Morning Star, Socialist Worker, Socialist Appeal, the UCU Left, and, of course, STW itself have all carried articles or issued statements backing the motion. An Open Letter defending the motion has also been launched by the SWP.
In the articles and statements published in its defence, the motion is presented as an even-handed condemnation of all parties to the conflict.
The Open Letter describes the motion as one which condemned “both the Russian invasion of Ukraine and NATO expansion.” Socialist Worker presents the motion in the same terms: It did not just “oppose the Russian invasion”; it also “said no to NATO expansion and escalation.”
In a typically more verbose manner, Andrew Murray, in an article published by the Morning Star and STW, likewise praises the motion – “a beacon to the rest of the movement” – for its balanced approach to the war: On the one hand, the Russian invasion; on the other hand, the USA and NATO … …
The texts published in defence of the motion also portray it as one nobly committed to the cause of peace, in the best traditions of the British labour movement.
The motion, says the Open Letter, was “an anti-war motion and called for a peaceful resolution of the war. … Trade unions have a long history of promoting peace and [in the context of today’s cost-of-living crisis] have a special interest in campaigning against increased spending on foreign wars.”
According to the STW statement, the motion “called for peace in Ukraine. … Trade unions have a long history of opposing government involvement in foreign wars. This tradition is particularly important in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.”
And according to Murray’s article, the motion “urged a peaceful resolution of the conflict”. Its adoption by the UCU congress has “shown the way” for socialists to “take their place within the worldwide peace front.”
To that extent, the texts published in defence of the motion have done no more than repeat the mendacities and misrepresentations contained in the motion (although that is bad enough in itself).
Such as the motion’s misrepresentation of the nature of the war. As the Open Letter issued by UCU members (and former UCU members) at the University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) puts it:
“This disgraceful motion is based on a profound and wilful misrepresentation of Russia’s war against Ukraine. It turns the focus away from the sole perpetrator – Russia – and onto NATO, pushing the discredited notion of a ‘proxy war’.”
Or the motion’s wilful refusal to recognise the impact of denying Ukraine the weapons it needs to defend itself. To quote the UCL SSEES UCU Open Letter again:
“Most horrifically, the motion calls for UCU to support a position whereby Ukrainians are deprived of adequate means for self-defence, and thus left vulnerable to being kidnapped, tortured, raped or bombed in their homes by the Russian armed forces.”
Or the real nature of the “peace” which the motion advocates: One akin to the Minsk agreements of 2014/15 which would allow Russia to annex yet more Ukrainian territory, thereby freezing the conflict until Putin chooses to launch a third onslaught against Ukraine.
Murray’s article is quite open about this. He writes: “Ukrainian nationalism will have to give up on dreams of seeing their flag flying above the Russian population of Crimea.”
Bearing in mind that Murray has previously written (December 2021) that the break-up of the Soviet Union meant that millions of people were taken away from their historical motherland and left feeling that they were living in the wrong country, he is clearly happy to see the Ukrainian flag ceasing to fly above a lot more Ukrainian territory than just the Crimea.
But one element in the articles and statements which was absent from the motion itself is the pungent whiff of narrow British nationalism which juxtaposes the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on workers in this country to government spending on “foreign wars”.
What does not seem to have occurred to the authors of the texts defending the motion is the simple fact that the union currently to the fore in defending its members from the impact of the cost-of-living crisis is the UCU itself.
And many of its members, probably the vast majority, have no problem combining their ongoing and escalating fight against their employers with support for arms for Ukraine (and without any illusions in the Tory government which is sending them).
But the most objectionable element in the articles and statements lies not in their mindless endorsement of the motion nor in their jingoistic ‘British government spending for British workers’.
It lies in their systematic misrepresentation of the opposition to the adoption of the motion by UCU congress.
None of the articles and statements acknowledge the extent of the moral revulsion within the ranks of the UCU which has been triggered by congress’s adoption of the motion. None of them appeal to former UCU members who have resigned in protest to rejoin the union.
The only very partial exception to this is to be found in the STW statement: “The success of the resolution has sparked a debate within the union which we welcome as there is so little discussion allowed in this country on the war in Ukraine.”
But the term “debate” comes nowhere near describing the eruption of anger in the ranks of the UCU membership.
And the country in which discussion on the war is not “allowed” – one in which it is even a crime to call a war a war – is Russia, not Britain. (But STW is frequently confused about events in the real world. On the eve of Putin’s invasion it published an article claiming that “today it is NATO that is trying to seize Ukraine.”)
The narrative created by the pro-motion articles and statements is one which blots out the opposition amongst UCU members themselves. Instead, it portrays opposition to the motion as necessarily right-wing and anti-union.
Following in the footsteps of UCU General Secretary Jo Grady’s initial response to the motion, Paul Mason’s criticism of the motion is singled out for denunciation in the Andrew Murray article and in the pages of Socialist Appeal.
Murray writes that Mason is “the Dr Strangelove of contemporary social-imperialism” whose politics are shared by his “boon companions in the Foreign Office disinformation apparatus.” Socialist Appeal writes: “Even noted pro-NATO journalist and Starmer fanboy Paul Mason has weighed in on the debate.”
In recent years Mason has taken on the role of the boo-hiss pantomime villain for those sections of the left exemplified by Murray and Socialist Appeal. The political sub-text of this focus on Mason is straightforward:
His condemnation of the motion means, axiomatically, that the motion must be correct. And his attack on the motion means that all such attacks must come from the same political quarter (such as his “boon companions in the Foreign Office”).
But some of the pro-motion articles and statements go well beyond the argument that if Mason says it’s bad, then it must be good.
According to Socialist Appeal: “The reaction on social media as a result of this becoming union policy has been nothing but vitriolic, bordering on hysterical. This reflects the liberal pressure placed upon those who dare to criticise the culpability of western imperialism in helping spark and prolong the conflict. … [UCU General Secretary] Jo Grady is bowing to the pressure.”
According to the UCU Left statement: “Supporters of the motion have been subjected to a witch-hunt online and smeared as ‘pro-Putin’ despite this motion calling explicitly for Russian withdrawal and condemning Putin’s war crimes. This is because the motion criticises NATO’s role in the conflict and calls on our government to stop arming Ukraine.”
In fact, those who back what the UCL SSEES UCU Open Letter rightly calls “the discredited notion of a proxy war” and who promote what the Open Letter defines as “the most horrific” opposition to the supply of weapons to Ukraine can fairly be described as pro-Putin apologists.
But that is not the issue here. The actual issue is the dishonesty of the claim that supporters of the motion are victims of a witch-hunt – by the likes of Paul Mason and his boon companions in the Foreign Office – and therefore deserving of the support of all good liberals and socialists.
The authors of the UCU Left statement cannot, and do not want to, distinguish between legitimate moral revulsion and a witch-hunt. The following tweet by a UK academic, for example, represents the former, not the latter:
“I’m in an online symposium with Ukrainian scholars in Kharkiv and Kyiv. In solidarity with them and with Ukraine, I cannot in good conscience remain in the UCU while that shameful motion is official policy.”
So far, the campaign in defence of the STW motion, which had been submitted to congress by the City and Islington College branch and the Brighton Grand Parade branch, has not been particularly successful. It is important that it stays that way.
To date, the SWP’s Open Letter has attracted just over 120 signatures from the UCU’s 120,000 members. The list contains a solitary signature from the City and Islington College branch and two from the Brighton Grand Parade branch. (The other five signatories from Brighton University do not make clear which UCU branch they belong to.)
On the UCU Left website the group’s statement has elicited just 14 responses. All of them are unreservedly hostile. And some are simply excoriating:
“In the light of UCU Left support for Motion 5 I have decided to stop the monthly sub I have been paying for many years. We should be actively supporting Ukrainian trade unionists fighting Russian aggression. Anything less is appeasement of an imperialist invasion.”
“The motion effectively gives cover and comfort to a government that would destroy (and is actively trying to do so!) the family, friends, and colleagues of your own UCU fellow members – myself included. I have resigned my membership of UCU in the light of this motion.”
“Please don’t leave UCU. Just quit UCU Left instead and vote for real trade unionists.”
And, most pithy of all:
“From a person living in the neighbouring country and supporting Ukraine’s right to peaceful existence and their right to defend themselves from an unprovoked aggression: Do kindly fuck off.”
First They Came for the Jews …
Amongst the most obnoxious elements of the Stop the War Coalition (STW) motion passed by the recent UCU congress is the dog-whistle antisemitism of the clause which states: “Volodymr Zelensky says he wants Ukraine to become a ‘big Israel’ – an armed, illiberal outpost of US imperialism.”
The definition of Israel as “an armed illiberal outpost of US imperialism” was not, of course, something which Zelenskyy himself actually said. It is something grafted onto the reference to Israel by the author(s) of the motion.
The clause amounts to an endorsement of Putin’s pretext for his invasion of Ukraine: In order to defend Russia’s legitimate security concerns in the face of expansionary US imperialism, he claimed, he was left with no alternative but to launch an invasion.
Even if it was unintentional on the part of the motion’s author(s), the clause can also be read as an endorsement of Putin’s war aim of the destruction of the Ukrainian state.
Less than a month ago Socialist Worker carried the front-page headline: “End the Israeli Terror State!” If it is right to destroy one outpost of US imperialism (Israel) then surely the other outpost of US imperialism (Ukraine) should also be destroyed?
In fact, and again even if it was unintentional on the part of the motion’s author(s), the clause also endorses Putin’s claim that Ukraine is not the expression of national self-determination by the (supposedly non-existent) Ukrainian nation.
In left-antisemitic folklore Israel is an artificial construction (an outpost of US imperialism) not the expression of the (supposedly non-existent) Hebrew-Jewish nation.
But if Israel is not an expression of national self-determination, because it is simply an imperialist outpost, then Ukraine, as another imperialist outpost, cannot be an expression of national self-determination either.
At first sight the deliberate and calculated inclusion of the clause in the motion might appear to be almost incomprehensible.
And it is notable that not a single one of the articles and statements written in defence of the STW motion make any reference to the clause. (Only an article in Socialist Appeal makes an oblique reference to it – dishonestly describing it, but without actually quoting it, as a “criticism of Zelensky’s regime”.)
Zelenskyy’s comment about Ukraine becoming “a big Israel” was a one-off comment dating from over a year ago. It is not a constant theme of his speeches, and there is no evidence that he has returned to it over the past year.
Zelensky’s argument was that the permanent threat of aggression by a neighbouring nuclear superpower meant that the issue of security “will be number one in the next ten years.” Ending up like “a big Israel” was therefore necessary, but not the preferred option: “Ukraine will definitely not be what we wanted it to be from the beginning. It is impossible.”
By contrast with his apparently one-off comment about Israel, Zelenskyy has consistently argued that Ukraine’s future lies with Europe and the European Union. But that is not something included in, or criticised by, the motion.
At first sight, that also appears to be quite peculiar. After all, the sections of the left – the SWP, Socialist Appeal, the Communist Party, and Counterfire – which have rallied to the cause of Putin apologetics are all anti-EU and pro-Brexit.
Surely, therefore, the motion should have condemned Zelenskyy for being pro-EU?
There is a simple explanation why it did not do so. To condemn Zelenskyy for wanting to see Ukraine as part of a “big EU” would go down at a UCU congress like a lead balloon. For obvious reasons, a union which represents academics was, and remains, unreservedly hostile to Brexit.
By contrast, the motion’s bracketing of Ukraine with Israel, on the basis of a single comment by Zelenskyy last year, plays into the left-antisemitic culture which has found a home for itself within sections of the UCU membership.
That culture began to take root even before the creation of the UCU, in the calls for an academic boycott of Israel (but no other country on the planet) in the two unions – the AUT and NATFHE – which merged to form the UCU in 2006.
In the early years of the UCU the calls for an academic boycott quickly evolved into a comprehensive hostility to Israel and Zionism. Complaints of antisemitism were brushed aside as bad-faith allegations designed to silence criticism of Israel.
That culture flourished in particular ‘behind the scenes’ on the union’s internal e-mail forum. As then members of the UCU described it:
“I observed the objective aspect of antisemitism being expressed on the Activists list many times, in familiar terms. … I was told that my identification of antisemitic tropes and imagery was a ruse, either to ‘deflect criticism of Israel’ or to further the interests of the so-called ‘Lobby’.”
“I witnessed first with incredulity, and then with increasing anger and despair, the atmosphere of antisemitic bullying and hatred on the Activists list. … This was not a place for rational debate and anyone who dared challenge antisemitism or the UCU support of the boycott of Israeli colleagues was the target of abuse.”
The hostile atmosphere and the lack of action by UCU officialdom inevitably led Jewish members to resign from the union. In fact, the resignations had already commenced in the unions which merged to form the UCU. But still the UCU did nothing.
One of its congresses even voted down a motion calling for an investigation into why Jewish members were resigning from the union.
That culture is still alive and well in today’s UCU. Motions on Palestine submitted to this year’s UCU congress:
• Continued to dismiss complaints of antisemitism as a manoeuvre to stifle criticism of Israel: “Congress notes: The Tuck report in which the NUS is accused of antisemitism through its pro-Palestine stances. … The conflation of support with Palestinians or critique of Israeli policies being described as antisemitism.”
• Exonerated itself of antisemitism by misrepresenting and rejecting definitions of antisemitism (just as earlier congresses had rejected the EUMC definition of antisemitism): “Congress notes: The attempts in the UK to close down critique of Israel through … IHRA (i.e. the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism).”
• Pledged unconditional support for the broader Palestine solidarity movement, i.e. irrespective of whether elements of it take antisemitic forms: “Congress authorises all appropriate action from branches to protect students and staff who find themselves under attack for supporting the cause of the Palestinian people.”
UCU now also finds itself with one line on Jewish academic institutions and another line on Russian ones: “Congress notes that some universities suspended relationships with Russian universities [after Putin’s invasion]. Congress believes that targeting Russian universities fails to support anti-war efforts within and beyond Russia.”
It is this left-antisemitic culture which the clause equating Ukraine with Israel quite deliberately addressed. And the adherents of that culture responded to the dog-whistle in sufficient numbers to allow the motion to be narrowly passed by the congress.
But there is a complication – for those who seek to defend the motion in the face of the backlash it has triggered.
The left-antisemitic culture in the UCU, part of a broader such culture to be found in sections of the left in general, was strong enough to be able to dismiss those who challenged it as agents of the Zionist lobby and to drive them out of the union.
As leading boycott activist Mike Cushman (also an enthusiastic supporter of the STW motion on Ukraine) put it in his report of the 2009 UCU congress: “It was brilliant. The Zionists barely showed up.”
But there is no equivalent anti-Ukrainian culture in the UCU. There is no Ukrainian equivalent of ‘the Zionist lobby’ which can be invoked to explain away and deflect the attacks on policies adopted by the UCU in relation to Ukraine.
True, following in the footsteps of the UCU’s ‘antiZionists’, the Putin-apologist element in the UCU (and they are very often the same people) is certainly attempting to cast itself as the victim of persecution by shadowy and all-powerful actors.
Hence the references in the statements and articles defending the motion to “a witch-hunt”, “smears as ‘pro-Putin”, “the liberal pressure placed upon those who dare to criticise the culpability of western imperialism”, “bending to the pressure”, and the delusional claim in an article by Andrew Murray:
“The Foreign Office disinformation apparatus will have to refashion the notorious map of the anti-war left, which smears virtually every part of the Corbyn movement as Putin (or Chinese) apologists, in order to include a big box marked ‘UCU’.”
But this time it simply does not work. Self-pitying invocations of a witch-hunt, smears, pressure, and Foreign Office machinations simply have no credibility. There is no pre-existing political culture for them to play into.
This also explains why the pro-motion articles and statements make no mention of the clause.
In the cloistered confines of a UCU congress likening Ukraine to Israel and, thereby, an outpost of US imperialism is rather like throwing red meat to a dog. But outside in the real world it is readily seen for what it is.
The Open Letter signed by current and former members of the UCU in the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies nails it: “The motion also features an entirely gratuitous point associating the Ukrainian president, Israel, and the US – a common antisemitic trope.”
The fact that UCU congress passed a STW motion containing a blatantly antisemitic trope should be a signal not just to push back in support of Ukraine but also to challenge left antisemitism in the union.
Especially in the context of Jewish UCU members now being subject to antisemitic attacks for supporting Ukraine. As one of them tweeted after the congress:
“I did not see Jo Grady saying a word of apology to the Ukrainian members. I did not see her say a word acknowledging that the motion is antisemitic. I received a barrage of antisemitic abuse yesterday. Jo Grady? Didn’t hear from her.”
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