Alex Snowdon
Alex Snowdonis a Counterfire activist in Newcastle. He is active in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition and the National Education Union.
Socialist Workers Party
At the conference of the Socialist Workers Party which took place on 9-10 January 2010, the expulsions of dissident members Clare Solomon and Alex Snowdon were confirmed.
Both members were expelled for "factional behaviour" — a charge which was backed up with evidence provided by emails that the SWP Central Committee got hold of by hacking into their accounts. Solomon and Snowdon were members of the minority “Left Platform” within the SWP.
They were expelled because the Central Committee judged their membership of this small minority platform to be a danger to the SWP. Although the SWP’s constitution granted Solomon and Snowdon a right of appeal, neither was allowed to address the hearing at Conference which confirmed their expulsions.
The substantive political basis of the SWP Left Platform, led by former SWP leaderJohn Rees and Lindsey German, is unclear. The rhetoric around the conflict between them and the Central Committee, led by Martin Smith and Alex Callinicos, has Rees and German as the champions of “united fronts”, and Smith and Callinicos as the champions of “party-building”.