The Crooked Cross; fascism and appropriation of Celtic Culture

 

Croeso! 

A bit ago, a US politician got in some trouble when he unwittingly disclosed that he had a tattoo of the SS emblem, the Totenkopf (Death's Head). That politician is called Graham Platner, and he's a Maine Democrat. In a related story, another Democrat politician Dylan Blaha disclosed he has six tattoos, five of which seem to be typical military ink (both Dylan and Graham are ex-servicemen) but the sixth raised an eyebrow for me. On his right calf, Dylan has a Celtic cross, which he got in Germany after a trip to Ireland.

Now, I don't know either of these guys, Graham Platner claims he didn't know it was the SS murder skull and says he got it altered when he found out. As for the Celtic cross, it isn't a hate symbol yet, but there is a determined push to make it into one. And I know from experience this is largely overlooked in Anglophone circles.  So, I have no idea if either Democratic politician is a secret Nazi. I think it would be a very stupid thing for secret Nazis to declare themselves that way, but I'll sit back and let better placed individuals look into those stories. What I am going to do is take advantage of the rare window of public attention these revelations have caused to sound the alarm bells about a pernicious tactic on the far right. 

 I don't like talking about myself, but this text will go on to rely on my personal experiences, so I may as well get this out of the way. I am a Celt (it's pronounced Kelt) I grew up in a Celtic family surrounded by other Celts, in Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and the part of England I live in is one with a large Scottish and Irish population. I would not pass an Irish or Welsh language test nor could I write a book on Celtic folklore (not yet anyway) but I did grow up hearing words from both languages. In fact, in a funny twist for today's topic, my blood is so purely Celtic that I have a rare genetic blood disease that targets north European Celtic populations. That's not relevant to this particular discussion, but I think you should keep it in mind for when you encounter gobshites bemoaning the watering down of Europe with all that race mixing.  

Cultural appropriation, now to be clear I'm not using this term the way some do to mean any and all cross-cultural interaction and exchange. I mean it in the sense of taking something from one cultural and deliberately and radically trying to reclaim it as something else for a deliberate political end. I have no objection to other peoples learning about Celtic history and culture and myths, if anything I think its beneficial that cultural awareness is increased as a way to combat the attempts to hijack it for divisive ends. 

Fascists and their fellow travellers have been busy for years trying to replace the old toxic branding, swastikas, fasces etc, with new ones that can serve to rally the racists without tipping off normal society. They've mostly targeted Scandinavian cultural artifacts with knock off runes due to associations with Viking warriors and the convenient overlap with German mythology and some connections to original Nazi occultists.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment in detail on the pillaging of the Norse lore, so I'll also leave that to others. They have also appropriated Celtic symbology, including adopting a variation on the Celtic cross that marks very old churches in Ireland and Britain and have a smaller presence in Northern Europe. Celtic cross have many designs, what they usually have in common is a circle behind the head and the arms of the Cross. Fascist groups have latched onto to a simplified version of that characteristic and use variations of it that often look like a target cross-hair or a plus symbol in a circle. I've known for sometime that knowledge of these fash rebrand attempts isn't very high for some time. Even experienced anti-fascist activists who clock that these are fash emblems often don't know what they are. I remember one calling out the use of "fascist plus signs" on a banner when checking out who was marching down the street.

 

The sheer gall, or should I say Gaul, of French far right using Celtic imagery

 

I grew up with tattoos of Celtic crosses, every man from my father's generation who's a Celt has one somewhere, its become a very popular symbol of heritage and pride. Like the Harp for the Irish, Red Dragons for Welsh or Thistles for Scottish only this one can be used by most Celtic peoples. Generally the more the tattoo looks like its based on a real 9th century cross in a graveyard somewhere in Donegal or rural parts of Western Scotland, and the owner is a Celt or someone who has parents/grandparents, or just lives in Wales or Brittany or something, it's probably benign. When someone is using the streamlined version and has no connection to the Celts or a part of Europe where the Irish Catholic Church (which promoted the adoption of that cross style) had no presence, I would ask questions, like "what is that?" and then "why did you choose that?" and their answer is some nonsense about "our heritage" or pride I would be wary of them.

To link back to original premise, if Dylan Blaha had got the tattoo in Ireland, I'd think it's either a touristy thing or an attempt to get in touch with his "roots". Getting it in Germany gave me a moment of pause, the Ancient Celts were around the Rhine and Alpine regions but didn't get into the German interior much. However, designs for "authentic" crosses are popular, and their details are a good way for a skilled tattoo artist to show off their skills. If it turned out he just went to a tattoo parlour in Germany where knowledge of far right symbols is more common especially for tattoo artists who can get into trouble for making them, and got a short and quick plus and circle job I'd be far more suspicious. 

From a friend on Bluesky, a stall for the National Rebirth Party in Leicester, using a Triskelion as their emblem.

It's not just the cross that's been high jacked, other lesser known Celtic symbols are also being used. A variation on the Triskelion also pops up from time to time. Now Triskelion's aren't strictly a purely Celtic symbol, like the swastika its appeared in many cultures, some of which predate the Celts, it was also heavily tied to early civilisations in Sicily as another example. The Celts of ancient times used versions of it in many forms, and I have seen variations used by fash types that are based on the more common Celt designs. So, by talking mostly about the Celt versions I don't wish to imply the other cultures are fair game, just sticking to what I know.

If you don't know what a Triskelion is, the flag of the Isle of Man uses a version, the three legs on it are an example. Yes, the tri in triskelion means three, so it's a triskelion if it uses a pattern of three.  This appropriation is not as well known but goes back further. The ultra racist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) took the Nazi flag, cut the swastika out of it and stitched a black triskelion into its place.

I guess subtlety doesn't translate into Afrikaans.

 There was also a SS division that used one as their personal logo.

Again I don't like seeing symbols I grew up with re-purposed for hate politics, growing up the Triskelion was a symbol of protection, a silly good luck charm. Speaking of luck charms, specifically Irish symbols are commonly used by far right groups in the United States of America. I'm thinking of the Ayran Brotherhood who use clovers as their emblem. This one I feel is more well known, I've seen documentaries about it for one, and I'm not familiar with conditions in the United States, so I won't talk further on this other than to note that in the documentaries I've seen on this group they allege that the Brotherhood considers clovers to be their symbol and not an Irish symbol and will attack Irish American inmates who have clover tattoos who aren't a "brother". I can't think of better example of the dangers of cultural appropriation.

Part II, Why?

  Now I've detailed some of the more common examples I feel It's important to look at why these disparate groups are doing this. Well while it may not seem like it in 2026 with the far right gaining popular support in many nations the authentic WWII era Nazi branding is still toxic and weird to even the majority of their voters. Fascism has always relied on euphemism and that reliance has grown since the WWII defeat and the Holocaust and the other brutal occupations from that time. One curious fact about the Graham Platner incident is that he says he got the SS tattoo in Croatia. Croatia like all the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia suffered greatly from German occupation, events marking the partisan movement are still publicly commemorated to this day. That said, Croatia also had an infamous history of collaboration with the Axis powers. I'm going to be careful here and make clear I do not mean all Croatians collaborated, there was however a fascist Croat movement called the Ustasha who were given de facto control of a collaborationist state and this state and its movement enthusiastically carried out genocides against Serbs, Jews and Freemasons and Communists and Gypsies and other undesirables*. I have no idea if Graham Platner is being honest when he claims ignorance, however it is inconceivable that the tattooist who gave him that skull didn't know about it.

In addition to misdirection the choosing of Celtic bits and pieces also slots in nicely with pre-existing fascist pseudo-history. The Celts in the accounts of Ancient Greek and Roman sources are violent and war like, which fits in with the machismo men of action cult. The Celts are also quite pale and European, so those are two ticks on the check sheet right there. Of course, most of this breaks down once you take even a cursory look at history, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Theirs also a religious component, the Celtic cross is also a cross, and its origins lie with the Irish Catholic Church. While fascism is quite diverse on questions of spirituality, hostility to Jews and Muslims means some form of militant Christianity will appeal to some of them. I don't think every fash with the fascist plus symbol is a militant christian, but I have seen its use in places like Italy and France where the Celtic connection just doesn't make sense, but the "a normal Italian/Frenchman is a Christian/Catholic" does make some kind of ideological sense.

And of course we can't overlook the follow the leader phenomena. I have a suspicion that if you were to conduct a poll of the international far right population where the Celtic cross is used many respondents wouldn't know what it really is and just copied what another fascist group did. This isn't the first time this has happened. When Mussolini came to power in Italy their was a global trend in copycat ___ Shirt movements. The Brown Shirts in Germany, Blue Shirts of Ireland, Silver Shirts in the USA, in Britain Mosely couldn't be bothered to pick a different colour they just ripped off Benito entirely.  And when Hitler rose to power in Berlin their was another wave of copy cats aping him. The fascists in Hungary where called the Arrow Cross party because their knock off Swastika was a cross made of Arrows. 

They're also fairly easy to draw and have the added bonus where should a fascist group find itself out of step and under hostile scrutiny they can play the "Nu-uh" card. They can use to attract sympathisers in the know while playing coy to everyone else. Of course this is subject to the rule of diminishing returns, the more they use it the less cover it provides. The more times an "immigration sceptic" is caught at a stop the boats protest with a triskelion t-shirt is found to have been at a national front rally in the 80s with a Nazi armband the less credulous the general public will become.

 Part III, Why the Celts make terrible stormtroopers

I was debating whether or not to include this part, I don't think this is the place for a full history of Celts whether ancient or modern. However as I said when I spoke about cultural appropriation, I think knowledge of real Celtic culture and its symbols will help to expose the operation, its also really interesting, with dragons, vengeful gods, curses and so on. Though I believe most Euro fash are unaware and do not care about the Celts even as a tool to use. As an example I've seen the symbols stolen by groups operating in countries where the Celts left no impact if they ever got their and Italian and French fascists are using it. If you wonder why I keep bringing them up, Italian fascsits love the Romans, who committed multiple genocides against many Celtic tribes and are in fact the nemesis of the ancient Celts. Meanwhile the French republic in 2026 is currently actively carrying out policies to destroy the culture and language of the Bretons, its Celtic minority. That's the nasty side of appropriation and fetishisation, it doesn't actually care about its targets, it just exploits them for its own gain.

 So here's a few inconvenient facts that get in away of a more serious fash interpretation of the Celtic legacy. 

1. Ancient Celts were quite diverse. The old Celts of the times of Asterix and Obelisk got around, they spread out so far and for so long that there is still debate over where the Celts originated, one theory says Central Europe, another says they came from Iberia and Western Europe. With an open question about where did their ancestors come from.
2. Celtic culture originates in language, the Ic in Celtic means speaker of a Celt language. Attachment to the Celtic peoples of antiquity were on the basis of tongue not race. Some nationalists may push back on this with an appeal to shared Europeanness. But that doesn't hold either, while the Celts were concentrated in North and Western Europe we know that Celts were present in areas further afield, the Galatians from the bible were a Celtic people and they lived in the middle of what is now Turkey. Celtic tribes also had access to the Mediterranean and traded extensively, where there was differences on parentage or relationship was along tribal lines within the Celts. They were never a unified "Volk" there were variations in culture, custom and language throughout. 
3. If the Celts had a "nemesis" they wouldn't be Jews or Africans or any other foreign bogeyman picked on by the far right. There enemies were other Europeans, Vikings, Germanic tribes, Romans, Greeks etc. If there were stop the boats protests in Britain in the 6th Century the targets would be the Saxons, Jutes and Angles who created the proto-English culture**. That Celts even still exist is a testament to resistance to these attempts to destroy and subjugate them. The French Republic is still trying to force the Bretons to become French by doing all it can to make Brezhoneg a dead language. The people who have been oppressing us, destroying our cultures and forcing us to behave as they see fit are fellow Europeans, often motivated by nationalism.
4. The Celts expose the arbitrariness of nations, races and culture itself. The terms Celt and Celtic dissappear until the 1700s when very early studies in what would become anthropolgy and linguistics realised the langauges and cultures of the people living in Wales, Ireland, Brittany etc shared many common characteristics and that some them seem to connect these modern peoples to those of the civilisations from ancient times. They could've easily not adopted the common "family name" and kept us all separate afterall while the Celtic languages are related they're not mutual intelligible, at least not at without a good deal of exposure. And since language was the main decider rather than religion or physical characteristics (I would say stereotypes) we can easily redefine the Celtic population drastically downward excluding many including myself but include a small number of other people including a student from Hong Kong who speaks far better Cymraeg then I can. If langauge is the deciding factor that it de facto means that ethnicity and sense of belonging are largely arbitrary and open to change. Which it already has, many English and French share the same ancestors as Bretons and Welsh, and yet we think of them as different peoples because when the labels were reintroduced the majority of them didn't speak a Celtic language as their first and main language.  

That's the annoying thing about history for propagandists its too messy and doesn't fit neat sides of a box. If militant Celtic nationalism where to take off as a movement it'd be more likely to divide the Euro fash camp even more. Let's look at one Welsh national hero, Owain Glyndŵr (Owen Glendower in English). There's a man who in the popular retelling rallied the Cymry in a heroic struggle for freedom from the violent alien oppressor the English... Mainstream Celtic nationalism is already speratist.

 Appendix: Real Celtic Fascism

I wasn't sure whether to add this or not, but on re-reading I felt there was a theme of alien corruption of noble culture. While I beleive much of this appropriation is from non-Celtic sources there are examples of homegrown Celtic fascist and other reactionary tendencies. And while I'm busy pre-empting criticism I'll reiterate my personal view that these fash types being "foreign" is not the issue, I genuinely like it when others show interest in culture and language, nor do I have an issue with benign use or borrowing for new things.  Its very much the exploiting a frankly damaged and misunderstood culture for xenophobic purposes that I can't stand, regardless of whose doing it.

 So, with that in mind I will briefly document a few examples of Celtic fascism from history. 

 The Blue Shirts,

 

Fascist politician Eoin O'Duffy inspects his troops,

The Blue Shirts were one of the copy cats of Mussolini, their leade O'Duffy also set up a Corpratist Political party further copying his mentor. At their peak in 1934 the Blue Shirts numbered 48,000 though they quickly lost most of those members. The Blue Shirts were formed as a paramilitary and security unit for one of the groups that merged into Fine Gael (Family of the Irish) the same Fine Gael that currently is the ruling coalition of the Republic of Ireland. The Blues infamously raised a brigade of Irish volunteers for Franco's army rebels in the Spanish Civil War. Some Irish historians try to avoid the Fascist label for the Blue Shirts but curiously not its leader O'Duffy, by arguing they were motivated by extreme authoritiarian catholicism. I won't deny there Catholic zealotry but that's not a disqualifier for fascist politics. They also officially supported democracy in Ireland, however they materially supported a fascist dictatorship in Spain and their idea of a model democracy was the Irish Free State, a state that was not free and had came into existence through an extreme and ruthless victory in a civil war. The Blue Shirts were founded largely due to the release of prisoners from the losing side in that war. The Free State of the 30s was not the tourist friendly Temple Bar of modern Dublin, it was suspicious and actively controlling of the population.

The Breton National Party

The Breton National Party, founded in 1931 was a nationalist party that sought independence from France. It rivaled a Breton federalist movement***. During the second world war it collaborated with the Nazi Occupation forces. Brittany had its own little Vichy. 

Members of the BNP in 1942, its hard to make out, but those armbands they're wearing sport a Triskelion

 The BNP was disbanded forcibly in 1944 during the liberation of France. Meanwhile the rival federalist movement which sported a Hevoud symbol which is also sometimes called a Celtic swastika was driven out of eixstence sometime after 1938. Though sucessor organisations of sorts for both them came into existence in the 2000s, the Adsav being the far right bastard child of the BNP, still keeping the triskelion emblem, while the Federalists revived the Federalist League name. 

Defence Leagues

The English Defence League or EDL was the most popular and in your face strain of far right politics in the UK in the 2010s. Of course there was both a knock off Scottish Defence League and a Welsh Defence League but the EDL had the numbers and caused the biggest impact and damage to communities all over Britain. 

I don't know much about the Scottish Defence League but I'm more familiar with the WDL, though not by much as it collapsed into infighting and feuding after investigations into their members and their links to Neo-Nazis were exposed**** soon after launching. The same fate eventually befell the EDL with many splinter groups and rivals often trying to beat the rump EDL of the streets in some regions.  

The Welsh off shoot collapse so quickly that the EDL tried to pick up the slack by marching in Wales demanding "their country back", which didn't go down well. 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 *I should also mention that there were Croats who resisted occupation and that the other groups and peoples in Yugoslavia had collaborators too, it's not a clear-cut distinction. 

 ** A fun fact, in all the Celt languages still spoken, the word for an Englishman literally translates as Saxon. Whereas Welsh and Wales come from Saxon words meaning foreigner and outsider. 

***  "..the pressing duty to gather those of our compatriots who do not want to confuse Brittany with the Church; Brittany with reaction; Brittany with puerile anti-French bias; Brittany with capitalism; and even less, Brittany with racism." From the manifesto of the Breton Federalist League 

**** Unmasked: Welsh Defence League, by the BBC 

Cutting through the Babble

 

The UK's branch of the Industrial Workers of the World has been stepping up its publications. One of the newest is a journal called Wobbly Times. The theme for the first issue which will be released soon was "Workers of the World United" a great choice, but at the time they were calling for submissions I could not think of anything to fit it.

Yesterday I attended an IWW writers workshop and this idea came to me.

You may recall that I used to work in a cold factory producing frozen foods. There's a stereotype of a factory proletarian being this salt of earth man full of muscles, the reality was that the workforce was the most diverse I've ever encountered. Many women, every age from "are you sure your 18?" To "Shouldn't you have retired already?" Workers with mental and physical disabilities including me, and workers from many ethnic backgrounds and many being immigrants.

The canteen and the outside corner where the smokers gathered and the bike shed were full of accents, slang and languages. 

The langauge barrier is a serious obstacle to international and even intranational co-operation, at the factory even though we were all polite and friendly to each other groups formed around first language for the most part. Revolutionary groups have struggled with how to overcome this obstacle, some invest heavily in translation departments, others promote a 'workers language' either Russian, Spanish, English or Esperanto etc.

I don't have a silver bullet for this problem, but I do have some observations. While outside of work the differences were obvious they largely disappeared on the factory floor. Lack of fluency in English or any other langauge didn't matter so much since it was simply too loud to talk in a meaningful way.

Conversations were short with only the most important words and punctuated with pointing and gestures. Body langauge was also heavily reduced since we were all covered in the same white overcoats and gloves and hair nets. If you were clean shaven you could still use your face to smile or look concerned but if you had any peach fuzz you had to cover your snout with a snood. 

In a strange way the tempo and organisation of the factory leveled the differences between us and we spoke a common langauge. There were of course limits to this language, there wasn't much room for abstraction and elaboration. But it was still a useful tool in building some links between us all. We gave warnings about bits of machine that liked to bite and grab, laughed at terrible supervisors who thought they were cool and tough, helped out the newbies or the ones who were having trouble.

I still think that communication is serious obstacle to building a movement capable of challenging the global capitalist order, but I am atleast confident that it is an obstacle that can be overcome with enough effort.

Work in the time of Corona(Virus)

This past week I contracted COVID-19. Its not the first time but this one hit my like a lorry. I've kept up with my vaccinations so it could've been a lot worse. I'm taking the week off to recover. Since I'm isolating and the motion in games makes me want to vomit I've been catching up on movies and Telly inbetween taking pain killers and drinking water and juice. 

I'm miserable and achey, but I'll survive. While I suffer my mind keeps going back to the lockdowns when COVID started spreading. I had been working as a security guard on the dock, this meant I was classed as an "essential worker" and was not furrloughed. I worked right through the UK's economic shutdowns. My new found status blocked my ability to find alternative employment, who was hiring when 90% of the staff you already paid were sent home? Previously I had been cycling through several positions in the area, reception, hole watcher (yes that is a real job) fire watcher, (yes that is a different job) banksman, general laboring, security guard, safety monitor etc. Now I was effrctively trapped in one role.

I was also living with my parents at the time who have health conditions that put them in greater risk should they contract it, and so had to practice "shielding" i.e. avoid direct contact. Conversations would take place over the phone, outside in the garden or by opening doors or with the stairs between us.

It was quite isolating psychologically. This was reinforced at work which was deserted apart from the occasional maintenance van doing the rounds. On the positive side I enjoyed my commutes to work, the roads were deserted so I could ride without fear of being rear-ended by a drunk docker or going under the wheel of a truck thanks to a gust of wind[1]. Once I got over the erieness of the quiet I found it peaceful.

When I was at work there wasn't anything to do. No visitors meant I just sat or stood there for 12 hours at a time. After awhile I started taking books to read and then I bought a DVD player and watched films. This could've gotten me in trouble had they caught me but the alternative was to just crack under the weight of it all.

If this sounds like a lark then there's two things to keep in mind. There is a vast difference between getting money for nothing and getting money to do nothing. There are jobs that through luck or inefficiency or bureaucratic mandates that cover the latter. Security guard in a place thats dead, warehouse night shift, night porters for unpopular hotels etc. There you are expected to be doing the activites assigned to your job and if you cannot then you are expected to do nothing and remain in a state of readiness should the opportunity to do your job present itself no matter how rarely.

If you've not had one of those jobs you maybe familiar with the managerial maxim "time to lean is time to clean". I've had jobs under supervisors who breathed that wisdom but even they wouldn't expect you to spend a whole 8/10/12 hour shift cleaning if something is preventing actual work being lije say the line is jammed and the technicians are busy working on another one.

In cases like mine management do expect you to be ready to pounce as soon as you clock on and upto the second you clock off. Anyway once it became clear that they weren't going to be checking up on the staff still working I could fill my time with some distractions and catching uo on my reading and research. It was that or dive into social media. 

The second thing to keep in mind was that the virus was running rampant and was lethal. In addition to every news item reminding me how dangerous the microbes in the air were it struck closer to home. My uncle contracted it, fortunately he lived on our street and we could help him by getting him supplies and checking on him regularly. He looked like a zombie, I was convinced he was going to die, thankfully he didn't, he celebrated his 70th birthday this week. Sadly other people I knew did die. These weren't close friends but they were people I knew to speak to when I met them in the street or the pub and due to restrictions I wasn't able to attend their funerals.

Essentially every day I had a sense that I was putting myself and my loved ones in danger. All because of a bureaucratic categorisation. Unlike a health care worker or a shop staff I was providing no actual essential work even when there was work to do. I just had to stand there in a high vis incase someone tresspassed or a lorry driver got lost and needed help reversing down the access road. 

And for this risk I recieved zilch. No hazard pay, just two reusable masks with the company logo stitched on it[2]. And they didn't arrive for months, I was using my own until then. 

If I'm coming across as a martyr, I know there were others who had it worse. Other essential workers had all my issues and had to interact with the public on a regular basis which put them at great risk. Though that knowledge was a cause for concern the few times I did have to interact with a stranger. 

They say humans adapt to most things. Over time a sense of routine estsblished itself which took some of the edge off the everpresent climate of fear. Meanwhile the government and the business community were getting fed up with all the losses to the economy started working on ways to get people back to work and consuming.

Eventually things returned to normal, and I moved on to other ventures. Though of course things still aren't normal. COVID remains and continues to mutate. It still infects people and can have drastic effects. The big change from 2020 to today is that we're now in a place where the damaging effects of COVID aren't disruptive for commerce and adminstration, so hard luck for those who contract it even those who still die from it. Several people at my current workplace have weak immune systems and yet when I reported my COVID they treated it like a regular sick leave period. I'm not complaining on my behalf sick leave is the most generous I've had in my worklife but it is concerning that COVID is being treated like a summer cold.

Also yes, the title is a reference to Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

1: These are not random examples. In 2023 the council finally moved forward with paving a cycling route to the docks and the nearby industrial estate. A year after I stopped working there.

2: Branded safety equipment, just one of the many examples of crisis profiteering that went on during that time.

On the Collision in the North Sea

 

Courtesy of the BBC

 

It's not often that I get to comment on recent news from a position beyond armchair commentator. Several weeks ago, my small corner of the world became global news for a time. Two great big cargo ships collided in the North Sea at an anchorage for vessels waiting clearance to enter the River Humber. One was the carrier of aviation fuel, the Stena Immaculate, and the second a container ship Solong. The captain of Solong is a Russian national, that fact coupled with the news that he's being investigated for criminal conduct has encouraged speculation that this was a deliberate act carried out as part of the Russian Federation's hybrid warfare doctrine.

The investigation is ongoing, and I won't speculate on whether I think the charges have merit or not. What I will say is that if it comes to light that the cause of the collision which killed one of the crew of the Solong and injured dozens of sailors on both vessels was negligence or equipment failure, well I wouldn't be entirely surprised.

There's a fortune tied up in international freight and massive pressure to avoid delays at all costs. Cutting corners and meeting windows for berthing, discharging cargo and taking on new cargo are stressful times with many bottlenecks, that area of the North Sea is effectively a floating car park for vessel to wait their turns, clearance and the boarding of pilots. Miss that window and the ship is at the back of the line, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. 

I know this because I have friends and family who worked in the shipping agencies, and I worked on the same dock that ships including the Stena Immaculate regularly berthed and met their crews and captains. It's a small part of the world. I've had the pleasure of being shouted at in 02:30 am because a ship hasn't sailed for Norway due to its bridge crew not returning from shore leave, I've also had to draw maps of the docks for crew members who were just dumped outside the gates for their shore leave, and I've had to stand in the pouring rain with a radio awaiting the arrival of the port medical team so I could show them a dead body that washed up.

But enough flavour text, the reason I'm bringing this up is to demonstrate why a vessel barrelling at 16 Knouts in low visibility in an area well known for being a busy anchorage doesn't shock me despite being an obviously bad idea. This attitude of rush, rush, rush, get it done quickly is endemic to the shipping economy, and it breeds a culture of apathy and resentment towards the regulations that are designed to prevent incidents and accidents like what happened here. 

Russian owned/captained vessels were especially notorious for obeying the letter of the law and ticking all the boxes, while expending the least amount of effort possible. I remember two examples, one was when a sailor had collapsed, and I was talking to the medical team, they repeatedly asked me to confirm the ship was not Russian, because the last time they had attended a Russian vessel the captain wanted to leave the crew member on the jetty and depart without answering any questions. Another time I was working over water and needed a life jacket, UK regulations state you must wear one when working over water, the penalties for violating that one are quite steep. When we ran short, we just radioed the vessels and used some of their spares. The Russian vessel gave use life jackets that were empty, either someone had stolen the bouncy material or they never had any. I thought that was a one-off, but a guy who'd been there for longer than me said it happened all the time. 

I must stress the point of this is not that the Russians are uniquely corrupt and lazy. Corners were cut across the industry, and there were many times Russian vessels arrived without incident or noticeable deficiency. Common issues are Flags of convenience where a ship is registered to a company in a nation with lower safety and employment standards, I saw that all the time, it was blatant, crew lists and manifests gave it away, a ship that sails between Le Havre and Grangemouth, is operated by a company in France and is crewed by Indians and Filipinos and has a Greek captain is registered as belonging to Liberia or one of the smaller Caribbean island nations. Often finding out who actually owns a ship is an impossible task. The news reported that the Solong had Portuguese owners and the Stena Immaculate is owned by the USA, but the Stena was an exception as it served US military aviation, I met a Department of Defence rep once who turned up to inspect the ship. He had a baseball cap and a denim jacket, called everyone buddy. 

So, in conclusion, I'll wait and see what the results of the investigation are. I am interested in their findings but the two most likely options will not be surprising to me.

The Party Trap

 

As a frequent lurker on lefty webspaces, I see variations of the same ten questions pop up time and time again. One of those questions concerns joining a political party. A recent example of this question I saw was by someone describing themselves as an Anarchist and wondering whether they should join the French Communist Party (PCF) youth wing as their friends were members. If you're familiar at all with the PCF, the answer a resounding no or "non", but I have seen this question asked over a dozen times with the positions and party's replaced with other options. I don't want to miss the forest for the trees. Leaving aside the shady history of the PCF for a moment, I think this points to a broader, general issue.

The purpose of any political party youth organisation is to encourage and shape young members and prepare them for service to the mother party. That doesn't necessarily mean that every action and interaction will be a propaganda lesson, but most of your time will be spent in service of that broader aim. Political parties come in different shapes, sizes, and even stripes, but that is the core which they all share, the party is the main if not only organisation capable of carrying out its stated mission, if the party members did not believe that they would not have founded it in the first place.

I think the question is an easy one to answer once you've established some basic facts and broke it down:

1. Question 1: Do you believe in the party's ideology and agree with its strategy and activity? Yes/No
2. If No, then do not join, it will be a dispiriting experience.
3. If Yes, then before you sign up check how this party treats its membership and long-term supporters, does it have a reputation for exploitation, bullying and harassment? Yes/No
4. If Yes, steer well clear, it isn't worth the sacrifice.
5. If No, check that if there are other groups offering what the party is offering in your area. Yes/No
6. If Yes, go back to question 3 for each potential competitor.
7. If No, final decision time.

That's all there is to it. Political party's regardless of ideology and peculiarities of strategy and structure will demand a lot of you, it's not to be taken lightly and joining one you disagree with from the beginning is a terrible idea. Some have this notion of effecting change from within, but that just shows how inexperienced they are with bureaucracy and factions. Entire groups numbering in the thousands have practised what's called entryism for the specific purpose of changing a party to agree with them, and it just doesn't work out well for them.   

One other point, if your friends are in a political party, but you are not on board with that party, then joining up is the last thing you should do. If your friends are really your friends they will respect your differences and if you join you're at risk of merging your social life with your political life, this will only make it harder to leave and often creates leverage for exploitation of you. 

I know this because it happened to me. I joined the Labour Party through its youth wing because there was no one else in my area and my friends were members. It was a waste of my time and emotional energy, I won't say everything was terrible, I had some pleasant experiences and met some people who are still dear to me, but I also wasted my time helping horrible people climb the ladder of political posts, was forced to waste valuable time socialising with people I couldn't stand and effectively found my ability to act in a way authentic to my views on humanity and the world. And since much of my social life revolved around the party, it made breaking with it a drawn out and messy process. The Labour Party is many things, but it isn't the Worker's Party of Korea, my opposition to it and final leaving did not lead to a public humiliation campaign or time in a rehabilitation centre, the pressures to remain quiet and compliant were purely psychological and social, and they were still a hard chain to break, and I know of people in that party and other groups who never manage to break free. This is also why I stress to checking if the party (or any group really) has a reputation for extra controlling and behaviour, because even in the "free democratic world" even tiny political groups are capable of shocking levels of abuse of their own memberships.

If there is a positive spin on that time is that the first-hand experience has left me completely immune to overtures by the competition, I had no interest in Corbynmania or the constellation of Trot/comms that float around seemingly only to sap the enthusiasm out of graduates and Trade Union reps. 

One further note, many of the replies to this question on the internet egg these people on, beware counsel from strangers (yes, that includes me). One thing to keep an eye out for is people saying "Just do it" in the name of praxis and left unity, or similar terms. Personally, I'm quite sceptical of these for their own sake, but in this particular case anyone using them is exposing themselves as liars and gobshites. I make an effort not to see people in the worst possible light and try to give the benefit of the doubt where possible, but in this case there simply is no alternative reading, these people are not your friends and are clueless about the realities of practical political action and its effects. 

These terms are simply irrelevant to this discussion when applied correctly, joining and supporting an organisation opposed to your views is literally the opposite of praxis, I know the word literally is overused but here it is apt. Praxis is theory through action, so if you are not onboard with the party's theory which includes its ideological position and strategy then by definition working for that party is the opposite of praxis. An actual example of praxis is Earth Liberation Front (ELF), ELF is broadly speaking an ecological defence group heavily committed to a strategy of direct action and disruption of the extractive industry. An ELF supporter is doing praxis when they "monkeywrench" a truck belonging to a logging company, or assist in that action, that same ELF supporter is not doing "ELF praxis" when they vote for the Green party in the local elections. We could have a discussion or argument about whether that's still a good or effective thing for the ELFer to do, but that is separate from praxis as a concept.

And there is no unity amongst the "Left" in this scenario. Left unity if it means anything more than empty air is when multiple different groups work together for a common goal, an example would be France in 1968 when multiple groups came together to support the waves of factory and student occupations, they were very different in their views (Situationists, Anarchists, New Left groups, autonomists, even dissident members of the PCF) and their participation differed but, in general they worked to support and promote the actions of the workers and students. When you join a political party, however, there is no collaboration, you are committing yourself to the party line and stating you are in agreement with it. If you are not in fact in agreement with it, then you will be convinced you are wrong or expelled. Another good example of this is the turmoil in France in 1968, the PCF leadership opposed the occupations and worked to end them, members of the PCF who disagreed with this either gave into party discipline or were kicked out.

What about all the alternatives, the revolutionary factory cells, internationalist networks, militant Unions, people's armies, direct action affinity circles etc. I'd say use the same criteria laid out above, if you don't agree do not join them, and also try not to merge your social and political life into a closed circle, overlap is fine, but total merging is a bad idea. I have been a member of the Industrial Workers of the World for some time now, we have our ups and downs but at this point It's still an organisation I can work with and is willing to work with me. Sometimes people have reached out to me asking if they should join, my responses always include recommending that they meet with an actual branch or contact someone in their industry or region first and get to know them and what the IWW model is really like before making that commitment. While this is a personal piece, it is not a "copy me" and support the groups I like instead of the groups I do not like.

And if after giving the matter some thought you do find that you agree with the PCF or Labour or any other organisation, then fair enough, I wish you well. Your time is precious, and you do matter, I know first-hand how frustrating and isolating it can be, but don't waste your time and energy working for others who are opposed to your values and view you as a resource to exhaust. You'll get your fill of that in the workplace. Be patient and persevere, resist shortcuts, keep learning and thinking, and you will find a way to make an impact. Your day will come.

Where it all began

 

On libcom.org there's a section for galleries, mostly for photography and poster archives. But one is for the cover art of the newspaper Class War, that used to be published by the Class War Federation. I'm going to be talking about both the paper and the group so to avoid confusion Class War and CWF will refer to the group and CW will refer to the newspaper. 

Now I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the CWF nor have I ever read a copy of its newspaper. Nor have I had any interactions with them aside from walking past them on a march in London year ago. They've also held positions I reject, still on reflection I owe them a massive debt. Back when I was still in school I found it quite dull. Its a common point of rhetoric among right wing types to denounce education as a cultural marxist factory churning out hippies who think Black people's lives have meaning and women should be free to choose not to be broodmare's if they wish.

If there are schools like that I never went to them. Some of my tutors at Uni had a respect for Mao zedong but they were also open Tories. I also had a substitute teacher who had previously stood for the English Democrats, a tiny fringe English nationalist party. The closest to an exception would be my sociology A-level. But even then we spent most of our time covering post-modernist criminologists and a basic history of the old feminist movement. In fact I can remember clearly the few times things got a bit more radical. In one of the text books we had to read a section on attitudes to society which acknowledged there were rebels to society (our society to be exact) and its fundamental values and structures. It included a generic picture of a rebel guerrilla character and a small box with three magazine and newspaper covers. The first two I don't remember, but the third one stuck with me. It was the one at the top of the page, the Flintstones and the headline "Club together to beat the bosses!". 

I remember the text key explaining that the cover and Class War its publisher were an Anarchist group. The cover stuck with me for two reasons. First, it was an attempt to use humour for political purposes that largely worked. I didn't laugh until my sides hurt or anything, but I got the reference and the point it was making. And secondly, I was surprised that it was an Anarchist group, Class War was a name I heavily associated with the Communists. Unlike many North Americans, I knew that Anarchists would be opposed to bosses, anyone whose had one would know why, but I had an image of Anarchists being a sort of total rebel against authority in a way that treated it all the same. That there were Anarchists who had something specific to say about capitalism was a revelation to me. 

So, is this the cold opening to the true crime documentary about me in the future? Probably not, I buckled down, finished my education and spent years drifting around the marxists until encountering Anarchism in the UK again, and when I did it was pretty hostile to the CWF. libcom.org has a lot of material by the group and much that was written about the group, with a lot of points of criticism. I could knock up a list of highs and lows and make it a series if I wanted to. And if I get writers block I may just do that, keep your eyes peeled for a Class War tag popping up on the list in future I guess. Its easy to stress the negatives, especially online, but as the gallery shows there is respect for some of their output and activity.

The CWF and CW both folded, then were resurrected, then folded, currently the website is still up and its most recent article is titled Class War is Back!, but it was posted in 2021. The twitter feed associated with the group has been a bit more actively recently, its last tweet was on the 30th of March. This could mean the group is dormant, active but struggling, or quite active on the ground and just hasn't got anyone to man the online front regularly. Either way I owe them for some of their contributions, and perhaps one day someone, somewhere will the same of me*.

______________________________________________________________

*I'm so sorry.

Paper Cut outs: Encounters with Trotskyism in the UK

 

"I'm up for a Bolshie-fight!
I am a Trostkyite!
I know what I want, don't know how to get it
I want to destroy the independent labour parties
Cos I, I wannabe Leon Trotsky
No Zinoviev me"

Trotsky in the UK

Way back in 2016 I wrote The SPEW and Me, a short account about my encounters with the Socialist Party of England and Wales (SPEW), recently I've been in a reflective mood and have decided to expand it into a document detailing my encounters with some of the other factions of the Trotskyites in the the United Kingdom.

Introduction

 A few words on the background of myself and the UK. My political education has led me to change and develop as I gain more knowledge and experience, nothing unusual there it happens to everyone more or less. What is a bit strange is that much of my development was stimulated by close proximity with the British labour movement, its orbiters and challengers. And yet despite this connection I can honestly say that Trotskyism holds no appeal for me whatsoever. The reason this is surprising is that the Trotskyists as a whole are quite large and prominent in the UK's left wing spaces, and several have set up experienced fronts for attracting the unwary socially conscious amongst the students and Trade Union members.

It wasn't for lack of trying though, I've run into about half a dozen front groups and over a hundred newspaper sellers, stalls, and recruiters using petitions to harvest contact details over the years. And, while I'll concede their are differences between the groups and even individual members of the same outfit, generally speaking the encounters have been unpleasant and they show the same logic and point of view regarding the organisation and how it sees the public, its members and its potential recruits. So, I feel tallying the most notable cases in one place would be beneficial especially given that I still see the occasional "Anyone familiar with ____" style questions from people who have been approached by one of their touts.

 

The SPEW and Me

In Britain for some reason the most common and longstanding strain of leftism is Trotskyism. This has always been a bit of a mystery to me because even the Trotskyists loathe Trotskyists. I'm joking, but not by much, in activist circles Trots seem to be poison, and on most Trotskyist sites I've stumbled upon the group they seem to hate the most is another Trot group. Off the top of my head theirs the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Socialist Party in England and Wales (SP/SPEW) the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) Solidarity (also in Scotland) the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), Workers Power(WP), the Workers Revolutionary Party(WRP) and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and Counter Fire and I must be forgetting at least a dozen and have never heard of several more. Many have very bad reputations and reputations are all I know them by, with one exception.

I have a bit of personal experience with one Trot group, and curiously enough it was the one that had a fairly decent reputation in some circles. That was SPEW often known as just the Socialist Party, but I'll keep referring to them as SPEW because I don't like them being associated with Socialism, and I hope I'll adequately explain why that is below. Here's a list of the times I encountered the Socialist Party in England and Wales.

But first a brief disclaimer, apart from the last incident this is all from memory and happened several years ago, so do bear in mind that I'm going to be a bit hazy on the details.

In 2011 I was at a UCU picket at the University of Hull, in addition to the striking lecturers, some local TUC council members, me and a mate we also had a few unaffiliated Socialists and the student section (about half a dozen) of the SPEW. It was a standard negotiation picket, a petition to sign support, banners saying UCU and “honk if you support hardworking lecturers” you know, not exactly building the barricades. The Student section seemed to have Les Mis ringing in their ears however. They turned up as a group, kitted out with some home made banners and a megaphone, but instead of manning the picket and showing support they tried to get everyone to form some kind of rally. They marched around us chanting about Cairo and Wisconsin, and some third place I really don’t remember, Athens maybe?. When it didn't work they just left, as in walked off immediately leaving the rest of us very confused. Now that was not a very good first impression of the party in action, but I just wrote it off as a bunch of over enthusiastic students not really understanding the reality of these things.

A year later or thereabouts in Grimsby the SPEW as a party group tried something similar at a Fireman’s Brigade Union protest, they were forcefully told to knock it off or be banned from any other FBU event. It was rather embarrassing; now they take part in the protests but afterwards try to encourage people to attend an additional meeting they set up nearby. I've never taken them up on the offer so don't how well attended this side meetings have been but if their election results are any indication the strategy hasn't worked very well.

And when TUSC was formed the group spent months fighting with the local Labour party over control of the Union branches, the fight was purely about officer elections and affiliations, and of course financial support for the local council elections, even though TUSC only put up one candidate a year at the time. Though to be fair to them in recent years they've put up a few more. The attempt failed and back fired pretty badly, since the local Labour party is still pretty heavily concentrated in the TUC unions in the area giving them the edge in politicking. The whole thing resulted in the few SPEW union branch officers they did have(all of whom had gotten their positions before the position jockeying) were isolated and had their reputations sunk because the ordinary members resented them wasting time trying to use them for political fights.

This is embarrassing stuff and it didn't endear me to them in anyway, but SPEW are a national organisation and so maybe I've just had some bad luck? Well no, I also have example of an incident when the SPEW as a national organisation behaved in a very disruptive and opportunistic way.

For me the most egregious example of a SPEW highjacking was what happened to the National Shop Stewards Network. I wasn't directly involved in this but friends were so I learnt quite a bit about the group and its breakdown and the role of the SPEW. It was also a very public falling out so I was able to look up a few things and refresh my memory. This for me was the event that soured me on the party as a whole, I don't think I was every really in danger of joining them but it after this it meant I didn't have any time for them at all.

The NSSN was a network for shop stewards in various unions across the country, hence the name. More importantly it had succeeded in growing in some parts beyond a contact list into actual working groups and so had a physical presence. The SP had put a lot of effort into this network that had been founded by the RMT union in 2006 and for awhile had received quite a bit of credit from Trade Union types. However in 2011 it soon became clear that the SPEW were only interested in the NSSN because it was supposed to be just another front for the Party and as such all non SP members ended up resigning.

Effectively killing what had been a fairly active support network for the sake of party strategy. If you go to the NSSN website today its indistinguishable from a leftist blog site, all the news is about demo marches, "building the pressure" and solidarity (best wishes) with groups and people but no actual practical steps for any of them. The only times it does discuss strikes or workplace actions its by Unions on their own at best its a newsletter, about actions going on independently of itself. In contrast the old group was full of updates and news about workplace struggles, like for example the Yorkshire and Humberside bulletin from 2009.

I don’t bring up the NSSN because I have an attachment to it, I don't really. While it was doing some interesting things it remained firmly a creature of the Trade Union movement. Conservative, defensive and dominated by officers and staffers, even though it proclaimed that it's main goal was building the rank and file. I think on balance the old NSSN was better than what it became for whatever that's worth.
No I bring it up because in addition to my tangential connections to the NSSN it exposes the SPEW as just another opportunistic group concerned with its own influence. By the time SPEW had decided to exert controlling influence on the NSSN it had already agreed to join the anti cuts struggle. The problem and the reason for the split revolved around the question of how. The majority non SPEW officers agreed that the NSSN should be part of a wider anti cuts movement independent of any of the other organisations.

“The NSSN Conference on 22nd January will feature an important debate about the network's role in the anti-cuts movement, which is likely to be decisive in determining the organisation's future. The meeting of the majority of current NSSN Officers held on 5th January unanimously agreed that the NSSN should seek to build unity between the existing anti-cuts bodies and to oppose any attempt to further fragment the developing but still fragile anti-cuts movement. We urge all NSSN supporters and like minded trade unionists to attend our conference to help ensure that the NSSN plays a positive role in unifying the emerging anti-cuts movement and in building support for the sort of industrial action that will be crucial to beating back the coalition's attacks.”

Source
Emphasis mine.

However SPEW wanted the NSSN to join its own anti cuts organisation that was being setup at the time.

“The purpose of this Conference is to put before shop stewards and workplace reps a proposal to set up a working class trade union based campaign that is able to intervene on a clear no-cuts programme in the forthcoming battles.”

Source
Emphasis mine.

Both sides of the dispute, NSSN officers on one side(SPEW blamed one Dave Chapple a CWU shop steward in particular) and the SPEW Executive Committee (which to me is telling*) claimed the opposition was unrepresentative, and dishonest. And while I’m no stranger to a fight between two dishonest groups equally as terrible, after this dispute came to ahead it was followed by mass resignations which does suggest that the NSSN officers were the more popular and closer to the truth of the matter.

On the 22nd of January meeting the SPEW members dominated (its an old tactic from the days of Militant, called stacking a meeting) and forced through their proposal. This meant that from 23rd of January the NSSN had to work to setup a project of the SPEW, on behalf of the SPEW. Understandably the non SPEW members didn’t feel like working for a political party they weren’t members of and so walked away. And that was all she wrote for the NSSN. This dispute tanked SPEW’s reputation, amongst the trade union constituency, the jewel in the crown for most Trotskyist groups. At least one General Secretary had written an open letter to dissuade them from this plan and the shop stewards informed the rest of the union apparatus. And of course all the other leftist groups wasted no time spreading the information. It’s also clear that the dispute was purely about control, the NSSN had already agreed to resist the public spending cuts in some form so this couldn’t have been motivated by principal, unless we count naked self interest. If the SPEW were genuine in building a powerful anti cuts movement and had no interest in controlling the NSSN they had several options, 1) join an already existing anti-cuts group, or 2)set up their own group but keep it independent of the NSSN. Either option would have allowed them to work with the NSSN on its own terms.

I do feel sorry for the members who put years of effort into the organisation only to have another group wreck it for them. And for any workers who relied upon the NSSN in their workplace struggles because this politicking couldn't have helped.

A textbook case of highjacking, in hindsight this wasn’t really surprising given that SPEW is the child of Militant. But there you are. I don't really have an overall point here, I just thought it'd be worth sharing my experiences with this group for reference purposes. Though I suppose it might be useful knowledge for anyone interested in joining such an organization. I mean when I first encountered the "Socialist Party" tm I didn't know about their Trotskyist leanings or their dodgy heritage. They talked a good British leftist game about nationalisation and the need for workers militancy etc, which was in tune with my politics at the time.

Fortunately I held off joining until I knew more about them and my education took me in a different direction.

*To elaborate the dispute was publicly between a group of NSSN officers and the SPEW executive committee as a whole and not just the party members who had joined the NSSN. Which confirmed the allegation that the SPEW members were carrying out party orders.

The Alliance for Workers' Liberty Need to work on the Alliance part

Quick note: this account is related to the UCU strike section of the SPEW part.

I talked a bit about how me and a friend supported a picket of UCU lecturers at Hull University above. In addition to the SPEW student  contingent who walked off to hold a demonstration on their own there was also a small showing by the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) student section. Three people in total, though on reflection I can only confirm that the groups leader was a paid up member of the AWL. Anyway, as the picket wore on, my friend suggested we go and see how the other pickets were doing since we were just members of the public showing our support we could come and go as we pleased. The University of Hull is an open campus with multiple points of entry spread out over several square miles. 

We spoke to the UCU stewards but they were unsure of where exactly the other pickets had been set up. At that point the leader of the AWLers speaks up and politely gives us directions, so we thanked him and went on our way, only we couldn't find any of them. So, we went back and later learnt that he had lied to us to get us out of the way. If you're wondering why such pettiness? Well, earlier in the day he had approached us to give us the "talk" the sales pitch for his group, which is how I knew he was AWL as he had no identifiable merch like the young SPEWers did. We were polite but not interested and he soon gave up and ignored us for most of the time we spent there. I think he wanted to get rid of us since we were of no use to him. 

This may seem like small beer, and in a vacuum I'd agree, even a small setup like the AWL is bound to have a couple arseholes in the mix. But its not in a vacuum, this wasn't my only run in with the AWL its the main one I had, I've had plenty of run ins with eager recruiters on TUC marches who become dismissive and rude once its clear they aren't getting a bite and I know other people who've had similar experiences with AWL. And while the AWL are one of the more atypical Trot groups -support for Israel being one of their more notorious- this pattern of behaviour isn't one of their differences, its one of the things they share in common.

Socialist Appeal: The SApps found themselves a Sap

This one is personal, well more personal then the others. I have a friend who I don't see much of any more. First it was the usual things, time and distance as we go down different paths, but recently their has been a further strain on our relationship, my friend has joined Socialist Appeal. Socialist Appeal like the AWL were part of the Trot filter feeders who latched onto the British Labour party until Keir Starmer kicked them out. Of all the established Brit Trots they kept the lowest profile, aside from seeing them trying to sell newspapers outside Labour party events I had managed to avoid them. Now, it seems they've managed to infiltrate my limited social circle.

I'm not going to use real names, the odds of my friend discovering this are slim to nil, like most Trot converts he just doesn't read outsiders any more, but still. My mate used to be quite a nice person to hang around with, have a beer, chat about shows and films and play video games with. Politically he was a Tory who like the works of Milton Friedman and other economists I hadn't heard of before. But, he was good to socialise with and we didn't talk politics. Well, I didn't talk politics with him, another friend who was closer to him and even shared a flat for a couple of years with did talk politics, and he came around bit by bit. So we could talk a bit more freely, and things were great for awhile, then his job and a move took him out of direct contact outside of messages.

This is going to get confusing so to limit that a bit let's call my Trot friend Leon, and my other friend who features quite a bit in this account, uhm, Cliff. 

Unfortunately, my words at the introduction have come to haunt me "my political education has led me to change and develop as I gain more knowledge and experience, nothing unusual there it happens to everyone more or less". Well, my friend Leon is a normal person and they've been on a similar journey, only now they've taken a very different path. Currently Leon is a paid up member of the SApps, and he has been behaving much like the stereotypes of the British Trotskyite. He is an aggressive pushing of their paper, he flooded messages with links to the online version, when my other friend Cliff went to stay with him for a few days Leon while still perfectly hospitable kept pressuring Cliff to buy several copies of the paper, and while they were out socialising in the pubs and bars of ______ Leon would occasionally break off to flog newspapers to people trying to enjoy a drink. 

This has gone on for sometime now, thankfully, Leon has come to realise we aren't interested in buying his paper so he stops pushing it on us. Though he will still message some of us to tell us about the latest great article by some person we've never heard of who on googling turns out to be one of the leading lights of the SApps. If it stayed at that level this would just be embarrassing, or as the kids say `cringe` it certainly makes me cringe from second hand embarrassment. But its sadly more than that. For a group that decries the exploitation of the proletariat the SApps seem to have little issue exploiting their own. The pushing of newspapers isn't just a symptom of overenthusiasm from a convert, its actively coerced from above. There is a table charting how many papers each group has sold, I know this because Leon once showed it when his group did particularly well on it. 

In addition, Leon has changed quite a bit. Back in the Tory days he would disagree with the rest of the group but it wasn't a source of tension, we either moved on to other topics or in the few times we stayed on topic he was opinion to hearing other opinions. Now? I would say Leon reminds me of a walking tannoy system. What is Leon's views on X? Well if you could ask him, but its often quicker and easier to look up what the SApps line on the subject is. And when he's been in a social gathering that talks about things the SApps are in disagreement, he'll either get argumentative or just go silent in that awkward way where the body language is telling you a boiler is getting close to bursting. And in addition the SApps are taking up more and more of his free time, often he's spending his weekends manning something or walking a street corner hawking a paper or a leaflet or something else. He still keeps up the golf, and spends his disposable income on expensive soviet kitsch, Lenin busts and a Trotsky tee, tat like that. 

I don't see a good end to this story. The best case scenario is that eventually Leon realises he's being taken advantage of and then drops out of politics all together. Worst, he stays the course and ends up alienating everyone around him.

Addendum: The Socialist "Workers" Party

This is just a short one. I think the most surprising thing about my encounters with the Trots is how little I've run into the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Nowadays, this isn't that odd, the fallout from the horrific exposure of sexual assault by leading members and the steps the SWP took to shield them from consequences has caused severe though sadly not fatal damage to that groups influence. But even back in the days of the political joke about the fastest growing party in the UK being the "ex-members of the SWP" I had little experience.

This was back when I was still a student, the SWP were holding a stall in the hall for members, and as I passed by someone came up to them and made the obvious crack about how its ironic that students are part of the Socialist Workers Party. I imagine their student arm got this quite a bit. Anyway, one of the stall holders immediately reached into his pocket and pulled out an invoice from a year earlier that showed he had been paid for some summer work. I think he thought this was a damning rebuttal, but to me it just looked sad. Keeping hold of an old payslip just to prove your prole cred wasn't impressive. For starters, back then most 15-18 year olds were paid cash in hand for work they did on the side, I certainly was, so having an official payslip suggested a form of privilege, probably nepotism. Could be totally wrong about that of course, only encountered him for about a minute before we both went our separate ways, but this is about my impressions.

And that's it for the Swappers. Like SPEW, AWL and all the rest I've been in physical proximity to them many times on protest marches and demonstrations but those encounters weren't worth mentioning.

Conclusion

So then, what was the point of all this? There are problems with anecdotes, but I don't have any sympathy for the school of thought that rejects them entirely. That said, I don't want anyone who reads this to take it as gospel on its own. I want this to be added to the body of evidence concerning Trotskyism in the United Kingdom. I have had other encounters most of which were unpleasant, but its even less substance than the SWP section. I have also had some encounters with people that were pleasant, mostly ex-Labour members who joined TUSC, I thought about including them, but "ran into X after not seeing him in years, he looked well and we caught up" didn't seem worth getting into. And, to be honest I'm not sure they were fully converted to the cause, most of these were kicked out of Labour and I think joined TUSC as it was the only group in the area remotely like the Labour party. 

Speaking of TUSC, looking at now in the 2020s, I'm reminded of the mean-spirited joke about the audience of the BBC political panel show Question Time. "And tonight as always our audience is made up of die-hard partisans (SPEW members), single issue nutters (the members of the few non SPEW groups) and the remaining seats have been filled by people looking for somewhere dry to sit now that the library has closed (ex-Labours)". So far it continues to fail to coalesce into a coherent political grouping. I think SPEW may eventually come to regard the initiative as a total failure and retire it in the future, but we'll see.

Its perfectly fine to agree with or disagree with what I've written above, the steps to anonymise and the passage of time means its a bit fuzzy. I recommend looking at other accounts of dealings with these specific groups and the other Trot groups that are active in Britain.

Passive Income and digital sweatshops

 Dan Olsen released a video investigating a niche internet grift revolving around the appeal of passive income. 

I had never heard of the Mikkelsen twins or Urban Writers, the principal villains of this particular scam method. But I had to keep pausing the video because much of it felt so familiar. As amateurish as a lot of the Mikkelsen twins pitch comes across the appeal is obvious, passive income is great. Everyone who isn't a lifestyle coach scam artist will admit working hard for low pay isn't great. Aside from physical and mental tiring you also have to wrestle with feelings of inadequacy and wastefulness. So getting money for a long time after you've stopped putting effort into it has its advantages.

So, while I was surprised watching the pitch get elaborated on reflection a scam that offers you the reward of passive income with zero effort, completely passive income if you will, well that's bound to attract a few individuals. It's pretty maddening to watch, but I can say from experience that this method is unlikely to work, especially now that a very big platform has publicly exposed them. 

I have some experience with working in the internet gig economy freelancing for anonymous clients using job boards that operate very similarly to Urban Writers. There were sections of the video, the part outlining the pay and conditions for the ghost writer and what it feels like to write a book yourself were unpleasant to sit through because they were very accurate to what I went through.

The response so far has been very positive, though I've seen some questions and reluctance to believe that parts of pipeline can be realistic. Artificial Intelligence programs have been getting a lot of buzz lately especially the bots that make digital artworks from prompts, some have suggested that this could explain how the writers are able to live and work on such terms. Which simply isn't feasible for a number of reasons. We're still a long way off from AI created books that are coherent much less passable, the market sites like Amazon and Apple don't care about sloppy prose and run on sentences but they do have some standards for publishing. Furthermore the intellectual sweatshops like Urban Writers couldn't survive without a large pool of desperate writers to churn out the goods. If AI could provide product to the standards a client desires then there wouldn't be much need for middlemen groups like Urban Writers, just buy or license the software and make as many low content Search Engine Optimised trash you want.

The reason these intellectual sweat shops work is simply because there's a large pool of eager or desperate people who are vulnerable enough to be open to the few crumbs thrown their way. Writing, even technical and copy writing require passion as careers. It may seem like light work if you only take into account the time spent physically using a pen, keyboard or typewriter, and assume a payment equivalent or better than average salary at the end. But as Dan's video makes clear, this is not the case, there is research time, editing, planning, and for many writers myself included time spent in a sort of mental stalling phase where you cannot easily move into any of the phases. And I can attest that Dan is correct when he states that even much of the time that's not supposed to be devoted to the writing task, breaks, other chores etc, is often time still spent obsessing over the book or dealing with anxiety or frustration over the work. I'll add that even when I've finished a project and it's been submitted, I often spend a few days in a sort of limbo where the lack of a project makes me feel restless. So it requires a lot from you, and this is probably why writers in fiction are often presented as high strung, self absorbed, fragile, and erratic individuals as that can be what's visible from the outside.

As to why this makes writers so vulnerable to these types of content farm outfits, well that's more structural. Publishing is a small world and thanks to monopolies its becoming even smaller. At the time of writing Penguin and Random House are battling in the courts for the right to merge with many celebrated authors giving evidence to the opposition as they fear the merger will severely impede their abilities to make a living and pursue a career. Just imagine what its like for someone starting out or on a much lower rung. And that's in fiction, novels are the main money and fame making area of publishing, if you're a poet, a short story writer or a non-fiction writer there are even fewer options to take. I remember when I left university I was told that a non-fiction book selling over 3,000 copies would be placed in the best seller category.

If you're not already a big name you need to build up a body of work, this is very difficult in non-fiction publishing. From personal experience the few publishers for that aren't very hospitable to original research that isn't attached to an author who's already established in a relevant field. It can even be frosty to authors who have been published but there has been a long gap between the last accepted submission and the present. Feast or famine was the advise I was given about publication, if you want to make a viable go at it you have to publish early and regularly.

These attitudes freeze out a lot of graduates and passionate amateurs. If your desperate for work, any work these shady companies can be the only game in town at least at the start. I tried to support myself in this field after graduation and my applications met with silence. I managed to get several gigs as a freelancer for several websites that were just a bit above modern clickbait mills, and some contracts on job board sites very similar to how Dan described Urban Writers system. Dan's assumptions on the emotional state of someone having to depend on such a system were spot on. I spent all day and chunks of the night grinding out assignments with limited research, and I was still making the equivalent of welfare. And that was when every other part of the arrangement was working fine, which it rarely did.

After walking away from it I wrote about the experience, looking back on that piece now I think its the most pessimistic bit of writing I've ever published. Since that time there have been some changes, the level of oversight on the self publishing market has improved a little, and some of the worst offenders have gone bust, though a few have rebranded, and overall the market has become dominated by a few big players. I still could not in good conscience recommend this system to anyone wishing to start out or make a living out of it.

Behold! Tis lord Odesk, benevolently giving labour to
the grateful scribe

In more positive news, there is now a union for freelancers which back when I wrote digital economy was something I didn't think was possible. Its international though currently its main presence is in the USA and Canada, expansion has been slow but is happening. It has also been relatively successful in two areas, its become a method for freelancers to share experiences and information about conditions in the industry which is vital to stopping the most egregious examples of exploitation which rely on a company interacting directly with an inexperienced individual, and has had some success with campaigns targeting specific employers. 

I still freelance occasionally when time permits me, but now I mostly stick to submissions for magazines, journals and websites I've had previous dealings with. I've also started using platforms like amazon to host some translation and non fiction work. These platforms offer an alternative for authors of niche material, but a path to riches they aren't for most. Passive income is pretty good so long as you put some effort in and don't cook up a scheme that exploits others. Personally, I think the major bottleneck comes after creation. If you've worked on a book, collection of poems, audiobook, song, art, video etc. then these platforms will make your work more available to a potential audience. But it's the promotion or the lack of it that gets in the way of pivoting to this as a viable career. I was not surprised to learn that Dan's book sold one copy in its lifespan as he didn't do any promotion and because of the pseudonym kept a lot of distance from it. I wish he had kept it up after publishing the video so we could see how much even that limited and deprecating plug thirty minutes into a video did for it. 

You either have to buy advertising, which takes a low/no cost option and turns it into a high cost one, and a high cost for a gamble. Or word of mouth, and the issue with word of mouth I find is that getting people to buy something is the easy part, and I find that quite hard, its getting those customers to rate, review or even mention what they've purchased that is the truly difficult task. My sales to date across all formats, including discounts is around 400, my ratings and reviews have been less than ten. Haven't had any refunds or e-mailed complaints and the few ratings and reviews are positive, but that isn't a firm foundation for a retirement plan.

And I'm not alone here. A common question in forums for authors is "how do I get more reviews?" and I've none more than one talented artist who put a lot into a project that was selling relatively well, that burnt out because of a lack of response from the audience. It goes back to passion really, earning a living is a necessity in our times, but the feelings of failure and lack of impact can eat away at a creative type. So, if you enjoy something letting the people who made it know goes a long way.

In conclusion, well done Dan, support artists and of course

Buy my book!