Welcome to Secretarianism Central!

Welcome, my dick headed bohemian friends, to this new blog. Some might say that the left already has quite enough blogs, and that anyone with such an ego as to create a new one must be a dickhead. I won't disagree.

The blog has been named in honour of a luridly hilarious, though politically important debate which took place here: http://communiststudents.org.uk/2009/05/no-2-eu-looks-to-far-right-for-votes/comment-page-1/#comments

The debate was between unapologetic Left Nationalist supporters of the 'No2EU' election coalition, mainly close to or in the Socialist Party of England and Wales (SPEW), and people with some idea about basic socialist internationalism, mainly around the CPGB. The controversy started when the CPGB decided they would expose a SPEWer who had decided to drum up some No2EU votes by touting the red-brown alliance around dodgy nationalist Facebook groups, using slogans like 'British jobs for British workers and Italian jobs for Italian workers'. What made the whole thing more bizarre were the arguments the comrade in question, Andrew Ballard, then used in the ensuing debate- such gems as 'we're all waving flags. They don't all have to be red.' and worst of all, 'There is no point preaching international solidarity to people who’ve not had the baptism of awareness that Marxists are privy to.'

On the question of what the fuck the point of being a socialist actually is then, Comrade Ballard did not choose to enlighten us. But, abuse aside, the overall feeling you get from SPEW posters on the thread is much the same as what I have encountered from talking to young SPEWers- a sense of genuine hurt and frustration at the rest of us for not understanding how great No2EU is- after all, here is the most militant trade union in Britain putting forward a list of worker candidates against the Labour Party- isn't it brilliant?

Well no, for reasons that should be obvious- it was not 'the RMT' that came up with this, it was the union bureaucracy- the rank and file were completely disenfranchised! According to the Weekly Worker, the SWP, AWL and CPGB were banned in advance from consultation about taking part by Bob Crow- a claim which certainly has the ring of truth about it. But far worse than this, the politics of the fucking thing are terrible! At the end of the day, it's not how 'working class' your candidate is (not even if his scouse accent is impeccable, comrades!), it's what they're actually standing for. In this case, the No2EU stuff blamed all the problems of capitalism on the EU. The leaflets did not in fact even mention capitalism as the source of problems, let alone propose socialism as the answer. In my union branch you could tell people really, really wanted to support it- workers really, really want an alternative to the shit choices they have at elections just now- but we couldn't do it for this mess.

Back to the point though- I found myself feeling like I was punching a kitten in the face at times when arguing with SPEWers about this, they just didn't understand the problem. No one I spoke to came out with quite the level of crap that Ballard did but nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly obvious that little or no systematic marxist education is happening within the SPEW crew, in partial contrast, it has to be said, to their ex-pals in the peaceful revolution posse (Socialist Appeal).

This blog, while obviously a bit of a laugh, is essentially here to expose individual examples of jaw-dropping ignorance among naive young campaign-fodder mindlessly recruited to the ever more cynical and sectarian groups on the British left. My hope is that these examples- which will not be based on apocryphal tales but on things that are genuinely said to me or read by me on my travels- will be passed around anecdotally and prove a source of embarrassment to the leaderships which through bureaucratic centralism are completely failing to do what even crap sects like the SLL did back in the day- i.e. give some sort of basic marxist education to its cadre. In this way I hope to make my small contribution to the cauterising of the left which is desperately needed.