Agree with Sol. Didn't approve of GS endorsements for candidates in past, still don't now.

The GS's preferred VP candidate (who she endorsed publicly) began tonight's #CoronaContract hustings with a promise of a 'fearless project of transparency'...

Ok, let's talk about that. https://twitter.com/SolGamsu/status/1292846721802936321

I was on the GS' campaign. I have been seriously disappointed in the utter hypocrisy of a network which talks about transparency and accountability and then won't admit it is a faction, instead aiming to score points on the basis that they and their candidates are non-aligned.

This simply isn't true.

The NEC G4GS slate was built out of members of her campaign team & more or less prominent supporters on Twitter. When I declared for the NEC I was approached to run on their slate. After a correspondence I decided not to and went on my own.

They are well-organised, run effective campaigns - as Nick Hardy, formerly of G4GS who now works in Carlow Street - has publicly noted. No arguments. They are good at what they do.

But they consistently claim to be non-aligned.

This isn't true.

This is a network which developed out of USS Briefs, through G4GS, into what it is now - the GS' loyalist faction.

That's fine. It should just say that's what it is.

I don't think the GS should involve herself in internal elections but hey, it's Britain.

So I'm disappointed. I was also disappointed with a recent blog that tried to play itself as the (non-aligned) voice of reason, but really offered precious little criticism of the GS faction despite its 'plague on all their houses' framing.

Politics is shit. It's how it is. We want different things, even when we seem to want the same thing.

And it frustrates me when critical people, including left activists, switch off their critical faculty because someone claims to on their side.

And also, and I won't win any friends here, because they tell them what they want to hear.

Smile strikes and cosplaying Noughties radical movements isn't going to save jobs.

It isn't going to win a culture war.

Only militant, well-organised, industrial strength can give us half a chance.

Much of what we hear is the language of neoliberalism repackaged.

'Innovative' approaches to industrial action.

Maybe we can have an Industrial Action Excellence Framework with an Impact Case Study.

This is performative radicalism without risk.

And you will win absolutely nothing without taking risks.

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people say they are tired of strike action, that we are 'professionals', we shouldn't have to do this.

That's the mentality which at my local branch has led us to sign an agreement with HR that actually WRITES IN A DATE THAT COMPULSORY REDUNDANCIES CAN TAKE PLACE, even while freezing wages, freezing promotions, and increasing workloads.

You read that right.

Thousands of casualised jobs have gone across the sector.

The casualised are the cannon fodder of HE industrial relations.

You need solidarity, not smile strikes.

And solidarity means taking risks for others.

It's no secret that the GS wasn't keen on Four Fights, and that her former branch moved a motion at Sector Congress to decouple the disputes, spoken to by her preferred VP candidate.

Now, though I disagree with that, that's fine, their view - if they are prepared to explain why.

If they are prepared to explain who they are and what their collective agenda is.

But they aren't doing that.

They know that some academic members in particular don't like the language of factions.

That 'independent' sounds good.

Or 'non-aligned' for that matter.

Faction sounds like - as one member put it to me - 'student union politics in the 70s'.

So why not have the best of both worlds?

Be a faction, but say you aren't.

Say some radical things, but avoid radical action.

Make people whose egos rest on feeling clever feel clever and cool.

And take power in the union.

TL;DR, if we are going to win as a union we have to, at bare minumum, be honest with ourselves.

If we can't manage that then we deserve what is coming to us.

If we are going to have 'a fearless project of transparency' then those promising it should stop playing games.