Sunday, July 08, 2007

Organising fighting unions? - “SWP thug assaults expelled member”?



As if the SWP doesn’t have enough trouble at the moment with the disintegration of “Respect”. The Workers Weekly allege that expelled SWP member “Simon D” was attacked by a SWP national officer and one other at the Marxism 2007 event yesterday. Ironically this was apparently while Simon was waiting to attend the so-called “Organising Fighting Unions” workshop.

Simon was allegedly “wrestled to the floor, sustaining bruising, abrasions and back strain. A second SWPer then joined in and they started to go through our prone comrade’s pockets to take his Marxism ticket”.

Which I assume actually is an allegation of “Robbery” as well as assault.

What I can gather is that Simon was expelled by the SWP for reporting on his blog (accurately) the Tower Hamlets Respect AGM last year (and leaking it to Workers Weekly?).

I assume that makes him a “blogger martyr”? There again, I would have thought that being expelled from the SWP was actually a badge of honour.

Simon was “barred” from any SWP or Respect meetings. He has apparently ignored this “ban” and turned up to open events. The “assault” appears to have taking place in an attempt to take away his ticket to Marxism 2007.

Obviously I have only heard one account of what has happened and the CPGB (who publish Workers Weekly) is hardly a fraternal friend of the SWP. However, I do note that the motto of Marxism 2007 is of course “YOU ARE either with us or against us”

Frankly I would have thought that a worse punishment would have been to make him attend.

See copy of a leaflet that the CPGB is handing out at Marxism 2007 about this incident.

2 comments:

EB said...

JG you are correct, and you can follow the next WW.

Anonymous said...

Also interesting to note that a video of a well known UNISON SWPer might be reaching YouTube shortly. It's the one where he physically breaks up a rival organisation's meeting! I'll let you know if and when it's posted.