Absolute disgrace of a party. One party I'm glad I'm not invited to !

Listen - I am not a great fan of the SWP, but you are talking bollox....

You invent incidents like this to slag off the SWP in your ridiculous little toytown sectarian trot wars.
You then expand your point to:

"They have never done anything in support of the Irish people; they opposed any campaigning work in support of the struggle against apartheid."

Of course they have!! Maybe their not brilliant, but you are exagerating.

You need to exagerate and make things like this up, because you are a also a ridiculous little trot sect even more annoying than the SWP! I know you, RCG fuckwits!

You say: "The Manchester pickets, led by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!" yeah, RCG front shite.

I've seen you operate before, and I will never take what you say seriously! Piss off you ultra authoritarian clique of wankers!

NO BORDERS!
NO NATIONS!
END THE OCCUPATION!
@

Eight newspapers sold on the planet Mars at a picket attended by 750 working class Plutoians!

"Everybody will be judged, exclusively by me, from the moment I choose and for all eternity".

Oh to be so self-righteous.

He really should have taken his mother's advice and become a priest.

unless you like mi5 to pull your chain...

the opposition are so desperate to divide us that they resort to these childish tricks

Cead Mile Failte

They have never done anything in support of the Irish people.

Yes they have.

Tiocfadh ar La

Claire the Irish Librarian

Who cares? Boycott's are a load of shit anyway...

I don't suppose this picket was very big either! I was at a similar picket of Selfridges last month which was only attended by about 80 people! What there should have been was a mass picket and everyone who tried to enter the store should have been challenged and told "Will you please not cross the picket line!" and then physically dragged back from the entrance if the ignored this call. Obviuosly action like this canonly happenif there are large enough numbersof people there, so these actions need to be publised a lot more widely!

The trouble with the SWP is that apart from fighting fascism with their front organisation the ANL they do very little else! The ANLis crap anyway as fighting fascism on itsown wont challenge capitalism! Events like mass pickets of stores will!

Another thing is that thwe SWP are notorously sectarian, if an action is not organised by them or one of their front organisations then they don't want to take part in it! This wastrue of the anti-poll tax camapign when which was started by Militant their arch rivals!

Indymedia becomes forum for members of tiny, irrelevent sects who seem to have nothing better to do than slag off the largest genuinely socialist party in the UK. It's childish and tedious. Where was the rest of the so-called left on Sunday's fabulous carnival in Manchester? No noticeable presence and therefore insignificant.
Ed is being economical with the truth - this was not a picket line.
Words are not much use without genuine activity, lies serve no purpose.

What a load of crap.

condemnations ? Rather thin on the ground all of a sudden ! Can "Grappa" (above) honestly say that any activist group is bigger than a sect ? In fact, the RCG are not "Trots" strictly speaking, so obviously you never bothered to enquire of them how they regard the Great Trotsky ! But this group is resolutely anti- Labour, much more consistently so than any of the parties clustered around the Old Sock Alliance. A year ago, the White Overalls group "Wombles" were complaining that their actions had been trounced by the SWP, and now its happened again, so quite right to complain. Be fair at least.

1) A protest outside a shop is not the same as a workers picket and passing one does not make you a scab.

2) The SWP members do appear to have been acting hypocritically as the SWP supports the campaign to boycott Israeli goods and has taken part in protests outside Marks and Spencers on the issue.

The consumer boycott campaign is well intentioned but not particularly effective and at worst it can be counterproductive. Targeting shops owned by British Jews, like Marks and Spencers, leaves a particularly sour taste in the mouth.

3) The Revolutionary Communist Group or "Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!" or "Rock Around the Blockade" or whatever they are calling themselves at the moment are not in fact Trotskyists but are actually a kind of wierd neo-Stalinist outfit.

News update:
Manchester SWP attack rebuffed

In a clear attempt to exact vengeance for the embarrassment caused by two of their members crossing the M&S picket line in Manchester, four SWP stewards attacked an FRFI stall at the Love Music - Hate Racism festival the following day. Claiming that the location of the stall breached City Council regulations for the hire of the Platt Field venue, the stewards pounced on the stall with an aggressiveness that made the City Licencing Officers and their police accomplices seem like models of polite consideration. They grabbed books, leaflets and newspapers as they stripped the stall of its contents, shouting that unless FRFI members immediately removed the tables they would do it themselves. People passing by stopped in astonishment at the SWP's attack. When they learned that the stall was in support of Palestine and Cuba, they joined in the protest against the four who were completely beyond reason.

Unable to move FRFI supporters or others in the crowd away, the SWPers had to endure constant questioning of their motives. They were completely unable to offer a coherent explanation of their actions as they continued to reject any compromise, discussion or deal to resolve what was at the start a very simple situation. In particular they could not reply to the constant challenge that this was a response to the events of the previous day when two of their members had been exposed for crossing an M&S picket line. As time went on, however, it was evident they would have to back down as indignant festival participants contacted the carnival organisers. After 15-20 minutes stand-off, a call came through to one of the stewards, Pete Hicks, whose partner had been one of the two who broke the M&S picket line. FRFI could have a stall provided it was moved to the reserved area. Sectarian stupidity had lost.

FRFI would like to thank all those who stood with us against the vindictiveness of Manchester SWP.

Isolate the Zionist state!
Boycott Israeli goods!
Boycott Marks and Spencer!
Victory to the Intifada

FRFI should learn how to use a web page and stop behaving like spoilt brats dasallowed their sweeties. There is no evidence to support their silly allegations; so ignore them is my recommendation. Who the hell are they anyway? Could they organise the proverbial 'piss up at a brewery? Unlikely. Stop wasting space and time and read a book!

As an ex-member of SWP, I've been following almost all the debates about the SWP on the Indymedia for the past two years. There have been some valid crititism of SWP regarding democracy within the party. The rest are critisism over tactics and ideology. But those critisims,were hardly ever in a constructive and comradeship manner. I also don't remember any slagging off of the other revolutionary left and anarchists, having started by SWP on Indymedia. So please let's have a perspective on this.

My personal experience is that people on the wider left take these unjustified and baseless critisism seriously. I remember, when I joined the SWP, my friend said they were "all wankers". Well for two - three years in SWP, I met very committed, serious people, a far cry what is beind described by some on the indy (all middle class etc) and I can say that 90% of the critisism on the Indymedia about them are incorrect. My reason of leaving was democracy. Having said that,I still have not found any organisation more democratic. Some maistream charities I got involved, are worse when it comes to democracy. OK, anarchist groups are more democratic, but I believe they are largely ineffective, and I would not want to risk arrest for no reason. Lately dissapointed by the sectarianism in the left in this counry, I more and more move towards the ideas in the book the Empire and I am reading currently,and towards pessimism I must say.

Sectarian comments are largely stupid.

They can be entertaining if you don't take them seriously.