20.11.2014

Under the cosh of the safe spaces police

Three comrades from LU recount their experiences

Readers will be aware of the scandalous case of Laurie McCauley, a Left Unity member in Manchester and supporter of the Communist Platform. This comrade has been suspended by his Left Unity branch for what in the end - after some flimsy and routine accusations of ‘bullying’ and intimidating behaviour had been quietly dropped - boiled down to nothing more than that he wrote a critical article in the Weekly Worker, describing the political problems and differences between LU members in his branch.¹

Given the general atmosphere developing in LU - and the pernicious influence of the ‘safe spaces’ proposals - we feared that Laurie’s problems were simply the tip of an iceberg and that others around the country were under a similar cosh. We feature below three comrades who have witnessed the hypocrisy of the ‘safe space police’. The case of Alan Story - once a key figure on the LU disputes committee - is particularly instructive and it is a pity that the comrade did not agree to talk to us directly, unlike the others.

Comrade Story’s travails stem from a clash of personalities and differing approaches rather than political issues of any real substance, let alone actual serious misconduct. A number of things need to be highlighted about this travesty.

As Alan’s Facebook material below makes clear, the comrade was not allowed to communicate with any other LU members apart from the DC, once he had been suspended. He was prevented from entering the March LU policy conference in Manchester, outrageously being informed by Bianca Todd that his mere presence posed an unacceptable ‘safe spaces’ risk. His case - like others - has taken the form of a secret trial (in other words, it has conformed to the requirements of “confidentiality”, as the disputes committee has rebranded this anti-democratic insult).

However, the obvious irony in all of this is that the comrade has now fallen victim to exactly the poisonous culture of unaccountable power used to police and censor political differences in LU that he once wielded as a member of the DC and which he fronted in the case of Laurie McCauley.

On June 20 of this year, comrade Story was the DCer tasked with writing to Laurie:

… we are asking you today … a third time: do you agree that the communications involved in trying to resolve the dispute between you and the LU Manchester branch should be kept confidential?

Your agreement on this matter and your agreement to cooperate in a collegial fashion with the LU disputes committee means that we can then try to move things forward and next hear the views of both parties to this dispute.

Put more prosaically, as a precondition for comrade McCauley to even be present at his own hearing, he must agree for it to be in camera, to be a secret trial.²

Schadenfreude as a response to Alan Story’s difficulties would be a particularly stupid response.So what if comrade Story was and is a victim of the same noxious culture that he was responsible for imposing on comrade McCauley? That is just a detail. Left Unity as a whole is the real loser here. More sturdy ‘unity projects’ than LU have gone the way of all flesh in the past period, and windy protestations about ‘doing politics differently’ are no guarantee that LU could not join them in the grave - the definitive ‘safe space’.

Mark Fischer

Bad politics

Three weeks before the July 10 strike I was on a picket line with the chair of the trades council and other leading trade unionists/stewards. I asked if they were organising a rally on the day. They said they were thinking about it. I suggested we add a city-centre march to bring the strike to the attention of city workers. I said I would propose to the branch that Left Unity leaflet for five days before the strike to publicise it. They all said it was a welcome proposal.

Because of the shortness of time, I sent this proposal to the secretary to be circulated to the branch, together with a draft leaflet. She refused to circulate it, saying it was sectarian … I put in the details of the rally before it had been agreed and I suggested in the leaflet that the rank and file need to organise in a way that prevented the leadership from demobilising action, as had happened with the pensions dispute.

I pointed out to her that the leaflet would not be published until we had details of the rally and that it was up to the branch to discuss the body of the leaflet. She refused, saying it had to be held over to the branch meeting to be held on July 6, which would have prevented us printing and circulating the leaflet in time.

I then pointed out to her that she could not substitute herself for the branch; that she could not decide on behalf of the branch; that she had a duty to circulate proposals put to the branch, but that she had the right to append her criticisms and comments to the proposal. Still she refused … with time running out I sent her an email in 24-point type saying once again she could not act in such an undemocratic manner.

I then bypassed her and circulated the leaflet and proposal to our activists. A leaflet was approved, we printed 2,000 and leafleted over five lunch hours outside eateries like Greggs, where shopworkers would go and get their lunch. This initiative earned us the respect of the local trade union movement and was recognised. Left Unity alone leafleted. Not the Greens, Labour, the SWP or anyone else.

I then invoked a disciplinary action against the secretary. A disputes officer was elected who set out her investigation.

The secretary did not like the emerging verdict and so wrote directly to Kate Hudson saying she was being bullied. [Kate Hudson] passed it on to the disputes committee and I was suspended. Suspended, mind you, before Kate Hudson had enquired as to whether any action on this matter was being conducted at branch level.

Our disputes officer was really pissed off and almost resigned from the party. The majority of branch members were horrified and could not believe I was suspended.

Finally, immediately prior to being suspended, we had a meeting to discuss our claimants’ work and again the secretary accused me of being a sectarian. I stormed out of the meeting and that was the only mistake I made. I do not take kindly to being labelled a sectarian by an ex-Labourite who supports immigration controls because they are needed to protect the British way of life and who said so openly at our Eastern aggregate in Cambridge, where she was roundly criticised. In fact, our election material had to be massaged because of their objections.

I am drafting a model resolution to Norwich branch on this issue and if passed it will go on to the NC to be discussed to replace their safer spaces policy. It is not bad characters that have destroyed parties in the past: it has been bad politics.

Brian Green, Norwich LU

Chilling

Effective immediately, I have resigned from Left Unity. I will keep this message brief.

Nationally, I have watched as the LU disputes committee (of which I have been a member since January) has been transformed into a political - and personalised - police force that is used to serve and protect certain members of the LU leadership and their local mates and friends. And today they have engaged in the most disgraceful threatening behaviour; its active members have said they will resign if their proposed unilateral power to suspend members is not endorsed at this weekend’s LU conference.

I have questions, as well, about the general drift of Left Unity; these are for another day. Meanwhile, here in Nottingham, a small group of people have pursued me (and my colleague, Claire Jenkins) relentlessly on Facebook and on email lists for several months with a nasty and bullying pack mentality. Several of them also did it before during the autumn of 2013.

Today (November 14) I have learned that Liz Silver, secretary of LU Nottingham and a few others from that branch, will try to block my attendance - and presumably Claire’s as well - at tomorrow’s LU London conference. Yesterday, I registered to attend (as is my right under article 5b of our constitution), because, among other things, I wanted to argue in favour of the LU ‘Brief guide to party solidarity’, which I wrote this past summer.

None of the above has been good for my mental or physical health nor - and much more importantly - has it contributed one iota to the struggle to transform this oppressive economic/political/social order …

Without warning or consultation and on the orders of some persons within the central leadership of LU in London, I was expelled as the moderator of the LU Nottingham Facebook group and replaced by Bianca Todd of Northampton. A few days later, I made a detailed complaint about this incident to the LU disputes committee, but, as I have explained elsewhere the other day on these pages, the DC refused to process that complaint. (No surprise there, I must sadly say, because the DC has become a political police force within LU … which is one of the main reasons I resigned from LU and hence from the DC.)

On October 21, I also wrote [an] email … to … Kate Hudson (and others) about the legal basis for my expulsion here as Facebook moderator and related incidents that occurred here in Nottingham over recent months. I got no response … Despite sending two more reminders over the following three weeks, I never did get an answer to the questions I asked.

Perhaps all of this may seem tiresome and academic … but I continue to maintain that my expulsion was not only undemocratic, but also an illegal act within LU. Actually, a month later, I still find the incident chilling … and perhaps others will as well …

No-one mediated what happened.

1. On October 17, under orders from London, Scotty Jennings pulled the plug on me here: I was expelled as LU Notts Facebook moderator and replaced by Bianca Todd and then blocked from posting.

2. On the morning of October 20 - and again without any warning - I (and Claire) was told by the DC: you’re both suspended and you are ordered not to communicate with anybody except the DC.

3. On the morning of November 14, when I tried to log onto the Notts LU FB page as an FB member, I was not allowed. Honestly, what happened to us reminded me what happens in the Workers Party of Korea.

PS: The central leadership of LU in London knows all of this.

Alan Story, formerly of Nottingham LU and disputes committee

(November 14 Facebook postings)

Long way to go

It was a positive conference in many ways. Particularly pleasing was that conference agreed some practical ways of working with the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and others on the left for the general election. The March conference position for LU to be part of the largest ever left challenge remains - but what was agreed fell short of the full cooperation that many of us hoped for. However, there were three events on Sunday that spoiled things for me and illustrated how far LU still has to go in terms of its culture.

Firstly, some sectarian comrade must have binned the pile of Tusc pamphlets we had brought - they simply disappeared. Secondly, it was not pleasant being accused of supporting sexist or racist behaviour in the party simply because I had voted for the alternative safe spaces policy (which got the most votes, but not 50%) by a leading member of a political group very close to the leadership. And finally, after conference finished, I certainly did not enjoy the personalised verbal political attack made on me and Tusc by one of the leading members of LU, without provocation. This episode happened when I returned to the conference hall to collect my jacket and bag some 20 minutes after conference ended.

I am not interested in naming and shaming - if I was, I would go to the complaints/disputes committee! I just think it smacks of hypocrisy that LU feels it so important to draw up strict rules of behaviour, whilst in practice some of its leading members cannot even show perceived political opponents any respect. Maybe that’s why a non-draconian safe spaces policy is indeed needed!

I doubt you disagree, comrade!

Pete McLaren, Independent Socialist Network, Rugby LU

Notes

1. See Weekly Worker June 19.

2. See Mike Macnair’s comprehensive dissection of this anti-democratic outrage in his ‘Transparency is a principle’ (Weekly Worker September 25).