One odd facet of the SWP is how they build their network in predominantly ex-Empire nations, (such as Australia, Canada, Ireland) or countries which have close links with British overseas policy anyway, (Greece comes to mind). Why should this be ? There might be an "innocent" explanation, but it does tend to echo those critics who say the SWP is part of the modern British imperialist project, by promoting the center left bourgeoisie against the proletarait...

First and foremost, the argument of the ISO-US was along the lines that the anticapitalist movement did not represent a serious change in the political scenery. The IST has not decided that a revolution is in the near future. It is not. But what is here and now is the potential for growth. The upturn is here. What will be three years from now depends what we do today. There are opportunities that have not existed for perhaps thirty years. But there are enormous challenges, in particular from the far right. If the votes for the far left and far right in France was not enough to convince the comrades, I don't know what will be. One wonders if they are speaking of revolution as a distant dream or as an actual potential in the day to day situation. If it is the former, then they may as well be reformists. If the latter, then the Irish SWP has it broadly right.
As to the quality of Socialist Worker, it is a tub-thumper, deliberately so, it is not a venue for broadsheet-style daily news reporting. It takes the most important aspects of the week's news and attempts to galvanise a layer of people around a certain position or idea. That is what a revolutionary paper is for. If the comrades want an intellectually stimulating read, perhaps I can recommend a diet of Le Monde Diplomatique coupled with Liberation? If they want a paper that contains information and arguments for socialist militants, they can come back to Socialist Worker.
I have to stress at this point that this is my immediate judgment on reading the above message. I don't know what the ISTs future judgment will be. But I think the UCD comrades are missing out on something if they dismiss the present opportunities.

I see a number of posts have been made on indymedia Ireland by people pretending to represent the SWP making outrageously stupid comments, and they have turned out to be fallacious. I wonder if some pitiful sectarians are trying to create splits by spreading false propaganda? It wouldn't be the first time I've experienced such mendaciousness on this board.

SWP Branch in Ireland leaves SWP
by Paul Fitzpatrick 10:15am Sat Apr 27 '02 (Modified on 12:24pm Sat Apr 27
'02)

The Socialist Worker Student Society (SWSS) branch in Irelands biggest
college have left the SWP. University College Dublin was one of the SWPs
only bases in Ireland and was a major recruitment ground. The statement they
posted on Irish Indymedia is below, a full statement is on their website.

The UCD branch of the Socialist WorkersEParty have recently decided to
disaffiliate from the main party and form an independent socialist group,
Socialist Alternative. Since most people active on the left in Ireland have
to deal with the SWP, we believe the reasons for our decision may be of
general interest.

As most people will remember, this time last year there was a genuine buzz
on the radical left. Globalise Resistance was founded and brought together
many disparate groups and individuals. Two buses of Irish activists went to
Genoa and returned full of ideas and enthusiasm. The general outlook seemed
positive. Yet soon things turned sour. GR was torn apart by squabbling;
Gluaiseacht and the WSM walked out, along with many others. The SWP has
generally been blamed for this degeneration, and with some cause: by using
GR purely as a recruitment front, they alienated potential allies and
squandered a promising opportunity.

However, it would be wrong to attribute this behaviour to malice or
stupidity on the part of the SWP; the real cause lies deeper . For the last
few years the SWP leadership has adopted a daft approach of predicting the
imminence of revolution at any given time and driving the rank-and-file
membership into a frenzy of activism. Eventually they get tired and
disillusioned and a new crop are recruited. With party members dropping like
flies and the revolution always just around the corner, recruitment takes
priority over anything else: certainly over the task of creating a
broad-based anti-globalisation group.

The turnover of membership is so high that few party activists have the
experience to challenge the leadership, so their political analysis is free
to wander ever further away from reality. Wishful thinking and
hyper-activism take the place of any realistic assessment of the situation.
Since party members spend all their time running around from campaign to
campaign, they have little time to read and discuss about politics; if you
get the impression that someone from the SWP is just quoting from a leaflet,
its probably because its true.

This sort of thing was going on long before Seattle but the last two years
have seen matters get steadily worse. The SWP is heading for collapse within
a few years if it doesnt change course. Unfortunately, because of the partys
undemocratic internal regime, a debate could only begin if it was initiated
by the leadership. Since most of the Belfast branch of the SWP were expelled
a few months ago for raising similar points, the chances of such a debate
taking place are slim. Therefore weve decided that the only course open to
us is to leave and work as independent socialists. Weve published a much
more detailed account of the problems within the SWP at our website for
anyone interested.

who the fuk cares about petty in fighting between socialist student fuks, who gives a fuk wat they do, i dont, and who the fuk are the SWP ive never heard or seen them, i think the SWP is a figment of yur over active imaginations, cos yous hav got nothing better to do than sit about thinking about the all illusive SWP, probably something similar to the all illusive unclesama binliner

is this news is this the real world outside of yur front door, is this wats going on in council estates across ireland, wats the petty nit picking and in fighting between the intellectual student elite got to do with the price of bread, i think not, only namby pamby intellectual bullshitters spend their time ruminating over complex political conundrums. now thats a big word almost as big as medaciousness, wat ever that means, obviously this is a word that is commonly bandied about around council estates and at the local corner shop, many a time the coalman has commented to me'them mendaciousness of that car is not good'
trendy knitwear as a fashion faus faux its a no no, put away the ball of wool please, stop knitting collectives now'.

Despite the number of fictitous postings regards the SWP on Irish IMC, i can verify as one of the author of the document that it is true.

"Lenin" reiterates the official SWP line on the expulsion of the ISO-US from the Tendency. His version of the ISOs position can hardly be reconciled with their own detailed statement ("Between Things Ended and Things Begun") setting out their perspective. Even reading Alex Callinicos' article "The Anti-capitalist Movement and the Revolutionary Left" its clear that the ISOs arguments have more to be said for them than the SWP CC is willing to accept. Having read both statements, I believe that the Americans have a much more realistic view.
Our criticism of the Socialist Worker does not necessarily apply to the British edition of the paper, which I rarely if ever have the opportunity to read. The Irish version however is pretty atrocious; we dont expect it to reach the same heights of intellectual sophistication as Le Monde Diplomatique or New Left Review or for that matter International Socialism, but socialists should really give the working class more credit for intelligence than the Irish SW, which rarely rises above the level of crass sloganeering and frenzied hyperbole.
The real problem we have with the party is the lack of internal democracy; the best analysis of its internal regime can be found in a statement by a group of British members expelled in the early nineties (this can be found at www.angelfire.com/jounal/iso/, along with the ISO-USs statement and a lot of other interesting stuff). Even if the SWP was entirely right and the ISO entirely wrong, it would still be wrong to expel them from the Tendency; each group must come up with its own analysis and strategy, otherwise well end up repeating the story of the Comintern. The various splits in the IST involving groups in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and now Zimbabwe have concerned different issues, but the one common factor is the British CC's intolerance of other perspectives. Until the party's regime becomes democratic the SWP will never be able to play its part in building a mass socialist movement.