Scottish Socialist Party

Sheridan splits: defend the Scottish Socialist Party!

Tommy Sheridan, formerly the main public figure of the Scottish Socialist Party, has declared he will split away and form a new group at a meeting on 3 September. This move suggests that Sheridan thought he would fail to win a majority at the SSP's conference due in October. There is no sound political basis for the split. Sheridan's move is entirely based on his personal anger at leading SSP members who gave evidence, in Sheridan's recent libel case against the News of the World, that Sheridan himself had admitted to them some of the claims about his sex life that the News of the World had...

Defend the SSP!

In an interview with the Daily Record on 7 August, leading Scottish Socialist Party member, Tommy Sheridan, fresh from the surprise victory in his defamation case against the News of the World, attacked his opponents in the SSP as “political scabs” and vowed retribution against them. Before the interview, a split in the SSP looked possible; now it looks very likely indeed. The AWL’s political criticisms of the SSP — its nationalism, its support for Castro’s Cuba, its failure to do serious work in the unions and its general softness and lack of independent working-class focus — are well known...

Scottish Socialists move towards split?

by Stan Crooke Tommy Sheridan’s libel action against the News of the World was really two trials for the price of one. One trial was the libel action itself, triggered by Sheridan’s decision to sue the News of the World for £200,000 over articles which the paper had published in 2004 concerning his private life. According to the articles, Sheridan had cheated on his wife, attended a swingers’ club, and engaged in group sex. The other trial involved the future of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP). Sheridan won the first trial. By seven votes to four the jury decided that Sheridan had been...

SSP “on the precipice”

Tommy Sheridan spoke to the Daily Record on 7 August. Sheridan told the paper that he might stand in the election for convenor, due in October. If he wins that election he plans to quit and demand a re-run based on one-member, one vote postal ballot, in order to strengthen his position. “There is no way I could be convenor of a party with its apparatus controlled by those who have tried to politically undermine me. I think the SSP stand on the precipice of either a great new beginning or virtual oblivion.” “...When a socialist takes on one of hte most ruthless anti-union and anti-socialist...

A fight for the heart of the SSP

By an SSP United Left supporter Whilst Tommy Sheridan's victory in court undoubtedly strengthened his supporters’ position within the Scottish Socialist Party, the core issues of the fight remain the same. Sheridan’s victory, 7 jurors to 4, is surprising, since the evidence was mounting up against him as the trial progressed, we can only assume that the jury fell for Tommy’s conspiracy theories. Whilst a split now seems likely, with two completely different and contradictory versions of the truth being on offer, both sides still seem determined to fight for the heart of the SSP. Whilst tactics...

SSP: personality cult or class-struggle party?

The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty spoke to Andy McPake, an activist in the Scottish Socialist Youth and a supporter of the SSP-United Left about the current crisis in the Scottish Socialist Party. This is an unedited version of the interview. An abridged version appeared in the print version of Solidarity 3/96. 1. Tommy Sheridan's libel case against the News Of The World has now started. In court leading SSPers such as Allison Kane and Alan McCombes have testified that Tommy Sheridan admitted to them some of the personal things over which he is now suing the News Of The World. Tommy Sheridan's...

Sheridan's letter to Scottish Socialist Voice 8 June 2006

Your editorial about fair reporting of internal SSP matters “without malice or bias” would be hilarious if it wasn’t so seriously deceptive (see Voice 267). Don’t you read your own paper? Immediately to the right of your editorial with it’s “without bias” claim is a National Council report laced with precisely the “bias” and lack of “balance” the Voice has become notorious for. The first paragraph of any report is always the most important. It sets the scene. Yours claims the emergency NC was “called in response to the crisis precipitated by former convenor Tommy Sheridan’s legal action...

No clear politics

Stan Crooke gives an alternative view on the ssp crisis The crisis in the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) dates back to a meeting of the SSP Executive Committee held on 9 November 2004, which voted unanimously to ask Tommy Sheridan to stand down as SSP convenor. “It is believed” — to use the same expression as everyone else — that the Executive Committee was unhappy about how Sheridan intended responding to allegations about his private life which the News of the World was about to publish. The following day Sheridan resigned as SSP convenor, citing family commitments (his wife was pregnant) as...

Defend the SSP! Oppose a split!

Click here for other stuff on the SSP crisis. Tommy Sheridan's denunciation of "an unsavoury cabal of comrades at the core of the leadership, their hands on the apparatus, who are more interested in pursuing personal vendettas, through vile lies and slander, than conducting the class struggle... alien to the socialist and trade union movement and more akin to the dark days of Stalinism" is no less than a signal for a split in the Scottish Socialist Party. The SSP, a multi-tendency activist-left party first launched as the Scottish Socialist Alliance in 1996, now has three thousand members and...

Another view on the SSP crisis

By Stan Crooke. The crisis is the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) continues. Its origins date back to a meeting of the SSP Executive Committee held on 9th November 2004, which voted unanimously to ask Tommy Sheridan to stand down as SSP convenor. "It is believed" – to use the same expression as everyone else – that the Executive Committee was unhappy about how Sheridan intended responding to allegations about his private life which the News of the World was about to publish. The following day Sheridan resigned as SSP convenor, citing family commitments (his wife was pregnant) as the reason. The...

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