Open warfare has broken out in DWP Left Unity (LU) where the current Group President, Jane Aitcheson, who recently resigned from the Socialist Party, is standing in the internal LU elections in opposition to her former SP comrades. In the first election Jane tied exactly in votes with her rival Fran Heathcote. There is now to be a re-run election. In response a number of LU SP loyalists have written an open letter to Jane. In later postings we will examine what this letter says as to the ideological state of the SP but in this one we just want to concentrate on one claim:

You (i.e. Jane) persistently attempted to obstruct national and group conference policy for a coordinated campaign around a coherent group plan preferring to treat each attack on members as a “single” or “unique” issue. When the national union encouraged you to pursue a coordinated strategy you dismissed this as “interfering” in the group.

Why in the face of this opposition did the SP continue to support Jane for year after year but also why didn’t the SP on the DWP GEC openly oppose her and force the GEC to take an alternative line to that of Jane. They had the numbers but clearly did not have the will to force the fight; in other words they placed their loyalty to Jane and to keeping things quiet above loyalty to the members and their interests. Enough said.