This was posted to my facebook profile in July 2019. It is only a short statement by myself followed by the statement of at the time the CWI but now renamed to ISA - International Socialist Alternative.
Whilst only a short extract of this is my writing whilst the rest is the statement released at the time. I have included in because it had a big impact on the way I thought after my 17 years of membership of the organisation which had guided me politically since the age of 17. I will certainly return to this topic in future posts. The picture below was also featured alongside the statement when I posted it with my own words and yes, it is my own membership card.
After 17 years of membership, I thought this day would never come. I was a proud member of the Socialist Party and our international organisation, the CWI. It seems not everyone views it the same way and those of us who support the building of that international organisation and its democratic structures have been forced out. We are told we can stay but only of we abandon all our members throughout the world with any democratic vote within the international.
I was with 100+ others who met in London yesterday and who will now work to build a real International.
Here's our statement:
The Socialist Party, and before it the Militant tendency, has been a section of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) in England and Wales since 1974. The CWI is an international organisation based on the ideas and methods of democratic socialism, Marxism and Trotskyism, and further developed by the hard work and sacrifices of comrades across the world.
This includes 3 TDs (MPs) in Ireland, an elected councilmember in Seattle, and members fighting in the revolutionary movements in Sudan, Hong Kong and elsewhere. Sadly, after 45 years, the majority of the leadership of the CWI and England and Wales section have chosen to abandon the CWI and the bold ideas it was founded upon.
On Sunday 21st July, a Special Congress in London passed a resolution stating that the many members of the Socialist Party who still support the CWI, "will have to do so outside of the Socialist Party". In reality, the resolution is a cowardly method of expulsion from the party, following a campaign of witch-hunts, bullying and lies against the majority of CWI sections.
This was all but confirmed when the SP's former Wales Secretary and current NC member said from the platform "goodbye and good riddance" to CWI supporters - a remark the leadership has refused to retract.
The majority of the SP leadership are running scared from a debate about socialist programme and tactics, only half way through an agreed one-year process of debate. Instead of having a discussion in the democratically convened leadership bodies of the CWI – the International Executive Committee and the World Congress (which all sides had agreed to) and risking losing a vote, they have chosen to expel the majority of the organisation and walk away with the resources, including hundreds of thousands of pounds, against the will of the majority of its members.
They have, in effect, attempted to enact the bureaucratic expulsion of the majority of the CWI: entire organisations and groups in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel/Palestine, Ireland, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Quebec, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, Tunisia, and the USA from the CWI, as well as a majority of members in Germany and South Africa who oppose their plans.
Over 100 comrades in England & Wales, including a majority of active members in over a dozen key cities, stand together with the CWI majority in opposing this course of action. A meeting on 22nd July voted unanimously to refound the CWI in England and Wales, rejecting these bureaucratic expulsions and continuing to organise in the proud tradition of Militant in Britain - the traditions of socialist democracy and Marxism.
Further explanation and analysis will follow. We call on all Socialist Party members, and in the wider workers and social movements to join us in fighting for a socialist world!
Contact us at revolutionaryinternationalism@gmail.com
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