Talk:Workers' Revolutionary Party (UK)

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[edit] Gary Younge

Someone told me that Gary Younge, the Guardian Journalist and author of No Place Like Home was in the WRP.

He was a member of the WRP's CC in the 1970's but of no importance. He is still of no importance come to think of it.

If he is of no importance, why on earth did you bother to mention him?

[He is too young isn't he? He's in this 30s, surely --DuncanBCS 12:30, 29 November 2005 (UTC)]


[edit] Present tense

"The Workers' Revolutionary Party was a Trotskyist political party in the United Kingdom."

er...it still is!

[edit] Allegations by BBC

The article says "In the early 1980s, the BBC claimed that News Line was financed by money from Colonel Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein's governments." I was unable to find any information on the web about this from any trusted, disinterested source. This probably says more about my lack of patience and expertise with search engines than about the allegations, but I'd be grateful if somebody could provide some evidence - firstly that the BBC made such allegations, and secondly what exactly was said, by whom, and on what programme? Thanks. GrahamN 03:29, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It was the Money Programme. See [1] or [2] (both highly critical of the WRP but from quite different perspectives). Neither goes into much detail about the allegations, but summarises them in roughly the same manner as the article. I suspect the difficulty is that this was not very widely reported at the time, and that clearly it was before the advent of the internet. Should anyone have access to back copies of Newsline, it'd be useful to get their take on it. Warofdreams talk 04:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello. Thanks for replying and for trying harder than me to find some sources for this. The first one of those links you supplied is to a site I know nothing about, which says "In March 1983, the Money Programme purported to show that the W.R.P. was financed by the Libyan regime." [my italics] Nothing about Saddam at all, there. The other link seems to be dead, but the URL indicates that it is on a site run by an organisation that in my limited experience is not exactly an unimpeachable fount of truth, and which anyway freely admits it has a grudge against the WRP. A google search didn't turn up anything any more edifying. I really don't know anything at all about this, and I have no axe to grind either way, but it seems to me that if we are going to carry these extremely damaging allegations we need much more reliable, disinterested sources for them than this. Unless anybody strongly objects, I propose to remove all references to allegations of WRP funding by Libya and/or Iraq until somebody produces some convincing corroboration. GrahamN 20:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry be bring bad news but... The ICFI's control commission reported that over £1,000,000 was paid to the WRP by Arab regimes and the PLO between 1975 and 1983: perhaps half that amount was paid to other IC sections. To see an extract, go here and scroll two thirds of the way down.

The report also discusses photographs taken by WRP members of demonstrations being bought by Iraqi Embassy for £1,600 in order to identify Iraqi opponents abroad: the ICFI report attributes under £20,000 to Iraqi sources. Libya is different: Huge sums of money were involved, especially for the press and the Youth Training Centres. These are te details: A list by year shows the following amounts coming in:

1977 £46,208 1978 £47,784 1979 £347,755 1980 £173,671 1981 £185,128 1982 £271,217 1983 £3,400 1984 0 1985 0

TOTAL £1,075,163

Analysed by country, where it is possible to distinguish, the amounts are: Libya £542,267 Kuwait £156,500 Qatar £50,000 Abu Dhabi £25,000 PLO £19,997 Iraq £19,697 Unidentified or other sources £261,702

TOTAL £1,075,163

On a personal note, I was in the WRP's Young Socialists prior to the split, have stayed in the Trotskyist left since then. The full truth about the WRPs finance will never come out: many documents were destroyed. I feel that the true financial scandal is the immense human cost paid by their own members in raising funds that were squandered and abused. I think there were more subsidies. The WRP distributed some Libyan literature, including copies of the Green Book. Even amongst comrades I knew, I can also recall the example of fully subsidised training programmes in Libya. However, it will be impossible to prove much of this. --Duncan 21:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Not sure why you say "bad news". You may not believe me but I genuinely don't have an axe to grind about the WRP. I'm just concerned that this is an extremely serious allegation, for which we don't appear to have any proper corroboration. The sources cited so far all appear to be from organisations who definitely do have axes to grind about the WRP. Furthermore they are all organisations that everyday readers of an on-line encyclopaedia will consider to be somewhat less than credible. I did see that blog that you provide a link to, when I was trying to find some independent substantiation before. But it's really not good enough. A second-hand supposed quotation from the report of a self-styled "Commission of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter­national" really doesn't cut the mustard as a demonstrably trustworthy, disinterested source for an encyclopedia article. I'm not saying I don't believe these allegations. I have no idea at all whether they are true. I'm saying we shouldn't include them in this article until we find them cited in a source that will be widely respected. If the allegations were really made by the BBC on the Money Programme, then we need to prove that. GrahamN 01:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Here is the amended paragraph I've just removed from the article:
In the early 1980s, the Money Programme claimed that News Line was financed by money from Colonel Gaddafi's government. The Socialist Organiser newspaper repeated these claims, and the WRP chose to sue them, but soon abandoned the case.[3] When, a little later, the WRP disintegrated, an investigation was carried out by supporters of the Workers Press group of former WRP members. This claimed that the WRP had collected information for Libyan Intelligence. As printed by Solidarity, the report claimed over £1,000,000 had been received by the group from Libya and several Middle Eastern governments, between 1977 and 1983. While only a small proportion of this is alleged to have come from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government, it draws particular attention to photographs which it claimes WRP members were instructed to take of demonstrations of opponents of Saddam Hussein, and it states were later handed to the Iraqi embassy.[4]
  • What source do you want? The ICFI members were formerly part of the WRP, and made the entirely plausible claim that they had access to the original documents. The AWL clearly are opposed to the WRP, but I can't imagine any reason why they'd invent a claim that SO repeated these claims and were sued by the WRP. I have tried to make it clear that these are *allegations*, and the sources are not unbiased. A front cover of News Line attacking the BBC for making the allegations would be great, but I don't know where we could find one. These allegations are widespread on the left, and the article would be seriously misrepresentative without them. What do you suggest? Warofdreams talk 01:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Look, I'm sorry - I'm really not out to cause difficulties. I agree that if these allegations were made then if we leave them out the article is missing something very important. But how can somebody who's not in the know and who doesn't remember these allegations at the time be sure that they really were made? Taking people's word for things is not good practice when writing an encyclopaedia. I can only repeat what I said before: these are very damaging allegations, and we need to cite sources that most readers of an encyclopaedia will consider to be pretty much beyond reproach. We do not as yet have any such sources. If the allegations really were made by the BBC and if they really are still common currency in leftwing circles, I'd have thought it shouldn't be too hard to find something suitable. The only other alternative as far as I can see would be to change the wording so as to hold the allegations at double arms length, something along the lines of "AWL, a group bitterly opposed to the WRP, asserts that allegations were made by the BBC ... blah blah etc". But that would be quite ridiculous. And, surely, unnecessary. I really can't believe 1983 is so far into prehistory that written records have not survived, especially of a thing like this which, if true, must have been a major scandal. Surely the Daily Mail must have had a field day? Sorry to be a pain, but I hope you can understand where I'm coming from. We shouldn't take anybody's word for it. Serious allegations need serious sources! GrahamN 03:03, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I do think that Warofdreams's rewite takes us forward. However, the investigation was not made by "supporters of the Workers Press group of former WRP members" but by a commission appointed by the International Committee of the Fourth International, led by David North. Since this is the international party to which the WRP was affiliated, I think that is an exceellent source. Sean Matgamna's account of what happened in the 1980s squares with my recollections. It gives dates and quotes. I see no reason to doubt them. --Duncan 13:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, I've reinserted the paragraph, with DuncanBCS's correction and a WRP point-of-view. However, should anyone locate any other sources, please improve the article with them! Warofdreams talk 19:27, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I met up with some of the Northites last week. They confirm all of this. They published much of this at the time in their old journal Fourth International. I have ordered it and will add in any relevant material. If anyone else has volume 13, feel free to beat me to it.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 06:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)