Dave Dudley, Leninist Vanguard
The Provisional Central Committee would like to respond to the open letter issued by the SWP following the election of the lumpen fascist British National Party to the European Parliament. The election of two fascists could be viewed as a disturbing development, but we should not allow it to obscure the bigger picture, namely the question of left unity and that of Marxists as Marxists. Any tendency to overplay the significance of their election is merely falling into the trap set by the ghastly Griffin and his council estate movement.
Firstly, there is the question of the letter itself, which was never received at the PO Box of Leninist Vanguard or by email. We can only assume this to be an error on the part of the SWP or perhaps something more sinister, an action mandated by the Labour-affiliated Communications Workers’ Union and its postal staff or the New Labour-friendly corporate conspiracy that is Google and its Gmail accounts.
We believe the letter to be nothing short of a calculated cynical intervention by the opportunist SWP designed to wrong-foot the left ahead of the historic poll in Iran. Naturally there is more than an element of ‘we told you so’ to the SWP’s manoeuvring here (schadenfreude as well as Shactmanism!), a withering yet whispered attack on the No2EU project Leninist Vanguard proudly signed up to before the European elections (not least because the SWP weren’t involved). That No2EU secured a meagre 1.0% was merely the inevitable result of the presence of trade union bureaucrats, official communists and former entryists on the party ticket.
For the SWP to propose another left unity project (despite claiming in their tragic missive that they “do not believe we have all the answers or a perfect prescription for a left wing alternative”) is a gesture akin to Harold Shipman running for the General Medical Council on an ethics platform. Socialists of all stripes and none will rightly reject it as they have done the Socialist Alliance, Respect and the Left Alternative.
Finally, we note the impressive performance shown by the New Anticapitalist Party in France in the recent elections (4.8%, are you listening John Rees?) and say this to both the SWP and the Scargillite Stalinist hordes of the SLP: dream on!
No to Zionism!
Smash the SWP!