Ex-SWP members to sabotage Steve Hedley's local election campaign? UPDATED!

They continued to question him, so he stood up and replied, "Whoever hasn't sinned should throw the first stone." (Jesus, according to John 8:7)

Whilst it may seem odd for me as a very upfront and noisy atheist to quote a religious text, the passage concerned does have a point when it comes to members of the various and quite unsavoury far-left sects.

Over the past year or so I have published a fair number of pieces on the SWP's disgraceful "comrade delta" affair and also published a certain amount of coverage over the allegations made against Steve Hedley, Assistant General Secretary of the RMT.

Now as much as I find Hedley a thoroughly unpleasant fellow, I need to point out that his case was at least investigated by the RMT and he was exonerated and no charges were bought by the police. 

His case however remains "open" to some on the left and it has been bought to my attention that a number of ex-members of the Socialist Workers Party in the RS21 and International Socialist Network groups have been considering a campaign to "sabotage" his local election campaign.

Hedley is standing as a candidate  for the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition (TUSC)in the East Ham South ward of Newham Council. In an anonymised Face Book conversation the comrades tell readers that:

"domestic abuser steve hedley is standing for tusc in east ham south. the sp have some explaining to do"

"Maybe some guerrilla fly posting one night. Maybe turning up to the hustings. Maybe spamming TUSC's email address letting them know how disgusting we think it is. Maybe contacting any community organisations in the ward letting them know. Maybe some kind of social media campaign"

"you're right that the sp never distanced themselves from him at all, so this doesn't surprise me, as he stood another tusc election a couple of years ago and i suspected this might happen"

Finally they make plans:

"East Ham South (the ward he's standing in) has allotments, a nature reserve, a cemetery and playing fields. In terms of actual streets with houses on it it's very small. A group of 20 of us could go round there one weekend afternoon, flyer through every door alerting the people of east ham to the fact that they maybe don't want an abuser representing thrm would do the trick"

Now besides the obvious legal problems involved in their plan, I do find the ex-comrades of the SWP to be somewhat hypocritical in their approach to this issue.

Most of them were in the SWP for years, if not decades and were themselves part of the culture that eventually led to comrade delta allegedly abusing his position with younger female members and his was far from the only case that came to light during the unsavoury fallout that ensued when the allegations went public.

Indeed the RS21 group hung on in the SWP for nearly a year after the delta affair went "pear-shaped" despite all the evidence that the imploding cult was beyond saving. "Lynch mobs" anyone?

I haven't put any links in to cover either affair as there are far to many, even on this site. Just google and you'll find hundreds of articles and comments on both "delta" and Hedley.

Hedley, by the way is also running an election campaign to replace Bob Crow as RMT General Secretary. Surely the comrades know this? 

As far as I'm concerned the lot of them are as bad as each other. We'll never know the full truth about either case, but what we do know is that the far-left are just groups of self serving cults. 

Hope I spelled that right.

UPDATE!

An Open Letter to the TUSC and a petition against Steve Hedley has now appeared on-line:

http://wewantawomensmag.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/an-open-letter-from-the-left-to-the-trade-unionist-and-socialist-coalition-steering-committee-against-the-nomination-of-steve-hedley/?preview