A group of 16 trade unionists from University College London returned from their trip to Genoa in July and decided to form their own autonomous anti-capitalist group outside of the union jurisdiction but still firmly affiliated. Their public meetings within weeks were swamped by SWP / GR troops. Perhaps due to naievety, a vote was held on whether the group should become a part of Globalise Resistance. Due to the fact that the room at the time was full of GR people (who incidentally had advertised the meeting as a GR meeting) the vote went in their favour. The members of the original UCL group were then informed that in order to be part of GR, they had to pay a £10 subscription fee - they had to pay Guy Taylor and his gang £10 to join their own group!
Since then, various events, such as the Brighton demo at the Labour conference, and an increase in knowledge of what the SWP stand for, have altered the perception of members of the original UCL group regarding just what they got themselves into.
On Wednesday 3rd October a proposal from the original group was given at the start of the group's meeting. Below is the full text of this proposal...



>The Splitting Motion
>
>Central London Globalise Resistance is thus named because of a motion from UCL UNISON. The intention was to build a local anti-globalisation group which would be part of the much bigger anti-globalisation movement which had evolved from Seattle, Nice, Prague and Genoa. To this day the anti-globalisation movement has carved out a special place in history in terms of resistance against the ever increasing global capitalisation of the world led by the so called "New World Order" of the developed countries who in turn are dominated by the USA. The reason why this movement was/is effective is because of its broad appeal.

However, having involved myself in this process and the subsequent radicalisation that this produces, it has become blatantly obvious the cynical nature of the Socialist Workers Party and their involvement in Globalise Resistance. My view now is that their intention was never to
build a mass working class movement but one that was confined to their own brand of politics. Their characterisation of the Labour Party for example,
I think is completely false. The idea that some of these people may come over to us in the present climate is perverse. Why spend our energies trying to appease the enemy? This perspective was made clear on the anti-privatisation demo which our UNISON branch sent a delegation to under the naieve understanding that we somehow had something in common with our SWP "friends".

This is however in my view is not the case.

My proposal is therefore for the CLGR to re-establish its original aims. This is to base itself on the working class people of central London, linking up with the organised labour movement in the area, trade union branches, community groups and special interest groups and stand up for the oppressed and the poor. If this means arguing against other sections of the left whether they are Labour Party or SWP members, then so be it. That this group widens out in the local area as much as is feasibly possible building links with all sections of the local community who want to fight against the "social fascism" of Blair and New Labour and those parts of the left who are revisionist/reformist/centrist and thus obstruct the building of an effective movement.

That the CLGR renames itself with this in mind to the Central London Anti-Globalisation Group (otherwise known as CLANG- we could call ourselves the CLANGERS (!)), thus disaffiliating from the much larger (but SWP run) Globalise Resistance group. This does not mean that we will not work with GR and take part in events organised by GR but the local central London group will not be dominated or cajoled into SWP positions.

(end of proposal)


As the GR stormtroopers who were originally massed to vote the group into GR were not to be seen, now that the big fish had seemingly eaten the little one, the couple of trots who were there were unable to stop the vote on this motion from going ahead. Thus, the 'Central London Globalise Resistance Group' is no more. All hail the Clangers!

The idea that a group of unionists should feel the urge to have autonomy in order to fight a struggle exactly on their own terms is to my mind inspiring, perhaps suggesting a step in the right direction regarding how unions should work (did someone say Anarcho-syndicalism?).
I feel that this group should be applauded for their action, and supported in future actions, by anarchists.
Because they will be supporting us.

Please pass on this message. Thanks.