Thanks for the clarification Scabby Rabbit but I can only assume this was a later development in the campaign than the period I was primarily referring to because Cian P. was one of those SPers who was at NSC meetings though the first half of 2012 trotting out the line that “it is too soon to set up local groups”.
I am not surprised that there was difficulty in establishing these local groups at a later point as the campaign as a whole has been in decline since the highpoint around April/May 2012.
JRG – so you are really saying that at NSC meetings throughout the first half of 2012 there wasn’t a constant refrain from SP members that “it is too soon to set up local groups” (or another variant I remember “different regions work in different ways”)?
I am not sure if anyone else on here was at those meetings but if they were then I am sure they can verify what I am claiming.
If there are such people then perhaps they might remember a particularly intemperate outburst by me where I made an expletive ridden comment that perhaps the myth of a “Rebel Cork” must in fact be true because we were able to create these local groups when others (SP & SWP) were claiming it was impossible in other areas.
Perhaps you are attempting to wiggle out of this by saying “At no time did the Socialist Party attempt to stop any group being established” – but I have never claimed that this was the problem with the SP approach. Congratulations – another straw horse smashed to the ground!
The problem was that the SP did not take the initiative to make this happen.
It is not the case that local groups were spontaneously springing up all over Cork city and county (though there were some cases of this). It mostly required an act of conscious political will to organise public meetings in local areas and then in some cases a bit of initial hand-holding to encourage those local groups to stand on their own two feet. As I said this didn’t always work and even where it did work it was uneven – we didn’t get 20 versions of Cobh unfortunately.
The SP participated in this work in Cork – you can just ask your own comrades about it. Indeed the SP’s participation in this work in Cork made it even more frustrating to go to those NSC meetings and be confronted with the “its too soon” bollocks.