Thread by @bobfrombrockley

1/x

So @paulmasonnews has been talking about Socialist Action as an example of pro-Putin politics on the British left. The blue tick left have been responding saying that what he’s attacking has no meaningful existence off the Internet…

2/ I think Socialist Action (whose guru John Ross was one of Ken Livingstone’s advisors) are, despite their tiny size, particularly pernicious due to the organisational power they have in many of the UK’s (trade union bankrolled) key left organisations.

3/ For example, behind big name figureheads, Socialist Action share control of Stand Up To Racism/Unite Against Fascism with the SWP (they each have a full-time? national organiser in them, presumably funded by union affiliations). workersliberty.org/story/2012/02/… books.google.co.uk/books?id=C2a5D…

4/ Their current campaign pointing out the hypocrisy of the warmth towards Ukrainian refugees with the hostility to Syrian refugees particularly galls me, given Socialist Action backed the Russian/Assad onslaught on Syrian civilians which led to mass displacement.

5/ For example, check out this horrible 2015 piece by John Ross when SA joined Boris Johnson in backing Assad & Putin’s murderous bombing campaign, using Islamophobic GW Bush style War on Terror rhetoric.

socialistaction.net/2015/12/07/bor…

6/ Or this horrible response to Assad’s horrific (Russian-backed) chemical weapon mass murder of civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in 2014. socialistaction.net/2013/09/03/it-…

7/ Just as SA blame Putin’s invasion of Ukraine now on “NATO imperialism”, they blamed Assad’s (Putin-backed) war on “Western imperialism”.

8/ So don’t let them gaslight you into thinking Socialist Action’s alliance with fascists to back the Kremlin is somehow trivial.

9/ Footnotes:

Socialist Action: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist…
John Ross: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ross…