A brief thing; the GS has come in for some criticism in an online article today. Whether you agree with that or not, members having the right to criticise shd be uncontentious. Dispute the arguments made, don’t attack the authors through smear and allusion.

I say this because I am sensitive on this issue. I wrote the vote of no confidence in the previous General Secretary. I took it with my comrade Rhian to Congress. In the process, we were smeared as members of the SWP - neither of us ever had been...

CW: sexual assault. This was very sensitive because of the SWP role in the Comrade Delta scandal. I don’t want to speak for others, but for myself I was sexually assaulted when I was young. To be smeared in this way was awful. I had never been in the SWP.

Some of these smears were even repeated by union branch twitter accounts. When I asked a national union official for support to stop it, he shrugged his shoulders and - literally - said ‘there is nothing I can do’.

The authors of piece today have been smeared in connection with the Comrade Delta scandal, as I was. This is because they have criticised the GS. Now, you may feel the criticism is unfair - so unpick their arguments. Debate those. But don’t carry on with this ad hominem stuff.

It’s part of the reason why UCU is so toxic for many, and why people don’t want to get involved. When I was anonymous as Punk Academic it was initially to shield me from any potential employment blowback, but in reality it probably did more good in shielding me from UCU blowback.

Now, I’m standing for an elected office myself. I am serially unsuccessful in winning elections, and this thread probably won’t help, but anyone in my position is fair game for criticism from members. I really don’t like it - who does - but it’s fair.

So please stick to critiquing people’s arguments and positions if they are offered by ordinary members, not try to silence them by smearing them. You can say people’s criticisms are unfair or erroneous. Of course you can.

When I did the VNC, which obviously resulted in a lot of grief, I said nothing about it in public until Congress. We played by the rules. And then people started writing articles about us in the Morning Star, all sorts of things. I’m not naive. I know the score.

But I am rank and file to the core, and with that in mind I’ll always defend members’ right to criticise, whether I agree with them or not.