Talk:Socialist Workers Party (UK)/Archive 1

Central Committee

This article needs a list of the members of the Central Committee. The SWP's website seems curiously devoid of that info. Is this actually public? Morwen - Talk 22:03, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't think so - unless party notes have been released. The weekly worker lot may know as they collect gossip. Secretlondon 22:30, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Chris Harman names 4 particular leading figures. I wonder if even that is verifiable. Morwen - Talk 22:31, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Tried looking up who were their designated officers on the register of political parties, and of course they aren't on it. Morwen - Talk 22:33, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The best I've found is this Weekly Worker November 6 2003

which lists Alex Callinicos, Lindsey German, Chris Harman, Dave Hayes, Chris Nineham, John Rees and Martin Smith as the leading members of the CC. Secretlondon 23:16, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Cool. I've put it in the article, in a sort of NPOV way. Morwen - Talk 23:21, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Offical lists of the leading committees of the IS/SWP have rarely been published publically or even internally since the mid-1970's. When the practice was abandoned security was cited as the reason.

I've deleted discussion of the World in Action smeer of IS taking part in a strategy of tension around football grounds. It's untrue. Not a single member of IS or document from the period collaborates this. Believe me I've talked to virtually the entire curviving leadership from that period. I've also deleted discussion of Red Action as that should be in an entry on that group not here.

In general the entry needs a lot of work. Much of the theoretical discussion is inaccurate and needs placing in chronological order rather than being placed at the beginning.

Jock Haston

Some mention of the Central Committee would be nice, considering that they are the effective leadership of the party, yet I couldn't find one single instance of the phrase in the article. I don't know enough to write anything about it, but this is a really puzzling ommission, would anybody care to explain? Madashell 00:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The practice of not publicaly advertising the list of CC members seems to have changed. This year the list of elected CC members has been published in the the partys publication Socialist Worker. It is Chris Bambery, Weyman Bennett, Michael Bradley, Alex Callinicos, Lindsey German, Chris Harman, Chris Nineham, Moira Nolan, John Rees, Martin Smith and Candy Udwin.[1]--JK the unwise 10:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I've added this information and the link to the leadership section.--NHSavage 01:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Control Committee

Alongside the (elected) Central Committee, there is a Control Committee. What do we know about it? Markb 10:44, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Whitewashing article

- user:T bone is making many "minor" edits to this article, whitewashing it, removing huge chunks of text and anything critical of the SWP. I hae attempted to restore much of this deleted text. Beware minor edits by this user - they invariably are anything but minor! 213.122.187.29 01:27, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Come off it

Why are you so desperate to retain false information in the article and slander me? If there are huge chunks of text critical of the SWP in the article (as you claim) then they have no place being there. Wikipedia is not a critics message board. Its a factual database.

NPOV

See NPOV to see the Wikipedia editing policy. In effect, it says: do not report "facts" where there is controversy: instead, describe opinions, attibuting those opinions to their sources. -- Anon.

Come off it

In effect, it says nothing of the sort. It does not say "do not report facts where there is controversy". What an absurd notion. -- Tbone

Like a number of other contributors to this entry I'm annoyed at T Bone's selective editing of it. His actions seem quite bizarre in that among other pieces of data he has edited out is a list of the SWP publications! Such a list is not in any sense derogatory. Moreover whether or not T Bone likes it the ANL did physically confront Nazi's I ought to know I took part in such activities and remain proud of doing so. To delete a contribution. albeiut a badly written section, of the entry that says this is a distortion and a lie. In fact T Bone seems to know very damn little of the group s/he is so eager to defend.

Jock Haston

Dear Jock

You will notice I have expanded a lot of the entries specifically concerned wih the IST and created many from scratch. Including profiles of people and other campaign groups connected wih the IST. These are valuable contributions to Wikipedia. They have not been criticised or deleted by anyone. In fact some have facilitated further contributions. You make no mention of any of this in your attack on me. Where have I "editied out a list of SWP publications" as you claim? Please reinstate it if it has been removed. The entry about the ANL was misleading. If this were the only instance of misleading information being written about the SWP then it would not be that big a deal. But there is a pattern. People (usually ex-members like yourself or members of groups openly hostile to the SWP) choose to spend their political energies on the internet writing slander and lies about the SWP. With regard to the ANL if you want to write a piece explaining the politics of no platform for fascists and the democratic decisions taken to physically confront them in specific and limited circumstances then do it. Don't try and defend and article that is written with the purpose of trying to paint the group as advocates of 'violence'.

Dear T Bone,

Your a liar. Just look at the history of this entry for proof. Twice now you have deleted a list of SWP publications and twice now I've reinstated it.

As for an entry on the ANL I've neither read it or edited it. But I have reinstated the section of the ANL Mk 1 in the entry on the IS/SWP. I no more agree with it than you do but I do not consider it to be violance bating of the SWP. it is biased against the SWP for sure and you and I may not like that but deleting it is against wiki policy. What needs to be done is a rewrite for NPOV.

As for the SWP in the 1980's we were advocates of violance for political purposes. If you do not believe me read the article In Defence of Violance from the ISJ (OS). [I forget the issue number but it's 98 to 104 for certain]. The same article was reprinted in the SWP's Internal bulletin in the early 1990's. I don't actually expect you to know of such facts but please do not tell me that we were not advocates of violance as we were and revolutionaries always advocate such methods.

For what it's worth i have no animus against the SWP and make no attack on it or you on this wiki as such an attack is inapropriate. but I do object to your editing entries relating to the SWP and it's alies in a fashion that is not NPOV. for what it's worth I've written a lot of the entries relating to Cliff, the SWP and IST too. I suspect that I'm now going to have to go throught the ISt entries checking for your distrotions.

Jock Haston

Logo

Changed the image to a PNG one 'cus thats what they tell us to do --JK the unwise 15:20, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Membership

I know that estimates are added, but what about actual figures. At the most recent SWP conference, Susanne Jeffrey, speaking for the central committee, claimed that there were 4,240 “registered members” and 3,345 current members.

The ANL

There is quite a bit on the ANL (4 paragraphs) does it all really belong here or should most of it be moved to the ANL page?--JK the unwise 16:05, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

clarity

"In addition it publishs an international bulletin and an internal bulletin Party Notes, various pamphlets and books often through its publishing house Bookmarks and a number of rank and file news papers for specific industries such as Post Worker."

Does this mean it sells bookmarks, or its publishing house is called 'Bookmarks'? I'll assume it's the latter for the time being as it's capitalised, and add commas to make this sentence clearer. 62.255.32.11 20:34, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, you're right. Warofdreams 09:40, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

References

This article is getting huge, but so far it is tottaly unreferenced!! If people do not start adding authoritive references for this large body of material I think we should give it an extreme triming. --JK the unwise 15:28, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have started adding some references. However I still think it needs a trim. IMHO the best way to do this would be to split the history section into its own article. Comments?--NHSavage 00:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I have now moved the unreferenced tag to the History section which now seem to be the only completely unreferenced part. Other sections need better references but don't IMHO need flagging.--NHSavage 00:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

History section given its own section. I'll try and do a short, referenced section for this article soon.--NHSavage 13:34, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Done referenced history up to 1974. This is mostly based on Birchell, Cliff and Higgins so might inadverantly be POV. However I think it offers a basic, referenced history up to this point which can be built on. From here on it gets harder as Cliff's autobiog is not online for this period, Higgins peters out and this only leaves Birchill to 1981 which is also someehat worse. Other good references would be appreciated.--NHSavage 20:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who finds it hard to follow all the splits, counter-splits and microscopic movementitoes of the British far left, and gets rapidly lost in the maze of organisations (some of which could presumably meet in a telephone box), might it be possible for someone to create a "map of the British Left" page in Wikipedia, which would show off each organisation on a sort of family tree, perhaps with appropriate colour schemes to show the level of hate, accusation, feuding, name calling and so on between each one? With references of course to the Life of Brian and similar helpful sources. Just trying to help everyone understand. MarkThomas 12:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I sympathise with your request but I am not sure that it is practical to do this. If you go to: [2] you will see why. Even to manage the Trotskyists would be hard. To be honest if you want to know this history of any specific group go to its page and leave a request there.--NHSavage 17:47, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Completed the new history section. I now think that this article is now probably one of the best referenced around.--NHSavage 22:08, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

If you want another reference try Shaw The Making of A Party? Socialist Register 1978. The only other account is Ted Crawfords The Tragedy of IS. Plus various personal accounts in Workers Liberty. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.170.108 (talk • contribs)

If anyone wants to include Shaw it is available at [3]. Duncan Hallas's robust reply is at [4].--NHSavage 07:22, 12 April 2006 (UTC) The Tragedy of the International Socialists is at [5].

Criticism

Have created a section on criticisms of the SWP - at present it covers the gay/women's rights "pandering to Islamism" accusation and criticisms from the anarchist movement. The latter has sources but the former does not, tho I suspect weekly worker will have something (am tired but will do it later) - if someone could NPOV check these and edit where necessary as am new to Wikipedia would be much appreciated, and/or add other criticisms and SWP responses.

Have included a link to the infamous "Monopolise Resistance?" leaflet from SchNEWS as felt it relevant. Mark Thomas' "Crap Comrades" may be of use also. --Black Butterfly 00:34, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Article title incorrect

Surely this article should be Socialist Workers Party (Britain)? As the SWP argues for a united Ireland it does not organise in N. Ireland. Its sister organisation in Ireland covers the whole of that island. Also its website is titled Socialist Workers Party (Britain). (I also should have thought about this before creating the new history page).--NHSavage 14:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Moved both.--JK the unwise 18:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I can see your point, but there needs to be a general approach to this. The Labour Party (UK) doesn't organise in Northern Ireland, so the two pages should have the same disambiguation. If this page stays moved, that page should also move. Warofdreams talk 00:02, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I hope I wasn't to hasty in my moveing of the page, I'd had a couple of glasses of wine.--JK the unwise 09:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the question of the correct title for the Labour party belongs on that article's talk page. The situation is not identicle in that the Labour Party does have a Northern Ireland Minister whereas the SWP claims to believe in a united Ireland....--NHSavage 20:43, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Banning 86.133.190.117

Someone at this IP address keeps adding the same opinionated illiterate rubbish (I say this as no fan of SWP). Can this address be blocked from changing the page?

--Paul Moloney 09:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

If it happens again, I would consider reporting it as vandalism. Guy Hatton 10:20, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

S/he has been back again. I have issued a vandalism warning on the user's talk page. Guy Hatton 08:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It may be too early to call this, but I would keep an eye out for 86.138.2.14 as possibly being a sockpuppet for 86.133.190.117 Guy Hatton 09:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Order of sections on Theory and History

Since the Theory section refers to the Socialist Review Group without explaining it, I think the History section would be better placed above it rather than below it. Any comments, or objections? --Duncan 10:37, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that the History section should precede Theory, coming directly after Leadership. It just seems to me to be a more logical way to open out the article. Any other opinions? Guy Hatton 11:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It does seem more logical that way around. The only problem is that the history section is rather incomplete whereas, while needing more work, the theory section is much nearer to being complete.--NHSavage 21:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't seem like a reason to keep the present order. Don't see why we should hide incompleteness. Since there's been no clear dissent for a week or two I'm going to go ahead and change this. Kalkin 03:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! --Duncan 16:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

detail

The reference to animal rights is rather strange - the SWP and all its leading members have always been opposed to the idea of animal rights considering it to be a mistaken understanding of animals and humans. Ecology is quite different - though swp people may often have been critical of environmentalist movements, marxists since Marx have always had something to say on how capitalism destroys the environment...—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.218.111.47 (talk • contribs) 20 July 2006.