Having read this account of the anti-asbo campaign developing at the corn exchange, two things are clear to me. Firstly, the description of Revolution's involvement in the work is dishonest and does not give a fair representation to the opinions of young people who use the space outside the corn exchange. Secondly, this account gives no coverage of the sectarian, patronising and in one case, threatening behaviour of some people at the Common Place. Kurdt has conviently replaced these details in several places with the phrase 'I won't go into details'.

The first meeting referred to was held on the same day that Revolution had been holding a stall outside the corn exchange. We had been distributing leaflets with our position on the use of ASBOs and dispersal/curfew orders, and talking to alot of the people who regularly hang out at the corn exchange. Aswell as this we also had other literature on our stall for people to take, giving information on our political standpoint and advertising the fact we are a revolutionary socialist organisation. In no way were we concealing our political views and trying to trick people into being involved with us as Kurdt tries to suggest.

This wasn't the first time we'd been down there, Revolution has done stalls at the corn exchange for some time, alot of the people there have been involved with previous actions Revo has organised. There are several Leeds Revolution members, and alot of people who are good friends with people in the group who hang out at the Corn Exchange.

The weekend previous to the first meeting mentioned by Kurdt we had done a bit of street theatre there. Using police tape, some mock ASBOs and a couple of members in police hats, we'd made a police-pen and were handing out the 'ASBOs' to people outside the corn exchange 'arresting' them and, and asking them to stand inside the pen. The stunt created quite a spectacle, and we spent the afternoon talking to people, and taking e-mails and phone numbers so that we could stay in touch and organise further and bigger action around the issue. Following the street theatre we met up with alot of the people who'd been there in Saafran cafe down the road and continued talking to them. This group of people obviously agreed that the corn exchange dispersal order was ridiculous, but further than that, agreed with our position that all use of such control orders was wrong, and a way of scapegoating young people in society. We also talked about the possibility of organisation a larger demonstration, looking at protesting outside the police station as a way of gaining publicity. People thought this was a good idea, and we arranged to do another stall the next weekend, and that between Revolution members and those at Safraan, we would try and set about organising a demo.

We stayed in touch with everybody we'd spoken to, or whose contact details we had been given. Throughout this contact we were very clear on Revolution's politics, giving contacts literature on what we stand for, and discussing this with them. Throughout we were also clear that our aim in building a campaign around the corn-exchange dispersal order not to just stop there, but to challenge the use of state control orders wherever they are used in Leeds, and that to do this we should try and involve more and more people in the campaign, aswell as trying to involve the support of working class organisations such as trade unions and residents associations, whose members are effected by the use of these orders

When it came to the following weekend, we did our stall as we had planned, and went about talking to people and suggesting the idea of organising a demonstration. During the time we were there, one Revolution member and few other people we are friendly with said that a meeting had been organised at the Common Place. So we decided that we would go along and take part in the meeting, putting foward the now quite popular idea of a march.

When we arrived at Common Place, around 40 or 50 people were being given bust card type legal info, but nobody was actually suggesting doing anything to tackle the problem of the dispersal order. Those people from the corn exchange at the meeting who we knew were getting somewhat frustrated by being asked to come down, but not actually knowing why. So a couple of Revo people stood up and put foward the suggestion for a march. This seemed quite popular among the people from the corn exchange, but not among those associated with the common place. At this point the meeting was subjected to several rants, about how Revolution were trying to hi-jack the meeting, how socialists just try and wreck everything for their own gain, and (I was disgusted by this) that Revolution was trying to politicise the 'little kiddies'. This was objected to both by Revolution members and people from the corn exchange who know is all pretty well. It was seen as dishonest and totally unfair representation of what we had been doing.

To be honest most of the argument were of the stereotypical 'ooh don't trust the nasty socialists' type which I expected, but the last one referring to the people who hang out at the corn exchange as 'little kiddies' (said in front of these people) was utterly patronising, and somehow suggested that a) young people shouldn't be politicised, and that they are somehow unable to comprehend political ideas and b) that Revo was somehow trying to brainwash these people. In fact, as I have said, we had been very open with people about our politics from square one.

At this point, several people from the common place began suggesting other ideas. This included giving out free sandwiches in the centre of town, and anti-consumerist pickets. These ideas were taken up by some people from the corn exchange, but not on the whole. This was clearly because the suggestions were steering away from the real issue here, which is the state using young people as scapegoats from their own fuck-ups. Most people at the meeting (yes, Revolution members aswell!) realised this, and were in favour of a march. However, there was clearly some disagreement over this. A vote was suggested (not by a Revo member, before someone brings that up... but voting is the way we favour make decisions, not consensus) and it was decided through that vote that we would have a march.

At this point, it was suggested that to organise an effective march we would need stay in contact with people, and they would have to contact other people, this wasn't objected to. A Revo member went round with a contact sheet taking people's e-mails. On doing this, one older person from the common place whose name I don't know took it upon himself to take the contact sheet away and threatened to 'smash his fucking face in' if he tried to take the sheets back. A group of people from the corn exchange saw this happen and were appalled by this person's threatening manner and told him to give the sheets back, he continued to behave threateningly until he realised that he would find himself in quite a situation is he tried to carry out his threat, and gave the sheets back. Despite this person's violent behaviour and attitude, other people at the common place refused to tell him to sort himself out, and let him carry on, using the pathetic excuse of 'we aren't a disciplined cadre organisation' Well neither is Revolution, but as Kurdt's account suggests, nobody has actually bothered to find anything out about our organisation, preferring to stick to prejudiced strawman arguments. Whether or not the common place is an 'organisation' (which I know it isn't) surely it's the responsibility of the people who run and frequent it to harshly criticise those other patrons who choose to use violent conduct and threats.

By now the various disruptions had caused the meeting to break down, and it was suggested that another meeting would be held the following weekend to organise the march and make banners. In this organising meeting it was suggested that stewards should be elected to make sure that the police, and anybody else who wanted to cause trouble on the march weren't able to do so. Six stewards were elected, two of whom were Revolution members. This decision wasn't pushed by Revolution, it was democratically decided by those who were at the meeting. Some people continued to try and suggest other more 'radical' ideas such as sit down protests in the road, and trying to blockade the corn exchange. They were told by people at the meeting that a march had already been decided on, and that whilst direct action was not out of the question, people did not want a confrontation with the police at this stage, as they thought it would loose us public support and scare off other young people wanting to get involved.

The march (which took place on January 21st) was succesful, with around 150 people taking part. Prior to it starting, one person associated with the common place attempted to disrupt things, and continued his idea of taking some form of direct action by trying to get people to follow him. It seems odd that Revolution are accused of being anti-democratic when this person was openly trying to overturn the democratic decision to elect stewards, and not to take direct action at this time. People weren't swayed by his attempt at persuasion, and the march went off peacefully, with the stewards dealing with police attempts to disrupt things.

The meeting afterwards was large and chaotic. Kurdt suggests that the Revolution member using the megaphone was somehow trying to drown out anybody else speaking. The reality is that it was a way of bringing some sort of calm to the meeting so that anybody could be heard. Kurdt also suggest that certain ideas were talked down through 'clever answers' by Revolution members. Suggestions including barricading the corn exchange, all focused on targeting the buisness owners of the corn exchange. It's not these people who bring in the dispersal orders, and they are not going to change their opinion on whether or not one should be bought in. By barricading the place, all we would do is piss off the shoppers who use the area, and would move the focus of the campaign away from state repression of young people. In the end it was the meeting that decided against this, it wasn't somehow impressed on people by Revo.

On the whole, I don't think that Kurdt's account seeks to give an account of the anti-asbo campaign at all. It is a polemic against Revolution, I have no problem with people publicising their objections to our organisation, but why not do it honestly? If people at the Common Place have an axe to grind with Revolution, then give us a ring, contact us through our web-board, but don't hide behind this campaign and pretend your accounting it when all you really want to do its knock Revo. Kurdt's account includes no real details on the campaign, what it plans to do next, or any real details of what has happened so far. I am not suggesting my reply does this either, as I have written it to defend Revolution from the slander that is being thrown at us.

I will post up a report of the latest organising meeting which was held at the Adelphi ASAP.

To Revo

You take one person's report and one person's behaviour as a stick to beat all the common placers and common place with. A classic tactic. If someone was out of order, that's wrong but we can't police individual members. If they break our rules, then we'll do something. But there is another perspective on this, its called 'put down the red flags, the megaphones and the ludicrous 'with it' rhetoric' and get real. You are a youth-feeder group to Workers Power, one of the most sectarian, purist and wildly ineffective Trotskyist parties in the world. Despite years of fanatical devotion, Workers Power has only got about 70 members who spend most of their time selling crap papers and trying to 'groom' young kids to join their ranks where they will waste the most important formative years of their political life doing the same. You come out with some of the most ridiculous stuff about 'the working class' when hardly any of you are (a) working class and (b) have any real grip on what today's working class is like. Most of your members are fanatics who spend most of any conversation spouting quotes and anecdotes from Lenin and Trotsky as if they have ANY relevance to todays capitalist system. You patronise anyone who doesn't agree with you and never ever admit you might ever be wrong on ANYTHING. The reason why libertarian anarchists, socialists, autonomists, greens etc are opening up social centres like the common place - however flawed - is precisely to build a real and grounded political alternative to both capitalist society and the sectarian left. The reason why vanguardist hierarchical groups are not welcome there is precisely because you offer nothing but dead ends for radical social struggle in this country. You have achieved NOTHING since 1917. Many people at the common place want to support the anti-asbo kids for their own rights and the rights of everyone living in the city and this society. But we won't have trot groups muscling in and manipulating them to join your pathetic organisation ON OUR PATCH. And just to clarify - these kids are young and naive about stuff - for fucks sake, we all know what we were like at 15. That is why Revo exists - to manipulate young minds that are open to trot psycops. We do not exist so that hierarchical authoritarian groups can grow at our expense. Your behaviour at the commonplace was pretty awful, confirming the suspicions of many that you are bad news. The commonplace will always be open as a base for the corn exchange kids to hang out and think independently of any group's strong arm political bullying - but we are not going to start (a) organising them and (b) telling them what to do. We are there to provide advice and support, and would love the kids to take the common place on as their own - there is so much potential for them down there. And people from the common place will also be part of anti-asbo campaigns, working EQUALLY and NON-HIERARCHICALLY with those directly affected.

I just want to correct a couple of things in the account given by the revolution person and to suggest a possible way forward. I was the person that made the "we're not a cadre organisation" comment. I said it while trying to defuse the situation by getting the contact sheet/petition from the person who had seized them and handing them back to the revolution members. The person who had grabbed the petition was saying he was unhappy about the way the contact sheet had been handled, I shared his unease but I told him that he couldn't just grab someone else’s petition. (I should point out this wasn't just a sheet of paper but a petition form with Revolution written on the top). I said we're not a cadre organisation not because we can't hold people to account, in fact I did tell him personally that he was out of order (although I was unaware of any threats of violence) rather it was to avoid exactly this sort of petty, incident creation, whereby anything done by a common place member (we have over 2,000) is attributed to every other. It's just not a useful way to behave. It merely solidifies political differences when the only time interesting things happen is when those political differences start to breakdown.

With the benefit of hindsight the admittedly minor point of conflict at that meeting was an inevitable consequence of two political cultures rubbing up against each other. We could probably all agree that a campaign that isn't owned by one group will be much bigger and better and that this sort of thing is a real distraction that draws energy away. One way this conflict might be avoided in the future is if a few ground rules are hammered out.

The point of conflict was the contact sheet. The way groups have controlled or manipulated campaigns in the past is by controlling resources. The point about the contact sheet was that it was obvious who was intending to take that home with them and therefore be the only ones who could contact the people who'd signed up. The campaign would have therefore been effectively controlled. The way around this is to set up a publicly accessible email list that anyone can sign up to. I was assured this would happen during the discussion over the petition. If that has happened then the details of how to join could be posted here. This would be a good starting point

One of revolution people touched my badger!

On a more serious note, I object to them trying to muscle in and take over our protest. They remind me of the social workers party - they are into grooming kids as well.

Take your old people politics and leave us alone!



Ben (17)

it is better to suck and fuck til your knees wobble than squander your life on trotsky politics.

it is probably also better to watch morning television than squander your life on indymedia noticeboards.

The artice was (as I remember it) an honest account. With exception of the last paragraph it was a description of the events I had witnessed. Obviously I wasnt there at everything so my account will leave bits out. Ok so it's hideously biased (and probably shouldnt have been) but arent all these posts? For the record: before I got involved with this campain I had no opinion of Revolution or even Workers Power, I'd heared from others about the tactics of such organisations but they seemed extreme so I reserved judgement.

Dont take my account as by anyone other than someone who uses The Common Place. I dont represent anyone, and if I tried I wouldnt have a place there.
And dont say that what I wrote was some pre-concieved attack on Revo by some crackpot anarchist with a score to settle.

A common person suggests ground rules over the contact sheet, saying what a problem this was- "The way groups have controlled or manipulated campaigns in the past is by controlling resources". When the fuck was this because nower days we receive emails, and on the emails it says who it was from and everybody it was sent to. So if you put your name on the list you'll get the names of everyone else.
Either your too stupid or too lazy to realize this and therefore that control over resources in this manner is quite impossible.

PS. False petitioning is the least of anyones worries as petitions are irrelevant

You really have landed yourself in thick shit haven't you? Have you ever heard of BCC? Blind Copy? In fact, it is STANDARD netiquette to never include a list of email addresses in the To or CC line because of SPAM, and instead to BCC so that all recipients can't see who else it has gone to. Imagine a list of 100 people, with 100 e-dresses there for people to 'reply all' to or to have included in the 'reply' button. So the person who had a bit of a brain drain the other week and tried to grab the sign on sheet was, in hindsight, on to something. Workers Power - fuck off!

At the end of the day, decent people want peace from lumpen thugs.

Only a Trot could ever defend mindless hooliganism.

And only a moron would suggest that the majority of people given ASBOs are 'mindless hooligans'...

I cannot believe how uninformed you are "so called trotbaiter". Taking into account the real information, i.e. the actual email list being discussed, the list is NOT disguised. I know because I receive it. Therefore YOU have landed yourself in thick shit.

Just because I do doesn't mean I'm from workers power, in fact I am an anarchist, I just don't like to have to label myself one because I get associated with morons.
I'm sure you like to think that workers power is as big as the BBC, and boy o boy are you fighting it, but this isn't the case. And certainly anyone who makes comments on this ridiculous rift isn't automatically a member.
If you wanna discuss it then email me and try stop being so ignorant.