Ripley--bookshop cat in San Francisco

Danny Davin

Danny and Luci

we are back...full of baby pictures

We are back in the blogosphere and will be publishing pics of the mighty Danny shortly.

Mikey

Danny ready for home

Big Dan and his dad

Daniel Patrick Ross Calvert Davin

This is the first piccy on the internet of my son Daniel.
welcome to the world of blogging.
He was born at 4.29 on 4th May and discharged from the Whittington the next day. Sadly he was readmitted on Friday 11th and is still there.

We hope he and his mum, Luci--my partner--will be out soon.

Mikey

Going down for a while

Friends, followers and foes

I am going to be not blogging for a few days due to the fact that my mum has been admitted to the hospital in Kings Lynn.

Poor old mum is in her mid seventies and lives on a nasty estate called the North Lynn estate in Kings Lynn, Norfolk.

When things like this happen, you understand that my feud with the Mickster is frankly nothing in comparison! I guess even the bear is human!

I am sure that Micky is surveying this blog and if he wants to phone me or e-mail me he is welcome to do so.

So I shall be off to Lynn for a while.

Mikey

Leadership of Islington UNISON hold Officers meeting

Here is the first picture of the leading officers of Islington UNISON following our recent retreat. This was held at the Branch Davidian Church of Christ Apostolic, Lower Salt Lake City, Utah!

We held many discussions, including how to assume better false identities in public.

Mikey

By Any Other Name--wow!

Loyal friends and followers!

I discover that the mighty Micky H of Scandal fax infamy has posted a whole long piece just about little old me and my political past...some of which is wrong, but only I know which bits and if Micky does then I must have talked in my sleep when he slept with me!

Wow, I didn't know I was that intriguing! And he got at 5.01 to write it...

Mikey

Socialism does not spring from atomic ruins

Ah! The following piece of utter drivel met my eye as I perused the net looking for Micky H!
It is so mad it is beyond reality.

Enjoy the madness that is POSADAS

On the inevitability of the war.
J POSADAS

6th april 1978

The Soviet Review of the Italian Embassy, USSR OGGI (‘USSR TODAY’), says that “the ideologists of Trotskyism want a socialism built upon the atomic ruins”. This is not so. The comrades are mistaken. What we have said is that the war is inevitable; and that capitalism is going to launch it. We have also said that socialism will be built, in spite of the capitalist war. This is so, because socialism is a necessity of the development of human history, of science and of the economy; and above all, it is a necessity of human intelligence at the centre of which there is the function of the working class.

The atomic war is going to signify much death, hundreds of millions of dead people. But what it will only manage to destroy, however, is the material expression of progress and not the capacity nor the intelligence which have determined progress itself. This capacity and intelligence will remain. Capitalism is going to destroy people, buildings and machines; but not human capacity, human experience and human security. This is acquired!

Socialism does not spring from atomic ruins. This is not the way to interpret. The way to interpret is that it is capitalism that makes wars! It is not as if we had wanted the war. It is capitalism that does. Capitalism is going to resort to the war before being crushed because it has the means at its disposal. If capitalism was never to launch the war, all the better! For our part, we would be disposed to wait another 30 years for socialism in these conditions. But capitalism does not have any other option in history but to make it. War is part and parcel of private property. The same applies to the dispute between capitalists through economic competition. It is the same thing as the war which the capitalists make amongst themselves in their commercial, financial and armed competitions.

As for us, we do not want the atomic war; neither atomic, nor any other! The war is the consequence of the capitalist system. What we do in this matter is to interpret. We interpret this in the same way as we interpret things facing us like competition, unemployment and inflation; or what they call ‘overproduction’ - whilst the people have nothing to eat. Each one of these ills is the consequence of the capitalist market; each one is its own kind of antagonism with society ranging from ordinary competition between the capitalists to their resorting to war. It is enough to read history to see that the most outstanding activity private property has ever conducted, is war, war and war.
Therefore, it is not correct to say that we want to construct socialism on the atomic ruins. We have interpreted that the capitalists are going to make the war and cause very big destructions in human lives and resources; and that, in spite of them making the war, we will construct socialism. This is so because socialism is already a conquest of the consciousness of humanity and of its intelligence. There is not a person in any remote part of the world today in the Islands of Oceania, in remote places in Africa or in countries of Asia or Europe, who does not know what socialism is.

There is already in humanity, the certainty that the economy is not a mystery, that property plays no role in history and that intelligence is the product of the development of human relations on the basis of the economy; there is the knowledge that, once science has developed beyond a certain point, it surpasses the economy and allows the development of an objective kind of intelligence; and that when the proletariat became ruling class, it could not do it by generating new social classes but by liberating the whole of humanity. This is what the proletariat had to do, both to liberate itself as a class, and for itself to progress as a class. The instrument representative of the progress of history is the proletariat. These are historic considerations these Soviet comrades have not taken account of.

We are not giving here the précis of some political resolution. We are simply making analyses and drawing conclusions about the process of history. Quite apart from this, a glance suffices to realise that almost half of the capitalist riches go to war preparations. And not just only for military expenditures but everything that means war, like counter revolution, secret services and polices. It is some 40% of the riches in the capitalist world.

J POSADAS
6th April 1978

Imaginary Friends - and enemies - in the blog world

I understand that some anonymous bloggers have been seen in the vicinity. Surely this is where they belong? (That’s a link to Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends for those whose computers may take an age to load it)

I often watch this show on the Cartoon Network with my young son and it is far more fun than most anonymous blogs I have read…

On a more serious note, let’s have open debate in the movement and let’s (please) not pretend that any of us have to be afraid of any others.

Those who won’t reveal their identity refuse to do so because they are not who they pretend to be. (Which means that when they hint at who they are, they are only winding up their readers Mike!!)

A Reply to Micky "H" --in a VERY personal capacity

Micky H, the infamous anonymous blogger who spends his/her time attacking what they term the "vermin left" ( what he means are good, consistent and combative socialists who will not sell UNISON members and their interests down the river for the Kings shilling unlike some I might mention) has posted another anonymous attack on the Islington branch.
Whilst I am a leading officer of the said branch, I am writing these thoughts at home--at 6.29-- in my capacity as Mikey Calvert, not as Assistant Secretary of Islington UNISON


Micky "the anonymous for fear of retribution" H writes the following:

"The vermin left use this approach quite a lot, as though listing a whole bunch of lefty losers is going to influence anyone other than...other lefty losers. For example, the list of 'supporters' carried on the publicity for the Fighting (and losing) Unions conference held last year. Not much use to anyone other than those drawing up a trot hit-list, I'd imagine.

But what to make of all this 'in a personal capacity' (often abbreviated to 'pc') business? You know - where someone puts their name to a statement and then adds their title in the organisation, and it is followed by the disclaimer 'in a personal capacity'.

A bit like this lot below who have collectivised their personal capacities to hitch themselves to John '22' McDonnell's wagon:

"The following branch officers of Islington UNISON (in a personal capacity) would like to welcome and support your candidacy for Labour Leader and believe your policies and practices reflect not only our branches policy but also UNISON national policy.

Fiona Monkman, Branch Chair
Jane Doolan, Branch Secretary
Andrew Berry, Deputy Branch Secretary
Mike Calvert, Assistant Branch Secretary
Fred LePlat, Vice Chair
Keith Facey, Young Members Officer
Cliffe Obaseki, Black Members Convenor
Pam Woods, Labour Link Officer
Rosemary Plummer, Education and Schools Convenor
Denise Facey, Homes for Islington (ALMO) Convenor"

Clearly they need to state their roles in UNISON as otherwise who the flying ferret would have a clue who they were outside of the heated confines of the membership of UNISON United Lunatics?

And, in a way, that makes my point. They can't say they are doing it in an official capacity as it would be against UNISON's rules. So what do they do? They drag UNISON's name in as a kind of crutch for their identity, abusing our good name to cover their shame with a figleaf of credibility.

How about next time they leave UNISON out of it? They could always list their political parties and/or 'currents' instead.

But then we all know what kind of credibility that would muster!"

Well, Micky, the fact that you use the word credibility in the same breath as signing something anonymously is a little bit rich. Here are a number of points to correct your lies and distortions, written from home as Mikey, not in work time!

1. At least we--the officers named below-- all sign things we believe in, in our own names (whether we use the tagline Personal capacity or not) and will not hide behind pseudonymous anonymity!

2. We do not hide behind misogynistic attacks on female comrades as you do with Marsha-Jane. I am sure that she can defend herself and her own political integrity, but, we do not attack people anonymously! We are NOT snakes in the grass like you!

3. The majority of the people you have listed are not affiliated to any political group whatsoever, other than maybe the Labour Party. There is no secret that I support Workers Action, to my knowledge so does Andrew. I will concede there are not many of us and not much in the way of Action either,but hey ho!

There is no secret that Fred supports the Socialist Resistance current,and no secret that Pam Woods is a supporter of Socialist Appeal.

BUT...

4. Fiona, Jane, Keith Facey, Cliffe Obaseki, Rosemary Plummer, and Denise Facey, are not politically organised. Keith, Denise and Rosemary--I am sure that won't mind this-are salt of the earth working class Islington: not like you, some jumped up middle class interloper claiming that you once made the turn to industry--Fiona is a UUL supporter I(she may have once been in an organised political current but I don't think she is now) and some of the others may have been supported by the UL in Regional elections, but some haven't: so what?

5. Where does your "inside info" come from? It certainly seems like you have access to the UNISON membership lists. As I said before, if you do then naughty naughty! Do you?

5. I suggest that you keep taking the Tegretol mate! Me, myself and I have much better things to do than sparring with you.

MikeyBear

In a very personal capacity

Days of Yore in the IMG 2

History of the IMG


Ah

Them days of yore!

I was trying to think who I knew in the South West London branch of the IMG the other day.
I can remember various people in the CC majority:

Bob Pennington and Janet Maguire, Greg Tucker,Graham Topley and Ann Potter, Steve Potter and Judith Arkwright, Val Coultas, Gill Lee and Peter Cooper.
Greg and Peter recruited me.

Then there were the supporters of the Grogan faction: Ray Davies, Connie and Alan Harris, Susan Elliott.

I am sure that there are many others, we were a big SW London branch. I am sure there are some people I didn't even know. I shall be adding those I knew in South East London as well real soon.

If you can remember anyone else or want to be on my list then write to me.

Mikey

Socialist Labour Group

Socialist Labour Group

This was on Wikipedia, but I hasten to add that I did not write it...mysterious eh?


The Socialist Labour Group was a Trotskyist grouping in the United Kingdom.

The SLG originated in the 1971 split in the International Committee of the Fourth International. (ICFI), between Gerry Healy's British Socialist Labour League (SLL) and Pierre Lambert's French Internationalist Communist Organisation. Betty Hamilton, a Trotskyist since the 1930s and still formally an SLL member, had sided with Lambert since 1971 but remained isolated. John and Mary Archer, also Trotskyists since the 1930s, had split with the SLL in the mid 1960s, continuing to work in the Labour Party in North London. They were contacted in 1975 by Robin Blick and Mark Jenkins, both leading SLL members who had broken with Healy. Harry Vince and Ken Stratford had broken with the SLL in the late 1960s, joined and been expelled from IS and Worker's Fight (see Socialist Organiser) and discussed with the Militant and Chartists. They were in touch with the OCI from 1972 and in contact with Betty Hamilton from 1973.

In 1974 the two groupings, mainly based in London, the larger around Robin Blick and Mark Jenkins (perhaps 20 plus including associates in Reading and Swindon) and another around Harry Vince and Ken Stratford (perhaps 10 plus including associates in St Helens) began publishing the Marxist Bulletin. As a result, they became known as the Bulletin Group, aligned with Lambert's Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International. A heterogeneous tendency, they attempted to act as an 'external' faction of the SLL, with the aim of winning over more SLL members. Healy remained hostile to them, and accused the group of writing substantial sections of documents purported to be by SLL oppositionist Alan Thornett, who was soon to form the Workers Socialist League. Thornett did have contact with Blick and Jenkins from the Bulletin Group, who reached him via Kate Blakeney in Reading and Ray Howells in Swindon. The initial document upon which the Thornett opposition was founded was partly drafted by this Blick-Thornett nexus, but this did not lead to a long-term working relationship.[1]

Lambert wanted Robin Blick to lead the Bulletin Group as open supporters of the OCRFI but Blick and Jenkins, along with most of their supporters were moving away from Trotskyism by early 1976. The Archers regrouped some newer student members centred on John Ford, who had never been members of the SLL-WRP, and kept the name Bulletin Group. Some of them engaged in entrist work in the Labour Party. They continued with the publication of Marxist Bulletin until 1977 but its influence on the SLL had waned. Harry Vince moved to Ireland in 1975 and Betty Hamilton, Ken Stratford, Regis Faugier and their associates formed the British Committee for the Fourth International. The two small groupings were both affiliated to the Lambert OCRFI but had little relations with each other. In 1979 Vince moved back from Ireland at Lambert's request and the two groups joined together. Then this new grouping, which called itself the Socialist Labour Group, was strengthened in 1981 by a merger with a few supporters of Nahuel Moreno in the IMG, including Mike Phipps and affiliated to the Parity Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International when that was fomed.

The Socialist Labour Group remained active in the Labour Party, student unions and trade unions until 1986/7, publishing Unite and Fight, Socialist Newsletter and later Fourth Internationalist. However, differences between them and the leadership of the OCI appeared when Harry Vince along with 6 other members of Lambert's international leadership criticised Lambert's Fourth International - International Centre of Reconstruction (FI-ICR) for, among other things, proposing to proclaim itself the Fourth International, the continued Lambertist insistence on a decades long 'pre-revolutionary' period, {leading Francois de Massot to say that the British miners' strike was not a historic defeat) and corrupt methods within the OCI. In 1987, all but four of the SLG sided with the wing of the FI-ICR linked to Luis Favre, Camilo Gonzalez, Roch Denis, Carol Coulter and others. The SLG was briefly part of a Liaison Committee with those (in Brazil, Colombia, Quebec, Ireland, Sweden, Germany and France) who broke with Lambert in 1987. It also held discussions with Stephane Just, but by 1988 was discussing joining with the International Socialist Group (ISG) which was a section of the USec. The SLG dissolved itself in 1989 and its remaining members joined the ISG, although most of them left over the next few years. Harry Vince stayed outside the ISG and moved to Ireland.

The few members of the SLG who remained loyal to the OCI, centred on Charlie Charoulambous, had a tenuous existence for a year or so, but John Archer, who had joined the ISG, found it difficult to accept the ISG leadership and formed a small faction within the ISG supportive of the FI-ICR. In 1991 it split to form the British Committee of the European Workers' Alliance, a new Lambertist group in the Labour Party, around the Fourth Internationalist Bulletin. Mike Calvert (sometimes known as Frank Wainwright) worked closely with John Archer at that time but later had his own differences with the Lambertists. Today, led by Stefan Cholewka [2], a Labour Party member in Rochdale, it is the British Section of the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International and publishes Workers' Unity and The Link. Regis Faugier is associated with this grouping.

Days of Yore in the IMG

The following article comes from Wikipedia

There are many interesting things about the far left in this country. The fact that it is more fractured, split riven and so on than even that in France!

The following piece from Wikipedia.org is an interesting and partial concise history of the IMG up until the split that I was personally involved in that led to the formation of Phil and Dave's International Group (More of those days later).

THE IMG


The International Marxist Group (IMG) was a Trotskyist political party in Britain between 1964 and 1987. It was as the British Section of the reunified Fourth International. It is thought to have had around 1000 members in the late 1970s [1]. By 1983 its membership had fallen to around 700.

Origins
The IMG emerged from the International Group, a sympathising organisation of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (IS). Its founders, Pat Jordan and Ken Coates, had broken with the CPGB in Nottingham in 1956. They were briefly members of the Revolutionary Socialist League in the late 1950s: Jordan became organising secretary of the RSL. Eventually Jordan and his comrades founded the Internationalist Group which (like the RSL) affiliated to the IS.

After the ISFI became part of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, the USFI advised the RSL and Internationalist Group to unite. An unity conference in September 1964, brokered partly by Pierre Frank and Jimmy Deane, voted for unity but the fusion was not accepted: RSL member Peter Taaffe recalls that he "led a walk-out of the Liverpool delegation, with the majority in Liverpool in support". Very soon the former Internationalist Group members left to form a new organisation, the International Group, together with some former members of the SLL who had opposed that organisation's refusal to take party in the 1963 reunification of the majorities of the Fourth International, including Charlie van Gelderen. The Group played a major role in raising Vietnam solidarity at the 1965 Labour party conference.

The 1965 World Congress of the USFI demoted the RSL to a "sympathising" group: the International Group was granted the same status. In the words of the RSL's Peter Taaffe "We decided that the time had arrived when we must turn our backs on this organisation." The RSL left the FI and continued on the road to becoming well known as the Militant Tendency.

The International Group started the production of a cyclostyled bulletin known as The Week. As it was engaged in entrism inside the Labour Party, this journal gathered a mixed bag of sponsors including Bertrand Russell, whose Russell Tribunal employed two imported Canadian supporters of the FI, Ernie Tate and Pat Brain. In early 1968, the International Group renamed itself as the International Marxist Group.

International Marxist Group
The IMG's activists published International, which was launched in May 1968 with IMG secretary Pat Jordan as editor and incorporated The Week. The successive tactics taken by the IMG were reflected in the series of newspapers it supported: The Black Dwarf; Red Mole, Red Weekly, Socialist Challenge and Socialist Action.


The Black Dwarf
The Black Dwarf was launched in May 1968 under Tariq Ali's editorship, with several other IMG members on its editorial board. Its creative and pluralist nature attracted a number of new activists to the group: John Lennon was friendly to the organisation.

While IMG members largely remained in the Labour party, including Charlie van Gelderen, International marked a break from 'deep entrism': "The Week was brought out in the expectation that a mass left would arise in the Labour party once labour was in power. [Its] main function was that of an organiser and co-ordinator [...] but this will be a by-product of the main function of International: the creation of a firm marxist core in the labour movement." Its campaigning was focussed on broader initiatives such as the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and Russell Tribunal, in which Ernie Tate was prominent and in which the RSL and Socialist Labour League did not work, the Institute for Workers' Control and the Revolutionary Socialist Students Front, in which Peter Gowan and Murray Smith were active. The agitational work of The Week was carried on in the The Black Dwarf and in Socialist Woman, launched in 1969. The Group gained some public prominence when Tariq Ali, who had joined in April 1968, was widely publicised in the media as a leader of protests against the Vietnam War.

After IMG became the British section of the USFI in May 1969, International started to be formally presented as the publication of the IMG. The group began to focus on work in the student movement and trade unions. It abandoned its earlier systematic entryist work within the Labour Party, although the IMG continuously operated a "fraction" to organise its members within the Party. This turn out from the party led to a small number of members, including Al Richardson, being marginalised: they went on to form the Revolutionary Communist League, better known as the Chartists.

The IMG was quickly noted for its energetic support for international solidarity campaigns concerning Vietnam, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, South Africa, and its support for socialists facing repression in France, Bolivia and Mexico, support for which was organised through the Black Dwarf. International's May 1969 famous headline "Permanent Revolution Reaches UK" reflected its support for armed self defence against the British state's forces in Northern Ireland. It also supported, in orthodox Trotskyist fashion, the Communist-influenced struggles of the MPLA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique and the ANC in South Africa despite the complete contempt of the Communist parties for Trotskyists: some opponents nick-named them 'MIGs', after the Soviet military MiG.

In domestic politics the early 1970s saw the IMG completely reject parliamentary politics. In 1970, the group used the general election as an opportunity to make revolutionary propaganda rather than canvassing for the return of a Labour government.


Red Mole

Red Mole supported the IRA's struggle against British occupationIn March 1970, The Black Dwarf's editorial board split over questions of Leninism. A second newspaper was established, Red Mole, which Tariq Ali edited alongside an editorial board with an IMG majority. Red Mole was a "revolutionary internationalist" paper that carried a broad range of left-wing opinion in its pages, including a famous interview with John Lennon. IMG members also took part in New Left Review: Tariq Ali, Robin Blackburn, and Quintin Hoare were on its editorial board for much of the 1970s and subsequently.

Because Red Mole was used by the IMG as its main organ, articles were sometimes mistakenly though to indicate the positions of the IMG. For example, there was confusion after Robin Blackburn had written an April 1970 article titled "Let it bleed" for Red Mole, in which he argued that marxists should disrupt the campaigns of the Labour and Tory parties in the 1970 General Election. IMG secretary Pat Jordan replied a month later to explain why the IMG favoured a Labour victory. The group's general orientation at that time was summarised by Ali's book, The Coming British Revolution (ISBN 0-224-00630-4).

By September 1970, Red Circles had been set up to organise activists who supported the paper. Many went on to join the IMG. The IMG radicalised as it grew: Pat Jordan's leadership gave way to that of John Ross, who anticipated that the rising tide of class struggle could lead to a pre-revolutionary crisis in Britain. In August 1972, the IMG formally assumed control of the Red Mole and prepared to relaunch it as a weekly newspaper.


Red Weekly

The IMG used Red Weekly to launch a frequent theoretical & polemical suppliment, Battle of IdeasIn May 1973, the fortnighly Red Mole was replaced by Red Weekly. International's editors and editorial board included many of the organisation's leaders, including Tariq Ali, Patrick Camiller, Ann Clafferty, Gus Fagan, Peter Gowan, Quintin Hoare, Michelle Lee, Bob Pennington, John Ross, Tony Whelan and Judith White.

During the 1970s the organisation developed a number of fluid, competing factions and tendencies. The United Secretariat prepared theses on the situation in Britain and the tasks of the IMG in 1973, and again in 1976, to help orient the organisation.

The IMG came to the public attention in 1974 during Lord Justice Scarman's Public Judicial Inquiry into the violent disturbances known as the Red Lion Square disorders, which led to the death of Kevin Gately a University of Warwick student who was not an IMG member. Scarman found that the IMG had made a "vicious, violent and unprovoked attack on the Police" who were guarding Conway Hall to try and prevent access to the hall by the National Front who had booked it for a meeting to protest against the Labour Government's decision to grant an amnesty to illegal immigrants.

However by the time of the 1976 USFI World Congress internal disputes were becoming more difficult to reconcile as divisions became entrenched between supporters of the International Majority Tendency, led by Ernest Mandel, and the Leninist Trotskyist Faction, which was led by the Socialist Workers Party (US). Despite a 'truce' reflected by the establishment of Socialist Challenge, these divisions would result in the permanent splintering of the IMG's successor organisation, the Socialist League.

During this period, the small Marxist Worker group also joined the IMG.

This vigorous internal life did not impede its growth among students and workers. The IMG's grow was reflected when it established Red Books as its publishing house and bookshop. By 1977, when a new leadership team around Tariq Ali had started the organisation on the road towards Socialist Challenge, both International and Socialist Woman were well-produced quarterly journals.


Socialist Challenge

In June 1977, Socialist Challenge replaced Red Weekly. It raised two slogans.

Build a socialist opposition. The IMG's new leadership team was inspired by the success in France of a united slate of three Trotskyist organisations (the LCR, LO and OCT). It started to campaign for united electoral action in Britain, partly to confront the growth of the National Front. The IMG launched the Socialist Unity initiative for the 1979 general election, which Big Flame also supported. Socialist Unity stood ten candidates; its highest vote was 477 votes, for Tariq Ali in Southall.
For a united revolutionary organisation. The IMG argued that the forces of the far left should unite in a single organisation. This partly reflected growing openness of the USFI to regroupment, but also addressed the growth of the far left. The IMG proposed unity to the International Socialists (who had unsuccessfully made a similar proposal to the IMG a decade earlier). The IS turned them down flat although the manner of the IMGs approach, which reportedly described the IS as a centrist grouping, may have some relation to this decision on the part of the IS leadership.
In the 1979 the IMG grew to its highpoint of 758 members in good standing, and a total of 1,000 supporters.

In 1980, Tony Benn's campaign led the IMG to increase its focus on the Labour party. It developed a 'combination tactic' in which its fraction of members in the Labour party was boosted. By 1981 the IMG-organised youth organisation called Revolution Youth, organised its magazine Revolution, had entered the Labour Party Young Socialists in order to build it and won it to the IMG's politics. The IMG was soon to send a second wave of members into the Labour party, leading it to merge in 1982 with the League for Socialist Action, a small group of USFI members that had been engaged in entrism in the Labour party for at least five years.

Initially, IMG members in the Labour party continued to sell Socalist Challenge. They used it to argue that the Bennite left needed to organise together with the trade union left. IMG members, often describing themselves as 'Socialist Challenge supporters', supported the formation of Bennite organisations such as Labour Briefing and the Labour Committee on Ireland.

In mid-1982 its central committee started to discuss whether to announce that the IMG was dissolved in order to better facilitate its entry.


Socialist Action

In December 1982, the IMG rebranded itself as the Socialist League, while continuing to refer to itself as the IMG in internal documents [2]. The group had fully entered the Labour Party and began publishing the Socialist Action newspaper, by which name the League was often known.

Despite initial successes, Socialist Action was established at a time when the Bennite movement has started to suffer defeats. In 1983, the group's membership fell to around 700. Different tendencies developed in the organisation over how to relate to the political evolution of figures like Ken Livingstone and Arthur Scargill. At the same time, the Socialist Workers Party in the US, which influenced many of the group's members, started to withdraw from the International. This opened up the most bitter internal political struggle in the group's history. Under the pressures of the defeat of the 1984-1985 miners strike, the group fragmented into three organisations.

A minority, led by Phil Hearse, Dave Packer, Davy Jones, and Bob Pennington formed the International Group in 1985. In 1987 it merged with the Socialist Group to form the International Socialist Group and publish Socialist Outlook. The ISG was later recognised as the British Section of the USFI.

The remaining majority of the Socialist League consisted of two factions. The majority faction was led by John Ross. Ross' current was generally supportive of Livingstone and Scargill. The evolution of this group is discussed under its own entry, Socialist Action (UK). It eventually stopped the production of Socialist Action and withdrew from the USFI.

The third current was a faction led by Brian Grogan and Jonathan Silberman which supported the Socialist Workers Party (US). According to New International 11, it was expelled from the Socialist League in January 1988, one week before a conference at which its platform would have had the majority. Those expelled when ahead with the scheduled conference, which Ross's tendency had cancelled, and founded the Communist League, which is part of the Pathfinder tendency.

Boo cats together!

Islington on strike 3

Islington UNISON has been accused of not being democratic by some in the world of blogging!
Here are some more pictures of us on the picket lines around the borough over the last few years.
All taken by me.

Islington on strike 2

Education and libraries on the picket lines


all pics by me...

Islington on strike

Below are piccys of our days of strike in action in Islington