Fear and Harassment as the Norm

Stuart Hall: part of the establishment 

EXTRACT: But the Hall revelations should really cause some on the left to rethink their absurd idea - eagerly endorsed by some radical feminists and mendacious, pro-imperialist, mainstream journalists - that the Socialist Workers Party has an ingrained ‘rape culture’ that makes it a more ‘unsafe space’ than the likes of the BBC, perhaps deserving to be no-platformed like the ‘Nazi’ British National Party.

Frankly, this is a crazy notion. Yes, the comrade Delta case was appallingly botched by the SWP’s leadership. For that the organisation needs to be severely criticised and that is what we in the Weekly Worker, among others, have done. But the idea of ostracising the SWP or even driving it out of workers’ movement is a fundamental mistake that can only empower the trade union bureaucracy and all those with an anti-left agenda. The prime reason for the Delta debacle, if truth be told, was the SWP’s ingrained bureaucratic centralism - not its institutionalised ‘misogyny’ or nonsense like that (women formed a majority on the disputes committee that cleared comrade Delta, for instance). Its authoritarian culture privileged certain comrades, making them unaccountable and essentially beyond criticism.
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