Red Banner magazine ceases publication.

national | anti-capitalism | press release

Thursday June 07, 2007 16:05

by Red Banner editorial board - Red Banner magazine

Editorial board of Red Banner magazine ceases publication.

3rd June 2007

The editorial board of Red Banner has decided to cease publication of the magazine and to incorporate it into a proposed new publication in the future.

Since the editorial board meeting of 29th March, a board member, solely on his own initiative with the subsequent support of a second board member, has sought to exclude another board member from the editorial board. Since 8th May he has sought to exclude yet another member. He then refused to conduct editorial business or to agree to the convening of editorial meetings, bringing work on issue No. 28 of Red Banner to a halt.

In order to address the situation and to discuss and make decisions on the future of the magazine, we called a meeting of the five members of the editorial board for Monday 28th May.

Neither of the other two board members attended or acknowledged notice of the meeting.

At that meeting the editorial board resolved:

“…that the only option is to wrap up the magazine. [‘X’s] determination to impose his will on the editorial board, the exclusion and attempted exclusion of two board members and the practical paralysis that [‘X’] has now imposed on the production of the magazine, make it impossible to carry on.

This inflexibility also makes it impossible to envisage down the line any editorial and political changes needed to develop the magazine. So it is timely for a new, or two new, publications to succeed Red Banner. It is the intention of the editorial board to begin discussions among Red Banner readers and supporters and others on the left with a view to a new publication, incorporating Red Banner and its original spirit.

Red Banner has maintained publication, respect and a small readership for ten years, as the only independent socialist publication in print that allowed for the free and open exchange of socialist ideas in considered, extensive and detailed form. It could not have done so for one year without the dedication of the two editorial board members who have now brought Red Banner to a standstill. Despite our unfortunately irreconcilable differences we salute their past indispensability to Red Banner and their continued work for the oppressed and for socialism.

With a special irony in the case of Red Banner, the left has disgraced itself again by splitting. Red Banner, which emerged as an alternative to sectarianism, to champion a new politics, has fallen victim to intolerance and overbearance on its own editorial board and produced another dispute between factions.

We request the other editorial board members to now make all the assets of Red Banner available to the new publication or publications. We undertake to honour subscriptions to Red Banner, or to refund the money, and we hope that the readers, subscribers and writers of Red Banner will carry their support over to its proposed successor.”

The editorial board sent its resolution to the two missing board members and set about reporting the full and detailed resolution to the subscribers, contributors and supporters of Red Banner. We are now doing so with the updated position, including the paragraph below. Before our resolution was circulated one of us received in the post on 31st May a copy of Issue 28 of Red Banner, produced (we guess) by the other two board members. Now they have advertised Issue 28 on Indymedia and a Red Banner website has been constructed and launched. We are compelled to make a public statement.

The narrative is now complete: the exclusion of first one, then two, non-compliant editorial members, has now extended to all three. The editorial work for Issue No.28 has not been halted at all, just carried out by a minority on the editorial board with the exclusion of the members unacceptable to them, while boycotting a validly convened editorial meeting and whatever decisions it might make. The board decided to cease publication. Issue No.28 is a pirate issue. Its publishers should now comply with the clear intentions of the editorial board, produce their own publication and desist from their usurpation of Red Banner.

Des Derwin
John Meehan
Brendan Young.

Red Banner Editorial Board members.