For a so-called Trotskyist party, the SWP do act in very Stalinist fashion. Splintered Sunrise has published a lengthy guest post on the historical experience of factions within the SWP and its forerunner, the IS.
The culture of the Party is thoroughly exposed by this interesting passage:
What cannot be denied is that at the time of the turn to building Respect, ludicrously described as a United Front sui generis, many comrades had serious doubts which led to them abstaining from joining or building that formation in any way. But the leadership commanded that such was the political line to be followed and not one comrade challenged them publicly although a lot of grumbling took place in pubs the length and breadth of the country. [Emphasis added]
And the form of Stalinism that afflicts the party can be seen in this passage:
Another negative feature of party life is the total lack of a space in which criticisms of the political line of the organisation can be raised internally. Rather than being able to articulate their views in a regularly published Internal Bulletin comrades are often reduced to grumbling in corners after branch meetings with the result that they become seen as conservative elements or worse. Indeed the raising of questions at branch meetings is often frowned on by a section of the comrades who would appear to see any kind of questioning as disloyalty to the organisation and its politics. [Emphasis added]
It can be noted that the author of the guest post has chosen to remain anonymous. One wonders if the reason this is so is because they are concerned that if they signed it they would be expelled from the party for insubordination. I guess the author is lucky that (to my knowledge) the SWP are not in control of a Gulag where they can send the authors of such articles. It is entirely possible that a brand new White Sea-Baltic Canal would not go amiss.