Support SWP comrades being thrown out of the party
Prince | 23.11.2009 16:44
Tensions within the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) are starting to come to the surface, both nationally and locally, with a purge under way of SWP members critical of the leadership around Martin Smith.
In a nutshell, the spat over Respect and the SWP's approach to electoral fronts seems to be the main bone of contention with a faction called the 'Left Platform' forming around John Rees, at one time a head honcho in George Galloway's Respect party and his wife, Lindsey German, who is prominent within the 'Stop the War' front group. Although Smith himself has been very prominent at UAF demos, most notably against the English Defence League and even managing to get himself arrested outside the BBC HQ in the run-up to Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time, he is seen as offering no other strategy than 'build the party', particularly after the Respect debacle when the SWP faction were booted out of the party after an acrimonious row with Galloway and his supporters.
In a ham-fisted attempt to head off the rebellion, Smith is now in the process of purging supporters of Rees and German from the party. In London, two student SWP members have just been expelled. While in the North East, Smith's bully-boy full-time organiser, Yunus Bakhsh (recently sacked from the NHS and kicked out of Unison because of his dubious behaviour), is happily ridding himself of critics. Already, SWP blogger Alex Snowdon from Tyneside has been expelled, while Tony Dowling and all seven members of the Sunderland SWP branch look likely to follow Snowdon out of the party. Rumblings of discontent are spreading throughout the SWP and the forthcoming conference looks likely to be an explosive affair.
Using the sexist thug Yunus Bakhsh to purged SWP members is beyond belief.
Solidarity to expelled comrades from the SWP.
Throw Smith and his cronies out of the SWP!
In a nutshell, the spat over Respect and the SWP's approach to electoral fronts seems to be the main bone of contention with a faction called the 'Left Platform' forming around John Rees, at one time a head honcho in George Galloway's Respect party and his wife, Lindsey German, who is prominent within the 'Stop the War' front group. Although Smith himself has been very prominent at UAF demos, most notably against the English Defence League and even managing to get himself arrested outside the BBC HQ in the run-up to Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time, he is seen as offering no other strategy than 'build the party', particularly after the Respect debacle when the SWP faction were booted out of the party after an acrimonious row with Galloway and his supporters.
In a ham-fisted attempt to head off the rebellion, Smith is now in the process of purging supporters of Rees and German from the party. In London, two student SWP members have just been expelled. While in the North East, Smith's bully-boy full-time organiser, Yunus Bakhsh (recently sacked from the NHS and kicked out of Unison because of his dubious behaviour), is happily ridding himself of critics. Already, SWP blogger Alex Snowdon from Tyneside has been expelled, while Tony Dowling and all seven members of the Sunderland SWP branch look likely to follow Snowdon out of the party. Rumblings of discontent are spreading throughout the SWP and the forthcoming conference looks likely to be an explosive affair.
Using the sexist thug Yunus Bakhsh to purged SWP members is beyond belief.
Solidarity to expelled comrades from the SWP.
Throw Smith and his cronies out of the SWP!
Prince
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