The SWP: Some things I wish I’d known before getting involved with the Socialist Workers Party (UK)

You might read these things and still think the SWP is the best fit for you, but, for me, my involvement was based on not being aware of these things. All of this is focused on the Party leadership, ideology, behaviour and history, not on the individual people who go to meetings – I’ve met many comrades at meetings who are wonderful people who I value very much.

These are things I have experienced first-hand in going to meetings for months, taking part in street stalls and demonstrations, or that have been shared by others online about the national movement. I decided to start talking openly about these things after a while of thinking I had to stay quiet about it – it is so hard to make any criticisms within SWP spaces, but that makes it all the more important to talk about it elsewhere.

Some things I wish I’d known before getting involved with the Socialist Workers Party

• The Comrade Delta scandal, where a senior Party member was accused of sexual assault and rape and the Party dealt with it internally in ways that they eventually had to apologise for. https://www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2014/05/comrades-war-decline-and-fall-socialist-workers-party
  https://freedomnews.org.uk/2018/10/11/cool-girl-activism-and-why-ill-no-longer-stand-with-groups-that-include-the-swp/

• When addressing the scandal now, locally, rape myths were used to justify the outcome (“she only started saying it was rape after the relationship ended”) and raising the issue was met with anger and suggesting that it is traumatic for the Party and used to ‘discredit’ them.
  
• There are still articles on the Socialist Worker website with misogynist SWERF (Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist) ideology despite being repeatedly called out and asked to remove it and apologise : https://socialistworker.co.uk/comment/onlyfans-another-way-to-profit-from-our-bodies/

• SWP meetings are exclusively for SWP ideas, not for an exchange of socialist ideas or discussing or debating other ideas. This artificially platforms their ideology above any other, and above criticism. This is enforced by behaviours like shouting down people in meetings, or leadership suggesting there are rules in place to not talk about anything that isn’t SWP-approved.

• If you do not have a job and are not in a union, there is no means of class struggle available to you according to SWP ideology. This includes the ableism of saying everyone should get a job under capitalism to engage in class struggle, and my perspective as a disabled person unable to work in these kinds of environments was ignored, and my existence was labelled ‘petit bourgeois’ for part-time self-employment because of my disability.

• The SWP is hierarchical and does not seek to destroy hierarchy.

• No one ever specified where petitions were being sent. I spent hours at street stalls collecting names and email addresses, but where were they going? The petitions weren’t addressed to anyone and often not even asking for anything specific. I do not believe they were ever sent to anyone.
  
  
• The main focus is the propagation of the Party above all else, whether that’s selling newspapers, getting people to come to meetings, give their details, become a paying member of the Party, paying for tickets to events/conferences, etc. The issues matter insofar as they can bring people towards the Party – we can be yelling about Tory austerity in the street, and an unhoused person can sign our petition of the day, but when it comes to that person then being harassed by cops right next to our stall, that’s not something to address or act in solidarity with.

• The SWP nationally are well-known to take over grassroots campaigns and demonstrations with their branding, citing themselves as the organisers, and giving details of other groups to the police or using the police against other groups. https://freedomnews.org.uk/2018/12/20/building-coalitions-outside-sutr-swp-london-anarchist-federation-write-up-on-antifascist-mobilisaton/
  
  
• Stand Up To Racism has been flagged by various sources as a front for the SWP for situations where the SWP might be considered unfavourably. https://globalwomenstrike.net/why-doesnt-stand-up-to-racism-stand-up-to-the-racism-against-palestinians/
  https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/19423

• The SWP support Palestine, while Stand Up To Racism take ‘no stance’ on racism against Palestinians because of wanting to appeal to Zionists in their ranks and not wanting to lose favour from trade unions (this is what I was told when asking for clarification on why SUTR was not attending pro-Palestine protests.) https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2019/02/why-is-stand-up-to-racism-and-swp.html

• The SWP ‘considers itself to stand in the tradition of Leon Trotsky’ and speaks positively about the Russian Revolution during its talks on that history. There is a distinction drawn where they say Stalin’s rule was not socialism, but the atrocities of Lenin and Trotsky were never mentioned or addressed in any of the sessions I attended, only speaking positively about the revolution at that point. I only later learned that during the Russian Revolution, anarchists that aided in the revolution were persecuted, imprisoned and executed. Striking was made illegal, and there was forced conscription to the army with deserters being killed if they would not follow orders. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1920s/disillusionment/ch28.htm
  

• Ultimately I also wish that I’d known what seems obvious now – that I personally am not a Marxist, but I am a socialist, just of the anarchist variety. A lot of trouble could have been saved if instead of trying to mould my ideas into SWP ideas, leadership had just said “hey, you know what, there are other groups that would match your beliefs far better than us, why don’t you give them a try?”, rather than getting agitated about me attending other groups and finding out about other ideas, and trying to smear those groups as dangerous to me. If the SWP’s ideas can’t stand up to criticism or the threat of outside ideas from other sources, that’s a problem with the ideas, and it shows a huge lack of solidarity and single-mindedness about promoting their Party that they would rather people not get involved with any other organisations, and that they are willing to act in bizarre ways to keep people like myself away from their current members as well (e.g. implying that a public protest was student-only to try to stop me attending). If they’re that worried about losing people to other ideas, act differently, do better… but of course, they can’t because that hasn’t been approved by the majority at their conference…
  

Getting involved in opposing both capitalism and oppression is a great thing and I hope that other folks who become disillusioned with the SWP redirect their energy to avenues that prioritise the issues over the organisation. It can feel like the choice is between the SWP or submitting to capitalism, but it isn’t. The SWP are well-funded and get their name out there with their placards and merch, but they aren’t the only ones who are active if you start looking. But if there aren’t other groups in your area, make it happen – you don’t need a political party to tell you what to do, you don’t need to ask conference before you know what you think about something, you can act as an individual or find comrades, and feel empowered to build what you want to see.