21.11.1996

Stand up and be counted

The Weekly Worker has received the following letter

We are not associated with the CPGB, but I am so disgusted by the paranoid behaviour of certain individuals in our party I should like to extend my personal solidarity with your organisation.

Jean Rhys once wrote of England, “The place stinks of hypocrites if you’ve got a nose.”

If, as the Weekly Worker claims, it is true that the SLP general secretary, Pat Sikorski, and his hacks are members of an obscure sect called the ‘Fourth International Support Caucus’ (would any of those named be prepared to refute this allegation?), then it is a bit rich for him to write to Camden SLP (November 12) stating that John Bridge’s presence “in [Camden SLP’s] meeting renders its decisions completely ineffective”, and also refers to the presence of another “non-member”: an interested local woman who came along to our meeting as a direct result of advertising it! She even offered to do a future talk for us.

John Bridge was a member of Camden SLP and democratically elected our branch secretary before the SLP NEC dropped the bombshell that his membership was null and void because he was suspected of being an ongoing member/supporter of the CPGB. In spite of a resolution from Camden SLP to the North London executive, and similar resolutions from other branches, a proper disciplinary appeals procedure against such ad hoc decisions has yet to be implemented (and no, special pleading to the NEC is not an acceptable alternative). We are now expected to stand at the door and bar a previously active and hardworking comrade from our meeting purely on Sikorski’s spurious assumption that he is a commie ... purlease!

Are we really expected to tell nice old ladies to bog off? Few potential new members are likely to join without first being enticed to an interesting-sounding meeting. Given that non-members have no voting powers, it is hard to understand why Sikorski should lose sleep over this.

It’s ironic that SLP members have to read the Weekly Worker to find out what is really going on in their own party: certainly that is the main reason I have started to buy the paper. Will I now be ceremoniously expelled from the SLP for daring to read your paper and - bloody hell - even writing all you dreadful commies a letter?! Watch this space.

I should like every SLP member reading this to stand up and be counted. Write your letter or branch resolution to the SLP leadership now, deploring the time and energy wasted on witch hunting. We would rather concentrate on general election tactics and debate policy, thanks!

Christina Giscombe-Smith