To: Globalise Resistance and members of Globalise Resistance



Dear Friend,

We are writing to formally register our dismay at your decision to advertise travel to the demonstration in Brussels by Ryan Air flights without even a mention of the bus organised by Socialist Youth & the Socialist Party despite details being sent in by at least four people. We are members of Globalise Resistance and have played a role in building for GR events and recently have worked with activists from GR on many anti-war activities. At a recent meeting when it became clear that GR was not in a position to organise a bus to Brussels we made a formal offer to GR members to travel to Brussels with us on a bus, which we are actually subsidising.

The approach of Socialist Youth / Socialist Party, which was explained to Richard Boyd Barrett, who is a leading member of the SWP and active in GR, was that we would send some people on the GR bus to Brussels but that we needed to organise a special bus that would stay in Brussels for an extra day because Socialist Youth is participating in an International Socialist Resistance "Counter Summit" on the Saturday. When the offer of spaces on our bus was made Grace Lally of Globalise Resistance / SWP advocated that the bus be a joint bus as many members of Globalise Resistance would have a difficulty travelling on a 'Socialist' labelled bus. We understand that our approach is now being labelled as sectarian and that some people may even believe that we sabotaged GR attempts to organise a bus.

We find it incredible to be labelled in this way given that our offer represented a genuine and generous offer of assistance to GR. It is not sectarian, it is the right of Socialist Youth to organise a "Socialist" bus to a socialist conference. It strikes us that some people in GR are unfortunately trying to put a measure of blame on us for an unfortunate own lack of focus and preparation for the events in Brussels within GR itself.

We find it deeply ironic and disturbing that a group opposed to Globalisation and rampant free market capitalism consciously choose to advertise and actively encourage people to travel to an event like this on the most exploitative, non union, anti worker airline in this country, when there was an alternative i.e. a bus organised by socialists. Some members of GR may have some difficulty travelling on our "Socialist" bus but we believe that many more members of GR would have an even greater problem travelling with Ryan Air. The issue of the bus being a joint bus is a red herring. The key point is that, the genuine offer of co-operation from Socialist Youth was spurned on a very spurious political basis. We would like to know when and who made the decision to advertise Ryan Air and ignore our offer.

With regard to the approach to organise a joint bus, while we said that we would welcome and encourage anyone from GR to travel on our bus, we did explain that our bus had been organised for several weeks and that there were only around ten places left, which GR members were welcome to book.

The work that all of us are involved in is far too important to be cut across by such pettiness. I would now ask you to finally advertise the details of our bus.

Yours comradely,

Susan Fitzgerald
Socialist Youth / Socialist Party