I missed Judith Orr, the editor of the SWP's Socialist Review, who was at the University of East Anglia on 17 January to speak to the Feminist Society.
Given the storm over rape allegations and the SWP's response to them, the meeting's timing was apt. The UEA's student paper, Concrete, gives an account of the meeting here. I was particularly drawn to Orr's reported comments on the SWP and accountability:
"Orr maintained that the SWP were "more accountable than any other organisation", being entirely intolerant of sexism, racism, homophobia, or any other hateful prejudices within the party.
The decision to go through the party's disputes committee, which Orr noted was elected yearly to ensure fair representation, was entirely the decision of the victim and expressed sadness on behalf of both parties involved that the matter, which was meant to be "utterly confidential", had come out against their wishes."
Judith Orr's description of SWP internal democracy will produce a wry smile from anyone active in left wing politics over the last few decades, or indeed anyone who has been in the SWP. Elections in the party have traditionally meant voting for a slate of candidates, with no opportunity to cast votes outside of that, and a system of powerful regional organisers and full time staff advising members on how to vote.
That is perhaps what you would expect in a Trotskyist organisation, which models itself on the successful seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in 1917. That worked for Lenin, but hardly fits with 21st century demands for accountability and bottom up organising.
The SWP's current crisis is rooted in more than the poor treatment of a rape victim - it is rooted in its own ideology.
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