The Republican Communist Network has given the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign political support, recognising it as one of the most vibrant and effective solidarity campaigns not only in Scotland, but in the whole of the UK. Therefore, we are extremely concerned to hear an accusation of a violent incident involving, a prominent member of the SPSC physically attacking someone after a meeting in Glasgow.
The way that individual political organisations associated with the Left conduct themselves is of importance to the whole of the Left. Good practice reflects well on the wider Left, poor practice reflects badly. We can see this in the furore surrounding the SWP’s mishandling of a rape accusation directed against a prominent member.
Therefore, we think it is important that a proper investigation is undertaken by the SPSC to find out what happened and, if the evidence that such a violent attack took place is sustained, that disciplinary action is taken. We wrote to the SPCC on the 19th of August seeking clarification but, despite being assured that a response was on its way, we have received no official response. We hoped the SPSC would receive our letter in the spirit of support in which it was sent. Our action, in part, stems from our expectation that the wider Left would quite correctly want to hold the RCN and its members to account for behaviour which went against the principles we struggle so hard to have identified with the politics of the Left.
We feel we must now public ally raise our disquiet and concerns over the alleged incident and the way it has been handled by the SPSC.
Republican Communist Network
19th August 2013
This week we received a reply to our letter seeking clarification about a violent incident that was reported to have taken place involving a member of SPSC. The reply from interim SPSC National Secretary, Rob Paterson, confirmed that the incident had taken place and the person involved had resigned immediately from the committee and has had his SPSC membership suspended for 3 months. The main reason for the delay in dealing with this was the lack of a disciplinary and appeals procedure, a draft of which will be produced for discussion at the next AGM. SPSC are also pursuing a meeting with groups involved at the meeting just prior to the incident.
As far as the RCN in concerned, this response indicates that the SPSC has taken the issue seriously and dealt with it appropriately.
Republican Communist Network
29th September 2013