The Scotsman, 19/08/06, on the Sheridan split: "Sheridan looks for new Solidarity", by Louise Gray.
TOMMY Sheridan yesterday vowed to turn his back on the Scottish Socialists and to set up his own party, after admitting he had no future in the organisation he founded.
Mr Sheridan urged those in the SSP to join him in a new movement, which his supporters said could be called the Solidarity Scottish Socialist Movement - a reference to the shipworkers' opposition movement in communist Poland.
However, rivals poured scorn on the idea of Mr Sheridan using the Solidarity label and vowed to fight any new party.
Following Mr Sheridan's successful defamation case against the News of the World, the party has been split.
Many of the "United Left" faction claimed during his libel trial that Mr Sheridan had admitted visiting swingers' clubs, and they now refuse to work with their former leader. But another faction calling themselves the "SSP Majority" want Mr Sheridan reinstalled as leader.
The two sides were due to battle it out at the party's national conference in October. However it now seems Mr Sheridan will lead his supporters in a new movement before it goes to the vote. From more than 50 branches, so far he has fewer than a dozen nominations for the leader's position.
Speaking to a radio station yesterday, Mr Sheridan said "irreconcilable differences" had formed in the SSP following his case. "The level of bile and vitriol against me has reached unprecedented levels. There is obviously a degree of hatred in terms of me," he said.
"There have been calls for me to be disciplined by the SSP, to be expelled from the SSP. It's clear to me that I probably don't have a future in the SSP."
Mr Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne, the SSP MSP for South of Scotland, have called a meeting for 3 September where party members will have the opportunity to vote on whether to form a new party.
Yesterday, Mr Sheridan made his own preference quite clear.
"The reality is there's no place for me. Some people will stay with the SSP but I hope that some will come with me and help form a new movement," he said.
Yesterday, The Scotsman revealed one of the witnesses from the defamation case, Helen Allison, has lodged a complaint with police that she was intimidated and harassed beforehand.
But Mr Sheridan dismissed the move.
He also denied reports any new party will form an alliance with George Galloway's party Respect.
"I'm sure George will support what we do here in Scotland but it won't be a version or a form or an extension of Respect."
Steve Arnott, SSP organiser of the Highlands and Islands and spokesman for the SSP Majority, said a number of suggested names had been put forward for a new party including Solidarity, the Socialist Majority, the Democratic Green Socialists or Independent Scottish Socialists.
However, no final decision will be made until a vote is put to supporters in early September.
But Mr Sheridan's rivals dismissed the idea of taking on the name of the union founded by Lech Walesa that grew to become a massive movement for change in the Eastern Bloc. One leading party activist pointed out Mr Sheridan's alleged lack of solidarity - he called many of his colleagues "political scabs" for giving evidence against him.
Colin Fox, current leader of the SSP, said there was only room for one SSP in Scotland.
"He has got it badly wrong in his belief that there is role for more than one socialist party in Scotland and seems to forget that was why the SSP was formed in the first place," he said.
"There is no basis for two socialist parties in Scotland with indistinguishable political programmes."
Mr Fox vowed to fight any new party with a united SSP.
"The SSP has huge potential. Hundreds of thousands of people wish to see it survive and thrive and take the socialist project which it uniquely promotes still further forward."