PCS: Hell hath no fury like the Socialist Party scorned!

The Socialist Party or Militant, at least the larger fragment of it has been a major controlling force in the PCS for nearly two decades. That is until PCS Supremo and General Secretary Mark Serwotka got tired of his troublesome deputy one Chris Baugh and ran a campaign to remove him. This as regular readers will know led to a major split in PCS with the bulk of the SP's leading activists splitting to form PCS Socialist View.

In the subsequent internal squabbles of the Broad Left tent of which both Socialist View and the Socialist Party but not Serwotka were a part Baugh initially lost and only narrowly returned as the "agreed candidate" of the far-left alliance. The subsequent 3-way election which included a Serwotka lick-spittle saw Baugh lose and the Independent Left candidate take the post of Assistant General Secretary.

The Socialist Party are a somewhat unforgiving little sect, getting smaller by the day as they continue to shed their international allies (see Phil BC's Obsolete politics and Socialist Party) and have the audacity to complain about "union officialdom" without noticing the irony.  The SP were the unions bureaucracy ensconced in full time posts galore with the ear of Dear leader Sir Mark Vodka himself.

Now they are sidelined with just 2 members of the National Executive and fewer activists on the ground. Militants head honcho and unchallenged leader for centuries Peter Taffe had to be sent to PCS conference to rally the sects remaining adherents.

Now we see a new faction arising out of the ashes of the old. As Mark Serwotka announced his decision to remain General-Secretary-for-life reelection campaign the old Militants are to stand against him by running Maid Marion Lloyd against him. Baugh it seems is too tainted to use and the comrades have decided that Left Unity isn't very "wimmin friendly".



The Socialist rag complains:

Serwotka and his supporters in Left Unity claim concerns about the under-representation of women in the union. They line up behind the slogan of 'Step Aside Brother' - a top-down, artificial process. But even within the limitations of this approach their commitment is shown to be a complete sham.

At the June national executive committee Socialist Party member Marion Lloyd was removed from the union's key lay body - the policy and resources committee.

At the Midlands regional committee in June they challenged Sian Ruddock for the chair position with a male Socialist Workers Party member.

At the Department for Work and Pensions committee meeting in June they removed Rachel Heemskerk from the PCS trade union-side team, resulting in an all-male delegation.

Nothing to with sex, just a purge of the Socialist Party methinks. More sectarian than sexist really "comrades" but by all means use all weapons at your disposal to undermine your erstwhile allies.

The new faction has somehow developed a twitter link established in 2009 with a few thousand followers which means they've hijacked something or had access to the Tardis to set up a faction before any of this happened. Their Face book page is probably more accurate in terms with just 111 followers at the time of writing.

The Socialist Party now campaigns for "an independent voice for PCS", that is themselves and want a "Corbyn led government" except they won't join the others in the labour Party and even the Labour left laughed at the suggestion by SP guru Taffe for an electoral alliance.

Politics aside Marion Lloyd is quite a personable individual but a committed disciple of the Taffe Tendency. She won't beat Serwotka even if she gets the backing of Left Unity which is by no means certain even if there isn't another candidate. Left Unity will probably decide to back Serwotka.  This could mean another three way split though it is far less likely an Independent Left candidate will sneak through like in the AGS election.