Women’s Voice

Women’s Voice (WV) was an organisation based on groups formed within the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in 1978. The organisation was the result of the success of the paper Women’s Voice originally produced by women members of the International Socialists (IS). International Socialists (IS) / Socialist Workers Party (SWP) The International Socialists (IS)/Socialist Worker Party (SWP) is a Trotskyist political party. It started life in 1950 as the Socialist Review Group, changing its name to the International Socialists in 1962 and then to the Socialist Workers Party in 1977. The IS/SWP was of significant interest to the policing and security apparatus, spied on by at least 35 undercover officers. This profile is a stub that will updated. Full page: International Socialists (IS) / Socialist Workers Party (SWP)  WV pledged to ‘Fight for Women’s Liberation and Socialism’.

Disambiguation: There was also another 'Women's Voice' - connected to the Maoist Revolutionary Women's Union. Women’s Liberation Front (WLF) Women’s Liberation Front (WLF) was a Maoist organisation founded in 1969 by members of the Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist League and closely affiliated to the British Vietnam Solidarity Front, Friends of China and the Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation. The WLF campaigned on key feminist concerns including equal pay, domestic work, childcare, and birth control, and its members were involved in industrial action and in broader left struggles. It changed its name to the Revolutionary Women’s Union in February 1972 and went into decline the following year. The WLF was infiltrated by HN348 'Sandra Davies', and reported on by HN45 'Dave Robertson'. Full page: Women’s Liberation Front (WLF)

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From May 1976 to March 1982, WV, as a publication and as an organisation, was reported on by a variety of SDS undercover officers, including HN80 ‘Colin Clark’  HN80 'Colin Clark' 'Colin Clark' was the assumed name of an officer who joined the SDS in September 1976. From March 1977, he infiltrated several north London branches and the national office of the Socialist Workers Party, helping to organise the 1981 Right to Work march. He also infiltrated the Anti-Nazi League before his deployment ended in March 1982. His real name has been restricted. , HN304 ‘Graham Coates’ HN304 'Graham Coates' 'Graham Coates' is the cover name of a former Special Demonstration Squad undercover officer who, between 1977 and 1979, infiltrated the International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party and spied on several anarchist group including the Zero Collective, Persons Unknown, and the Anarchy Collective. He gave evidence to the Inquiry on several undercovers’ sexual relationships with activists and said that it was common knowledge in the SDS that such relationships took place. His real name has been restricted. Full page: HN304 'Graham Coates' , HN126 ‘Paul Gray’ HN126 ‘Paul Gray’ ‘Paul Gray’ was the fake name of an undercover who infiltrated north-west London branches of the Socialist Workers Party and Anti-Nazi League and spied on pickets at the Grunwick dispute. He joined the SDS in December 1977 and was active undercover until at least April 1982. , HN354 Vincent Harvey (‘Vince Miller’) HN354 Vincent Harvey 'Vince Miller' Vincent James Harvey used the cover name ‘Vince Miller’ while infiltrating the Socialist Workers Party as an SDS undercover officer, from 1976 to 1979. He had four sexual relationships during his time undercover, including with Inquiry core participant ‘Madeleine’. He later became director of the UK Division at the National Criminal Intelligence Service from 1998 to 2003. Full page: HN354 Vincent Harvey 'Vince Miller' , HN96 ‘Michael James’  HN96 'Michael James' 'Michael James' is the cover name used by a former Special Demonstration Squad undercover officer who, between late 1978 and Spring 1983, infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party in Hackney and the national leadership of the Troops Out Movement. He also spied on Red Action and the Irish Republican Socialist Party. His real name has been restricted.  and HN301 ‘Bob Stubbs’. HN301 'Bob Stubbs' HN301 ‘Bob Stubbs’ joined the SDS in 1971, and left in April 1976. He infiltrated the Hammersmith and Fulham and Central London branches of the Anti-Internment League and the Wandsworth and Battersea and Paddington branches of the International Socialists. Many of his reports were not available to the Inquiry and his real name has been restricted.  

Most of these officers had infiltrated IS/SWP branches across London, which brought them into organisational contact with the editorial team of Women’s Voice and with members of WV after the organisation formed in 1978.

The origins of WV lie in a bulletin produced by a group of women members of the IS in 1970. The group was inspired by the first Women’s Liberation Conference in February 1970 and launched the bulletin ‘to get to know a little more about what the women in our organisation [IS] were thinking and doing’. Women’s Voice (37), I.S. Women, 1 Jan 1980.

The bulletin was renamed Women’s Voice in 1972 and developed a more ‘professional look’, first as a newspaper and then as a magazine. The publication emphasised issues relating to working-class women, including strikes and disputes involving women workers, equal pay and opportunities, childcare, abortion rights and women’s rights to financial independence. 

It also covered international struggles involving women, women’s history and women’s health issues. It supported ‘all the demands of the women’s liberation movement including the right of women to determine their own sexuality and an end to violence against women’. Sue Worley, Jam tomorrow? Socialist women and Women’s Liberation, 1968-82: an oral history approach”. In: Against the grain: the British far left from 1956 Edts. Evan Smith and Matthew Worley., Manchester University Press, 2019.

In 1978 the success of Women’s Voice and the increasing membership base of the party led the SWP to set up women-only WV groups country-wide. Their membership was open to both SWP members and women sympathisers, and WV encouraged both local activities and national gatherings at conferences. In 1979 the SWP said it had 51 WV groups across the country, 13 of them in London.

Despite this apparent success, the SWP leadership decided at the annual party conference in 1980 to shut down the WV organisation. Two years later, after 100 issues of Women’s Voice over a ten-year period, the magazine was wound up too and its themes were integrated into the main SWP publication Socialist Worker.

Sources

Sue Bruley. Jam tomorrow? Socialist women and Women’s Liberation, 1968-1982: an oral history approach. Sue Worley, Jam tomorrow? Socialist women and Women’s Liberation, 1968-82: an oral history approach”. In: Against the grain: the British far left from 1956 Edts. Evan Smith and Matthew Worley., Manchester University Press, 2019.

David Renton. Women’s Voice: in retrospect. David Renton, David Renton. Women’s Voice: in retrospect Lives: running (26 September 2013) Retrieved from: , Lives Running, 26 Sep 2013.

Women’s Voice. What was Women’s Voice? Womens Voice, What was Women’s Voice? , Women's Voice Archive, 2000.