Twelve years ago, the Socialist Workers’ Party in Britain showed that progressive organization are not immune from the gendered power and lack of transparent governance that is found in every corner of society.
This podcast spells out the generalizable lessons from the the SWP crisis, which has been bubbling in the SWP since its 2011 conference, when the party’s leadership covered up a case of serious sexual abuse. Many party members were horrified when they found out the truth in 2013 when the Socialist Unity blog published a near-perfect transcript of the discussion in the SWP’s disputes committee, which blew open both the problematic inaction of the committee and its dangerous relationships with the accused.
In this podcast, we summarise a complex web of sources gathered together by the International Socialism blog, which showed the central committee’s attempt to suppress, gaslight, victim-blame, and undermine the abused. It moved to shut down discussions, even as members and many of the SWP’s closest friends pointed out that the serious misgivings about what affair needed to be discussed.
What happened in the SWP reflects some wider issues in the workers and social movements, and it poses several lessons for activists. Four principal lessons from the crisis are outlined in this new article.
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