Solidarity with the “scrupulously fair” SWP

The rape scandal which has engulfed the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the UK appears to have left its local franchise Solidarity relatively untouched. Back in February, the party released the following statement in solidarity with the SWP. It describes the process by which the rape allegation was investigated by the party as scrupulously fair and entirely consistent with the understanding of and record of fighting sexism which revolutionary socialists and the SWP itself embody.

This does not exactly recommend Solidarity to anyone interested in fighting against sexism or for revolutionary socialism I reckon.

For those interested, Jim Jepps has compiled a massive series of links to and about the rape scandal, while dissident/expelled SWP members have published a blog titled International Socialism.

Statement to members on crisis in SWP by National Committee of Solidarity, the Australian IST affiliate

A number of reports have been circulated on the internet, some of which have been posted to this list, about the British SWP’s handling of a serious allegation of rape against a member of the party’s leadership body, the Central Committee (CC).

The National Committee has discussed the issue and wanted to set the record straight as we believe that there is a huge amount of misinformation circulating, as well as entirely opportunistic and unsubstantiated attempts to present the SWP as somehow sexist or sectarian towards feminism.

Against the wishes of the woman who brought the complaint, and the SWP itself, a long transcript of the debate about this issue at the SWP’s recent party conference was posted on the internet. While its posting is unfortunate, it does clarify that the process through which the allegation was investigated was scrupulously fair and entirely consistent with the understanding of and record of fighting sexism which revolutionary socialists and the SWP itself embody.

The SWP has released a statement on this issue (pasted below) which points out that, “Our party has a proud tradition of fighting for women’s liberation, as is shown, for example, by our consistent campaigning over the decades to defend abortion, and by our criticism of George Galloway for his remarks about the Julian Assange rape accusations.

“Reflecting this tradition, our internal structures seek to promote women to leading roles and deal rigorously with any action by any member that is harmful or disrespectful of women. It is in the context of this commitment that we took allegations against a leading member of the party very seriously.”

The decision to deal with this complaint internally through the party’s Disputes Committee was entirely appropriate. The courts and the police have a terrible record in handling issues of rape and sexual assault. The only people we can have confidence in to deal with these issues are those with a clear political understanding of the way sexism is constructed under capitalism, how it affects men and women and how it must be fought. This means it is only experienced and trusted comrades who are capable of defending revolutionary principles and properly dealing with such sensitive issues.

For exactly this purpose, the SWP has a standing Disputes Committee that is designed to deal with complaints about personal behaviour by party members. It is elected annually by the party conference and reports only to the conference, the highest democratic forum in the group and the one most representative of the wider party membership. The Disputes Committee is composed of up to 10 members elected by conference plus two representatives from the CC, and operates entirely independently of the CC and other leading bodies in the party.

In this case the woman who brought the complaint against the CC member chose to have it handled by the Disputes Committee rather than going to the police.

The claim that the Disputes Committee was composed of friends of the accused and therefore could not be impartial is wrong. While everyone on the Disputes Committee knew the CC member accused, it would have been impossible to find experienced comrades in the party who were not in this situation given his long-term role in the group. The mandate of the Disputes Committee, set out in the SWP constitution, is specifically to investigate complaints against CC members where necessary.

The accusation that the Disputes Committee asked inappropriate or sexist questions of the woman who brought the rape complaint has not been substantiated and was specifically refuted by the Disputes Committee at the party conference.

Unfortunately the Disputes Committee issue appears to have been conflated by some SWP members with pre-existing grievances about party democracy that were raised by factions formed before the recent party conference.

Nonetheless, the SWP conference, which heard first hand reports from the Disputes Committee members and debated the issue, voted by a narrow majority to accept the Disputes Committee’s report and then re-elected unopposed the same Disputes Committee. Far from revealing any democratic failing, the National Committee believes that the democratic structures and decision-making of the SWP provided the best possible way to handle this issue.

There has also been considerable social network fascination with the expulsion of four SWP members for undeclared factionalising on Facebook. We are in no position to draw clear conclusions about all the issues at such a distance. But we reject the idea that the expulsions necessarily indicate any issue with the democratic functioning of the SWP. Expulsions are unfortunate and difficult decisions in any organisation and we note that the expulsions were ratified by conference by a margin of 3-1.

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
This entry was posted in Sex & Sexuality, Trot Guide and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

9 Responses to Solidarity with the “scrupulously fair” SWP

  1. I feel a “Socialist” Rape Apology Bingo Card coming on…

  2. @ndy says:

    Solidarity’s statement was produced prior to the special conference the SWP held March 10 and several hundred members left the organisation. I’d be surprised if at least one or two Solidarity members didn’t have similar misgivings. Further, I think the SWP’s brand has been badly tarnished by the scandal, the impact of which is still yet to be fully felt.

    Or at least, that’s how things look to me.

  3. Kieran says:

    Speaking of Solidarity, one little oddity I noticed about SAlt’s Marxism 2013 last weekend: Just about every other trot group in Australia had a leaflet trying to link SAlt to the SWP in some way. FSP’s Alison Thorne pushed a leaflet condemning the SWP (and by proxy SAlt) to everyone she spoke to. Workers Liberty had a whole tabloid dedicated to the SWP, and the majority of the articles in their magazine said much the same.

    Solidarity meanwhile, the only group in Australia formally linked to the SWP, went around claiming SAlt were racist 😛

  4. Angela says:

    The SWP have sunk to a new low (predictable but always just a little shocking) – using disabled people and children as figurative human shields, implicitly calling for the no-platforming of their critics, more http://howiescorner.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/swp-seek-ban-on-feminist-demonstrators.html

  5. @ndy says:

    OK well the only other ref I can find to Solidarity’s position is from their zine’s editor Paddy Gibson who simply states that the text is from an internal list.

  6. Pingback: To the organisers of the 2013 Sydney Historical Materialism Conference | HM Australasia, Solidarity/SWP 2013 Open Letter

  7. Pingback: Trouble at Historical Materialism Conference Mill : Call for Solidarity | slackbastard

  8. psyberimp says:

    SAlt split from the ISO (now Solidarity) in the mid 1990’s. They have no relationship to the British SWP. To link SAlt to this scandal is ridiculous. The rapist should be expelled from the British SWP period! The only similarity that SAlt has to Solidarity/ British SWP is that they are third tendency Marxists who oppose all state capitalist nation states who call themselves Socialist. They reject the idea of the degenerated worker’s state.

  9. Pingback: Silent No Longer: Confronting Sexual Violence in the Left

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.