Note: this statement was written collectively by several people involved in the original petition requesting a public statement. We do not claim to speak for everyone who signed that petition.

A few weeks ago, details were leaked about a case where a young female member of the Socialist Workers Party came forward accusing a senior party member (and former National Secretary) of sexual assault and rape. She decided, as was perfectly within her rights, not to go to the police with this and instead trusted the party to deal with it internally. However, they totally failed to do so. The party put together a committee made up almost entirely of friends and colleagues of the accused and proceeded to question the young woman’s drinking habits and previous relationships - key parts in the culture of victim blaming and misogyny that a party that claims to stand for women’s equality must surely be against. In the days that followed, party members who spoke up about what was going on were ‘accused’ of being feminists (as if this were an insult!) and workers in the party’s central office were allegedly told not to mention the case again. Some party members were moved around the country, some left the party altogether. The party had sexual abuse at it’s very centre pointed out to it, failed to deal with in a way in keeping with its own principles, and then tried to cover it up. For over two weeks, the Essex SWSS group said nothing about the matter - even after a petition calling for a public statement condemning sexism and sexual violence from them gathered over 90 signatures.

A statement did finally appear on January 25th (days after the deadline set out by the ignored petition), alongside statements from many other SWSS groups from around the country. Whilst (almost) all the others managed to hit the nail on the head and condemn what happened in the first few lines (in fact Leeds, LSE, Brighton, Sussex, Manchester and the FE SWSS groups all open with this), our own local SWSS group managed to produce a convoluted 590 words of whitewash which totally avoided the issue at hand. Instead of condemning sexism, rape or sexual harassment, rape apology and victim blaming (none of which are event mentioned in the statement) like their comrades, the Essex SWSS statement gives us an irrelevant recap of their party conference. To anyone unaware of the issues, it is totally meaningless - the only mention of the alleged rape, the botched handling of it and the harassment of party members that resulted is a brief mention that “[the] Disputes Committee failed the comrade at the centre of the case”. No more is said and the victim's suffering fails to be acknowledged. Most of the statement is given over to Essex SWSS washing their hands of any guilt (the suggestion that since the Essex SWSS delegates didn’t vote for the report, they are free of responsibility flies in the face of any sense of accountability) and then regretting the fact that the lack of leadership from the Central Committee means they can’t move forward with their “perspective for students in which SWSS comrades [are] a revolutionary current on campus...” (whatever that means). While other SWSS statements condemn a “betrayal of our politics on women’s liberation” (LSE), take the opportunity to "re-affirm [a] commitment to fighting sexism” (Leeds) and say that what has happened in the party in terms of feminism is “indefensible” (Queen Mary) the only mention of women’s liberation anywhere in the Essex statement is of a “strong theoretical tradition”. One that it seems to the Essex SWSS is purely theoretical since they’ve done nothing here to defend it in practice. To them, the main concern is that the party has been weakened.

It wouldn’t have been hard to produce a statement that would have satisfied everyone who put their name to the petition last week. Plenty of SWSS groups managed it, but Essex we feel has first ignored us and then failed us. Perhaps answering fellow students' concerns simply wasn’t important? Or perhaps voicing dissent and standing up for women’s rights just isn’t as valuable as keeping favour with the central committee that has tried to cover up allegations of rape? Everything the statement should have said can be summed up in five bullet points
• Denounce rape, sexism, rape apology, victim blaming.
• Strongly condemn the party’s handling of this case and in general its treatment of feminism.
• An apology: not taking personal responsibility, but an apology as part of a collectivity
• A statement from the women’s officer (who is also president of Essex SWSS), since she has a responsibility towards all women on campus to actively engage in the fight against sexism.
• Recognition of concerns of Essex students, for example through an acknowledgement of the petition

Essex SWSS had a chance to make things right. The petition - which was signed by current and former students, society committees, staff members and activists - was sent to all members of the SWSS committee and several personal conversations with members raised the same concerns. Many of us have now lost all confidence in SWSS Essex to seriously deal with issues of sexism. We feel that having a women’s officer who is part of a group that fails to stand up for women and who made no comment despite her official position when female students raised the issue is not acceptable. Moves for her resignation or for a vote of no confidence in the women’s officer are now being made. While we do not want this to become personal or to let the let the issue here be abused by anyone to score cheap political shots against the SWP or the left in general (especially not by members of political groups that have never really stood up for women’s rights in the past), there is a conflict of interest here - supporting a group that fails to condemn sexism or supporting women’s liberation. We are also aware that while signatories of the petition for a public statement have been collectively ignored, some individual signatories have been contacted in relation with the Essex SWSS statement and have simultaneously been offered support in the upcoming Student Union elections, presumably as a political bribe to consider the issue resolved and to stop pursuing it. We wholly reject this tactic as underhanded and as refusing to deal with this situation in a transparent way.

This action is not an ‘attack’ on the Sabbatical officers of the SU or an attempt to undermine the SU and the upcoming election in general. It only concerns the SWP and SWSS on our campus. The failure of Essex SWSS to condemn rape apology and sexism and to stand up for women’s rights means we now feel it necessary to organise against them as we would any group who did the same.
(The Essex SWSS statement and others are available here:  http://tinyurl.com/b35k97k)