Thursday, February 17, 2005
Labour Friends of Iraq attack SWP. posted by Richard Seymour
Gary Kent of Labour Friends of Iraq is no fan of the far left. He isn't a particular fan of the Stop the War Coalition either, and his windy rants have been parsed on the Tomb before. Just a few quick words on his latest . He doesn't pull his punches:The SWP's report of the recent TUC conference on solidarity with IraqiDamning. Except, of course, that the report he cites was about a Stop the War conference which was much larger and took place two days earlier.
trade unions selects those bits that suit it best.
Its report quotes one official as saying that some people who supported the war were now trying to use the issue of solidarity to justify the occupation and concludes that "The clear and overwhelming message throughout the day was that the anti-war movement will not be thrown off course by the warmongers' efforts to confuse the growing feeling against the occupation."
Actually, it was dominated by trying to understand the politics of the new Iraqi labour movement with few references to Stop the War activity.
Suffice to say everything that is supposed to follow from Kent's initial premise is therefore nonsense - as is most of the left-baiting drivel that appears on that idiotic website. Pull your trousers up, sunshine.
Update: Kent has removed the offending post from the main page, but the link to the specific post still works so you can still view his work. Incidentally, if the link disappears forever, or fossilizes into a 404, I have a copy of the post sent to me by e-mail which I will make available on request. I'd hate to see Kent's classic expose disappear down the Memory Hole.