After reporting on attempts to censure one member of Manchester LU, Complat supporter Laurie McCauley has been suspended from the branch, on the basis of spurious complaints about ‘privacy’ of branch matters.

As well as another report from Manchester, the Weekly Worker features several articles on transparency, the right to criticise, and the repeated failure of previous attempts to make it big by hushing up, and clamping down on openly expressed political differences:

Free speech: The permitted shades of grey

Karl Marx stood for free speech, in the tradition of the first amendment to the US constitution, writes Eddie Ford

Left Unity: Freedom to criticise must be defended

Laurie McCauley reports on his suspension from Manchester branch

Left Unity: A matter of political health

Unity requires freedom to criticise, argues Paul Demarty

‘Speaking bitterness’ and Left Unity

The precursor of ‘safe spaces’ was unsuccessful and destructive in past movements of the oppressed, writes Mike Macnair