Socialist Party

Solidarity has not been slow to ridicule the SWP and Socialist Party and their daft position to campaign with the right-wing of the Tory Party and UKIP for a vote to leave the EU. Imagine their members in a union meeting, putting their position. Their “left” words against the “EU capitalist project” will give cover to the most backward and xenophobic views in the labour movement. Anyone who wants tighter immigration rules or who is prejudiced against Eastern Europeans will be supporting this position. The leaflet of the left leave campaign (#Lexit), in which the SWP are involved, complains...

On the 9 April demonstration against library closures in Lambeth on 9 April, the Socialist Party had placards saying “Kick out the Blairites”. This is a classic example of a slogan being a dishonest, pseudo-militant self-advertising. What does “Kick out the Blairites” mean? It could mean joining or getting more active in Labour to push forward the fight against the Blairites in the party — as many on the demo will have done (Lambeth Momentum and other left Labour activists have been central to the libraries campaign). But the SP opposes people joining Labour, and opposes left unions like the...

I have been on the far left for over thirty years, and I've seen and heard some pretty strange things. I have watched women members of a revolutionary socialist group join the back of a segregated Muslim march against Israel. I've argued with left-wing British trade unionists who backed the jailing of independent trade unionists in the old USSR. I've seen socialists carry "We are Hizbollah" placards, and listened to leftists who refused to condemn 9/11. These are sincere people, genuinely believing they are doing the right thing. Often they have given many years of their lives fighting for...

The SNP ditched another of its previous manifesto commitments — big time — when it announced plans to reform the Council Tax system in Scotland last week. For well over a decade the SNP has promised to scrap Council Tax. In 2003, the current SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said: “There is no doubt that the SNP’s proposal to scrap the Council Tax in favour of a fair local income tax is hugely popular with voters.” In 2004, the current SNP Finance Secretary John Swinney said: “Every vote for the SNP in the European election will be a vote to axe the Council Tax.” The SNP manifesto for the 2007...

If you wanted to make a case that much of the British far left is irredeemably stupid, you don’t have to look further than the Socialist Party’s and Socialist Workers Party’s policies on Europe. The Socialist Party’s newspaper headline (23 February) reads: “EU referendum: our chance to vote OUT the Tories”. They seem to be aiming for a world record for lack of sense in a single sentence. With some sort of vague idea that this is a referendum, not an election, they explain that a defeat for Cameron in the referendum will lead to a crisis for Cameron and will bring down the government. The...

The Socialist Party is in a bit of a pickle. In 1991, most of what had been the Militant tendency left the Labour Party, reconstituting itself firstly as Militant Labour and then as the Socialist Party (SP). And to justify their exit, they argued that the party had changed fundamentally, transforming from what Lenin called a “bourgeois workers’ party” (which socialists should try to intervene in) into a straightforward “bourgeois party”. This idea of Labour’s irretrievable degeneration has functioned as something like an origin myth for the SP, serving not only to explain past history, but...

The TUSC electoral coalition, mainly organised by the Socialist Party, will continue to stand candidates against Labour under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. A member of the Labour Representation Committee (a Labour left group) reports: “It was confirmed to us that TUSC would be standing candidates... in the coming local elections in May 2016. They also said they would oppose trade unions re-affiliating to the Labour Party, and were against re-joining the Labour Party”. The Socialist Party’s line is that TUSC should contest council seats, wherever they are able, unless the Labour candidate commits...

The Socialist Party’s political lines are coming apart at the seams and over Europe it is becoming less and less coherent. Twenty years ago, it wrote off the Labour Party as a bourgeois party, stopped calling for a vote for Labour and started running propaganda candidates under various guises such as TUSC, without ever making a breakthrough. Its analysis ruled out any kind of left development within the Labour Party. Now the Corbyn surge has happened, the Socialist Party “wishes him well” from the side lines, while issuing ultimatums and continuing to field its own candidates in the 2016...

When the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) met on Saturday 26 September, the hot topic for discussion was how socialists should respond to the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party. But, according to reports on websites of two of TUSC's affiliates, the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (but not in any detail on TUSC’s own), TUSC will, just do what it usually does. It welcomes Corbyn’s victory, but it will stand in the May 2016 local elections on a very limited socialist platform, for what are likely to be, especially in the new situation, very poor...

The Unison General Secretary election nomination process has begun. There are five candidates, including incumbent General Secretary Dave Prentis. Workers’ Liberty members and supporters in Unison are backing John Burgess, and so is the majority of the Unison Left NEC caucus. John is Barnet Local Government Branch Secretary; he has an impressive record of leading a series of fights against the so called “easycouncil” in Barnet and in defence of public services. We encourage all Unison members to nominate John to ensure he reaches the 25 branch nominations needed to get on the ballot (he has 12...