I want to way first that the reason I am reporting this is so that we can remove obstacles to building an effective anti-war movement not to simply slag off the SWP. What is such a fucking shame is that their undemocratic behaviour will hold back a mass movement from being built. It is even more of a shame given that most SWP members are putting lots of effort into building such a movement, but here is the sorry tale

In Sheffield there was a large public meeting to launch the anti-war coalition. This was followed by an activists meeting on October 3rd with maybe 50 people at. There was a discussion about the nature of the steering/group committee. There were differences of opinion expressed.

Some speakers all form the SWP calling for a small committee. Other groups/individuala called for all to be represented. Another idea was for spokes council type system which has been common in the peace movement and direct action movement for a long time. People familiar with the history of the workers movement will recognise that this in outline is a skeleton of the form of organisation known as workers councils. This bottom up rather than top down organisation was the key to the most succesful political movement in the UK in recent times - The Poll Tax revolt

The idea is that each group sends a represenative. So if there is a local area group, or workers group or action group (say anti-war artists) they can send along a spokesperson plus observers to ensure accountablity if they want. This is democratic and it means that any decisions taken can be quickly implemented. It maximises participation. It also can ensure that any new groups getting involved can be involved in decision making. It means that all are accountable. This was a form of organisation that operated in Sheffield successfully during the gulf war and the SWP were happy to participate in.

The CND chair suggested a compromise, so that a divisive decision could be avoided. The compormise was that there should be an open meeting and that anyone who wanted to be on the committee could be on. Given the desire to achive consensus and focus on campaigning rahter than structure those wanting a more democratic systme did not ask for a votel. The chairs compromise was agreed on.

At the first "steering group" meeting, this consensus decision was overturned by a meeting at which about 17 SWP members and 6 or 7 others attended. A commitee of the SWP's chosen ones was elected. This is completely undemocratic and disempowering.

Given the SWP memos that have ben published on indymedia perhaps their behaviour should not be surprising.

It leaves those of us committed to democracy. participation in decision making and change coming from below rather than the top down with a difficult choice, should we
Have a big row at the next activists meeting and piss off loads of people that just want to get on with stopping the war?
Stay silent about such a stitch up?
Accept that the SWP runs the coalition and will use it for their own ends which in the long run will piss off people who want to stop the war and ?
Take our ball home and sulk and leave the field clear for the SWP to recruit and sell merrily (probably what they want) ?

There is a silver lining in the sorry saga, the SWP must be getting pretty desperate to be behaving in such a way.