Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour-in-Exile-Network Vote to Merge into a Single Organisation

 A Single Anti-Witchhunt Organisation Committed to Build Shadow CLPs Can Only Strengthen the Fight Against Starmer

Fringe Meeting at 2018 Liverpool Conference (left to right) - Jo Bird, Tony Greenstein, the late Tony Mulhearn, Anya Ndwuke (chair), Chris Williamson, Alexei Sayle

Last Friday night members of Labour-in-Exile-Network voted by 31-8 to merge with Labour Against the Witchhunt. The following night LAW, at its first All Members Meeting for 3 months also voted to support a merger, albeit by a narrower but decisive majority of 47-27 with 12 abstentions.

The successful Resist at the Rialto events in Brighton during the Labour conference were organised jointly with LIEN, LAW and Resist

Members of both organisations voted to form a single organisation dedicated not only to fighting the witchhunt but to campaign on a broader basis. We have an NHS that is being privatised, a Police Bill which is a massive encroachment on civil liberties, a Nationality and Immigration Bill which will result in more deaths in the Channel. The idea that the only game in the town is the Witchhunt is an obsession. Starmer has just given a speech to Labour Friends of Israel saying that the Israel of pogroms against Palestinians is a ‘rumbustious democracy’.

It is unfortunate that the majority of the LAW Steering Committee, having lost the argument and the vote have resigned rather than accepting the view of LAW members. Their argument is summed up in this week’s Weekly Worker that we are ‘Deserting the Fight’. No comrades we are refusing to allow the fight against Starmer and his neo-liberal politics to be confined to simply machinations in the Labour Party.

Motion 1 in favour of the merger was passed with one amendment. The second motion, opposing the merger, moved by supporters of Labour Party Marxism therefore fell automatically.

At a time when thousands of Labour Party members are either under ‘investigation’, suspended or expelled, it makes obvious sense that two organisations that agree on all the fundamental questions facing socialists, inside and outside the Labour Party, should merge. The Left has been historically weakened because of unnecessary splits over minor points of theological doctrine.

2019 Fringe Meeting with Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, Alexei Sayle and Chris Williamson

Opponents of the merger, primarily Labour Party Marxism argued that there is still much work to be done fighting the witchhunt. That is true but conditions have changed massively since the Corbyn witchhunt began in 2016. This point was made eloquently in an introductory speech by Graham Bash, the recently expelled Political Officer of Jewish Voices for Labour and someone who was a member of Labour for 53 years.

Graham emphasised that the scale and reach of Starmer’s witchhunt is bigger than anything that the Labour Party has ever experienced in its history. Previously particular groups like Militant were targeted.  Now it is anyone on the socialist left who speaks out against the leadership. People like Pamela Fitzpatrick of CLPD, a well respected local councillor in Harrow, the recipient of abuse by right-wing trolls, has been expelled whilst her abusers have got off scot-free. The suspension of a previous Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is itself unprecedented.

LAW picket of Jackie Walker's Disciplinary Hearing

When nearly all the Left capitulated to the false ‘anti-Semitism’ attacks LAW was virtually alone in standing up to the Zionists and and people like Margaret Hodge. We organised pickets of the disciplinary hearings of Marc Wadsworth and Jackie Walker, organised well-attended fringe meetings at Labour Party Conference and gave support to Ken Livingstone, Chris Williamson and others.

We also led, with JVL, the campaign against the adoption by the Labour Party of the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism with a large picket of the NEC meeting in September 2019 which adopted the IHRA.  We warned then that far from putting the ‘anti-Semitism’ attacks to bed they would increase in volume.

Jo Bird's reaction to her expulsion, that she is glad to get out of the Labour Party, is a typical reaction. Labour Party Marxists simply don't understand that people don't want to stay in Labour's poisonous cavern

Unfortunately Corbyn and Jennie Formby chose not to listen to us and they embarked on a policy of appeasement of the Right. At meeting after meeting I repeated the same message that the expulsion of Jackie, Marc and myself was not about us – we were collateral damage – the real target was Corbyn himself. That should be clear even to the most venal and stupid member of Momentum, even to Jon Lansman, now that Corbyn himself has lost the Whip.

When you don't like the way members voted you describe it as a 'hostile takeover' - this is the attitude of the trade union bureaucracy to democracy in the unions 

The throwing under the bus of Chris Williamson, Ken Livingstone and many others like Pete Willsman and Christine Shawcroft, simply whetted the appetite of Margaret Hodge and the JLM. When Corbyn opposed Open Selection he signed his own death warrant. When he and Formby proposed ‘fast track’ expulsions they laid the basis for Starmer’s purge and Corbyn’s own suspension.

But the opponents of merging the two organisations wanted people to believe that LAW today is the same as it was 2-3 years ago. That simply is not true.  In the past 6 months LAW has done relatively little other than with LIEN. On LAW’s own website there is no activity registered since the Resist at the Rialto in late September. The fact is that there is next to nothing we can do to fight the witchhunt inside the Labour Party because there is no democracy left.

LAW has no branches today - it has a passive membership

On July 20^th LAW and LIEN organised the well attended picket of Labour’s NEC at Southside and during the Labour Party conference we organised a whole series of alternative events at the Resist at the Rialto in Brighton. It makes sense to merge into one group.

You only need to look at the Wikipedia entry for LAW. It lists a whole series of our activities but stops in May 2019. The reality is that LAW has been on a life support system for the past two years. Before the last AGM membership had plummeted by one-third. Ironically the only thing that restored LAW’s previous membership was Starmer/Evans decision to proscribe LAW!

The Steering Committee which has met fitfully in recent months has failed to involve members in its work or bring them aboard. There are no separate working groups or strands. Members are just passive observers. LAW is not the campaign it was when we had regular monthly All Members Meeting. Members of the Labour Party are reluctant even to be seen on pickets or demonstrations when that will be taken as support for LAW and instant expulsion.

The preamble to the first motion began with Ken Loach’s statement:

‘democracy is dead in the labour party...this is a political vacuum, this is the biggest challenge to the left in my lifetime,  we do need a new political movement, across the whole left, inside the Labour Party and outside, it’s got to be ready to become a party when the time is right.... Otherwise we fragment. People are leaving and we will fragment. At this critical moment when you have this mass of people just driven out of the party where are they going to go? If we miss this opportunity it is a very black outlook.’

What then were the arguments of opponents of the merger? LPM has always taken the position that there is nothing in between the Labour Party, a bourgeois workers party in their eyes, and a revolutionary Marxist Party. All or nothing and they get nothing.

The late Tony Mulhearn - one of the heroes of the Liverpool Council refusal to set a rate in the 1980s, who came under attack from Kinnock

The CPGB didn’t always take this position having participated first in the Socialist Alliance, Respect and Left Unity. The CPGB/LPM have never explained the change in their tactics from opposition to ‘autolabourism’ to a devotion to labourism! In 1997 they refused to support a vote for Labour at the General Election. Now they damn anyone who even thinks of standing against Labour!

Ironically the first person to propose a merger wasn’t me but Tina Werkmann. I urged caution! At the LAW AMM on July 24 a motion ‘to explore the merging of LAW and LIEN’ was passed. Moved by Tina it read:

 This meeting believes that:

4.     Unity is strength. While there are obvious political differences in the history of both groups, the composition of both memberships and some campaigning priorities, we believe that both groups have enough in common politically to justify a possible merger.  

5.     Such a merger would send out a strong signal to many of those who are feeling disheartened and politically disoriented by the current trajectory of the Labour Party. 

6.     It might encourage more people and groups to join our merged organisation. 

This meeting therefore resolves to start exploring a merger process between both organisations...

A Zionist Without Qualification

At a joint LLA, LAW and LIEN members and supporters meeting on October 14 Paragraph 6 of a motion Bringing the Left together moved by Tina was identically worded to Para. 4 above! Para. 7 of the same motion was almost identically worded to Para. 5 above.

A number of other amendments moved by Roger Silverman, Diana Isserlis and myself made Tina’s motion even more explicit.

For reasons that are not clear, Tina reversed her position and put out a paper Why a merger between Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour In Exile Network is a bad idea Tina wrote:

There are a number of reasons why I personally oppose a merger at this moment in time, despite the fact that I initially proposed ‘exploring a merger’ between the groups. Yes, unity is strength, but this unity has to have a serious political purpose if it is to be effective. I would be very much in favour of building a democratic and socialist movement based on the revolutionary politics of Marxism. But that is not what is being discussed here, far from it.

But Tina knew back in July and October that neither LIEN nor LAW were revolutionary Marxists. What changed? A clue can be found in the accusation that the LIEN Steering Committee lacked ‘political incoherence.’ This incoherence ‘reflects the fact that the organisation has no clear political programme.’ Well neither LIEN nor LAW has such a programme. The point is to develop a program of ideas. 4 months ago that wasn’t a problem. Why now?

I understand why LPM opposea a merger. They consider that they, all 30 or so of them, are that organisation. In a motion to the LAW Steering Committee of 9^th November Stan Keable proposed:

to withdraw from the recent joint meetings with the steering committees of Labour in Exile Network and Labour Left Alliance, and to end LAW’s participation in joint all members and supporters meetings. 

The joint steering committee meetings, while nominally favouring continuing the struggle in the Labour Party, have in fact been dominated by proposals to orientate away from Labour, to give up on the struggle within Labour, and to attempt to create an alternative movement or party based on the failed politics of Corbynism, aiming to keep together the thousands of disillusioned comrades at all costs. ... we believe such a project will only add to the widespread demoralization and disorientation of the Labour left that already exists.

The LPM motion to the LAW All Members Meeting meeting of 27^th November LPM stated that:

We reject the proposed merger of LAW with the Labour in Exile Network, which we believe would effectively liquidate LAW and add to the widespread demoralization and disorientation of the Labour left that already exists.

LPM have always had a consistent policy, at least since the election of Jeremy Corbyn, that they reject the formation of any broad socialist group outside the Labour Party. Especially with those who espouse ‘the failed politics of Corbynism.’

Instead I was belaboured with the fact that I was in a minority of 1 on the LAW Steering Committee in favouring a merger. However the meeting on Saturday wasn’t particularly impressed either by Tina’s change of heart or LPM’s implacable opposition to anything smacking of what they call a Labour Party Mark 2.

What I didn’t expect was the bad faith reaction of both LPM and Tina to reject a democratic decision of LAW members and simply resign and refuse to implement the decision. On the LAW Steering Committee Whatsapp group Tina posted:

This feels very much like a hostile takeover and the only outcome is that it will close down LAW. Pretty shitty outcome.

On the LAW Facebook page Tina declared that the proposal to merge was a ‘Hostile takeover, really. Not sure it serves any purpose apart from closing down LAW.’ To which I responded that:

‘The Steering Committee opposed the merger. The members voted for it. Yes the members have taken LAW over as they realise it was going nowhere fast. Labour Party Marxists wanted to preserve LAW in aspic as a trophy that does very little.

You remind me of Bertold Brecht's satirical poem "Die Lösung" (The Solution) in which he portrays the East German communists, after crushing the 1953 German Workers Uprising of wanting to abolish the people and start again

Leaving aside the fact that Tina herself was proposing what she now calls a ‘hostile takeover’ this is unbelievably arrogant. LAW’s Steering Committee was clearly unrepresentative of the membership. It is the members who have taken it over. This reaction is similar to the reaction of the Labour Right in 2015 to the ‘hostile takeover’ of the Labour Party by the Corbynistas!

This is the language of a Board of Directors of a company to a takeover bid by some venture capitalist. It demonstrates a contempt for democracy. Instead of asking why, repeatedly, I have been in a minority on the Steering Committee yet not at All Members Meetings, Tina blames the members! Bertold Brecht captured this brilliantly in his poem The Solution.

It is often said that whatever their political differences, Trotskyist and Stalinist groups often have a very similar attitude to democracy. One only has to look at the SWP with its self-perpetuating leadership.

The reality is that socialists and socialism are being driven out of the Labour Party by Starmer – all in the name of fighting anti-Semitism! The opponents of the merger, instead of accepting that they were defeated, are now trying to make the creation of a unified organisation that much more difficult. The only people to gain from their actions will be Starmer and co. I would therefore appeal to them to pull back.

The creation of a unified organisation is not the ‘liquidation’ nor the closing down of LAW. There is nothing LAW could have done that it can’t do in a merged organisation. LIEN is obviously committed to fighting the witchhunt and always has been.

LIEN already has a Witchhunt Analysis Group amongst 7 other groups. LIEN is already far more active over the witchhunt than LAW. There is obvious room for an 8^th Anti-Witchhunt group.

At a time when Starmer has declared to the Labour Friends of Israel that the Israeli Military State is a rumbustious democracy, what is needed is a little more respect for democracy in our own ranks!

Tony Greenstein

These Two Short Videos from B’Tselem Explains More About the Cruelty and Racism of Zionism than a Million Words

 Terrorising Children and a Bedouin Shepherd in the Jordan Valley – This is Starmer’s ‘Rumbustious Democracy’

They say every picture tells a story.  Well these videos sum up the vicious racism and sadistic cruelty of Israel’s settler colonial regime. In the Jordan Valley in Area C where Israel is intent on driving out the Palestinians, schools, COVID clinics and any form of building structures, including schools, are regularly demolished.

Israeli soldiers on the prowl looking for Palestinians to harass

Here we see how the life of a Palestinian shepherd is made hell by a combination of the Israeli army and the settlers.  Areas are arbitrarily made into military ‘closed zones’ a device for then transferring to the land to the settlers.

What Israel is doing is transforming the Palestinians into landless labourers for the benefit of the agribusinesses in the area.

Masked settler terrorists coming to attack the shepherd

In the second video we see the routine harassment of the civilian population by an army which uses raids on houses in the early hours of the morning, to terrorise the inhabitants.

Waking and forcing children out of bed with guns is standard Zionist practice.  But criticise it and racists like Starmer and Nandy call you ‘anti-Semitic’.

Tony Greenstein

Why Labour Against the Witchhunt & Labour-in-Exile-Network Should Merge

 With the Collapse of the Corbyn Project there is a clear choice between Building a Socialist Movement or Retreating into the Politics of Sectarianism 

Ken Loach absolutely DESTROYS Keir Starmer (doubledown.news)

Starmer and Evans are conducting a scorched earth policy inside the Labour Party. They are determined to complete what Blair began, making the Labour Party safe for capitalism. That is why, on July 20^th Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour-in-Exile-Network were proscribed. It is on that basis that Ken Loach, Jo Bird and many others have been expelled.

Any socialist of note, indeed anyone who sticks their head above the parapet, is likely to be expelled. But whereas the Labour Party is now a ‘hostile environment’ to socialists, racists like Trevor Philips (‘Muslims are a nation within a nation’) and Luke Stanger (‘travellers are a nasty blight on society’) are quietly readmitted to the Labour Party. Anti-racists and socialists are expelled on the pretext that they ‘undermine the Labour Party’s ability to campaign against racism’ even though Labour under Starmer has done nothing about racism.

Recent expulsions include Graham Bash, Editor of Labour Briefing with 53 years of membership, and Cllr. Jo Bird, both of whom are Jewish. Pamela Fitzpatrick, a much respected Councillor in Harrow and a member of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy has also been expelled.  Pamela made a number of complaints about people like Stanger abusing and harassing her and the Labour Party’s response has been to expel the victim and readmit the abusers.

Very few politicians tell the unvarnished truth but never can there be two leaders of the two main parties, Starmer and Johnson, who suffer from truthophobia. Both of them, quite literally, have an allergic reaction to telling the truth. 

As Skwawkbox noted ‘Just days after Keir Starmer told a Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) gathering that his would be a party for all Jews’, Jo Bird, a Jewish councillor in Wirral was expelled. Indeed if you are Jewish in the Labour Party you are 5 times more likely to be expelled for ‘anti-Semitism’ than if you are non-Jewish!  This is the parallel universe of the Labour Right. Anti-racist Jews aren’t Jews.

The blame for this state of affairs can be laid at the feet of Jeremy Corbyn and Lansman’s Momentum. It was they who accepted the false ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative of the right-wing, that Labour was ‘overrun by anti-Semitism’. It was they who supported the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism. It was Corbyn and Lansman who supported the expulsion of Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone, Chris Williamson and myself.

Starmer and Johnson leapt to the defence of Israel's racist Ambassador

We are now seeing exactly what the Right meant by ‘anti-Semitism’ – a defence of the nakedly racist Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely and the expulsion of Jewish anti-racists from the Labour Party.

Hotovely was the person who, as Chair of the Knesset’s Womens Committee, invited the overtly fascist Lehava group to give testimony. Lehava, like the Jewish Nazis they are, oppose Jews and Arabs having personal/sexual relationships and they go hunting for Arabs in ‘Jewish areas’ in order to beat them up. This is the vile creature that Starmer and Angela Rayner defended.

Starmer was elected on the basis of 10 Pledges, which were based on the Corbyn Manifesto. Since his election he has abandoned every single pledge. Pledge number 1 was to reverse the Tory cuts to Corporation Tax.  When the Tories did increase it Starmer opposed it!

Ken Loach Interview with The Canary

Jo Bird spoke for many when she said that

‘I’m delighted the Labour Party has expelled me today. I’m free from fear about speaking and meeting with other people.... This racist Labour Party is dying as a vehicle for social justice.’

Ken Loach said of his expulsion that ‘it’s like leaving an abusive relationship’.

As thousands continue to stream out of the Labour Party and hundreds, if not thousands, fall foul of the witchhunt, a responsibility rests upon 2 of the 4 proscribed groups, Labour-in-Exile-Network and Labour Against the Witchhunt to organise, both those who are still inside the Labour Party and those who are now outside the party into a coherent socialist movement as opposed to a separate party.

Whereas Gordon Brown went from Stalin to Mr Bean, Starmer has gone from Mr Bean to Stalin

That is why the two All Members Meetings (All Members Meeting) this Friday and Saturday of LIEN and LAW are so important and I urge people to attend.  At these meetings motions will be proposed that the 2 organisations should merge. If you are not already a member of one or both groups then you should join now. You can join LIEN here and LAW here.

Luke Stanger, a vile racist and friend of Hove's right-wing MP Peter Kyle (Vice Chair of LFI) is readmitted to the Labour Party

LIEN’s Steering Committee has voted in favour of merger or consolidation of both organisations, since LIEN was in many ways an outgrowth of LAW. At one time 3 members of the LAW SC were also on LIEN’s SC . However LAW’s Steering Committee, under the influence of Labour Party Marxists, has come out against a merger with only myself, out of 6 members, in favour of merging with LIEN.

Trevor Phillips - another genuine racist readmitted to the Labour Party

At the LAW AMM on July 24 a motion was passed to ‘explore the merging of Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour In Exile Network’. Moved by Tina Werkmann (who has since changed her mind) the motion read:

 This meeting believes that:

1.   Unity is strength. While there are obvious political differences in the history of both groups, the composition of both memberships and some campaigning priorities, we believe that both groups have enough in common politically to justify a possible merger.  

2.   Such a merger would send out a strong signal to many of those who are feeling disheartened and politically disoriented by the current trajectory of the Labour Party. 

3.   It might encourage more people and groups to join our merged organisation. 

4.    This meeting therefore resolves to start exploring a merger process between both organisations...

 At a joint LLA, LAW and LIEN members and supporters meeting on October 14 a motion moved by Tina Werkmann stated:

Unity is strength. While there are obvious political differences in the history of the three groups, the composition of their memberships and some campaigning priorities, we believe that they have enough in common politically to start bringing their forces closer together by setting up joint campaigns, joint educational events and joint meetings of the respective leaderships.

Amendment number 8 moved by me stating that

A merger of LAW and LIEN in the light of the recent proscriptions and attacks on the left in the Labour Party would be extremely welcome

was passed by 43-25. Amendment 6 by Diana Isserlis calling explicitly for a new socialist movement passed by 44-31.

Amendment 4 moved by Roger Silverman calling for

the establishment of a common transitional movement uniting socialist activists both within and outside the Labour Party

was passed by 61-15.

Amendment 3 moved by Diana Isserlis calling for a new organisation to

co-operate with forces inside and outside the Labour Party, pursue campaigns linked with the wider socialist movement, build a socialist movement including those inside and outside the Labour Party

was passed by 45-26 and Amendment 2 from me calling for the new combined organisation ‘to organise shadow CLPs to include ex-members and current members of the Labour Party’ was passed by 54-11.  By way of contrast a wrecking amendment from LPM, deleting half of the motion was heavily defeated by 58-12. 

The amended motion was passed by 63-11. In other words except for the hard core supporters of LPM just about everybody else agreed with the strategy of merger.

The LPM, which is the Communist Party of Great Britain, which produces the Weekly Worker. It is a small group of around 30-40 members which has stayed approximately the same size since it was formed from The Leninist over 30 years ago.

Their strategy, if it can be called that, is to form a mass revolutionary Marxist party which will, with the support of the unions, force the Labour Party into becoming a ‘united front of a special kind’.  In the meantime LPM simply writes off the hundreds of thousands of people who joined the Labour Party after the victory of Jeremy Corbyn and the millions who voted for the 2017 manifesto as having the ‘wrong’ politics. There is a complete failure to understand what the Corbyn project represented and how to build on it.

LPM is therefore fiercely opposed to such a merger or indeed any attempt to build the left other than temporary alliances with already existing left groups like CLPD or LRC in the Labour Party. It dismisses all attempts to build anything outside the Labour Party as a Labour Party Mark II.

At the November 9 Steering Committee Stan Keable submitted the following motion:

The LAW steering committee resolves to withdraw from the recent joint meetings with the steering committees of Labour in Exile Network and Labour Left Alliance, and to end LAW’s participation in joint all members and supporters meetings.

The joint steering committee meetings, while nominally favouring continuing the struggle in the Labour Party, have in fact been dominated by proposals to orientate away from Labour, to give up on the struggle within Labour, and to attempt to create an alternative movement or party based on the failed politics of Corbynism, aiming to keep together the thousands of disillusioned comrades at all costs. Far from rearming and rallying the left, we believe such a project will only add to the widespread demoralization and disorientation of the Labour left that already exists.

However, we wish those comrades well, and will seek to co-operate with them wherever possible. Meanwhile, LAW has a tremendous job on its hands in fighting the ongoing witch-hunt.

Unsurprisingly at the LAW All Members Meeting this Saturday LPM will move Motion 2 which is titled:  Reject liquidation of LAW! Keep the focus on Labour! 

The merger or consolidation of LAW and LIEN is called ‘liquidation’ a favourite word in sections of the left. The motion is the height of unreality. It fails to take account that the atmosphere of McCarthyism and vitriol inside the Labour Party, the harassment and bullying of activists has produce a situation where over 150,000 members have simply left with thousands more likely to do so.

It is crystal clear that there is little or nothing that LAW can do to combat the present witchhunt. As Ken Loach said ‘democracy is dead inside the Labour Party.’ In a situation where Labour Party apparatchiks manipulate and make up the rules to get rid of their enemy, where nobody on the left can even become a councillor or MP anymore, it is impossible to fight the witchhunt. There are no hearings before panels anymore because there are no hearings. Thanks to Corbyn and Formby fast-track expulsions have become the norm.

In the present situation the question is whether we can build a new movement from amongst those who were part of the Corbyn movement. The LPM prefers to inhabit a sectarian ghetto of 30-40 to the more difficult task of organising with people who will not always share hard line Marxist politics.

What they are advocating, behind their talk of Solidarity with all victims of the Labour witch-hunt! Step up the fight! is nothing less than an abandonment of any fight whatsoever.  Given that virtually no supporters of LPM are even inside the Labour Party their resolution is pure wind, rhetoric without any purpose.

As LIEN says on its website

The main aim of the Labour In Exile Network is to keep together all those who were mobilised and enthused to support Jeremy Corbyn for leader to continue the fight for democracy and socialism. This includes those who remain in the Labour Party, those who have been unfairly suspended or expelled in the last five years and those who have resigned from the Labour Party in despair of the party’s direction of travel under Keir Starmer and Dave Evans.

There is nothing whatsoever in this which is incompatible with the aims and purpose of LAW.

At the meetings on November 26 and 27 Esther Giles and myself will be moving a motion calling for the ‘consolidation  of Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour-in-Exile-Network into one organisation’.

There will therefore be a clear choice facing members as to whether or not to continue the fight against Starmer, but not necessarily on Labour Party terrain since that has now become enemy territory.

The stance of LPM raises wider questions. How does the Marxist and anti-capitalist left build in a situation which is anything but revolutionary. Is the Bolshevik model the only one for Marxists today? Why is it that there has been no workers’ revolution since 1917? Is the working class of the West potentially revolutionary? What is the relevance of modern movements such as Black Lives Matter to revolutionary change? Does the pending climate catastrophe dictate a change in tactics and strategy?

However when you are obsessed with what dead Bolsheviks said or didn’t say a hundred years ago, such questions seem otiose.

Whatever your views please come and have your say and if you are not a member of both organisations then it’s not too late to join!

Below is an Open Letter to Members of Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour-in-Exile-Network from Carel Buxton, Roger Silverman, Esther Giles and myself to members explaining why we think that a merger of LIEN and LAW is necessary.

Tony Greenstein