Social Relations of the WRP

“When you say attacks on lesbians and gays are a civil liberties issue, I hope you don’t
hold the view that normal working class people aren’t homosexual anyway... So, are
attacks on lesbians and gays not of immediate interest to working class lesbians and
gays? A point to ponder ... Hope to see you at the Gay Pride march next week”. (Needless
to say he didn’t. GD)
Brian Dempsey, letter to Geoff Pilling, 16 June 1987.
Or how the WRP leaders revealed their reactionary positions on social issues.
The McGoldrick Affair in Brent
To demonstrate the new ideology in the ascendant in the Party the incident around the
McGoldrick affair is proof enough. Brent Council suspended Maureen McGoldrick from
her teaching post for an alleged racist remark. Whatever the truth of this allegation it was
undoubtedly correct to defend her against this arbitrary action of the Council at this stage.
Brent had overridden all trade union agreements in this action, and this was clearly part
of an attack on the union.
McGoldrick claimed that Brent was supplying the school with unqualified black teachers
in line with its tokenistic ‘race relations’ policy. However when the local Euro-Stalinist
NUT and the national union became super militant on the suspension and issued the
Council with High Court writs and put pickets on the school, every racist and fascist in
the country Joined in and it now became an open race attack on the Council’s Equal
Opportunities policy with white Euro-Stalinist reactionaries pitted against the Council
and black teachers. It had also become a stick for the labour bureaucracy to beat the
‘lunatic left’. This was the mood expressed by the WRP lumpens.
I was a UCATT shop steward, working for Brent Council, at the time and I had discussed
the issue with the other left wing stewards, who initially supported her until she became a
front for reaction. At this point they refused to support her any longer. The position of the
right wing stewards was the exact opposite. They became her strongest defenders only
when she began to be used to attack the Council’s race relations policy.
It should be said here that the Brent Teachers Association (the local NUT branch) voted
not to take strike action in support of McGoldrick. The national leadership of the NUT, in
alliance with the white Euro-Stalinist local leadership, then conducted ballots in a number
of selected, right wing dominated schools to circumvent the membership and get
authority for strike action. The wording on the ballot made it clear that this was not just
action in defence of McGoldrick, but opposition to the Council’s Race Relations policy
itself. Left-dominated schools were not balloted.

RACIST Pickets

The Socialist Teachers Alliance and the Black Teachers Caucus correctly refused to
honour these racist pickets. The local branch of the SWP also correctly refused to support
McGoldrick at the beginning but were forced to back down by a syndicalist, workerist
line from their national leadership.
McGoldrick never disowned the racist support and became the darling of the ultra-right. I
wrote a letter to ‘The Leninist’ exposing their workerist line of defence of workers’
pickets even when they were racist and against black teachers. I noticed Slaughter angrily
pointing this out to a few CC members at the February CC. At the end of the meeting
Dave Smith, Dave Temple and Mike Howgate approached me and furiously accused me
of being a scab, of advocating the crossing of workers picket lines and being scum.
The provocation was so severe that I expected violence. Charlie Walsh, who is Irish and
Norah Wilde, who is black came to my defence and the incident was defused. Of course
the WRP did not discuss the incident later and refused to take any position on the
McGoldrick affair. But it revealed that basic alliance of the cowardly academic9
Slaughter, who did not want the racist stench to attach to him, and the lumpen
‘workerists’ whose views on the struggles of the oppressed, be they black or Irish, were
those of the Labour bureaucracy. It was no wonder they stayed silent on the Pearce
question.
“A trade union led by reactionary fakers organises a strike against the admission of Negro
workers into a certain branch of industry. Shall we support such a shameful strike? Of
course not.”
Trotsky:In Defence of Marxism P36 New Park edition.
The Phil Penn Affair
The Phil Penn affair played a crucial role in holding the Party together while it was in the
midst of the raging internal struggle over the Open Conference, the opportunist relations
with the Morenoites, the question of Ireland and the Pearce letters and the whole issue of
internal democracy. In what was basically a re-run of the Banda-Slaughter ‘communist
morality’ campaign of the immediate post-split era: an external enemy (the same one)
was used as a paper tiger to divert the political energy of the Party rank and file from the
new reactionary alliance installing itself at the head of the WRP.
Phil Penn had got involved in a fracas with WRP (News Line) supporters on 3 May 1986
at a mass picket during the Wapping dispute. On 6 February 1987 he was jailed for 12
months, eight of them suspended, on the evidence of police and three supporters of News
Line. For eleven consecutive issues between 14 February and 25 April Workers Press
launched their biggest ever campaign in the labour movement on this issue. Front page
lead articles and double centre page spreads served to cover the metamorphosis of the
WRP from an open, debating type organisation, whose rank and file were seeking to re-
establish its revolutionary credentials, albeit in a very confused manner, to a closed,
sectarian and opportunist type organisation, the plaything of English middle class
academics and aspiring trade union bureaucrats, anxious to hide their retreat from
revolutionary politics.
Such was the righteous fury whipped up by the initial ‘communist morality’ campaign
that assaults on the News Line supporters were quite common, and accepted as justified
in the Party as a whole. After all, if the sole political difference between Healy and Banda
was on the question of whether it was correct to use positions of authority to sexually
abuse female members, then those types of people who supported Healy deserved a good
kicking.
Assaults took place on Healy supporters at the print shop in Runcorn with iron bars and
on some meetings in the Midlands by Banda supporters. There was an attack on a
meeting at Conway Hall that I witnessed and several other reported incidents. No one
objected to this at the time. Most of Healy’s ‘Security Department’ had gone with the
Workers Press. I have referred earlier to Mike Banda’s assault on Corinna Lotz and to the
assault on the young YS supporter of Hyland. Disorientated members were very much
influenced by Banda’s boast: “When I go for a fight, I go for a funeral.
Disputed Issues
There are a number of disputed issues in this case. The Workers Press’ Campaign was
based on claims that Penn was attacked by four men, beaten to the ground and only
injured Rodgers in defending himself. They further claim that the sending of their
members into the witness box by the News Line group to jail Penn was an act that
crossed class lines. They point to a similar court case brought by the News Line group
against the International Communist Party in January 1987 in Sheffield, arising from an
incident on 29 May 1986, when they claimed the ICP members had assaulted them. It
was on this basis that many groups and individuals internationally supported the Workers
Press over the Penn affair and these actions of the News Line group are difficult to
defend. Penn was also assaulted in Leicester on 8 June 1986. This was just one month
later and Penn had followed the News Line people there to photograph them. This can
only be seen in the circumstances as a provocation. Penn claims he refused to co-operate
with the police in bringing a court case against his assailants in this case.
The WRP resurrected the campaign on 23 June 1990 and directed it against Richard
Price, leader of the Workers Internationalist League. This arose from the decision of the
Public meeting held by the Workers Press on Gerry Healy to exclude Bob Pitt a WIL
member and author of the WIL’s series on Healy in their news-paper ‘Workers News’.
The purpose of this, undoubtedly, is to discredit the WIL, in a period when it is making
big developments in the field that the WRP has abandoned the reassessment of the history
of Trotskyism since the war with the aim of the regeneration of the Trotskyist movement
internationally. Its political development is serving as a pole of attraction for other
Trotskyists, as the WRP had promised to do for a period in 1986-87.
Price claims Penn launched an unprovoked attack on them, that this was the latest in a
number of serious assaults on the WRP (News Line). He further claims that Penn
expressed no regret for the injury caused to Eric Rodgers and did not dispute police
evidence that when arrested he had said that he hoped that he had blinded him (Rodgers)
and that he had admitted in court that he had attacked News Line group first. He did not
claim in court that he had been knocked to the ground. Rodgers, according to Price, was
injured so seriously that his vision was impaired and he lost his job as a British Rail
guard at Liverpool Street station as a result. Given this series of assaults, claim Price,
they had no option but to resort to the courts to defend themselves, as Trotsky had
advised against the CPU. No further assaults have occurred since the two court cases.
Given this situation and having uppermost the question of removing all obstacles to the
freest and most open historical re-examination and political and theoretical clarification
of Trotskyists and all working class militants I think it is correct to call on both parties in
this dispute to agree to a labour movement inquiry by those recognised as honest brokers,
similar to that agreed to by Trotsky, the Dewey Commission. Ml involved should agree to
abide by the decision of this inquiry.
The Sam Cox Affair
In February 1987 the Sam Cox affair arose. It was important because a further gain of the
Party in its resurgence was rolled back. At the special conference in October 1985 a
furious row arose over the proposal of Mike Banda, supported by the entire remaining old
leadership, to expel Healy then and there and override the constitutional requirement to
afford him the right to defend himself against the charges at the next conference. John
McGarry, from the Harlesden branch, proposed the objection, which really said that the
Party was not going to allow its leadership to do as it wished with the constitution and,
bad as it was as a revolutionary document, contempt for the constitution represented
contempt for the membership. The old leader-ship, with Bill Hunter to the fore, furiously
defended their right to act independently of the control of the membership, and as soon as
the meeting understood the point at issue the leadership was defeated. This said, in effect
‘we don’t trust you either.
At its meeting of 8 March 1987 the CC proposed to remove Sam Cox from membership
of the CC because he would not declare himself a Trotskyist, saying that in light of the
corruption of the WRP he needed to examine the whole history of communism. We all
agreed to the exclusion, albeit some with strong reservations. Mine were that the CC had
a right to suspend Cox from Parry membership and even to expel him, provided he was
properly charged and given all his constitutional rights. Suspending him from the CC
only was not an option as he had been elected by Party Congress and was answerable to
the next one. We conceded this point, which was a big mistake as it was a gain for the
reactionaries and was again usurping the rights of the membership. Richard Goldstein
moved his removal.
Significantly Hunter now specifically defended his stand on the Healy expulsion issue at
the special conference of October 1985, which demanded freedom of the Party leadership
from control of the membership. The precedent thus set was later used against Bailey,
Bruce and me in July 1987, when we were removed from the CC. The Cox affair was
referred to the Control Commission, who delivered the necessary verdict, as they again
did on all questions

WRP Returns to Healyism on Special Oppression

The race issue again arose when Dave Smith passed an outrageous racist remark about
Irish people at the Ninth Congress in November 1987:
“You want to bury the Preparatory Committee, even the Irish don’t bury people until they
are dead”.
He also made a sexist attack on Norah Wilde, calling her a ‘batty woman”. When he was
eventually forced to apologise he did so only to the ‘Irish comrade’ as if only Irish people
would be insulted by anti-Irish racist remarks! British Trotskyists had to be more careful
about who overheard them.
CW’s intervention was crucial here. While opposing Smith he said that he (Smith) had
made the remark because he was a victim of British imperialism (this same type of
Slaughterite excuse could be made for every reactionary on the planet. GD) and people
were only attacking him as an excuse to get at the Party. Indeed it is obvious that the
views Smith expressed were encouraged by the Pearce letters and the CC’s defence of
them. Phil Penn took the same line; i.e. loyal Party members would have ignored the
remark. Smith was voted on to the new Central Committee immediately afterwards. Only
the Internationalist Faction voted against the CC slate.
In response to this unprincipled, opportunist manoeuvring, a number of other opposition
groupings emerged in the WRP. The North London branch of Richard Goldstein,
Vangelis, Paddy Winters, Louise and Sue and Norah Wilde had opposed the leadership
more or less consistently since the start of 1987. The IF failed to attract their support
basically because it refused to define itself politically. The resignation letter of Louise
and Sue and the other comrade was a principled document, though I could not agree with
the orientation to the LIT. In fact the one of the very crimes that they correctly accused
the WRP of, misogyny, they soon discovered within the ISL and they had to leave that
too.
The group around ex-CP member John Reese in East London grew disgusted also and left
but again the IF could not intervene. They basically left over the sectarian and opportunist
manoeuvring of the WRP in attempting to sabotage the movement around the support
groups which had sprung up to assist the miners, print workers, hospital occupations etc.
Many others left around the end of 1987 - start of 1988, some around Peter Rickard doing
Turkish and Iranian solidarity work that formed a discussion group.
Blackest Marks
The appalling treatment of Brian Dempsey was one of the blackest marks against the
WRP. He came into conflict with Pilling because he was refused publication of an article
on the AIDS crisis because this would not have interested workers. Pilling replied to
Dempsey’s complaints in a letter dated 17 May 1987. While acknowledging that:
‘While there is no doubt that the attack on gays does involve issues which have
implications for civil rights and liberties and clearly it is the responsibility of the
revolutionary party to take up such issues as firmly and as clearly as possible I am not a
homophobe’ GD) .... but.... the basis of the Marxist conception of politics is the
revolutionary role of the working class. Only the working class, by means of its historical
relationship to the capitalist system, can overthrow capitalism. While we do not, of
course, confine our attention to the issues which immediately interest workers, we must,
nonetheless, take these issues into account when deciding the weight of our propaganda
and agitation.
So, while I would not be opposed to the discussion on the issues you have raised, I would
not give it top priority or even put it near the top of my list. Here we may, of course,
disagree. But I think it is a difference of political understanding which is involved and not
any effort to suppress discussion in the paper.”
Dempsey answered this letter on 16 June:
‘The ignorance of the WRP membership on the lesbian and gay liberation question is
little short of staggering although it is not surprising. People come into the struggle with
all sorts of prejudices and any one coming into the will) prior to 1985, and that’s just
about everyone currently in the will), would not have their prejudices and ignorances
challenged... One member of the CC thought that all gay men really wanted to be women.
He quite readily accepted that this was not the case when I challenged him, so it was not
so much a deep going prejudice as ignorance.
When the capitalists attack lesbians and gays, that is a direct attack on the working class.
Attacks on lesbians and gays may not be of ‘immediate interest to workers’ just as attacks
on blacks or Jews may not arouse the entire working class, but it bloody well should.
It is ironic, don’t you think that Brian Pearce’s ‘men with the rosaries and Armalites’ have
developed more sophisticated positions on lesbian and gay rights than many on the
atheistic left. When you say ‘attacks on lesbians and gays are a civil liberties issue, I hope
roll don’t hold the view that normal working class people aren’t homosexual ... So, are
attacks on lesbians and gays not of immediate interest to working class lesbians and
gays? A point to ponder... Hope to see you at the Gay Pride march next week”.
His homophobia from Pilling was compounded by Dempsey’s instant dismissal from his
job in the WRP’s Glasgow bookshop on 18 May 1987 because he criticised the Parry in a
public meeting the previous day, at which Geoff Pilling was the speaker. Hilary Horrocks
attacked him hysterically, as he arrived for work the following morning, no doubt on
Pilling’s instigation. He was thrown out of him job without any knowledge of whether he
was sacked, suspended, if he would get his P45 or his legal requirements. This after he
had given up his own job to work long, badly paid hours in poor conditions to assist the
Party. He had to wait until 29 July for a reply from Simon Pirani. It is a classic:
Dear Comrade, In answer to your letters of 18/5/87 and 19/7/87 the Political
Committee supports Comrade Hilary Horrocks in all the efforts she has made to resolve
all the problems at the Hope Street Book Centre, including her decision to tell you to
leave the shop instead of working out your period of notice.
Since you were only working out notice which you yourself gave, therefore the question
of being sacked to ‘shut you up’ or otherwise does not arise. You have received all
payments due.
Yours Fraternally, Simon Pirani on behalf of the Political Committee.
Hilary Horrocks and Pirani got rid of him in a manner illegal for a capitalist employer
and, of course, totally morally indefensible in a revolutionary organisation, whatever the
law said. The present Workers Press avoids the lesbian, gay liberation and AIDS issues
like the plague. Dempsey was the only ‘out’ gay man in the history of the WRP. His
treatment make absolutely sure there won’t be any more.
The WRP is once again a pariah in the labour movement, in large part because of this
backwardness. It cannot carry out any united front work with other left-wing groups and
has lost all the respect won in the period after the split that lasted up to the beginning of
1987. In fact very few’ of its present members were active in the Party before the split
with Healy.