Talk:Peter Taaffe
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--81.157.152.224 13:46, 15 September 2006 (UTC):Through having met and spoken to Alan Woods, i can confirm that the "Scottish turn" was not innitially supported by Grant or Woods. I currently do not have an online source, but will try and find one in the coming days. It is correct to say SA membership is around 200, but it is beggining to rise (although i am of the opinion that that is irrelevent to this article)
- Taaffe and the majority in Militant supported the Scottish turn and the creation of Scottish Militant Labour whilst Grant and the minority opposed it after being initially in favour. Scottish Militant Labour eventually became the Scottish Socialist Party which has several MSPs in the Scottish Parliament, however, in 2003 the leadership of the SSP broke away from the CWI.
AW Healy removed everything after "opposed it". Taaffe's "Response to Ted Grant and Rob Sewell" claims Grant and the minority initially supported the Scottish turn. Does AW Healy have any evidence that this is incorrect? If not then the material he removed shold not have been removed.
AW Healy also removed:
- Grant and his leading supporters were expelled and have reconstituted themselves as the Workers International League. While the Taaffe led majority left the Labour Party, the Grant-led WIL continues to practice entrism despite Labour's embrace of the Third Way under Tony Blair.
Yet the Grant group did reconstitute itself as the Workers International League and does continue to practice entrism despite Labour's turn to the Third Way.
AW Healy added:
- Using his control over the beareaucratic structures of the group Taaffe moved to expel Grant and his leading supporters together with the majority of the organisation's leading trade union Cadres internationally.
The use of "bureaucratic structures" is a POV. The claim that the "majority of the organisation's leading trade union Cadres internationally." is, as far as I can determine, disputed. What I've read suggests that while the Spanish and Mexican sections went with Grant the vast majority of the rest stayed in the CWI.
Healy adds:
- The Grant group has grown internationally and now has three MPs in Pakistan as well as a daily updated website WWW.Marxist.com.
but he removed:
- The Grant-led WIL, however, has fewer than 200 members though it does have some influence internationally through the Committee for a Marxist International and its In Defence of Marxism webpage.
but does not put forward an alternative to the 200 figure. If it's fair to compare the Grant and Taaffe groups then it is a remiss not to mention that the Taaffe group is ten times the size of the Grant group in England.
Steve asks: what evidence is there for a membership of 200 for the Grant group or 2,000 for the Taaffe group? There is evidence that the membership of the Taaffe group is growing following years of decline but some referencing is needed.
Healy writes:
- The Socialist Party had some initial success in council elections based on the personal standing of individuals who had developed positions as Labour Party candidates in the main.
Yet the SP has more councillors today than it did at the time of the split which suggests that the "initial success" claim is inaccurate. As well, as a majority of the councillors were not Labour Party candidates the second part of Healy's statement is also false.
Healy writes:
- Membership has continued to decline and the organisation eventually lostits national office in East London.
Yet he removes:
- and today has a membership of several thousand, the largest Marxist group in Britain except for the Socialist Workers Party.
and
- However, the party but has experienced a resurgence in recent years.
and
- and like all Marxist groups in Britain suffered from a decline in membership in the 1990s.
The recent resurgence of membership contradicts the "continued to decline" claim and removing the statement that all groups declined in the 1990s removes context. He also removes the current SP membership figure and it's status behind the SWP thus also removing context.
- The organisation increasingly competes with the Socialist Workers Party and remains isolated from the mass organisations of the working class, in Britain and internationally.
That is POV and contradicts the SP's recent success in UNISON elections, in union elections in Northern Ireland, the CWI's success in Ireland with the election of Joe Higgins, its success electing councillors in Sweden, representatives in the ex-USSR and growth elsewhere.
AndyL 02:49, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
- the majority leadership published documents that it claimed made it clear that the minority was intending to split from Militant
What documents are these? A reference would be useful.
GO writes : in answer to the above question, no references will be given, because, quite simply, these documents do not exist. The Minority in the British section, led by Grant and Woods, did not intend to split, but to fight for internal democracy and against the ultra-leftist "turns" in Liverpool and Scotland. They were expelled as a result. Grant and Woods warned that the methods pursued by Taaffe would lead to a collapse of the influence of the organisation. This is exactly what has happened. The claim of the SP to have "thousands" of members is clearly a wild exageration. Where are they ? The position they had in Scotland has been lost, and in Liverpool also (following further expulsions). Their available forces in London are widely known to be less than 100 people. So in what region are the "thousands" or even "hundreds" hiding ?
In relation to their international position, the claims of Taaffe supporters in relation to their alleged base in Pakistan are pure invention. One will not find any evidence of any significant activity by supporters of Taaffe in Pakistan. Information published by Taaffe about "mass demonstrations" his supporters supposedly organised have proved to be utterly false. They do have a certain base in Nigeria, apparently, and also in a few European countries (Sweden, Germany, Belgium). Of the 80 people (members of the JCR) they affiliated in France in the 1990's, about 20 remain, almost all of whom are students in Rouen. While it is possible to contest the exact position in terms of numbers and influence in this or that country, one unmistakable fact remains : following the explusion of Grant and Woods, the Taaffe-led tendency entered into a process of decline and disintegration.
[edit] Resurgence
Hi, it seems that this page and the discussion has been edited by those who are trying to attack Taaffe rather than give a NPOV article. The biggest point of this is the talk about the decline of the CWI and the Socialist Party since the split between Woods and Taaffe. Even if this is true, I think the article should also point out the recent resurgence that the Socialist Party has had and the recent rapid increase members.
Also, should an article on Peter Taaffe have so much stuff on it about what Woods and co have done since the split? Shouldn't that be on a differnt page with its own article?
- Hi. I find myself very uncomfortable with the NPOV policy, anyway that's how this site works and if somebody comes here, he needs to follow the rules. I think that much material on the rival group both on this page and Ted Grant page (and in many other pages being related, too) should be cleaned away. Moreover, while myself convinced that the 1500 figure of SP membership doesn't really seem to be correct, the solution is not to wage an edit war about that number: the solution is to use the magic verb to claim, as somebody correctly did with the Socialist Appeal membership figure. If a group claims a true figure and another group doesn't, shame on the liars, the page will ridiculize them to everybody knowing the true situation while still preserving its informational value and correctness. MauroVan 16:31, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with Mauro Trious 23:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
