![Scottish Socialists [RedMike, please]](/img/uisvg/forum-heading/debates.svg){kind=icon}
Originally posted by RedmikeIt's a bit difficult to comment on the trades dispute with the researchers as I don't have any information although I think you are wrong to call the two researchers who went over to work for Sheridan and Byrne scabs - they haven't crossed a picket line and their actions don't endanger the livelyhoods of the other eleven.
There are also those (the SWP, for example), who left just out of political opportunism.
I feel I should defend the SWP's position. We have our own agenda and simply looked at the two organisations and chose the one we thought was more likely to be effective in campaigning, rather than parliamentary terms, and whose politics we were more comfortable with. This is the Socialist Worker Platform's statement: www.socialistworker.org.uk/article.php?article_id=9509
Originally posted by DeepThoughtI'm not calling the 2 researchers who went with Sheridan and Byrne scabs.
It's a bit difficult to comment on the trades dispute with the researchers as I don't have any information although I think you are wrong to call the two researchers who went over to work for Sheridan and Byrne scabs - they haven't crossed a picket line and their actions don't endanger the livelyhoods of the other eleven.
I feel I should defend the SW ...[text shortened]... ialist Worker Platform's statement: www.socialistworker.org.uk/article.php?article_id=9509
However, Sheridan and Byrne then employed 2 further researchers, using the funds allocated to the existing workers. These 2 are effectively scabs, as they are taking on the work of other people currently in a trade dispute.
And I think everyone is well aware now, if they weren't before, that the SWP has its own agenda.
Originally posted by RedmikeSorry, I didn't read your earlier post carefully enough, and the IWW article didn't say anything about that.
I'm not calling the 2 researchers who went with Sheridan and Byrne scabs.
However, Sheridan and Byrne then employed 2 further researchers, using the funds allocated to the existing workers. These 2 are effectively scabs, as they are taking on the work of other people currently in a trade dispute.
And I think everyone is well aware now, if they weren't before, that the SWP has its own agenda.
Why should the SWP not have its own agenda? You make it sound as if it's an unreasonable thing to have. The SWP entry into the SSP was negociated, and as far as I am aware there was no question that our Scottish Comrades breached the terms under which they were in the SSP.
Redmike's account of the split is highly onesided, to say the least. For an alternative perspective on the events, see Mike Gonzalez's ISJ article http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=247&issue=112 .
The catalyst for the split was the failure of large sections of the SSP to back Sheridan in his court case with the News of the World. Interesting that on this issue redmike sides with the most reactionary elements of the Murdoch press. But the roots of the split lay much deeper than Sheridan's character and personal life. Unlike redmike, Gonzalez explores and seeks to explain the declining fortunes of the SSP over the previous four years, a decline which he argues derives from a flawed political approach by the dominant political tendency in the SSP. Redmike asks us to dismiss the SWP because they have "their own agenda", as if his faction has no agenda of its own. The reality was that the SSP was an uneasy coalition in which competing views and agendas strove for dominance. Redmike's optimism about the SSP's future is belied by the fact that it shows little sign of having learned the lessons of the problems that emerged in the years leading up to the split.
2 edits
Originally posted by bolshevikI didn't say the SWP has their own agenda - Deep Thought did. I simply repeated this. And I have no particular 'faction' in the SSP.
Redmike's account of the split is highly onesided, to say the least. For an alternative perspective on the events, see Mike Gonzalez's ISJ article http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=247&issue=112 .
The catalyst for the split was the failure of large sections of the SSP to back Sheridan in his court case with the News of the World. Interesting that on t ng learned the lessons of the problems that emerged in the years leading up to the split.
Yes, there are maybe 2 sides to the Sheridan story (though the criminal enquiry will soon establish the facts). But nobody seriously believes that a party who's official went to prison to try and prevent internal minutes which incriminated Sheridan getting into the hand of the courts was siding with the Murdoch press.
Sheridan was advised against this foolhardy action. He chose to ignore this advice, and tore the party apart by insisting that his former comrades lied for him. People were unwilling to do this. The fact that he was suing the Murdoch press is irrelevant - a lie is a lie.
Of course, the SWPs support for Sheridan will be short-lived. My money is on the SWP splitting with Solidarity in February and forming a 3rd socialst party (though they won't call it that) in Scotland.
People's Front of Judea, or what.
And, just to give an indication of the sort of stuff Sheridan's new fan club is doing, they have recently put a couple of motions to the Scottish Parliamant. One insisting that Scottish soldiers should wear tartan made in Scotland (Iraqi kids won't mind being shot by them so much then) and one complaining that ticket machines on the London underground won't acept Scottish bank notes. Cutting edge socialist ideas there.
Originally posted by DeepThoughtI'm not aware of the terms on which the SWP were in the SSP, but I'd have assumed it would have been the same terms as everyone else - to build a succesful socialist party.
Sorry, I didn't read your earlier post carefully enough, and the IWW article didn't say anything about that.
Why should the SWP not have its own agenda? You make it sound as if it's an unreasonable thing to have. The SWP entry into the SSP was negociated, and as far as I am aware there was no question that our Scottish Comrades breached the terms under which they were in the SSP.
There are many examples, even before the split. of the SWP working directly against the interests of the SSP.
For example, in my own branch, we build good links with the local FBU during the fire-fighters strike. We organised a meeting with an FBU speaker, to find that an SWP front called Glasgow North West Firefighters support group had arranged a meeting, half a mile away, on the same night. There are many, many such examples.
To be honest, the SWP are probably finished as a serious force in Scotland now.
1 edit
Originally posted by SeitseOK, let me explain.
No. Let me google it.
In Life of Brian, there is a part of the story where a whole range of anti-Roman groups are seen. There is the People's Front of Judea, the Judean People's Front etc etc.
This is obviously, and hilariously, taking the piss out of far left groups and their constant infighting and bickering, where it is more important to get one over on those who split from us in 1947 than it is to take the real enemy.
We thought we had got beyond that with the SSP, but we can see it in the actions of some of the groups who split from the SSP rather than stay and fight their corner, and who're likely to split again from Sheridan's new party.
Basically, some people would rather be in control of a small, irrelevant party than play a part in a larger, broader party with a bit of an impact.
There are no political difference between the SSP and Solidarity. This isn't a split about politics.
But you need to see Life of Brian.