Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Monday, February 08, 2010

the trotskyists can't even achieve cult status

Those of us who have been through the mill of trotskyite politics have argued that It resembles more of a series of religious cults than a political movement. This belief is usually treated as little more than an insult in the knockabout world of interweb political banter.
However, it appears that some enterprising comrades at the socialist party (thats the old Militant Tendency, now outside Labour and in the big wide world) decided that there might be currency in admitting that they are a religious cult after all.
They took the trades union UNISON to an employment tribunal claiming that the unions attempt at stopping trotskyite manipulation of their union, was denying their religious freedom under the new antidiscrimination laws.
The tribunal threw the SPEW application out, and were particularly vehement in their judgement of the political beliefs of the trotskyists, describing them as holding views which were “not compatible with human dignity” that the attitudes of the SP were “Extreme and repugnant views” and that Trotskyism is “not a belief that qualifies for protection from discrimination" they found that “The claimant views conflict with the fundamental rights of others, and the dignity of others, and are not worthy of respect... in a democratic society".
Understandably the socialist party has been somewhat miffed by this verdict. They have decried it as an attempt by a Capitalist legal system to attack socialism and put it on a par with the banning of the British airways staff strike before christmas. http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/latest/8772
Leaving aside the absurdity of comparing an injuction gained by the management of BA banning a legal ballot by 14000 workers with an employment tribunal verdict in a case they themselves had brought . What is striking is the unbelievable naivety of these 'professional revolutionaries'. They complain that the courts are capitalist and class biased, and "that socialists and Marxists do not have the right to be protected in law from discrimination and harassment in the workplace or in a trade union."
what sort of revolutionaries seek legal protection from the state? what sort of socialist attempt to attack their trades union by dragging them through the capitalist courts?
Oh yes, Leninists.