Bullying
The history of the Party leadership bullying and intimidating members out of the Party is legendary. It is matched only by its history of boring people out of the Party. While choosing to remain bored is certainly an option you can decide to endure, being bullied and intimidated is certainly not an acceptable alternative.
Perhaps the reliance of the leadership on these tactics explains why the Party has no rules or guidelines on how to deal with these issues? Whatever the reason, there is no excuse for the Party to ignore well tried and tested guidelines operating outside the Party – such as the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Bullying and Harassment – Prevention Guidelines for Trade Union Activists.
So, when a case of alleged bullying is presented within the Party and it has no rules or guidelines of its own to work from, what would it do? Seek out good practise and operate from that? No.
It rejected all pleas from the accused to use established good practise and instead insisted that the accused accepts an enquiry based on absolutely no rules other than those decided by the NEC and of which the accused was to be given no insight. That should do it.
Indeed, it did do it. It put the Party in an incredibly dangerous position. It left it open to being sued at one end or, at the very least, being subject to ridicule and embarrassment at the other end. It is the job of the leadership to ensure that the Party is never put in such possibilities of harm and especially not harm of its own making. But, that is what they have done.
In a number of cases, they have left a paper-trail of evidence of discriminatory practises, false accusations, intimidatory practises, isolationist practises, secret complaints, show trials and downright thuggery that if pursued aggressively could bring the Party to its knees. The leadership has gambled that since they have never before been pursued aggressively that they can continue their merry dance. But, as in so many other areas where the leadership has not noticed, its world is changing.