An illuminating article in Socialist Worker, the organ of the Trotskyite SWP, provides graphic further confirmation of the view that those who are busy congratulating themselves over the defeat of the AUT boycott had better wake up fast and smell the coffee. Under a headline boasting

'AUT boycott debate that has put Palestine back on the map'

it crows:

'The decision dramatically highlighted Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. That remains a gain, despite the boycott decision being overturned at a recalled conference last week. Although media coverage in Europe and the US was hostile to the boycott, the presumption behind the original vote, that Israel oppresses the Palestinians, went more or less unchallenged.'

Even more illuminatingly, it goes on to gloat about

'a key political change that has taken place in the AUT. That reflects the fact that it has become a proper trade union as international competition has turned university professors and lecturers into another section of the world working class. Last year’s strike transformed the union and recruited predominantly young and temporary staff. Many of the new members are part of the anti-war movement, part of the anti-G8 forces and so on. These radicalised people joined forces with the left at the April conference to pass the pro-boycott motions in the teeth of opposition from the union executive.'

In other words, the AUT has been infiltrated and subverted by a union within a union, nicely priming it for its proposed merger with the already radicalised NATFHE. As a result, SW looks forward with eager anticipation to the next stage of the campaign, which will take the form of blacklisting academics. And it can do this, apparently, without consulting its members at all:

'Activists within the AUT now need to consider what to do next. We need to urge our executive to “grey list” Judea and Samaria University because it is an illegal institution in an illegal settlement and academics are legally bound by the Geneva Convention and a ruling by the International Court of Justice not to work with it.We do not have to call a conference to do this. The executive has the power and the duty to do it.“Grey listing” is a boycott tactic long used by the AUT in which institutional relations are suspended whilst contacts between individual academics may continue. Dialogue with Palestine is now conference policy. We can use this to bring Palestinian academics and teachers to Britain to build awareness of Palestine and of a campaign for a boycott of Israel along the lines of the boycott campaign against South African apartheid. The left and the opposition to oppression have been strengthened by the campaign for boycott, and the AUT has actually gained members.'

What is the AUT going to do about this?