James Turley offers an appreciation of the life of Chris Harman, 1942-2009 A prominent figure on the British far left for several decades, Chris Harman, has died aged 66. All that time, he was a member of a single organisation. Perhaps remarkably, that organisation is the Socialist Workers Party - or its antecedents in the shape of ...
Uncanny detective story James Turley reviews China Miéville’s The city and the city London 2009, pp312, £17.99 China Miéville is one of the foremost writers in contemporary genre fiction. He is somewhat unique in that, unlike many others, his crossover success has not involved disavowing the generic in favour of the more conventionally ‘literary’ - on the ...
James Turley sees SWP politics reduced to ultra-shrill self-parody It has been a busy week for the Socialist Workers Party - the largest and most visible far-left group in Britain today. Its members and periphery formed the biggest part of Saturday’s demo against the Afghanistan war, as well as the bulk of Thursday’s shrill protest at ...
Things did not go according to plan for the SWP, writes Huw Sheridan In the squash court beneath Wadham College bar about 40 students gathered on October 15 for an Oxford Socialist Worker Student Society meeting with Alex Callinicos, a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party central committee and noted academic, who was billed ...
Rhetoric, stunts, and divisions Chris Brandler assesses the left’s mobilisation in Manchester against the English Defence League The English Defence League managed to pull in around 700 supporters from across the country for its October 10 demonstration in Manchester. They appear to be an odd mix of politically disorientated, white, male workers, football firm hooligans, the sincerely ...
The continued rise of the British National Party raises key questions about the left’s strategy. Ben Lewis takes a look at the Socialist Workers Party’s analysis and argues for a root-and-branch rethink The election of BNP leader Nick Griffin and acolyte Andrew Brons to the European parliament has been endlessly reported in both the bourgeois media ...
Unremarkable volte-face The SWP has raised more than a few eyebrows on the left with its coverage of the recent protests in Iran, writes Jim Grant Allies, opponents and even some members (the editors of the infamous Lenin’s Tomb blog, for example) expected either grim silence or tacit backing for the supposed victor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yet it ...
SWP actually aids the imperialists, writes Ben Lewis Around 200 people crammed into the School of Oriental and African Studies on April 27 for a Campaign Iran public meeting entitled 'Obama and Iran'. Doubtless the high turnout was partly due to the fact that - alongside the CI, Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran ...
All that the SWP’s membership has been offered is a sop, argues James Turley Read the internal documents This year’s Socialist Workers Party conference, held in January, was dramatic. The disagreements at the top of the organisation, which had come to a head with the catastrophic blow-out for the SWP’s Left List in the London assembly elections, ...
After the victory of the wildcat strike at the Lindsey refinery, James Turley draws some lessons Let us begin with the story so far. On January 28, 800 workers at Lindsey oil refinery in Killingholme walked out illegally. They were protesting against the ‘dumping’ of 200 workers of Italian and Portuguese origin in order to fulfil ...
At a National Union of Students extraordinary conference yesterday, the NUS leadership got what they have been wanting for some time. They have gutted NUS of the bulk of its already pitifully cramped internal democracy; after the passing of the governance review by a two-thirds majority at a previous extraordinary conference on November 12 2008, ...
As the Socialist Workers Party’s annual conference looms, James Turley urges SWPers to settle accounts with the enemies of democracy and principle The Socialist Workers Party faces its most important annual conference this month. Long-time leading light John Rees and his closest allies, Lindsey German and Chris Nineham, are at loggerheads with the central committee majority ...
Lindsey German has declared ‘war’ on the SWP central committee majority, as John Rees prepares to fight back. Editor of the Weekly Worker Peter Manson reports on the burgeoning crisis The Socialist Workers Party leadership has continued the process of disempowering its former number one, John Rees, by recommending that he be removed from the central ...