HOPI’s Chris Strafford on shady manoeuvres by Manchester SWSS.

As a supporter of HOPI I have always expected hostility from those who peddle apologist politics. Its not a big surprise to see John Rees from the SWP speaking to Iranian television as activists of social movements in Iran are being tortured and killed. Its not a big surprise that Lindsay German from the SWP believes that ‘real’ elections took
place in Iran alongside ‘real’ protests. Its not a big surprise that Campaign Iran argues that the homosexuals in Iran have a great life because they can always get a sex change. And unfortunately its not surprising that SWP comrades are attempting to undermine and attack HOPI in Manchester through lies and deceit. After all, they have lost the arguments: what else apart from lies and sectarian manoeuvring do they have left?

From day one of my own and others’ support of HOPI we have been subject to constant lies. The SWP tell us that we are dividing the movement, and then support our expulsion from StWC and with it the Iranian left which is in exile in Britain! They have members who claim that they have received a HOPI leaflet with the Shah emblem on it, which anyone with two brain cells would see through as utter bullshit. They have claimed that HOPI is a CPGB front, and that the CPGB is a disruptive force within the united front. Again anyone who can read further than the SWP’s party notes would realist that its utter bullshit. It is a disgrace that the SWP belittle the work of Iranian comrades in the UK
for there own opportunist agenda – which, as RESPECT has shown, only puts the movement on the road to a dead end and infighting.

In Manchester the SWP is trying to build a counter-meeting to our launch. In organising the HOPI meeting, out of good faith and fraternity we made sure we would not clash with the SWSS meetings. It is a disgrace: whilst we oppose the SWP’s politics and it’s inability to
support the Iranian people in struggle, we have to co-operate with them week in week out on united front work such as Stop the War, anti-fascism and trade union solidarity. It made sense to us in Manchester that whilst we will fight for our own positions we will do so in a way which is comradely and honest.

There actions show  that they will not enter into honest debate; they will not accept the invitation to come to our launch meeting and openly and frankly discuss. Instead they have gone down the path of hostility. They will try and undermine our efforts in Manchester with this counter meeting. They will not succeed. They will try to keep
their members in ignorance so as not to lose them, as they have been in Manchester. They will not succeed. The undemocratic, apologist, opportunist and deceitful politics of the SWP is pushing people away from them. This is not something which should make the rest of the left happy because nine out of ten of those potential socialist activists fall out of politics or fall into the hands of the reactionaries.

Only honest and democratic politics are going to build a movement that can fight and win.