Scottish Socialist Party

Open letter to the left from the SWP; and the AWL's reply

Open letter to the left from the SWP; and the AWL's reply An open letter to the left from the Socialist Workers Party It’s time to create a socialist alternative Dear comrade, Labour’s vote collapsed to a historic low in last week’s elections as the right made gains. The Tories under David Cameron are now set to win the next general election. The British National Party (BNP) secured two seats in the European parliament. Never before have fascists achieved such a success in Britain. The result has sent a shockwave across the labour and anti-fascist movements, and the left. The meltdown of the...

The sad fate of Tommy Sheridan

Former Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan’s appearance on Celebrity Big Brother is a pretty depressing business. I only had to watch for a few minutes (doubling my total Big Brother viewing history) to feel queasy about a middle-aged man trying hard to sound interesting for the viewers while flirting with much younger women on the show. But that wasn’t the really depressing bit. Nor was it the large amount of money Sheridan is being paid for his appearance — rumoured at £100,000 — violating his old worker’s wage principle, though he hasn’t disclosed the figure. What really got me...

SSP drifts towards Morning Star

Gaza is “the world’ s largest concentration camp”, something to be compared to “the Warsaw Ghetto under the Nazis.” The position of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories “resembles that of Jews who once lived in the ghettoes of Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.” Given that Israel has “internalised many of the oppressive features of Judeophobes,” it is “not surprising that the Israeli state itself should already have developed marked Apartheid features.” Israel is “a failed state.” It is “the unsafest place on earth for Jews.” But “many Palestinians” continue to live “stoically and...

Defend Tommy Sheridan?

In mid-December of last year Tommy Sheridan, former Scottish Parliament member and leader of the Scottish Socialist Party was arrested and charged with perjury. In 2006, after the News of the World had carried articles alleging that he had engaged in extra-marital affairs and visited a swingers’ club in Manchester, Sheridan took the newspaper to court and was awarded £200,000 in damages after the jury found in his favour. In the aftermath of the trial — which had seen leading figures in the SSP give evidence, under protest and unwillingly, against Sheridan — the SSP split. Backed by the...

SNP plays long game

According to SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, Scotland will be independent by 2017. Salmond’s claim follows earlier SNP predictions which came and went but left the Union unscathed. The SNP’s best known prognostication was its slogan of the early 1990s: “Scotland Free by 93.” As the then Scottish Labour Party leader, Donald Dewar, commented in a rare moment of humour: “It’s a good slogan. It rhymes, and they can revive it every ten years.” Salmond is certainly correct not to see independence as something lurking round the corner. Recent opinion polls have consistently shown...

Scottish Socialists depleted

Around 150 delegates and members turned up to the Scottish Socialist Party’s 2007 annual conference, held in Dundee last Sunday (21 October). Overturning a previous and well-established policy, the conference passed a motion in support of scrapping religious and denominational schools. Underlining its commitment to this policy, the conference also voted to delete a clause in the motion which allowed for “inclusive assemblies which could draw on religious and non-religious traditions.” A motion opposing the abolition of weekly rubbish bin collections proved more controversial (even though large...

The "Zionophobes" that pushed even the SWP to resign in protest

Kelvin branch of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) has submitted a motion to the 2007 SSP conference calling on the party to support the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its campaign for a boycott of Israel. Unremarkable? Not when you know about the SPSC. The SP’S’C - or better, SP’S’C, because there’s not much "solidarity" involved - marked Holocaust Memorial Day last year with readings from Jim Allen’s play "Perdition" which gave dramatic expression to the notion that Israel owes its existence to Nazi-Zionist collaboration in the Holocaust). And it hosts Gilad Atzmon (who believes...

Can the SSP revive?

Just nineteen motions have been submitted for the 2007 annual conference of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), being held in Dundee on 21 October. Four of the motions have been submitted by the party’s Executive Committee. The Republican Communist Network (RCN) platform in the SSP and the SSP Assistant Secretary have each submitted one motion. The other thirteen motions have been submitted by eleven different SSP branches. That about sums up the sorry state that the SSP is in. And just over a third of the motions — seven of them — deal with the SSP’s internal organisation, covering issues...

Can the Scottish Socialist Party recover?

Just nineteen motions have been submitted for the 2007 annual conference of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), being held in Dundee on 21 October. Four of the motions have been submitted by the party’s Executive Committee. The Republican Communist Network (RCN) platform in the SSP and the SSP Assistant Secretary (website) have each submitted one motion. The other thirteen motions have been submitted by eleven different SSP branches. That about sums up the sorry state that the SSP is in. And just over a third of the motions – seven of them – deal with the SSP’s internal organisation, covering...

SNP launches National Monologue

In the Scottish Parliamentary elections held in May this year the Scottish National Party emerged, albeit by the narrowest of margins, as the biggest single faction within the Scottish Parliament. Stan Crooke looks at what has happened since. The SNP now runs a minority administration, albeit with semi-formal support from the two Green MSPs. SNP leader Alex Salmond and his party wants to build popular support and big business support for independence, in preparation for a referendum to be held in 2010. Only a minority of the Scottish population currently supports independence for Scotland...

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