MrMenno goes to an SWP meeting

[Bannedontherun]

About the “outrageous ‘ SC ruling. Well i watched his video about this and was dying laughing. I was in the SWP many moons ago and I consider myself a Marxist feminist.

What was particularly funny was that he had clearly googled Marxist concepts and had a better grip on historical materialism and top down top up politics than any of the nit wits in the meeting.

He spoke about the grass roots movement of the FWS at the meeting and how he classed them as his friends, and the manic speaker said ooo you have friends to which he burst into that Bet Middler song. “You gotta have friends”

What a star he is.

anyway it prompted me to facebook my local SWP group for some answers, and they are well in to gender woo.

They provided a bunch of links and distorted what analysis's in what their own party intellectuals said.

Sooo I said maybe you should be occupying yourselves with the failure of the unions to actually relate to those that they represent.

in particular WOMEN.

doubt they will respond

Apparently my take on science is outdated, and the respondent who tells me this is “Gracie” whose father was a miner in the dirty thirty,

My husband is a member of the dirty thirty miners so obviously i am going to know who said father is😂

i really ought to withdraw but i cannot help myself.

Oh dear, wonder what Gracie will say next!

Apparently my take on science is outdated
You mean you didn’t know that every time a TERF wins a court case, a unicorn dies? But if enough people scream “Decapitate TERFs” the unicorn will come back to life as a beautiful transwoman?

Shame on you. Educate yourself 😂

I admire his patience and willingness to engage. It sounds like he was treated to the full bingo card. You can clearly see the impacts of no debate - Menno has developed and refined his arguments over time but they just have a few comebacks that we hear time and time again and then get angry if you don’t concede to them.
I was a little surprised to hear a communist using Uber and eating KFC but then I heard it was her first meeting so that made a bit more sense.

Mr Menno brings me joy. We need a government with some bollocks who will intervene in these injustices. That slimey wet wipe Streeting has done nothing, it boils my blood.

Thanks for posting @Bannedontherun

I'm off to get my weekly dose of Mr.Menno..
He never fails to being me a much needed laugh in dark times

I’d like to know a Labour MP who has materially done more for the cause than him….

I am surprised the SWP recovered from this

www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2014/05/comrades-war-decline-and-fall-socialist-workers-party

I don't think they ever recovered, in the sense that they're a lot smaller than they used to be and the median age is probably over 60. But it's amazing what you can get away with when you've got no shame.

Socialist Worker is one of the few publications still saying that puberty blockers are reversible. As if I'm going to pay attention to the medical expertise of a bunch of people with degrees in cultural studies.

Interestingly enough RS21, the group based around the faction who left because they couldn't tolerate the rape coverup, are if anything even madder on genderwoo. Seems you can take the MRA out of the SWP...

I suppose the obvious difference to an outsider is that the SWP website is shouty omnicause stuff. The RS21 site, which is written by people who went to posher universities, is full on "this is your brain on queer theory".

Never heard of them before but checked their website and the two top stories were trans

I left way before the Delta debacle, as did many others, such as Mark Steel, things started to go wrong when Tony Cliff stepped back due to age.

Whilst i benefited from learning, it was starting to feel like a sect, even then.

Ah Tony Cliff ...that set off a few memories. Half a lifetime ago I was in Big Flame , which was set up by socialist feminists like Sheila Rowbotham iirc. Lots of members were refugees from the SW which in those days frowned on 'personal politics ' and 2nd wave feminism as a " bourgeois deviation maaan". The venerable Cliff had once opined that after the revolution there won't be homosexuality as it is a by product of the distortions and social pressures of capitalism. Or something but you get the drift. Any road my mate from Big Flame attended an SW meeting and , rather mischievously , raised this issue. They earnestly assured him that things had changed and the new line was very pro gay. Many pints later Mark found himself at a house party thinking 'how strange , there are no women '. Bit awks for a straight lad ! The pendulum had swung alright but men were still dominant. The SWP was the largest left party outside Labour and there needs to be some group to advocate for socialism. God be with the days when you could read Paul Foot in the Daily Mirror.

@Abhannmor love your post, i do not recall an anti gay position, mind you, but i believe you.

Re feminism, they were very rabid about that, and i never agree with that, as it was my first dawning back in the Spare Rib days.

I remember Mark Steel saying that when he joined at 18 he was 5 years younger than the average member. When he left at 50 he was still 5 years younger than the average member. They're promoting younger members into leadership now, but on close examination lots of them are nepo babies.

It was always a boys' club. Not that there weren't plenty of capable women, but looking at the women who got promoted, I'd have to say that being capable was not irrelevant, but a bit less important than whether or not they had shagged a man in a leading position.

It's funny, I'm quite critical of a lot of the decisions Cliff made over the years - Jim Higgins' book More Years for the Locust is very good on this, and very funny, if you can find it - but I find it hard to think of Cliff himself without some affection. It was quite cool having this little old man who looked and sounded like a mad scientist.

shagged a man in a leading position

That was unfortunately worded - I mean shagged a man who held a senior role. I have no knowledge, nor would I want to, of what position they shagged in. The fact remains it was the quickest way for women to climb the greasy pole.

That might have had something to do with how badly they handled the rape scandal. I'm sure there were lots of unattractive older men in the leadership scratching their heads and saying "but I thought these young women were up for it". It was a pretty rotten culture for a long time.

I think that Cliff quote was even before my time. Actually I suspect my friend was secretly flattered about being chatted up albeit a bit freaked at the same time. I saw a Mark Steel show about Lenin and Trotsky and it was hilarious and also quite educational. Happy days . Less fond memories of people I know slightly in the RCP. Mostly sound on gender have veered too far right? Like Claire Fox. Of the ' I am never wrong and am still a socialist matter how reactionary I am and I've got a loud voice so don't argue Party'

I was very fond of Cliff I Kew him well enough that he knew my name, which at the time made me verrrry important 😀

I also knew most of those mentioned here.

I had a friend in the RCP who was very nice, but they seemed as mad as hatters.

I also knew Paul Mason, from WP, as far as i can ascertain he actually lost the plot and drew a map of a conspiracy between Corbyn, Galloway and many others lefities and Russia, and sent it to MI5 bit sad really.

I re watched life of Brian sometime later and laughed a lot at the whole poking fun at zealotism in all its forms.

I think that many of my “comrades” had a sense of humour by pass as well.

I was talking about Animal farm once and was disapproved of clearly not on the permissible reading list

I've seen Alex Callinicos recently praising Judith Butler, and I thought, is that the same Alex who wrote the excellent Against Postmodernism?

If he's trying to be down with the kids, doesn't that negate the whole point of being Alex Callinicos? I never much liked Alex, but what a sad way to end up.

I really did not like Alex he behaved as if he was above everybody else. He wrote a book on semiotics that was death by the written word.

There defies an about face on all manner of Marxist analysis.

Lets face it you cannot be a trans rights ally unless you embrace post modernism.

I initially thought that the SWP were being opportunistic as students have always been a recruitment ground, and maybe that is in part true.

I think it's partly, as Higgins said about Cliff decades ago, the strategy of being the loudest advocates of whatever they think is popular with students.

Apart from that, I know there's at least one older TW member, who wrote a lot of their material on this, and maybe more importantly, a few senior members now have trans-identified children. I saw their recent protest coverage had a quote from someone with an odd name, and I thought "I bet this is X's daughter now identifying as his son" and guess what?

Ha ha idiots

I do feel a bit sad about its decline. When I was a teenager I joined the SWP and had a grand time going to Marxism at SOAS. when I was only just 16. They really looked after me - buddying me up with a girl from the uni cadre, making sure I had a woman member to stay with in London and so on. I was quietly looked out for, I can see now as an adult.

I do believe Mark Steel and Jeremy Hardy were the entertainment in the evening, if I recall right. I enjoyed the discussions and the talks. They were always a bit bonkers, I know, but I don't remember them being like they seem now. What a shame.

I remember going to a Mark Steel gig as part of a fund raiser and being told on the way that he was an actual member of the SWP so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was actually funny.