Emancipation & Liberation

Like many others who have been members of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) for a number of years, I did not want to read Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story by Alan McCombes. As a founder member of the Scottish Socialist Alliance (SSA) and then the SSP, I had been filled with hope (but with no illusions) about the potential of this party as a unifying force in Scottish politics. It felt like the best chance we had had in my lifetime of building a non-sectarian, democratic, socialist party that would allow for open dissent and comradely debate. It felt for a while like the dogma so many of us had been steeled in, could be replaced by a willingness to listen and to understand, supported by democratic and accountable structures.

It was not all a bed of roses. These democratic strides had to be fought for every inch of the way. The constitution had to be protected and battles had to be waged in its defence. As a member of a very small platform, taking on the numerical superiority of other platforms, such as the CWI, the SWP and the ISM, could be pretty uncomfortable. But – and the but was huge- it was the most democratic, socialist organisation in Europe, blending campaigning and mass participation with significant electoral success in the Scottish parliament. The SSP gained first one MSP, in the form of the eponymous villain in Alan’s book, then followed on with the election of six MSPs; more than half of whom were women! Instead of small dispirited groups who hated each other plying their separate wares on Saturday morning stalls and heckling passers by, we were part of a movement where people participated in our campaigns and activities and queued to sign our petitions, knew what we stood for and liked it.

So, being part of this movement and then to watch it crumble so ignominiously before our eyes as Tommy Sheridan embarked on his Kamikaze mission against the News of the World (NOTW) was not a part of my life I wanted to revisit via the pages of Alan McCombes’ book. However…… we can only learn from mistakes if we understand them. So, Alan’s book must be an important part of that process. We may never really understand just how Tommy’s mind worked through this time but if anyone could shed light on some of the causes of the debacle, then surely it would be Alan McCombes – by his own admission, the mentor, the architect, the creator of Tommy Sheridan, the icon.

For those of us who were there, there was not a lot new in this book. It was a very easy read and McCombes’ style, though laden with simile and metaphor, has a charm, which is hypnotic. McCombes does infuse the past with a wistful rosy glow and his sincerity and pain at seeing his creation turn against him is palpable. McCombes himself comes over as the thoughtful, courageous, political apparatchik that he is. However, the book is as much about the fatal flaws of the SSP as it is about Tommy’s fatal flaw.

The RCN has rightly asserted from the start that the split in the socialist movement in Scotland can be laid at the door of Tommy Sheridan, aided and abetted by the CWI and SWP. Through his vanity and arrogance, he was prepared to sacrifice the movement to protect his image. He seemed to believe his own lies and even more worryingly was supported in pursuit of his greater glory by those in the CWI and SWP who also knew the truth but by some absurd warped logic believed it was OK to lie because those lies were against the NOTW. The fact that they were also lying to the working class became irrelevant.

Alan’s book captures the madness of the time effectively. Particularly the National Council, which took place while he was in jail defending the minutes of an SSP Executive meeting. While reading about it, I could imagine folk who weren’t there thinking it could not have been that bad. Well it was. It was probably the first time I had seen the collective, destructive power of Tommy and his new allies given full vent. Although I do not recall anyone being hit, it was none the less a violent, vicious and intimidating meeting. There was literally baying for the blood of those who refused to support Tommy. It was a meeting, which shamed the socialist movement and publicly marked the end of everything the SSP had stood for. I was no great fan of Tommy and he had turned his wrath on me on a number of previous occasions but I was shocked at this screaming, parody of a socialist leader who ranted at his enemies.

Perhaps I would not have been so shocked if I had known what Alan and Frances, and Keith and Colin all knew. Maybe if I had realised what a creation Tommy had been from the start then I would have known that this kind of behaviour was possible. It was like he had won an X Factor type competition to become the poster boy of the Scottish left. Because, what Alan’s book does make clear, is that the myth of Tommy Sheridan was a façade. He was a media creation. He oozed warmth and sincerity and cultivated the idea that he was the personification of fairness and justice. Yes he did great things – the Poll Tax imprisonment, the warrant sales bill, the oratory which could touch people’s hearts in a gifted way but it was part of an act, of a role he had chosen to play. It was a role in which he was supported and coached and protected within by his former comrades. According to Alan, Tommy was in fact shallow, self centred, lacking in political understanding and messianic from the start.

So how does this reflect on the SSP and particularly the ranks of the ISM platform from whence Tommy came? Where was the culpability on the part of the SSP in what followed on from the NOTW revelations? Well Alan’s book shows how a cult of the individual, while yielding short-term benefits, is ultimately dangerous and destructive – it is anti democratic. Tommy, like ALL other leaders, needed to be under democratic control so that his undoubted talents could be used effectively. However, within the movement and the party, he should have had no special dispensations, rights or privileges.  Tommy’s private life is his business. What Gail knew, what was accepted within their relationship, is all speculation. McCombes is right when he makes it clear that there was no Calvinistic witch-hunt against Tommy because of his sexual proclivities. The problem was that having been allowed by the party to court the media using his Mr Clean family man image, charges of liar, cheat and hypocrite could easily have been thrown at him and the SSP when it came out. Had, of course, Sheridan resigned as convenor and let it blow over; no one would have cared after the furore had died down. Instead it was Tommy who insisted on taking the NOTW to court!

When Alan explains why the minutes of the Executive meeting where Tommy told the truth were kept secret, we can see another manifestation of the SSP leadership’s fatal flaw. It was done out of concern for Tommy and his family. The irony when Tommy shows no concern for the families of those he brands as liars and scabs is not lost. However, this came before party democracy. Obviously at that stage Alan and the Executive thought the matter could be contained but at the expense of the membership. Ultimately the party leadership believed the membership had to be protected or could not be trusted.

And so it went on with behind the scenes machinations, secret meetings, secret affidavits and secret filming. Alan does the party the courtesy through the book of explaining why what happened did and why the SSP leadership took the decisions it did at each stage. It does not however mitigate the fact that during this time, loyal party members were treated as people who could not understand the full implications of what was happening. Old friendships and loyalties are once more put above party policy and democracy as neither in the book nor at any subsequent party meeting has George McNeilage been condemned by the leadership for selling his story to the NOTW.

The sacrifices that Alan and the others have made for the socialist movement are undeniable. Downfall catalogues the misery brought to their lives during this process. The book must undoubtedly have been cathartic and it was necessary. It was intended to vindicate the position of all those dragged into court against their will and cross examined by a comrade that had been revered by substantial sections of the working class of this nation. And it does that very well.

By writing the book, I hope Alan can see the mistakes that were made were not all Tommy’s, not all his, nor the leadership’s, but mistakes we all made or allowed to happen. After reading this, I became more convinced than ever before that a new type of politics is necessary if we are to attract people into socialist activity and keep them there. We need a politics that is open, democratic and where all party members are equal. We need a politics, which can debate, question and hold to account those privileged enough to be chosen to lead us. We need a politics where disagreements are not seen as tests of friendships and where principles are more important than appeasing someone’s ego. We need a politics which is compassionate and caring but at the same time, determined and honest.

The SSP went some of the way to providing this but certainly during the crisis and sadly since the imprisonment of Tommy Sheridan, we have seen signs that the damage done by Tommy Sheridan has had a catastrophic effect on the SSP, its democratic structures and its potential as a uniting force in Scottish working class politics. It is very sad but it is too easy just to blame Tommy. We need to look forward to a party where the myth of Tommy Sheridan or his like does not have to be created.

Part One – the Meaning of the May 5th Elections

A good kicking for the Lib-Dems disguises the wider impact of the National Question on May 5th

On May 5th, the Lib-Dem-initiated referendum proposal to introduce AV to Westminster elections was massively rejected in every nation and region of the UK, including Northern Ireland. In the English Local Council, the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament elections, all held on the same day, former Lib-Dem voters used the opportunity either to punish Clegg and his allies for entering into a coalition with the Tories, or to vote for the real thing. This took precedence over any vote ‘Yes’ recommendations on AV by the other parties. In the absence of meaningful resistance, voters turned to revenge instead.

In the English Local Council elections, Labour routed the Lib-Dems in the north, whilst the Tories routed them in the south. Elsewhere in the UK, though, the impact of the National Question pushed the Lib-Dems’ decline to being a secondary issue.

In the Welsh Assembly election, the Lib-Dems also lost out to both Labour and the Tories. However, the main loser was Plaid Cymru, recently in coalition with Labour. Plaid’s recent efforts, throwing all of its weight behind the  Coalition’s successful referendum campaign to devolve law-making powers to the Welsh Assembly, seemed to represent the culmination of its political ambitions.  Yet, all the mainstream unionist parties supported this liberal unionist measure too.  With Plaid less relevant, and the Tories very unpopular in working class South Wales, Welsh Labour advanced and has formed its own single-party government, thus making more posts available for its own careerists.

In the Northern Ireland, the Lib-Dems officially support the moderate unionist Alliance Party. However, the lack of any wider appreciation of this fact, along with Alliance’s different name, meant that, despite its Lib-Dem type politics, it was able to make limited gains in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, as the old UUP continues to sheds its more moderate voters (remembering that ‘moderate’ is a relative term in Unionist politics in Northern Ireland!)

But this too was a side issue when the DUP and Sinn Fein made small gains, despite their joint implementation of public sector cuts. They were able to take their first Stormont Coalition into a second term. Voters threw their weight behind competitive sectarian pleading for Westminster resources, in a Stormont that has a constitutionally recognised divide between Unionists and Nationalists. Voters rejected any return to possible armed conflict, or to a class based opposition to the Con-Dem cuts to the Northern Ireland budget.

On the Unionist side, the tentative move to the centre, marked by the growth of the Alliance Party, was matched by a move on the Right towards the rejectionist, Traditional Unionist Voice. However, the possibility of voting for either of these constitutional Unionist options was underpinned by the continued desire for stability. This was highlighted by the electoral demise of the Progressive Unionist Party, linked to the redundant (for the moment) Loyalist UVF death squads.

However, the most sensational result on May 5^th occurred in the Scottish Parliament election. Here the previous minority SNP government was able to increase its number of MSPs from 46 to 69, an absolute majority forecast by no one. Furthermore, the SNP’s votes came at the expense, not only of the Lib-Dems, but of the Tories, Labour and the small Socialist vote too. Only the Greens managed to hold on to their vote and their 2 MSPs. They made a calculated Left appeal, now that their moderate leader, Robin Harper, has retired. They hoped to woo former disillusioned Socialist voters. Labour only managed to increase its vote in two constituencies, Dumfries and Eastwood. Here they were the main challengers to the Tories, who by their own admission remain “toxic” in Scotland.  Very few people in Scotland held street parties to celebrate Will’s and Kate’s royal wedding on the 29^th April – many are saving these for Thatcher’s funeral!

How socialists fared throughout the UK

In the English Local Elections, three Socialist councillors, now standing under the CWI-initiated, Trade Union & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) banner, lost their previous seats (including both SWP councillors), despite these and a few other candidates still getting a credible vote. Elsewhere though, the TUSC vote was small. It will be interesting to see whether TUSC can survive as a wider Socialist unity project, or whether it will just follow that other CWI initiative, the National Shop Stewards Network and become a complete CWI-front.

In Wales, Socialists only stood on the List vote in the Assembly elections, under the banner of Scargill’s SLP, the Communist Party of Britain, or TUSC. They made little headway. Indeed it is an indication of the decline of the Left, that it was the moribund SLP that attracted most Socialist votes as a purely passive electoral gesture.

In Northern Ireland, those Socialists who contested the Stormont election, either under the banner of People Before Profit (SWP front), the Socialist Party (CWI), the Workers Party or Socialist Democracy (USFI), sometimes competed against each other. They were marginal outside Derry/Foyle, where the SWP’s well-known Eamonn McCann made a credible showing. Republican socialists and traditional pro-armed struggle republicans did not stand in the Stormont elections, but confined their activities to the Local Council elections held in Northern Ireland on the same day (unlike Wales or Scotland). A couple of breakaway former Sinn Fein councillors held their seats, whilst Patricia Campbell of the Independent Workers Union and the republican socialist, eirigi and the IRSP all made a credible showing, despite some mutual competition between these last two in West Belfast. The traditionalist republican, pro-armed struggle, 32 Counties Sovereignty Movement also made headway in Derry, a reflection of the lack of any meaningful ‘peace dividend’ in the most deprived Nationalist communities.

In Scotland, Socialists, who as recently as 2007, held 6 seats at Holyrood, were fatally crippled in the aftermath of the Sheridan affair. As in Wales, they only stood for the List seats and were split between Scargill’s SLP, the SSP and Solidarity. And, as in Wales, Scargill’s phantom SLP gained the most Socialist votes in the Left’s equivalent of ‘bald men fighting over a comb’. In the absence of Solidarity’s leader, the Left nationalist, Tommy Sheridan, they also decided to back another celebrity socialist, the left Unionist, George Galloway. He had parachuted into Glasgow as the George Galloway/Respect candidate after being rejected by electors in East London last year. Glasgow voters recognised an opportunist carpetbagger when they saw one, so knowing he was going to lose, he just picked up his bags and left before the count. The SSP vote continued to fall from its poor 2007 result, whilst Solidarity’s declining vote went into tailspin. This raises the question in both organisations about the prospects of future meaningful Socialist unity.

The meaning of the SNP electoral victory

So, what does the SNP victory in the Holyrood elections represent? Ever since the banking crash, which saw the SNP and its charismatic leader, Alex Salmond, too closely associated with the failed Royal Bank of Scotland, the party had been unable to win any Westminster or many council by-elections. During the 2010 Westminster general election, the Labour Party, amazingly and also unpredictably, increased its vote in Scotland, retaking a seat previously lost to the SNP in a pre-crash by-election. Labour’s electoral appeal was almost entirely based upon playing up to the fear of the Tories.

As recently as the beginning of the year, polls were anticipating the return of a Labour-led government to Holyrood, in the face of the SNP’s betrayal, after the economic crisis, of its 2007 electoral promises. Labour thought that they could just repeat their ‘No back to the 1980s’, anti-Tory appeal in the run-up to the May 5^th. However, that card had been played out in 2010.  Despite voting Labour, Scotland now faced the hated Tories once more, supported by the increasingly despised Lib-Dems. Yet Miliband’s Labour Party, consigned to ‘opposition’, was making absolutely no difference.

Salmond was able to repeat Gordon Brown’s 2010 pre-election trick, and postpone major Holyrood cuts until after the election. Although he lowered the electorate’s sights, abandoning many earlier SNP promises, those still remaining aimed higher than any made by Labour. The relentlessly negative Scottish Labour leader, Ian Gray, believed that Scottish voters would automatically return to their ‘natural’ fold, and that the Holyrood gravy train would once more be at Labour’s disposal. He slept-walked towards May 5^th. When Labour’s poll support started to ebb away, his response was once more to raise the separatist bogey (it had failed in 2007 with its effect neutralised by the SNP’s promised referendum on independence), and then, in panic, he adopted virtually every other SNP policy.

Meanwhile, Salmond had been assiduously building-up the backing of Scottish businessmen, including Brian Souter, the homophobic owner of Stagecoach, Sir Thomas Farmer, the Con-Dem cuts-approving owner of KwikFit, and Sir David Murray, the Unionist owner of Murray International Metals and recently of Rangers FC.  Donald Trump, the controversial American tycoon, given the go-ahead to build a luxury golf-course and gated housing project in Aberdeenshire, also enjoys the support of the SNP government. Both Murdoch’s Sun and Tommy Sheridan (http://tommysheridan.wordpress.com/ April 22^nd) backed the Scottish populist nationalist, SNP. The SNP obviously gained far more by way of support from the former, given the evidence of the latter’s failure to persuade many Glasgow voters to back his other recommended choice – the Left British unionist, George Galloway.

SNP success in inverse proportion to working class confidence and Socialist success

Underlying the large electoral drift to the SNP is the current lack of working class self-confidence. This reflects the lack of fightback against the Con-Dems’ austerity drive, following on workers’ earlier disillusioned acceptance of Brown’s and Darling’s proposed Westminster imposed cuts. The STUC is every bit as wedded to social partnership deals with the employers and the state as the TUC.  The effect of these has been to turn trade unions into a free personnel management service for the bosses. Added to this is the sorry demise of the Left in Scotland in the aftermath of the Sheridan fiasco. The attraction of Socialist unity in the face of massive cutbacks was demonstrated earlier this year in the Irish elections when the United Left Alliance was able to pick up 5 Dail seats.

However, much of the SNP’s electoral support is superficial – a clutching at straws. As long as workers remain acquiescent, the SNP government will openly pursue its real aim – making Scotland a haven for Scottish businesses and global corporations. Earlier this year, to show where the SNP’s loyalties lie, John Swinney, Finance Minister, allowed the lapse of Holyrood’s income tax raising powers, voted for in the 1997 Devolution Referendum. The SNP have extended their council tax freeze for another five years to force Local Councils into privatising services. The Lib-Dem/SNP coalition running Edinburgh Council has brought in consultants to prepare for such measures. This follows their attack on cleansing workers’ pay, preparatory to possible privatisation. The SNP government has even attacked the Con-Dem’s recent proposed levy on North Sea Oil. It’s not to be ‘Scotland’s Oil’, but will remain the petroleum corporations’ oil!

The SNP has entered negotiations with Cameron over Westminster’s proposed Scotland Bill. This is based on the miserable additional devolutionary powers recommended by the Calman Commission to dish the SNP, in advance of any possible Independence Referendum. The SNP’s over-riding concern is to get the political power to cut corporation tax. Up until 2008, the SNP’s very mild reforms were dependent on building up Scotland’s ‘buoyant’ finance sector – a trickle-down ‘social democracy’ courtesy of the Royal Bank of Scotland! Now, any such reforms are meant to be financed by a very limited tax on corporate profits – if their boards agree to play ball!

Constitutional crisis or a SNP negotiated ‘Devolution-Max’ cop out?

The media has made much of a possible constitutional crisis due to the SNP’s commitment to holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the last years of its office. The novelty of a Nationalist victory in one of the UK’s devolved assemblies should not prevent people looking to other comparable examples in Spain and Quebec. Here Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU), the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Parti Quebecois (PQ) have also formed majority administrations in devolved assemblies. Both the CiU and PNV have settled for greater measures of devolution within the Spanish state, whilst the PQ initiated referendum on Quebec independence was narrowly defeated and has not been attempted again.

Meanwhile, ‘over the water’, the former revolutionary nationalist Sinn Fein has settled very quickly into helping to run the UK’s devolved administration in Northern Ireland.  All the indications are that the very constitutional nationalist SNP is quite willing to settle for ‘Devolution-Max’. Salmond doesn’t have the excuse that he had in his last government of being in a minority, and hence being unable to put forward the SNP’s promised Independence Referendum Bill. In reality, however, significant forces in the SNP, including rightist Education Minister, Michael Russell, and former leftist, Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, never wanted a referendum, and nor do many of the SNP’s current business backers.

Salmond is publicly ditching more and more attributes of meaningful political independence. The SNP recognise the continued role of the monarchy (which fronts the British ruling class’s draconian anti-democratic Crown Powers), the City (which sets financial policy), and the UK’s armed forces (which would be able to use Scottish military facilities). The SNP supports UN-backed (i.e. US-dominated Security Council approved) imperial wars, and has campaigned vigorously to maintain Scottish regiments, and British and NATO bases in Scotland.  There may still be some commitment to abolishing the unpopular Trident bases and hence for Scotland to step down into NATO’s second tier, non-nuclear ‘Partnership for Peace’. However, there are also signs that the SNP would be prepared just to lease out military facilities here, creating, in effect,  ‘Guantanamac’ bases.

‘Independence-Lite’ represents the height of SNP leadership ambitions, although a considerable section would settle for ‘Devolution-Max’.  Most of the existing institutions of the British unionist and imperial state would remain in place but be given a lick of tartan paint in Scotland. The SNP is no more able to deliver meaningful political independence, than Labour was able to deliver political devolution in 1979. A considerable majority of the British ruling class was against Scottish devolution then, but the overwhelming majority of the British ruling class is against Scottish independence now.

The British ruling class opposes Scottish independence and backs ‘Devolution-all-round’

The British ruling class is currently prepared to go no further than a few more limited devolutionary concessions, based on Blair’s 1997 ‘Devolution-all-round’ and Peace (in reality, pacification) Process settlement. This settlement is designed both to buttress wider British imperial control over these islands (emphasised by the recent royal visit to Ireland) and to create the best political conditions for corporate profitability.

Furthermore, despite the SNP’s overtures to Americans of Scottish descent (many of whom are on the US Right), it is the UK government, which enjoys official US state backing. Indeed the UK is such a reliable junior partner (with military forces that can be deployed more widely than Israel’s) that successive US governments have granted the UK state the imperial franchise in the North East Atlantic. The UK also acts as a useful spoiler to contain any independent French-German Euro-imperial ambitions. The USA is unlikely to switch its backing to the SNP. Furthermore, EU leaders will not step on UK governments’ toes over this issue.

Realising the SNP is isolated in the UK and wider international arena, Salmond is likely to offer a second ‘Devolution-Max’ option in the SNP Government’s proposed Independence Referendum. This would satisfy his most ardent business supporters, as well as important sectors of his own party.  Those rank and file Scottish independence supporting SNP members could be left to get on with campaigning for a ‘Yes’ vote for what is, in effect, ‘Independence-Lite’ under the Crown, the City, the British armed forces and NATO.

However, the SNP leadership would itself be riding two horses, with different members providing their personal support for whichever option they really backed (in a similar manner to Labour in the 1979 Devolution referendum). SNP ‘Devolution-Max’ supporters might hope to get influential backing from those amongst Labour (e.g. Henry MacLeish), the Lib-Dems (e.g. Charles Kennedy) and even the Conservatives (e.g. Murdo Fraser), who are committed to further liberal unionist measures.  The SNP’s worried rank and file independence supporters would be fobbed off with the promise that ‘Devolution-Max’ was but another stage on the road to independence – an argument that could have some purchase, given that some SNP supporters also see ‘Independence-Lite’ as but a stage towards ultimate Scottish political sovereignty.

Those actually campaigning for a ‘Yes’ vote for Scottish ‘independence’ (i.e. ‘Independence-Lite’) will soon be subjected to all the dirty tricks available to the British ruling class and its political representatives under the UK Crown Powers, since they are currently implacably opposed to such a course of action. The membership of the impeccably constitutionalist SNP is no more prepared for these, than it was in 1979, when the British ruling class was at least split, not united as it is today, over how best to maintain the Union. Meanwhile, the SNP government will be forced to impose the cuts demanded by Westminster and its business backers. This will highlight just whose class interests the SNP’s advocacy of ‘independence’ are meant to serve.

Salmond has just had his own 2011 equivalent of New Labour’s ‘things can only get better’ 1997 election. This is likely to lead to a similar let down in the future. Socialists today appear to be in as much of a mess as they were after Thatcher defeated the miners and Liverpool Council in the mid-80’s. By 1987, the triumphant Tories had decided to introduce the poll tax and face down the growing ‘National Question’ in the UK. However, Thatcher was defeated by mass independent class action and continued Irish republican opposition. Independent class action and a socialist republican strategy based on the promotion of ‘internationalism from below’ is the precondition for our advance today.

Allan Armstrong. 7.6.11

Part  Two – the  SNP follows Labour 

Social democracy SNP-style and the lessons it has learned from Labour

The long-term decline of the Labour Party in Scotland has enabled the SNP to pose in social democratic colours, particularly in the Central Belt. The SNP’s social democratic commitments are not that great, and like New Labour compete inside the party with another distinctly neo-liberal economic agenda. However, the SNP has skilfully positioned itself, so that it appears to promise more reforms than New Labour  – not a very difficult task! However, as with New Labour, any social democratic reforms are only made as election promises when they are compatible with the interests of the major financial institutions, well represented in Edinburgh, and of other global corporations and Scottish businesses engaged in constant lobbying at Holyrood or Bute House.

The last SNP government (2007-11) soon abandoned its election promises of improved teacher/student ratios in schools, the cancellation of student debt, and the abolition of the regressive council tax, in order to prioritise meeting the costs of the bankers’ bailout. This highlights the limitations of the SNP’s social democratic reforms. The SNP pushes much more consistently for reduced corporate taxation and other pro-business measures, highlighted by its courting of prominent Scottish businessmen, e.g. Brian Souter, Sir George Matthewson and Sir Tom Farmer, as well as international tycoons, e.g. Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch.

Furthermore, the essence of any social democratic reforms today, whether under Labour or SNP, is that they only represent ‘sweeties’, selected and handed down by those liberal capitalist parties representing the ruling and middle classes, in order to win votes from what they hope will remain an otherwise passive working class. The conservative capitalist parties (the Conservative and UKIP) oppose state financed, social democratic reforms, and only accept their continued existence as a price to be paid to prevent greater social upheaval. Since the post-1975 ruling class offensive, any new reforms have rarely come about as a result of independent working class campaigning or action. This is why they have proved to be so ephemeral under the current conditions of capitalist crisis.

The notion of what constitutes social democracy has been successively diluted since the late nineteenth century. Then it meant the politics of those who organised the working class to fight for an alternative socialist society. Later it meant the politics of those who represented the economic and social interests of the working class within capitalism and who sought a welfare state  – termed Labourism in the UK. Nowadays it means the politics of those who argue for a vague commitment to some state regulation and social reforms, something that also appeal to sections of the middle class, especially those employed in the management of the public sector. However, today’s social democrats everywhere subordinate their proposed social democratic reforms to first meeting the ‘needs of the market’, i.e. global corporate capital.

The SNP has become, in effect, a ‘tartan’ social democrat party, in the current political sense of the term. This chimes in very well with the dominant cultural values found in Scotland. However, when workers take their own independent action you can see the real class face of the SNP. The SNP control West Dunbartonshire Council and have imposed cuts here upon some of the most deprived working class communities. They suspended Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) councillor, Jim Bollan for six months following his consistent backing for workers and service users resisting these cuts. In the City of Edinburgh Council, the SNP are in coalition with the Lib-Dems. Here they have spent more money on hiring private refuse collectors to break the industrial action of the council’s in-house refuse workers resisting a major pay cut, than it would have cost to settle the dispute. This is because the council is preparing for privatisation of services, as a way of making public sector cuts, and of winning business support.

The SNP remains, in effect, a federally organised party, advocating different policies in different regions to appeal to different classes and sections of the Scottish population. It has a somewhat different face in the Western Isles, the north-east and the Central Belt. However, for a long time, a dominant Labour Party was able to limit the SNP’s growth in the major cities and the Central Belt, with its characterisation of the SNP as ‘Tartan Tories’. This was never an entirely accurate label, although the SNP undoubtedly has a right populist wing, where most remaining ‘fundamentalists’ are still to be found.

However, under Jim Sillars and later, Alex Salmond (significantly both from the former Leftist 79 Group), the SNP has made huge efforts to win over the Labour Party’s working class electoral base. They have been mightily helped in this by New Labour’s drift to the Right, and by the current demise, after the Sheridan debacle, of the once promising Socialist alternative, which developed in Scotland in the aftermath of the successful anti-poll tax struggle.

The SNP and the Labour unionist precedent in abandoning a consistent secular approach to society

The SNP has learned more from the Labour Party, though, than the necessity to advocate social democratic reforms to win working class support. Because the Labour Party developed within, and increasingly adapted to the existing UK state and British Empire, with its constitutional monarchy and its established church, it departed from the earlier Radical, and never adopted the continental Social Democrat tradition, which then championed a republican and secular society, as the best means to integrate people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds.

In the nineteenth century, as those rising middle class members, who owned industries and other businesses, joined and broadened the traditional British ruling class, their Liberal principles became increasingly compromised. This was because they began to fear more Radical challenges from the ‘lower orders’. They sought their own rapprochement with the existing British unionist and constitutional monarchist order with its established church.  This became especially clear in their attempts to deal with those challenges they faced in Ireland.

The majority of the British ruling class decided that, rather than push for a secular Ireland, which might bring together ‘lower order’ Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters  – the old republican ideal – they would look for influential allies who would help them maintain their overall control. The widening of the franchise, first to the middle class, then later to tenant farmers and workers, meant that they could no longer rely on the old ‘Anglo-Irish’ Protestant Ascendancy alone. They found a powerful ally in the Catholic hierarchy.

However, winning the hierarchy’s support also meant granting it significant concessions.  These included the recognition of the papacy’s right to appoint bishops in the UK, and giving the hierarchy control over educational and elementary social provision (hospitals, children’s homes, etc). This was consistent with earlier Liberal capitulation to Protestant denominations over the provision of education and social provision in Ireland (particularly the North), England, Scotland and Wales.

In Ireland, both Daniel O’Connell and later, Charles Parnell went along with the Catholic hierarchy’s demands for a greater political say, in return for support for more political recognition of Ireland within the Union. The hierarchy also ensured that its full weight was thrown behind the suppression of the Radical alternatives represented by Young Ireland, the Fenian Brotherhood and the more Radical wing of the Irish Land League, and that loyalty to the Queen, UK and British Empire was upheld.

This ruling class attempt to broaden the base of ‘Britishness’ by making political concessions to the religious and ethnic leaders in particular communities has become the hallmark of a top-down state managerial approach to win the loyalty of people from different religious and ethnic groups in the UK. Today, this is officially promoted as ‘multiculturalism’, at the same time as the UK constitution and state retains a hierarchy of religious and ethnic privileges. This is highlighted by the continued existence of an established church (the Church of England, with semi-established status for the Church of Scotland too) and the state promotion of ‘British values’ (first developed in and heavily influenced by the context of systematic clearances, enclosures, various types of forced labour, brutal punishments and the worldwide imperial looting of the planet). State promoted multiculturalism is not based on the idea of universal equality of the members of those ethnic and religious groups living in the UK, but by the recognition of a hierarchy of privileges meted out to ‘their’ state-approved representatives [1].

In the nineteenth century, by departing from a consistent secular approach, the Liberal party, helped by the Catholic hierarchy, was able to win the vote of the majority of immigrant Irish. It was the passive votes, not the active participation of the ‘lower orders,’ that they wanted. In the twentieth century, the Labour Party increasingly adopted this approach too, but took it much further. It was also able to gain the support of many Catholic members of Irish origin, once the Catholic hierarchy had been won over and offered its lead. Labour accepted the state funding of specifically Catholic schools, which were placed under the immediate control of the hierarchy.

Several things helped the Catholic hierarchy in their endeavours. First the ‘non-denominational’ state schools were, in effect, still dominated by the different Protestant churches found in England, Scotland, Wales and what soon became Northern Ireland. The Conservative and Unionist Party, and the Church of Scotland still had strong Orange Order connections. They publicly displayed strong anti-Irish prejudices.  Therefore, it was argued that separate schooling would shield Catholics from the entrenched discrimination, which was certainly still prevalent, particularly in Scotland, in 1918 (and until much later), at the time such schools were set up.

However, the other side of this was the acceptance that religious (or anti-Irish) divisions were a permanent feature of society and could not be overcome. This gave the Catholic hierarchy exclusive control, not just over religious education, but over most other aspects of education and pastoral care for children in their crucial formative years. Unlike the Loyalists and Orange Order, particularly in Northern Ireland, the Catholic hierarchy did not push for other measures of segregation, e.g. to cover employment and housing, to further entrench their influence. Such measures would just confine those of Irish Catholic origin to the worst jobs and homes and not have been popular. Therefore, the hierarchy went along with the majority of Catholics who fought against discrimination by demanding proper access in these economic and social arenas.

The best way to promote wider social integration is to adopt a similar secular and non-discriminatory approach to education too. Few people (apart from Loyalist bigots in Northern Ireland) want separate provision of housing and jobs. A secular approach would mean ending the church establishment, and removing any remaining privileges by eliminating the existing Protestant aspects of ‘non-denominational’ schools. Of course, those Protestant bigots, who campaign for the ending of Catholic schools, don’t wish to end such Protestant privileges. They want to reassert Protestant British supremacy. This why they also call for the promotion of royal events, by celebrating the British Protestant monarchy in schools.  In contrast, secular schools would provide education about religions and other world outlooks, rather than permitting any religious indoctrination. However, such an approach is also still vehemently opposed by the Catholic hierarchy, which would lose the privileges it currently enjoys. In upholding this stance they have the backing of the Labour Party, particularly in Scotland.

Labour attacked the SNP, for much of its history, for wanting to create a Presbyterian Scotland. Labour strongly suggested that Scottish independence could only lead to the creation of a new ‘Stormont’-type regime here. As recently as 1994, Labour accused the SNP of anti-Catholic sectarianism in the Monklands by-election. However, just as the SNP has been able to out-social democrat New Labour, so, under Salmond, it has become as adept as Labour in courting the support of religious leaders, including the late Cardinal Winning and the current Cardinal O’Brien.

To win their influential support, the SNP has carefully politically positioned itself to appear less tolerant of gays and abortion rights than Labour, without officially adopting anti-gay or anti-abortion stances, which could lose it liberal support. Furthermore, the SNP has managed this, whilst at the same time courting such prominent Protestant fundamentalists as the homophobic Brian Souter, owner of Stagecoach.

Labour too was long able to play to such seemingly contradictory galleries. Prominent anti-Catholic bigot, Sam Campbell, member of the Orange Order, was the one-time Provost of Dalkeith and prominent Midlothian Labour councillor. Furthermore, Labour also currently enjoys the electoral support of the Orange Order, since it is seen to be the largest and most effective pro-unionist party in Scotland. Labour certainly doesn’t loudly trumpet this, preferring, if challenged, to appear as a mediating influence between religious or ethnic ‘extremes’.

In the recent past, Labour has extended the approach, initially adopted towards the Catholic hierarchy, by seeking the support of Muslim religious leaders in order to win the electoral support of mainly Asian migrants (particularly from Pakistan and Bangla Desh). Following this particular precedent, Salmond has also developed close relations with such people as Osama Saeed of the Scottish Islamic Foundation (which went on to receive state funding under the post 2007 SNP Holyrood government). Saeed became an SNP Westminster candidate in 2010 and he advocates ‘faith schools’. Just as the earlier Labour/Catholic hierarchy rapprochement helped to long cover up persistent child abuse in Catholic institutions, so SNP/Muslim religious leader rapprochement, especially if it were to lead to the setting up of ‘faith schools’, would likely provide cover for the sexist treatment of girls and women.2

Only a secular approach to society can guarantee the right of individuals to practice the religion of their choice without imposing their values on others, and at the same time guarantee universal rights to women, children, gays and lesbians, often granted fewer ‘rights’ or facing real discrimination under religious rulings. Following the earlier path adopted by the Liberal and Labour Parties before it, the SNP has not chosen a principled secular approach.

This is because the SNP, despite having a paper commitment to political independence, has also been very much moulded by the legacy of British unionism and imperialism. This can be seen in the party’s acceptance of the Crown (which fronts so many of the anti-democratic features of the UK state), the United Kingdom (the Queen would remain head of state), its support for Scottish regiments (serving US/British imperial interests) and of sterling (which means recognition of Scotland’s economic subordination to the City).

The SNP leadership does not really offer us a political road to effective Scottish self-determination. Instead it offers itself to both overseas and Scottish business leaders as the best potential management for declining British imperialism and the UK state, in the territory ‘north of the border’. It accepts the continued dominant role of US/British imperialism and corporate capital in the north-east Atlantic. It wishes to uphold this order, but preferably through a saltire-flagged, non-nuclear, military contribution to NATO.

The SNP leadership does hope though that there will still be enough small change left from government revenues to provide a few social democratic reforms, after meeting the continually increasing costs of maintaining a crisis-ridden capitalism. To win wider support for this strategy, it is trying to paint as much of the inherited machinery of the UK state with a good lick of ‘tartan paint’ as possible, beginning with the British Army’s Scottish regiments.

The SNP’s current confident stance is designed to offer a somewhat brighter future than the grim prospects offered by the present Scottish Labour leader, the well-named Iain Gray. However, committed first to meeting the needs of the banksters and other corporate spivs, the SNP’s illusion-mongering can only work as long as workers lack the self-confidence to organise and to take action to meet our own needs.

Real Scottish political self-determination can only be won through the consistent upholding of a democratic secular approach, which strives for the equality of all those currently living in Scotland, in an alliance with others in England, Wales and Ireland to break up the UK state and the US/British imperial alliance on the basis of an ‘internationalism from below’ strategy.

Such a strategy can not be separated from the need to develop a new socio-economic order to replace an increasingly crisis-ridden capitalism. To achieve this means breaking from all those who have become trapped in the web of institutions bequeathed by the successive phases of global capitalism both under the dominance of British and now US/British imperialism. In the nineteenth century, the Liberals succumbed to these pressures, as Labour did in the twentieth century, and as the SNP do  today. This is why it is so important that we begin to learn deeper lessons from the most recent failed attempt to do this – the Scottish Socialist Party. There is so much at stake.

Allan Armstrong, 10.8.11

1]           However, just as social democratic economic and social measures are being  scrapped to meet the needs of crisis-ridden capital, so too, have Cameron’s Conservatives decided to  undermine ‘multicultural’ state backing for selected  ethno-religious leaders (particularly Muslim), the better to promote old-style racist divide and rule policies amongst the working class.

2]             Of course, this is not to imply that such reactionary thinking and practice are confined to these particular religions or denominations. Neither the ‘liberal’ leadership of the Church of England nor the Church of Scotland is prepared to face down the homophobia of influential sections of their churches. The Church of England is committed to retaining its own denominational schools in England. The Church of Scotland has ostracised one of its own female ministers, Helen Percy, after she was raped by a church elder.

This was issued by the Manchester-based blogger, ‘Infantile and disorderly‘, on May 2.

On May 5, George Galloway will be standing for election to Holyrood. The former Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow and Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin is heading the George Galloway (Respect) – Coalition Against Cuts list. He has the backing of Solidarity, the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party in Scotland. On his election website, Galloway pledges to “oppose every cut to schools, hospitals and public services” and “fight for a parliament with the powers to tax the rich bankers and big business to help pay for jobs and decent public services”. It sounds fine, but there is no way those on the left can extend any level of support for George Galloway.

Galloway is a supporter of the Islamic Republic of Iran. When questioned at a recent public meeting, Galloway denied ever supporting president Ahmadinejad and even offered £1,000 to anyone who could prove his support. However, while interviewing the Iranian president on his Press TV show, The real deal, last August, Galloway stated that he requires “police protection in London from the Iranian opposition because of my support for your election campaign. I mention this so you know where I’m coming from.” In fact, while Iran’s 2009 election is widely accepted to have been rigged, Galloway has stated in his Daily Record blog that the electoral count “was awesome” and the million-plus protesters took to the streets because “too many people were allowed to vote” (his emphasis).

The Iranian regime incarcerates, tortures and executes political opponents, including leftists, trades unionists and leaders of the radical students’ movement. It does the same to those found guilty of “war against god”, a charge levelled at political dissidents.

Confessions are extracted under torture and duress and at times broadcast on state TV channels, including Press TV. Those found guilty of adultery and homosexuality can face the death penalty. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (called “the so-called stoning case” by Galloway on Press TV) was sentenced to death by stoning in a court speaking a language she didn’t speak herself. George Galloway denies that homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran. On The Wright show, Galloway stated that “the papers seem to imply that you get executed in Iran for being gay. That’s not true.” He then inferred that the boyfriend of gay Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi had been executed for “sex crimes” against young boys and not for being gay.

It’s unsurprising that Galloway publicly supports the Islamic Republic. He is an employee of Press TV, the Iranian state propaganda channel. While serving as a MP, Galloway was forced to declare his earnings from Press TV, which ranged from between £5,000 and £20,000 for his various shows.

As pro-democracy protests engulf Syria, it’s worth remembering that Galloway has previously heaped praise upon the Syrian regime and authoritarian ruler, Bashar al-Assad. Addressing Damascus University in late 2005, Galloway said: “For me he is the last Arab ruler, and Syria is the last Arab country. It is the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs.” Galloway has expressed approval for other dictators too, once describing Pakistan’s general Musharraf as an “upright sort”. Far from a consistent democrat, after the 1999 coup brought Musharraf to power Galloway told The Mail on Sunday that “Only the armed forces can really be counted on to hold such a country together … Democracy is a means, not an end in itself and it has a bad name on the streets of Karachi and Lahore.”

Galloway’s Christian beliefs have influenced his views on abortion and stem cell research. He doesn’t believe in evolution. In The Independent on Sunday in 2004 Galloway said: “I’m strongly against abortion. I believe life begins at conception, and therefore unborn babies have rights. I think abortion is immoral.” He was absent from all votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (which included attempts to reduce the abortion time limit in the UK). His notable absenteeism extends to many LGBT issues and euthanasia. Then again, Galloway always had fairly lamentable levels of parliamentary participation. As a Respect MP, Galloway only participated in 98 out of 1,288 votes. In 2006, he claimed more expenses than any other backbench MP in parliament.

Galloway’s egoism has always been astounding. While most socialists consider it standard for workers’ representatives to be elected on a workers’ wage (not an impoverishing amount, but the salary of a skilled worker), Galloway has declared he couldn’t possibly live on “three workers’ wages”. And what else other than pure vanity can have driven an appearance on Big brother, which discredited whole sections of the left?

Finally, it’s worth remembering that Respect’s own councillors in Tower Hamlets have voted through cuts to public services.

We call on socialists to offer no support for Galloway’s election campaign.

Moshé Machover (Israeli socialist)
Torab Saleth (Workers Left Unity Iran)
Mehdi Kia (co-editor Middle East Left Forum)
Charlie Pottins (Unite and Hands Off the People of Iran steering committee)
Rosie Kane (Scottish Socialist Party)
Nima Kisomi (Iranian socialist)
Sahar G (Iranian socialist)
Suran Badfar (Iranian Socialist)
Vicky Thompson (Hopi)
Tami Peterson (National Union of Students LGBT committee)
David Broder (The Commune)
Steve Ryan (The Commune)
Barry Biddulph (The Commune)
Sinead Rylance (Communist Students)
Ustun Yazar (Communist Students)
Reyhaneh Sadegzadeh (Communist Students)
Alex Allan (Communist Students)
James O’Leary (Communist Students)
Sebastian Osthoff (Communist Students)
Komsan Duke (Anarchist Federation)
William J Martin (Batley and Spen CLP)
Elsie Wraight (Manchester Labour Students)
Rachael Howe (Love Levenshulme Hate Cuts campaign)
Karen Broady (Unison)
Ste Monaghan (GMB)
Edd Mustill (NUJ)
Dan Read (NUJ)
Pete Cookson (NUT)
Joe Broady (Bectu)
Raphie De Santos (‘The left banker’)
Andrew Coates (socialist blogger)
Michael Leversha (student activist)
Beth Marshall (student activist)
Nima Barazandeh (student activist)
Democratic Socialist Alliance (organisation).

Allan Armstrong, Nick Clarke, and Bob Goupillot, editors of Emancipation & Liberation would like to add their names to this Open Letter, but with the following reservation regarding phrase the He doesn’t believe in evolution.

Galloway does support evolution as scientific fact – see article below from ‘Daily Record‘.

http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/georgegalloway/2009/02/student-critic-creates-a-fuss.html

The one thing that does not appear in the letter of protest is Galloway’s public incitement to violence against those who failed to support Sheridan in court in his attempt to use his political position for purely personal gain. We are pleased to see that Rosie Kane, who has been the subject of particularly foul abuse and attention from this quarter, has signed this letter.

RCN BULLETIN

SEPTEMBER NATIONAL COUNCIL, 2009

Why we produced the motion on socialist unity 

This statement explains why the Republican Communist Network (RCN) produced the motion on socialist unity* which has been put on the agenda for the National Council.

Firstly, the statement was not initially intended to be a motion because we did not think that platforms were allowed to put motions to the National Council (NC). We have never done so before but because it asked the Executive Committee (EC) to reconsider their statement, the National Secretary advised that it was more appropriate as a motion.

It is also important to remember the political context of the motion. The European elections took place on 4th June. Working class people across Britain, despite the worst crisis of capitalism in living memory, saw a left which was fragmented and in disarray. The mainstream, bourgeois parties could offer no solutions and voters were looking for answers. The split left was decimated in Scotland (it fell back far more here than in England and Wales). The BNP and Christian Party overtook every left/ socialist party in Scotland. The economic crisis does not mean that people will automatically turn to the left. The dangers in such complacency are clear to all when the BNP were able to win 2 seats in the European Parliament.

Following these elections, tentative and in some cases, possibly cynical moves towards “socialist unity” were made. As well as invitations to meet from those involved in “No 2 EU”, local initiatives were springing up via social forums and Red /Green groups. Non party members were asking about the possibility of “unity candidates” or non aggression pacts for the imminent Westminster election and the questions around the Glasgow North East by-election was even more pressing.

The Executive produced a statement, which said, “Once all of the legal obstacles have been cleared from our path, we intend to initiate a full, open and democratic discussion around left unity in Scotland and the role that the SSP can play in achieving it.” This statement left many party members unsure which, if any, initiatives they could be involved in. We believed that this statement was too vague and that the “legal obstacles” referred to could potentially drag on for months if not years. We felt that comrades could not simply ignore the initiatives, which were taking place, nor could we refrain from discussion indefinitely and still claim to be the party of socialist unity.

The RCN felt there were real dangers for the party in adhering to the course of action suggested in the EC statement and brought forward our position in order to seek clarification and facilitate a debate in the party on the matter. We believe that such a debate could be held without breaching any legal advice.

We have to say that as a platform, which is made up of hardworking, committed party members, we have been dismayed at the reaction to our statement by some within the party. We recognise that it probably represents a minority viewpoint but we are a party who has recently overhauled the constitution to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated and that all shades of opinion are heard and dealt with in a comradely manner. We hope that this is a tradition the SSP will return to.

We want to sincerely emphasise that our statement was not intended to cause further distress to any party member who may be a witness in any legal case. We are also clear as a platform and have written at length in our magazine, where the responsibility for the split in the socialist left in Scotland lies. That for us is a political crime, which is unforgivable.

We are not under any illusions about what can be achieved in any left unity discussions. The process, which brought about the SSP, took years of joint work and building of trust between groups. That will be far more difficult after the events of the last few years. However, no one can deny that in the current global economic and environmental crisis, socialist unity is needed more than ever.

We welcomed members of the EC who came to speak with the RCN platform last week to offer some clarification of their statement and to seek clarification and explanation from us. We would also like to thank individual SSP comrades who contacted us directly seeking clarification of our position. It is so much easier to understand comrades in a face-to-face discussion rather than via e-mail tirades.

We were assured that local initiatives as we outlined were not forbidden. The content of the executive statement was to protect any potential party witnesses for being held in contempt of court or being accused of obstructing the course of justice which is a criminal offence. We have no wish to place any of our comrades in such a position. We were also assured that the legal obstacles referred to mean the trial which is likely to take place early in the new year.

Comrades the embargo on this discussion cannot go on indefinitely or we will become totally ineffectual as a political force in Scotland. The debate on socialist unity must take place in the spring of next year at the latest or we will lose support and members if we are perceived to be an obstacle to the progress of socialist ideas.

However, given the clarification from the EC, we accept their request to remit the motion to the earliest possible date after the trial.

*   see http://republicancommunist.org/blog/page/3/

RCN BULLETIN

JANUARY 2010

General Election 2010 – A short contribution to the debate

Should the SSP stand?

The RCN has generally advocated standing in elections to provide the electorate with a socialist alternative at the ballot box. In the 2009 European elections, we argued vociferously that we should stand as part of the European Anti Capitalist Left.

However, it is important that we continue to review our election strategy particularly in the light of recent election campaigns and results.  Therefore, we must consider whether or not we stand in the coming Westminster elections.

Within the RCN, there are a number of different

opinions (we never have an RCN line and do not practise democratic centralism) but the majority are in favour of standing in a limited number of seats with local branches having the final decision on whether to stand or not. However, we agree with others who say we need to have a clear idea of why we are standing (beating other socialist parties by a few votes is not a good enough reason) and we need to stand on socialist demands not populist slogans.

What was right about the Glasgow North East By Election?

We had a very good candidate who had considerable political experience and who is an excellent communicator. Comrades worked very hard over a long period of time and reported positive responses on the ground. Mobilising against the SDL was a particularly important and significant spin off. Given these factors and the horrible effects of the current recession, we should have been pushing at an open door.

However, we had to fight against celebrity politics and other socialist parties, the SSP having decided not to discuss the prospect of a socialist unity candidate.

What was wrong with the Glasgow North East By Election?

Instead of a campaign based on strong, socialist, agitational propaganda, we resorted to populist politics in order to chase votes. Kevin was never going to “Make Greed History!” Why did we not use our excellent record as the anti war party to good effect? What was our socialist response to the capitalist crisis and the environmental threat to humanity posed by climate change? If we are only going to get 0.7% of the vote, let’s get it for an explicitly socialist alternative. The politics of populism failed.

What should our election strategy be?

We should stand in a limited number of seats given our numbers and financial position. We should support those branches that want to stand candidates. We should throw our weight behind the areas that want to stand in the election, but should be arguing for a socialist campaign. Ditch ‘Make Greed History’ and adopt either the SSP’s own ‘Make Capitalism History – Make Socialism the Future’ or the New Anti-Capitalist Party’s ‘Make the Bosses Pay for their Crisis’. We need to stop policy being made on the hoof. We must develop our programme and outline in much more detail our socialist alternative to capitalism. This is a longer term project for the party than just for these elections.

Instead of chasing passive voters, our approach should be one of “making socialists” by producing educational materials and holding meetings on key topics – War, Recession, BNP, Climate Change - educating our membership in the process.

We should also be emphasising the importance of the Scottish independence referendum, on the democratic grounds of upholding the right to self- determination, not by raising any false belief that the SNP can deliver, or that we should enter into any popular front with them.

What about other left parties?

We need to combat any illusion that we are the only left alternative on offer in any election. Unpalatable as this may be, we should consider non-aggression pacts in specific areas. We could enter a non-aggression pact with the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition, without sinking ourselves into the bureaucratic, anti-democratic stitch-up that it constitutes. The BNP are targeting Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Jim Murphy’ s seats. These are areas where it would make sense to consider non- aggression pacts.

We need to integrate any election work into work we are involved in generally and not see elections as separate from our normal activity of developing ourselves as socialists. We should be building branches ensuring they are functioning in as many areas as possible. Political education and the democratic building of a socialist programme should be a priority for the party.

RCN BULLETIN

SSP SPECIAL CONFERENCE IN GLASGOW – FEBRUARY 5th, 2011

RECHARGING THE SSP

There has been a slow erosion of Labour Party dominance over the working class in Scotland since the late 1970’s. The first signs of independent Left organisation outside Labour’s ranks followed Callaghan’s decision to bow before the dictates of the IMF, and his failure to throw the Labour government’s full weight behind its own Scottish Devolution Bill. This contributed to the formation of the Scottish Labour Party, in 1976, led by Jim Sillars.  The SLP only represented a limited political break with the Labour Party. However, it highlighted two features of future breakaways to the Left – a questioning of mainstream capitalist economics and a concern for greater national self-determination.

However, the SLP had no clearly developed socialist alternative to capitalism.  It also accepted a devolutionary reform of the UK, ignoring the state’s anti-democratic Crown Powers and its ongoing war in the ‘Six Counties’. Most significantly, the initials SLP turned out to mean the Sillars’ Labour Party. The party fell apart when Sillars attempted to bureaucratically suppress anyone who questioned his leadership and policies. This negative aspect has shown itself to be a recurring problem.

The next significant breakaway was the Socialist Labour Party, formed by Arthur Scargill, in response to Tony Blair’s successful campaign to reject the Labour Party’s Clause 4, in 1996, thus consummating New Labour.  Whilst the SLP had a traditional Left Labour statist critique of neo-liberalism, its support for Scottish self-determination was virtually non-existent. However, the second SLP turned out to be Scargill’s Labour Party. It too fell apart when Scargill suppressed all those who opposed him.

When the Scottish Socialist Party was formed in 1998, things had obviously advanced politically since the 1970’s. The new SSP was avowedly socialist in its critique of neo-liberalism, advocated the break-up of the UK and opposed the US/British imperial alliance. However, it was less clear both on what a socialist alternative would look like, and the strategy to be supported to challenge the UK state (tail-ending the Nationalists or a republican socialist ‘internationalism from below’ alliance). Nevertheless, the SSP was able to unite Left nationalists, Left unionists, socialist republicans, socialist feminists, environmental activists and others in a single organisation – no mean achievement.

However, the SSP was also afflicted with the ‘great leader’ syndrome, initially promoted by comrades from the former Scottish Militant Labour and others. This contributed to the ‘Tommygate crisis’ in November 2004. Could the SSP maintain itself as an independent socialist party, or was it doomed to become Sheridan’s Socialist Party? In October 2006, that role was taken on by Solidarity-SSM (the Suck-up to Sheridan Movement) when it split away, after Sheridan’s earlier court ‘victory’.

However, the remaining SSP has yet to prove it can successfully reconstitute itself as the party of socialist unity. There are questions over whether the restriction of internal debate over the last four years on this issue went beyond what was necessary to avoid the legal problems caused by the state’s perjury trial.  Some members appear to believe that the letters ‘SSP’ now stand for the Stuff Sheridan Party, and that the decision of a bourgeois court last December means that we can just continue as before. The very welcome clearing of our leading comrades’ names by a jury majority, however, is not the same as the SSP still being seen as the party of socialist unity, either by the wider working class, or even just by those former members and supporters, most of whom never joined Solidarity.

Any party wanting to overthrow the existing order will be presented with unforeseen challenges. They can either try to ignore the unwelcome consequences of this, pretending that things can go on just as before; or they can use the experience to learn how to deal with such challenges. Everybody in the SSP would now accept that celebrity populist politics, built around the ‘great leader’, has to be rejected. We all share some responsibility for not dealing with this earlier – including the RCN. However, the SSP has still to address two other issues, which its founding members had not considered.

First, what is our attitude to the bourgeois courts? What chance have socialists got of bringing about socialism in the face of capitalist economic and state power, if we run to their courts to sort out our internal problems in the here and now?  The original November 2004 EC decision to allow Sheridan to go to the courts to take on the News of the World was misguided. When he rejected the unanimous EC decision to advise him not to, this was his first anti-party action. But this was disguised from the membership by the EC-Sheridan ‘deal’, with fateful consequences. Similarly, Frances Curran’s decision to go to courts for a ruling on Sheridan’s disgusting Daily Record attack highlights two things. There still remains a belief in some quarters that bourgeois courts are a legitimate arena for socialists to settle disputes with each other; and secondly, an unwillingness to criticise and bring leading office bearers to account – something that can and should be done in a comradely, political and non-personalised way.

Secondly, what is our attitude to the bourgeois media? We shouldn’t secretly resort to their media to criticise the conduct of other socialists, no matter how provocative their actions. Secrecy can lead to malicious rumour spreading, as we soon found out. Even worse is taking money to attack others. The fact that Sheridan first started this in the Daily Record provides no excuse for others. Any responsible jury member should reject paid-for evidence. George McNeilage’s tape threatened to undermine those SSP witnesses who had nothing to gain in court but maintaining their own personal integrity.

The traumatic post-split October 2006 SSP Conference was conducted in a genuinely comradely manner. It took many principled decisions, which still need to be upheld today. However, this means an end to the refusal to answer questions concerning elected office bearers’ public behaviour and the personalised attacks on those raising criticisms, which we have sometimes witnessed since. This post-trial Special Conference must re-establish that earlier tone once more.

Unless there is a shared agreement that have been some major misjudgements in the SSP’s handling of the whole affair, then we will go the same way as the two earlier SLPs. To avoid this means:-

1)       an unequivocal rejection of celebrity populism.  We are radically democratic and egalitarian.

2)       not having leading members beyond question and therefore unaccountable to the membership.

3)      a refusal to go to the bourgeois courts and media in an attempt to solve our own problems.  We need to develop our own socialist methods of dealing with such issues.

Whatever the outcome of today’s Conference, the now long-proven need for a united socialist organisation in Scotland (joined to others in an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance) will remain. How much better, if that organisation was to be a recharged SSP, showing that it can meet any challenges thrown at it in a principled and imaginative way.

RCN BULLETIN

SSP AGM IN DUNFERMLINE, APRIL  2011

 FACING UP TO THE CRISIS IN THE SSP

 The motions for this year’s Conference highlight the toll taken on the SSP over the last six years. Is the Scottish Socialist Party still a party, or we have we just become a loose alliance, looser even than the preceding Scottish Socialist Alliance?

AUTO-ELECTORALISM OR SLEEP WALKING TOWARDS MAY 5^th

Motion A1 from the Executive Committee on the Holyrood election only views the national election on May 5^th as a preparation for the Scottish local elections next year. It doesn’t address the political situation we currently face. Labour and SNP are vying with each other to be seen as the embodiment of ‘capitalist responsibility’, implementing the cuts programme demanded by corporate capital, the EU and Westminster; whilst hypocritically claiming to minimise effect of the cuts on the workers or people of Scotland. Nor does the EC motion take stock of the situation we face in the aftermath of the Sheridan Trial, with a split Left and the continued challenge the SSP faces from the supporters of ‘celebrity socialism’. Only now it is in the guise of that opportunist George Galloway and his cheerleaders in the CWI, SWP and Solidarity – when will they ever learn!

However, in order to rally the troops, at least until May, our leadership is also highlighting a recent opinion poll, which places the SSP on 4% in the Regional List. Yet, in the latest council by-election in Paisley, the SSP only received about 2% of the vote. This is in a solid working class constituency with an active branch and a locally well-known candidate.  But this is not enough. The SSP still has a lot to do to win back key sections of the working class in Scotland.  A ‘back to business as usual’ approach is unlikely to achieve this.

TAKING FULL ACCOUNT OF THE PROBLEMS CAUSED BY THE SPLIT

The court’s decision last December, in clearing the names of our leading comrades, was very welcome. However, the jailing of Sheridan for the non-violent crime of perjury does not constitute justice.  It also creates a false martyr. It still leaves Sheridan unaccountable for his offences against our class, and his courtroom and media attempts to drag sexual relations back fifty years.  Nor does the decision of a bourgeois court amount to a vindication of all the actions taken by the SSP over these difficult times. This is why we in the RCN have stuck by our motion remitted from the February Special Conference, which addresses these concerns. Until the SSP can publicly acknowledge our need to be self-critical and learn from our mistakes, we will not regain the confidence of our class. As a result, workers’ support will be directed elsewhere, or many will just retreat into apathy and cynicism.

Other Conference motions also acknowledge the continuing crisis facing the SSP. In particular, Motion B7 from Glasgow West argues that, “The SSP has suffered over the past 6 years because of our inability to discuss openly and candidly the experience of the party and its members surrounding the Sheridan court cases and the split in the party in 2006”. Furthermore, this motion goes on to make some useful proposals involving a structured discussion around important issues. There are a number of other issues which we think could usefully have been added – such as the role of trade unions and how socialists should relate to them; and an assessment of the ‘National Question’ and its impact on the UK – but these (and other) issues could still be added by future ECs or NCs. The Glasgow West motion deserves support.

So too does motion B8 from Edinburgh South calling for the SSP to initiate another Convention of the Left, to be held in Scotland.  This would probably bring along others who are now distinctly hostile to the SSP. However, we should not be afraid to publicly debate such issues as ‘celebrity socialism versus genuine socialism’, ‘tolerating sexism under the guise of  ‘class politics’ versus challenging women’s oppression and sexism as part of the struggle for human emancipation’. We also have a distinctive socialist republican approach to the ‘National Question’ to counter the British Left. Furthermore, if the SSP can show that we have learned important lessons from the trials and tribulations of the ‘Tommygate Affair’, we are likely to get a hearing once more from those who used to look to the SSP for a political lead.

Motion 3 from Scottish Socialist Youth recognises the slippage of the SSP from a properly structured party based on branches to, in effect, a loose alliance. Indeed, the SSY itself has increasingly become another semi-detached part of this federal mix, despite their key role initiating the independent Anti-Fascist Alliances and the continuing Free Hetherington Occupation. The SSP, as a whole, needs to learn from these valuable experiences, and seriously address our young comrades’ concerns.

PROBLEMS STILL UNRECOGNISED AND THE APPROACH NEEDED

There are other problems for the SSP accentuated by the current crisis, which are not the subject of debate at this Conference. The Scottish Socialist Voice has become another largely autonomous body, not subject to the control of a wider Editorial Board, responsible to Conference, ECs or NCs. Although we have a prolific Industrial Organiser, there is no regularly meeting Industrial/Trade Union Committee. Many of these problems have arisen, not through bad practice, but due to the loss of SSP members and the fall-off in branch activity, leaving smaller numbers of comrades trying to hold things together as best they can.

In conclusion, can this Conference fully acknowledge the nature of the crisis that has engulfed the SSP? Can we address our own ‘inner demons’ without acrimony and rancour, and in a spirit of shared comradeship? If we can do this, then we have a chance of reversing the current tendency to fragmentation and of becoming a party once more.

We have recently heard of the passing of Charlie Rees.

What follows is a short poem he wrote when moving from his home in Dunure, Scotland to northern England

March 18th 2001

Comrades, friends, mates, pals
None of these words describe the way I feel
A bond between us all

They are my left hand

Pure chance we met, just taking any seat
A trick of fate
A show of hands and there we were

I bled today
I cut off my left hand

Charlie Rees

The RCN welcomes the vindication of those SSP comrades who refused to go along with Sheridan’s attempt to use his public and celebrity position to extract money for personal gain. Whilst fully recognising the political damage and personal hurt to SSP members resulting from this debacle, the RCN opposes the jailing of our former SSP comrade Tommy Sheridan and looks forward to the day when such issues will be dealt with within the organisations of our class not those of the bourgeoisie.  Lessons, however, must be learnt.

The rise of the Scottish Socialist Party to a position of influence and respect within the working class of Scotland, owes a great deal to the hard work and dedication of many comrades. No one can underplay the contribution made to this by Tommy Sheridan. He became the public face of the socialist movement in Scotland and inspired many people to become involved in class based activity. However, Tommy is a human being and is flawed like the rest of us. He grew to believe his own rhetoric; he courted the press on personal and family matters and set himself up to be the epitome of the clean-cut family man. He grew to believe that he was the SSP.

As we said at the time of the split within the SSP: The decision of Tommy Sheridan to pursue his court case against the unanimous advice of the SSP National Executive represented a rejection of inner party democracy and the accountability of party officials to the membership – an anti-party action, which has had dire consequences for the SSP. It was a gross political mistake.

The subsequent decision to form a new organisation, Solidarity, on little other political basis than personal support for Tommy Sheridan, represented a continuation of this anti-party action and heralded one of the most serious mistakes made by socialists in post war Scottish politics. It placed personality and individual egos above principled politics. It weakened the working class in the face of the current ruling class offensive.

The decision of the SWP and CWI to back this split, further demonstrated their own sectarian agendas. These organisations’ lack of commitment to principled socialist unity has already been clearly shown by their recent separate ‘unity’ initiatives in England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland.

The most immediate lesson for socialists is the incompatibility of trying to build a socialist organisation through promoting a celebrity leader. Furthermore, this has been highlighted, in the UK, not only by the example of Tommy Sheridan, but also of Derek Hatton (CWI/Militant), Arthur Scargill (Socialist Labour Party) Ken Livingstone (one-time Left independent) and George Galloway (Respect).

The consequences of the internecine warfare for the SSP and the working class movement have been catastrophic. Our credibility as an organisation, which can lead the struggles that face us and unite the left in Scotland, is severely diminished. However, we have survived and in pockets around Scotland have continued to work democratically and been leading fighters in various struggles.

Now is the time to learn the lessons of this tragedy. If we do so, then we can possibly rebuild as an organisation and once more play our part in forging socialist unity and taking forward the fight for a progressive and equal society.

Although we hold Tommy Sheridan responsible for the initial damage to the SSP, we also recognise the potential for subsequent and continuing damage caused by the misguided actions of a number of our own comrades, some of these actions in direct contradiction to Party policy. To avoid this, we must:-

• Encourage debates where political differences and attempts to make SSP office bearers accountable for their actions are addressed without acrimony and personalised attacks, either by those criticising or those criticised, and with understanding.
• Apply our constitution equally to all members.
• Insist that all officers of the Party adhere to Party policy.
• Not elevate any individual or group to the position of Great Leader/s. The party has democratic structures to ensure this does not happen and these must be adhered to.
• The membership of the party must be trusted. Some of the fallout from the court case could have been mitigated if the minutes of the EC had been dealt with in the normal manner and been made public to the membership. Only the RCN argued for the minutes to be open. This was a case of the party still treating Tommy Sheridan as more important than any other member and as such above the democratic scrutiny of the party.
• No resort to the bourgeois courts to decide political issues as per conference decisions at the October conference post the split.

Socialists should not go to the bourgeois courts for rulings on how we conduct ourselves. Such appeals should only be made to the democratic institutions of our class. What chance have socialists got of bringing about socialism in the face of capitalist economic and state power, if we have to run to their courts to sort out our problems in the here and now? Therefore, we need to re-emphasise the SSP Conference policy passed on October 20th, 2006.

• SSP members should avoid resort to the state’s courts when seeking redress for politically motivated attacks on their behaviour
• When SSP members are subjected to politically motivated attacks by the state or media, they should be able to call upon the support of the SSP National Executive to conduct a party campaign including the following tactics as deemed appropriate:-
  • articles in the party’s press
  • direct appeals to the trade union members in the state bodies and/or media responsible
  • calls for boycott actions
• SSP members should not resort to the non-party media when making allegations against other SSP members. Such allegations should be brought initially before the appropriate party body at the level concerned with the right to appeal to a higher level, the ultimate appeal being the SSP Conference.
• The elected press officer should be responsible for day-to-day responses to the outside media, when members are under attack. The press officer is directly responsible, initially to the National Executive, then to the National Council, and finally to the National Conference.

We accept that individuals found themselves in exceptional circumstances. However, in line with the above decision, the George McNeilage tape should have been seen to be dealt with by the party. This has been damaging for the SSP amongst the broader labour and trade union movement. The end does not justify the means.

Frances Curran’s use of the courts for a ruling being called a scab by the Daily Record was also a political mistake and against Party policy. Party members who handed minutes to police or who gave affidavits to newspapers must now see that however well intentioned, their actions were not helpful and once more were against party policy.

Once again, it is our contention that we must bring the continuing self inflicted damage to an end. The mistakes we made must be acknowledged, breaches of policy on the part of office bearers should be addressed and we must show ourselves to be a democratically accountable party.

Also, the Party must now seek to carry through the decision of the post-split 2006 SSP Conference which welcomes back former members without recriminations, especially now that they can clearly see the tragic implications of the misguided actions of Sheridan, Solidarity, SWP and CWI leaderships.

Principled unity is our strength. We have a duty to the working class and the cause of socialism to maintain socialist unity and to conduct ourselves in a combative, determined, confident, but friendly manner aimed at convincing thousands that the SSP’s principles and policies coincide with their interests. The future is ours, provided we collectively seize it.(Passed overwhelmingly 20th October 2006)

We must also try to win back the largest group of all – those former members who left the SSP and did not join Solidarity. They have raised criticisms, not only about egotism of Sheridan and the unattractive sectarianism and splitting tactics of the SWP and CWI, but also of some of the badly misjudged actions of the SSP in attempting to deal with these problems. This group currently forms an important bridge to those wider sections of the working class whom we need to win over once more to principled, socialist unity.

This should be read in conjunction with the RCN Statement to Conference.

Conference holds Tommy Sheridan’s anti-party actions to be responsible for the damage inflicted on the SSP and on the socialist movement in Scotland, aided, in particular, by the decisions taken by the leaderships of the CWI and SWP. The decision to split the SSP through the formation of Solidarity represented a major political mistake, which has left the working class severely weakened in the face of the current capitalist offensive.

We recognise however that to rebuild the party and this movement we must ensure that our own party structures, our constitution, conference decisions and internal, democratic procedures are adhered to. Therefore the SSP must:

Encourage debates where political differences and attempts to make SSP office bearers accountable for their actions are addressed without acrimony and personalised attacks

• Apply our constitution equally to all members.
• Insist that all officers of the party adhere to party policy.
• Not elevate any individual or group to the position of Great Leader/s. The party has democratic structures to ensure this does not happen and these must be adhered to.
• The membership of the party must be trusted.
• Reject any attempt to resort to the media or other bodies for personal financial gain, when information is sought about the conduct of people involved in the socialist and labour movements.

This conference re-emphasises SSP Conference policy passed on October 20th, 2006

• SSP members should avoid resort to the state’s courts when seeking redress for politically motivated attacks on their behaviour
• When SSP members are subjected to politically motivated attacks by the state or media, they should be able to call upon the support of the SSP Executive Committee to conduct a party campaign including the following tactics as deemed appropriate:
  • articles in the party’s press
  • direct appeals to the trade union members in the state bodies and/or media responsible
  • calls for boycott actions
• SSP members should not resort to the non-party media when making allegations against other SSP members. Such allegations should be brought initially before the appropriate party body at the level concerned with the right to appeal to a higher level, the ultimate appeal being the SSP Conference.

The elected press officer should be responsible for day-to-day responses to the outside media, when members are under attack. The press officer is directly responsible, initially to Executive Committee, then to the National Council, and finally to the National Conference.

Also, the party must now seek to carry through the decision of the post-split 2006 SSP Conference which welcomes back former members without recriminations, especially now that they can clearly see the tragic implications of the misguided actions of Sheridan, Solidarity, SWP and CWI leaderships.

The SSP continues to welcome members from other organisations provided they accept the aims and constitution of the SSP. Platforms and networks in the SSP exist to benefit the party as a whole by encouraging wider debate drawing on varied experiences. Principled unity is our strength. We have a duty to the working class and the cause of socialism to maintain socialist unity and to conduct ourselves in a combative, determined, confident, but friendly manner aimed at convincing thousands that the SSP’s principles and policies coincide with their interests. The future is ours, provided we collectively seize it. (Passed overwhelmingly 20th October 2006).

We must also try to win back the largest group of all – those former members who left the SSP and did not join Solidarity. They have raised criticisms, not only about egotism of Sheridan and the unattractive sectarianism and splitting tactics of the SWP and CWI, but also of those badly misjudged actions of the SSP in attempting to deal with these problems. These former members, many still active in their trade unions, communities and political campaigns, currently form an important bridge to those wider sections of the working class whom we need to win over once more to principled, socialist unity.

The split on the Scottish Left between celebrity populist and genuine socialist politics

On May 1st, 2003 six Scottish Socialist Party members were elected to Holyrood. From December 23rd, 2010, by far the best-known (former) member of the SSP, Tommy Sheridan, faces a jail sentence for committing perjury, following in the footsteps of Lord Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken. At a time of unprecedented attacks on the working class, led by a Tory-Lib-Dem government at Westminster, transmitted by an SNP government in Holyrood, and taken up by Labour, SNP, Lib-Dem and Tory councillors throughout Scotland, there is only one remaining socialist (SSP) representative – Jim Bollan, the councillor for the Leven ward in West Dunbartonshire.

How has this sad state of affairs come to pass, and is there anything socialists can usefully learn from all this?  Perhaps the most immediate lesson is the incompatibility of trying to build a socialist organisation through promoting a celebrity leader. Furthermore, this has been highlighted, in the UK, not only by the example of Tommy Sheridan, but also of Derek Hatton (CWI/Militant), Arthur Scargill (Socialist Labour Party) Ken Livingstone (one-time Left independent) and George Galloway (Respect).

However, the fact that the same mistake keeps repeating itself shows that a significant section of the Left in the UK is more attracted to populist politics, than to genuine socialist politics, where all members are treated as equals and are encouraged to think for themselves.

Sexual prudery or simple hypocrisy

Another shortcoming has been the failure of much of the Left in Scotland, following from Tommy Sheridan’s lead, to be able to deal with sexual politics. In the face of salacious newspaper attacks regarding their sex lives, Bertie Ahern and John Prescott, to name but two prominent politicians, have managed to handle the press far better. So what? or, People’s sexual lives are a private matter, should have been the obvious response by any socialist to the News of the World accusations.

Tommy could not do this because his populist politics had led him, at every media opportunity, to cultivate his own celebrity image. He portrayed himself as being part of ‘the perfect family’ – Tommy, Gail and my little princess, Gabrielle (which perhaps revealingly puts Tommy and Gail in the position of king and queen!)

This highlights how deeply bourgeois ideology, including their hypocritical ‘morality’, is embedded in our class. It points to the urgent need for a discussion amongst socialists as to what attitudes and practice, regarding personal sexual and emotional relations, we might positively promote. At the moment we appear to have few answers to such questions and it offers our enemies a permanent Achilles heel to wound us.

Socialists are not sexual prudes and should defend a person’s right to engage in any consensual sexual activity of their choice. They should not be drawn into the sleaze mongering of the tabloid press, whether it be the News of the World or the Daily Record. However, any socialist makes him or herself a hostage to fortune, if they demonstrate hypocrisy in their attitudes and behaviour in this particular arena. John Major’s public support for ‘family values’, whilst personally leading a somewhat different private life, had already demonstrated how the media would deal with such hypocrisy.

In both Sheridan’s ill-considered court case against the News of the World and the subsequent perjury trial, he attempted to appeal to the jury as a guiltless Daniel O’Donnell-type figure, whilst hitting out at the ‘sexual misdemeanour’s’, mental health and socialist factionalism of the other witnesses. Having abandoned any possible socialist grounds for fending off attacks by the gutter press or the state, Sheridan demonstrated the depths to which he was prepared to go to protect only himself – something his remaining political allies, and even friends and family would be well advised to take note of.

A populist Solidarity and a socialist SSP

The Left in Scotland is now clearly divided. It included those who promote populist celebrity politics. The majority of populist celebrity supporters are to be found in Solidarity, the Scottish Socialist Movement, which constitutes the Tommy Sheridan Fan club. Indeed that is about the only thing that unites this unprincipled political ‘marriage of convenience’. Sheridan also enjoys the support of a number of jaundiced journalists, sometimes former Left supporters, who are now bitterly hostile to organised socialist politics, but are quite happy with individual colourful celebrity politicians, who provide good press copy.

How much longer he will enjoy this support is another question. Sheridan’s adulatory celebrity soul-mate, George Galloway, is now rapidly back peddling, probably having calculated that the Sheridan connection will not help him win support amongst Glasgow’s Muslim community in the forthcoming Holyrood election. He is probably also positioning himself for a return to the Labour Party, if he can show he still has some electoral weight, a la Livingstone.

Opposing such populist celebrity politics are those, primarily in the SSP, who have learned from their earlier mistake of tolerating Tommy Sheridan as he transformed himself into an increasingly self-promotional celebrity figure. He is no longer reined in by any platform discipline, following the collapse of the International Socialist Movement, he was a member of, along with the majority amongst the SSP leadership.

Still a lack of clarity on the use of bourgeois courts on both sides

Unfortunately, though, despite there being a now deep divide amongst the Left in Scotland, there are still some remaining shared political characteristics, held at the two leadership levels. If these aren’t also dealt with firmly in the aftermath of the perjury trial, this will prevent any political recovery by the SSP.

In particular, neither Sheridan’s supporters, nor the majority of the SSP leadership, have learned one particular fundamental lesson when it comes to the advance of principled socialist politics. You do not go to the bourgeois courts for rulings on how socialists conduct themselves. Such appeals should only be made to the democratic institutions of our class. What chance have socialists got of bringing about socialism in the face of capitalist economic and state power, if we have to run to their courts to sort out our problems in the here and now?

The original unanimous SSP Executive Committee (EC) decision of November 9th, 2004, to advise Tommy not to proceed with his court case, was not taken on the grounds of principle, but on the tactical grounds that the truth behind the sexual allegations would likely surface at some time. Instead of Tommy being instructed to stand down because he was not prepared to take unanimous party advice, a deal was cobbled together, which allowed him to pursue his case as ‘private matter’. The consequences of this misguided decision (as if the media and state were ever going to treat Tommy Sheridan as a non-political private individual) soon became apparent.

Some among the populist wing of the SSP, which could not imagine the party’s existence without Tommy as leader, started to make their guilty annoyance known in leaks to the bourgeois press, before the November 27th National Council (NC) meeting. Later, Alan McCombes, now trying to disentangle an SSP leadership from its previous unquestioning public support for Tommy, responded to this provocation by providing an affidavit to the press, which explained the SSP leadership majority’s actions.

The people, who were effectively bypassed by both sides, were the ordinary SSP members. With the agreement of both sets of protagonists, members had been denied access at the November 27th NC meeting to the minutes of the 9th November EC meeting. Further down the line, the consequences of this became clear. On May 16th, 2006, the state stepped in. Lady Smith decided, at the Edinburgh Court of Session, to help the News of the World, by demanding the SSP hand over the minutes. Alan McCombes quite correctly refused to hand over the minutes. He ended up in Saughton Jail on May 26th as a consequence – a high price to pay for this earlier mistake.

Sheridan pulls the populists and the CWI and SWP behind his strategy of deceit, and his calls for members to sacrifice themselves for the ‘great leader’

This was the point at which Tommy should have stepped in and said that enough was enough. He should then have dropped his court case, now that the full consequences of his course of action had become apparent. Some of his remaining supporters, including the recently elected Convenor, Colin Fox, did realise that Tommy’s ‘game was now up’. To their credit, they moved over to the camp of those in the SSP leadership majority who were trying to disentangle themselves from a situation of the party’s own making, in the best possible manner considering the difficult circumstances they now found themselves in.

However, Tommy decided to adopt another course of action. He  began to group an unholy alliance around himself. This group consisted of the Sheridanistas (his unquestioning supporters in the party) and the hard-wired sectarians amongst the SWP and CWI (who had quite different and mutually antagonistic political agendas). With a jailed Alan McCombes now the centre of members’ and wider media attraction, Tommy helped to devise a scheme, which would put him back in the media limelight.

His supporters, now calling themselves the SSP Majority, decided to push for an emergency National Council meeting on May 28th 2006, which they packed. Here Tommy produced his hate-mongering ‘Open Letter’. This lead encouraged his supporters to reduce the meeting to a bear garden, in a marked break from previous SSP practice.

As a result, they won a National Council majority calling for Alan McCombes to hand over the minutes to the courts. However, Tommy’s allies had written up a false set of minutes, which they had already handed over. This action provided the state with the list of people who would be dragged before court to testify, whilst missing out the names of Tommy’s supporters, who had also given their backing to the original genuine set of minutes. From this point onwards, Tommy was able to publicly entangle his supporters in his own continued deceptions. These involved the concoction of an ever more bizarre set of lies.

The biggest of these lies was that it was the SSP leadership majority who were themselves lying over his revelations at the original EC meeting. Here there had been unanimous agreement for the course of action adopted.

Thus the heart of Tommy’s court case against the News of the World was to be the presentation of a completely false story, which involved the sacrifice of the SSP Secretary, Barbara Scott for doing her job, and of those leading SSP members, including four MSPs, Frances Curran, Colin Fox (until recently Sheridan’s ally), Rosie Kane, Carolyn Leckie, who refused to perjure themselves so that he could use his own political position and celebrity status to extract a substantial sum of money from the News of the World for his wife, Gail. The fruits of the politics of populism were made starkly clear. ‘Lesser’ members had to sacrifice themselves for the ‘great leader’.

The real role of SSP platforms and Sheridan’s playing to anti-socialist prejudice

Tommy also decided to appeal to the anti-socialist prejudice of the media, and hopefully, for him, of the majority of the jurors. This meant he conjured up a secret faction, which had always been out to get him. He called this previously non-existent organisation the ‘United Left’. The real United Left only formed, on June 11th, 2006, as a temporary platform, in self defence, after the antics of Tommy’s supporters in the SSP Majority platform, at the May 28th NC meeting.

Tommy’s own supporters did include the long-standing factionalists of the SWP and CWI, but even they had been forced to moderate their sectarian practices at earlier SSP gatherings, when a united SSP membership showed low toleration for such behaviour.

Back in November 2004, though, Tommy and some of his later supporters, such as Steve Arnott and Jock Penman, were in the same platform, the International Socialist Movement, as Keith Baldassara, Frances Curran, Catriona Grant, Alan McCombes, Richie Venton and others, who ended up on the opposite sides as the internal dispute developed.

However, many people, who came to oppose Tommy’s utterly wrong-headed course of action, were never members of the ISM, or the SSP Womens Network in 2004, and didn’t become members of the United Left in 2006. The accusation of a ‘faction-ridden’ party was a central component in Tommy’s case. The SSP could therefore be denigrated by cynical journalists and pilloried in front of the jurors. Such anti-socialist baiting may well have contributed to Tommy’s victory in his first court case. He certainly thought so, because he resorted to the same tactic in the perjury trial, where he made barbed comments about the CWI, some of whom were now his allies and supporting courtroom witnesses!

Sheridan, as a celebrity populist politician, does not want to be held accountable to any political organisation, whether it be a platform, party or ‘movement’. Appeals to a celebrity promoting media, or being seen publicly in the company of other celebrities, are the ways by which he now gains much of his political support. A backing party or ‘movement’ may provide additional help, but only if it is constituted as a ‘Tommy Sheridan Fan Club’, which never questions the ‘great leader’.

Sheridan and his allies make up excuses to avoid real accountability for their anti-party actions

When Tommy’s original case came to court, the jurors quite rightly dismissed the evidence of all those who had been paid by the News of the World. However, despite Tommy’s shameful personalised attacks, and the hyped-up accusations of factionalism, to appeal to anti-socialist prejudice, other SSP witnesses held back, not wishing to provide aid to the News of the World. (Sheridan was to shamelessly use the fact that SSP witnesses did not reveal his full duplicity at this trial, in his attempt to undermine them in the subsequent perjury trial; whilst also continuing with his anti-socialist diatribes in court). These witnesses had absolutely nothing to gain except their self-respect. They were looking to a post-trial SSP conference to hold Tommy to account.

When Tommy was acquitted on 4th August, 2006, SSP Convenor, Colin Fox welcomed his victory over the News of the World. Tommy’s wrecking anti-party actions could now be debated, along with any criticisms of the leadership majority’s handling of the case, where they always should have been – within the party itself. Tommy announced that he was standing for Convenor against Colin.

So members were now provided with a clear choice. On one hand were those who supported populist celebrity politics, and who thought that some party leaders held a privileged position, which it was the duty of others to uphold at whatever personal cost; and in which political sects could behave as they liked. On the other hand were those who wanted to build a principled socialist organisation, where all members were treated as equal, and where platforms worked for the greater good of the party, by using their different political experiences to lift party debate and action to a higher level.

However, this choice was such an obvious ‘no-brainer’ that Tommy and his allies, had to devise another course of action to avoid the immediate consequences of their actions, just as in the aftermath of the release of Alan McCombes from jail. On no account would Tommy face the accountability of the wider SSP membership.

Tommy was now confident that his own political supporters would never attempt to bring him to account. So he upped the ante, and wrote a disgusting and well-paid article in the Daily Record, attacking those SSP members who had opposed him, showing particular vehemence for the women involved. Just as the two sets of court proceedings have revealed a massive gap between Tommy, ‘the perfect family man’, and his secret sexual alter ego; so his press and courtroom attacks on women have highlighted the massive gap between Tommy, ‘the charmer of the ladies’, and his underlying misogynism. Some of his supporters quickly jumped to order.

However, the prime purpose of Sheridan’s ‘scab’ attack in the Daily Record was to create a smokescreen to justify not being held to account at the planned special SSP Conference. Instead, a new party, Solidarity, would be formed.  The condition for membership was unquestioning public support for Tommy, right or wrong. The ‘great leader’ was effectively ‘anointed’ at Solidarity’s founding conference, to the accompaniment of his mother Alice Sheridan singing The Impossible Dream! The leaderships of the CWI and SWP had already signed up. They demanded only that they be allowed to behave in an equally unaccountable way; but in their cases, not to promote any personal celebrity status, but their own sectarian ends.

Sheridan leads his followers into the political desert

Some claim that Sheridan has become such a victim of his own ego that he has started to believe all his own fabrications. If this is the case, then Solidarity’s  leaders also entered Sheridan’s fantasy world. They publicly claimed that Solidarity would overtake the six MSPs gained by the SSP in 2003, at the next Holyrood election in 2007. And his political advisors in the CWI and SWP were meant to be sharp Marxist politicians, able to see the balance of class and political forces! In the end, although every Solidarity candidate, whether at Holyrood or council level, stood under the ‘Tommy Sheridan’ brand label; but not even Sheridan was able to hold on to his Holyrood seat.

However, one Solidarity member, Ruth Black, had been indeed persuaded that Solidarity offered the best new political opportunities. She was elected in Glasgow as their sole councillor (in the same election as the very different and principled socialist, Jim Bollan in West Dunbartonshire). However, she soon came to realise that joining Solidarity was not her best career move. So she joined the Labour Party, quickly throwing her lot in with its corrupt leader, the now sacked Stephen Purcell!

The perjury investigations provide a cover for the state to conduct a massive intelligence-gathering exercise and to organise a socialist-baiting trial

The clearest indication that some Solidarity members had lost all sense of reality, and were ‘tripping out’ on a hyped-up sectarian triumphalism, was a new call made by certain of their supporters in the media. An article in the Edinburgh Evening News suggested that those SSP members, who had failed to back Sheridan in court, should face perjury charges, now that he had won his court case. This was not a smart move!  Quite clearly, the state, having already been provided with the opportunity to intervene in the internal affairs of the SSP, through Sheridan’s earlier actions, quickly took up this invitation. Furthermore, their perjury investigations weren’t confined to the SSP witnesses.

It was certainly the case that either one side or another had perjured itself in court. Perjury in court is an everyday event, which is normally ignored. However, when it involves elected public figures, who misuse their position for personal gain (or to publicly discredit and undermine another elected representative, if Sheridan’s accusations had been true), then the state is much more likely to step in. This is true whatever the politics of the accused, as the case of the Archer and Aitken, two Tories, had already shown.

However, there was an additional reason why the state was eager to finance this particular perjury case. The police investigation would be useful cover for a massive intelligence-gathering exercise on the Left; whilst the ensuing court case would provide the opportunity to set-up a piece of political theatre, in which socialists would publicly tear each other to pieces. The key SSP witnesses, and even a few of the Solidarity witnesses, tried to avoid falling into this particular trap in court, but Sheridan himself played to the anti-socialist and populist prejudices with great gusto. Therefore, from the state’s point of view, the £4M on the police investigation and the court case was well spent.

Politically responsible and politically irresponsible defensive actions from the SSP leadership

To their great credit, leading SSP and former SSP activists – including Barbara Scott, Alan McCombes, Richie Venton, Keith Baldassara, Frances Curran, Rosie Kane, Carolyn Leckie and Colin Fox, spoke truthfully and without personal animosity in court. It was their evidence, coupled to that of a number of completely independent witnesses, which vindicated the SSP in the eyes of the jury.

However, Sheridan’s provocative and calculated Daily Record attack on August 7th, 2006, had pushed some SSP members to politically indefensible actions, despite the SSP’s own 2006 post-trial Conference decisions. These made it clear that any resort to bourgeois courts or media to settle political grievances was unacceptable.

George McNeilage’s decision to take £200,000 from the News of the World for Tommy’s taped ‘confession’ completely undermined his credibility before any serious jury member, who would discount paid-for ‘evidence’. Worse still, it threatened to undermine those SSP members trying to clear their name with no personal gain, other than upholding their commitment to truth and integrity. Once the party conference had taken a decision on how members should conduct themselves, McNeilage’s actions should have been publicly disowned.

Sheridan’s Daily Record attack also provoked an understandably irate Frances Curran, now the SSP party co-spokesperson, to go to the court for a ruling against his completely false accusation of ‘scabbing’. Once again, this was against the 2006 SSP post-split conference decision opposing any such course of action. The hold of old CWI politics over otherwise very critical former members was surely demonstrated in Frances’ belief that a bourgeois court would find any accusation of ‘scabbing’ reprehensible. Scabbing is something that is actively encouraged under the law. The decision of the SSP leadership to let Frances go ahead, not with official party backing, but as a private individual, just repeated the earlier mistake made with Sheridan at the November 26th 2004 EC. But, at least, Sheridan was asked to stand down whilst he did so!

Furthermore, other leading members’ resort to grandstanding to prevent any meaningful discussion at Conference, EC or NC meetings on socialist unity, whilst the perjury case was proceeding, left many existing and former members, as well as supporters, wondering whether the SSP leadership is really serious about socialist unity. Or, did they want this to take second place to a permanent war with Sheridan and Solidarity. Once again, such a dead-end approach is in complete opposition to the unanimously adopted motion on socialist unity, taken at the 2006 conference.

Socialist unity can not be rebuilt through triumphalist posturing

Since the Sheridan perjury trial verdict on December 23rd, some SSP members’ contributions have taken a similar triumphalist tone to that of leading Solidarity members after Sheridan’s court victory on August 4th, 2006.

Sheridan now faces a jail sentence, which will have a devastating effect, particularly on his family. Although the misuse of an elected representative’s position for personal gain should indeed be recognised as an offence (just as socialists condemn MP’s financial corruption at Westminster), the SSP should publicly declare its opposition to Sheridan’s imprisonment. Socialists are against jailing for non-violent offences.

The recent Scottish Socialist Youth post-perjury trial statement displays some unwelcome triumphalist features, but is at least clear on opposing Sheridan’s jailing and the need for restorative justice. Sheridan and Solidarity leaders’ actions have wrecked the hard fought for socialist unity, which had shown its greatest strength in 2003. Neither the state nor the bourgeois courts have any interest in defending this legacy – indeed quite the opposite. It is for these crimes that Sheridan should face real accountability for his actions in democratic socialist and working class arenas. This is what he so assiduously avoided when he ran away from the planned 2006 post-trial SSP Conference.

Some people, though, ended joining up Solidarity for misguided reasons. This included lack of understanding of what was really going on (not helped by the SSP leadership majority’s later regretted, own ‘private deal’ with Sheridan), prior political allegiances and personal friendships. Many will now see the complete failure of the course of action pursued by Solidarity’s leadership, with the aid of the leaderships of both the CWI and SWP. This is why the SSP needs to re-emphasise its 2006 post-split Conference decision to welcome such members back without recriminations.

Rebuilding socialist unity on sound principles

However, all members, whether already in the party, rejoining again, or coming in as completely new members, should be informed that the organisation they are in, or coming to, completely rejects celebrity populist politics, treats everybody equally, and encourages independent thinking. It also refuses to resort to bourgeois courts or the media for rulings on how it, or any of its members, conduct their political lives. If these lessons are indeed leaned and taken on board, then socialists in Scotland (and hopefully elsewhere too) will be in a much better position to develop the sort of organisation, which still needs to be built. This is so we can begin to confront the rulers of the current crisis-ridden corporate imperial global order and UK state, and all those political parties, which continue to defend the completely indefensible. This would make a major contribution to rebuilding socialist unity.

Allan Armstrong, Republican Communist Network and SSP member, 2.1.11

The article above is Allan Armstrong’s follow-up to the article he originally wrote for Emancipation & Liberation, no. 13.

The official SSP statement in response to the jury’s decision in the perjury trial can be found below. The RCN welcomes and broadly endorses this statement.

There is undoubtedly much more to be said, and the SSP has already arranged that all matters arising
 from the trial will be addressed at a special post-trial Conference. Here the RCN will be following up the motions it supported at the post-split Conference. Some of the background and the issues raised can be found here.

The motions supported by the RCN at the 2006 post-split Conference can also be found after the official SSP statement.

Kevin McVey – SSP National Secretary

Tommy Sheridan’s conviction today for perjury was inevitable.

Six years ago, as leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, he proposed to sue a tabloid newspaper over stories he knew to be true and demanded that our party went along with his lies. All his closest friends and political allies of 20 years urged him not to take such a reckless course of action.

He will now be dealt with by the judge. We have no desire for vengeance.

What is more important is that all those who have been falsely denounced by him and his allies as liars, plotters, perjurers and forgers have been cleared.

The idea that there was a conspiracy involving Rupert Murdoch, Lothian and Borders Police and the SSP is nonsense and yet this is the narrative that Tommy Sheridan’s supporters publicly promoted for the past 4 years.

By his actions over six years, Tommy Sheridan has disgraced himself and negated his political contribution to the socialist cause over 25 years. History will now record that he did more harm to the socialist cause in Scotland than any good he ever did it.

That astonishing conclusion would not have been thought possible at the height of the poll tax struggle he led so well, or during his early period in the Scottish Socialist Party and Scottish Parliament.

The SSP reaffirms that its aim is to defend the interests of working people, the millions against the millionaires and to fight for a socialist transformation of society in the interests of the majority.

We now draw a line under this sorry saga and move on. The Scottish Socialist Party has been tested to the limit over the past six years and has proven it is a party of principles and integrity.

In this time of savage attacks by the rich against the poor, Scotland more than ever needs a strong left wing socialist party that can be trusted.

October 20th 2006 (post-split) SSP conference

Motion 1 put forward by the Executive Committee and Anniesland branch

Socialist Unity

This National Conference salutes the courageous, principled defence of the SSP and the interests of socialism by all those who have remained as SSP members during the recent crisis. We emerge stronger in our determination to sustain and build a united, democratic, party of solidarity and socialism, committed to fighting for an independent socialist Scotland.

Conference reaffirms our founding aims of building a broad, inclusive, united socialist party, based on class struggle politics, which simultaneously stands up against inequality and discrimination on grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age.

We are proud to have developed policies that engage with the everyday needs, desires and struggles of working class people and others moving into action against the poverty, inequalities, injustices, racism, sectarianism, sexism, environmental destruction and war that are the offspring of capitalism – and which link these fighting demands with our broader goals of an independent socialist Scotland and international socialism.

We recognise that the project of socialist unity launched in 1998, with phenomenal growth since, has raised the hopes of hundreds of thousands in Scotland and of the left internationally. The wrecking tactics of a minority has damaged that project and those hopes, but we are confident that our unblemished principles, our unrivalled track record, our fighting socialist policies, and our dedicated, genuine socialist membership will rebuild the strength of the SSP around those founding principles.

We resolve to build the SSP as a pluralist party that respects different shades of socialist opinion within its ranks, with open democratic debate but which then aims for public unity in action around democratically agreed policies and campaigns.

This conference notes with regret the formation of an alternative socialist organisation in Scotland, with a political platform indistinguishable from that of the SSP.

Conference further notes that this organisation appears to be founded not on the basis of political difference with the SSP, but rather as the culmination of recent attacks on the SSP.

Conference further notes that some of the comrades have left the SSP for this new formation for different reasons, such as personal loyalty to individuals or platforms.

Conference believes that the interests of the working class in Scotland and internationally are best served by a united movement,

Conference therefore affirms that, despite the misguided actions of some, any individual who has left the SSP will, at any time in the future, be welcomed back as full members of the party without recriminations.

Principled unity is our strength. We have a duty to the working class and the cause of socialism to maintain socialist unity and to conduct ourselves in a combative, determined, confident, but friendly manner aimed at convincing thousands that the SSP’s principles and policies coincide with their interests. The future is ours, provided we collectively seize it.

(passed overwhelmingly)

Motion 2 put forward by Midlothian branch

Use of the courts and the media

This SSP National Conference agrees to adopt the following policies:-

• a) SSP members should avoid resort to the state’s courts when seeking redress for politically motivated attacks on their behaviour
• b) When SSP members are subjected to politically motivated attacks by the state or media, they should be able to call upon the support of the SSPNational Executive to conduct a party campaign including the following tactics as deemed appropriate:-
  • i) articles in the party’s press
  • ii) direct appeals to the trade union members in the state bodies and/or media responsible
  • iii) calls for boycott actions
• c) SSP members should not resort to the non-party media when making allegations against other SSP members. Such allegations should be brought initially before the appropriate party body at the level concerned with the right to appeal to a higher level, the ultimate appeal being the SSP Conference.
• d) The elected press officer should be responsible for day to day responses to the outside media, when members are under attack. The press officer is directly responsible, initially to the National Executive, then to the National Council, and finally to the National Conference.

(passed overwhelmingly)

Motion 45 put forward by Dundee branches

Adopting standard practice for SSP minutes

The SSP Conference agrees to adopt the following practice for minute taking at National Conference, National Council and National Executive meetings, and all sub-committees where minutes are usually taken.

• a) These minutes should confine themselves to:-
  • * names/initials of apologies, members present and who leaves the meeting
  • * key political arguments made
  • * decisions taken
  • * matters of a personal nature should be omitted, unless with the agreement of the person/s concerned
• b) Individuals or groups can submit position papers in their own name providing greater information if they feel it is required
• c) When a minute has been agreed by the next appropriate meeting of that body, it becomes part of the SSP’s historical record and should not be further altered (although bodies they are accountable to may disagree and make their own views clear in their own minutes)

(defeated in favour of an Edinburgh Central motion upholding existing practice)

Motion 15 put forward by the RCN platform

Citizens not Subjects

This Conference agrees to supplement the SSP’s economic and social manifesto and campaign for the 2007 Holyrood election, People not Profit, with a political and democratic manifesto and campaign, Citizens not Subjects.

Conference further agrees to include the following demands (which can be reworded or fine-tuned for agitational purposes) under this rubric, along with other appropriate demands agreed by subsequent National Council meetings:-

• 1. Defend our civil rights – Oppose state ID cards
• 2. Defend communities under attack – Support asylum seekers and migrant workers in the face of racist laws and attacks
• 3. Support workers’ freedom to organise – Oppose the Anti-Trade Union laws
• 4. Support people’s freedom to demonstrate – Oppose the Criminal Justice Act
• 5. Extend the franchise – Votes for over 16’s
• 6. Support the Calton Hill Declaration – Oppose the state’s Crown Powers
• 7. Support popular resistance to US and British imperial wars – Close down NATO’s military bases in Scotland
• 8. For a democratic and secular Scottish republic

(passed by a large majority)

George Galloway has decided, with the backing of Respect in England and Wales, to stand as an MSP in Glasgow in next year’s Holyrood elections. This decision would apparently have been taken with or without Respect’s support. It amounts to little more than an attempt at carpet-bagging, following his removal from the celebrity spotlight, when he failed to retain a Westminster seat last year.

Galloway’s articles in the Daily Record show his likely political trajectory. He hopes to follow Ken Livingstone and be re-accepted into the Labour Party. He is selling himself to Labour voters in Glasgow as somebody with a high personal profile in contrast with existing Labour MSPs. Galloway’s most likely obstacle is probable jealousy over his celebrity status amongst the existing lacklustre leaders of the party in Scotland.

The attempt to promote socialist projects around celebrity candidates, whether Ken Livingstone, Arthur Scargill, Tommy Sheridan or George Galloway, has done nothing to advance principled and deep-rooted socialist organisation in these islands. Galloway’s particular claim to fame on the Left has been his spirited opposition to US imperialism. However, he has a record, not of being a consistent anti-imperialist, but of holding an ambivalent relationship to various regimes (e.g. Saddam’s Baathist Iraq and Ahmadinejad’s Islamic Republic of Iran), which are not opposed to imperialism in principle, but only to their lowly position in the current global order of things.

Domestically, Galloway has placed far more importance upon cultivating links with Islamic communal leaders, than with being held accountable either to socialist or working class organisations. Notoriously, he rejects the idea of  ‘a worker’s MP on a worker’s wage’ and believes that MPs should be paid twice as much.

Politically Galloway is opposed to ‘a woman’s right to choose over abortion’. Through his deeply entrenched Left British unionism, Galloway opposes any meaningful self-determination for Scotland. He still nostalgically hankers over the fate of another unionist and imperial state – the USSR – which still, in many ways, provides his ideal model.

Galloway has every right to stand in the Holyrood election next year. Genuine socialists have every reason to oppose him.

Socialist Resistance

The RCN has criticised Socialist Resistance in the past for its failure to address George Galloway’s articles in the Daily Record supporting the Labour Party in the Glasgow East by-election in 2008. Therefore, we welcome the principled stance Socialist Resistance has now taken over Galloway’s decision to stand in Glasgow in next year’s Holyrood elections.

Republican Communist Network, 15.11.10

Socialist Resistance on the issue:

Why we are against Respect organizing in Scotland

After a week in which George Galloway said he was under pressure to stand in next year’s elections for the Scottish Parliament, Respect’s annual conference on November 13 voted, 59 to 15, to organise in Scotland. That resolution, published below, makes Socialist Resistance’s position inside Respect untenable. Resistance supported the establishment of Respect in England and has been central to the party’s leadership and work since then. As we explained in the leaflet distributed to the conference, because Resistance supports the Scottish Socialist Party the decision to organise in Scotland in competition to the SSP is a deep error by Respect, one which weakens Respect’s democracy and neglects the importance of Scotland’s struggle for self-determination.

The following amendment was passed by a large majority at Respect’s annual conference on November 13.

Conference notes that:

1. There will be elections to the Scottish Parliament in May 2011
2. These elections will be conducted under a form of proportional representation in which some MSPs are elected from a list
3. Respect has not organized in or contested elections in Scotland in the past because of the hegemony of other parties to the left of Labour
4. This hegemony no longer exists
. In the context of unprecedented cuts by the Condem Coalition and disappointment with the Labour and SNP, there is now an opportunity for Respect to contest elections to the Scottish parliament with a realistic prospect of success

Conference therefore believes

1. National officers should start preparations for Respect to contest elections to the Scottish Parliament
. Preparations should include immediately registering Scottish Respect as a description that can be used in Scottish elections and seeking to recruit residents in Scotland to Respect.

This is the text of a leaflet distributed by supporters of Socialist Resistance in Respect who now feel that our situation in the organisation is now untenable.

We are strongly opposed to the proposition that Respect organise in Scotland, as proposed in amendment E to Motion 1

Socialist Resistance has supported Respect since its inception in 2004 and previously supported the Socialist Alliance. We supported George Galloway’s letter which sought to democratize the leadership of Respect and backed the majority in the ensuing split in the organisation in 2007. We put the resources of our newspaper at the disposal of Respect. We understood that George and Salma, given their role in the anti-war movement had a vital contribution to make in building a political alternative to New Labour.

But were a resolution to organise Respect in Scotland to be passed at this Respect Conference this would make our situation in the organisation untenable. We are against such a resolution being adopted on a number of grounds:

1) A controversial change of a long-held policy that Respect does not organise in Scotland should not be introduced a week before the conference and with no discussion at the National Council or in the branches.

2) The only purpose in organising in Scotland would be for Respect to stand candidates in next May’s Scottish Parliament elections and in subsequent parliamentary and local elections. Respect has no policy positions on the specific situation in Scotland, particularly the issue of devolution and self-determination an issue around which there would be several different positions. To go into a Scottish election with no debate on key political issues would be fundamentally wrong.

3) There are already two left parties in Scotland standing in elections and they intend to continue doing so, namely the SSP and Solidarity. The SLP also stands in elections in Scotland. The last thing the Scottish left needs is another left party standing in those same elections and dividing the left vote still further.

4) In Respect there have always been different views on which party to support in Scotland. We support the SSP. If this conference were to adopt a position on organising in Scotland and to fight elections SR members would be in an impossible situation. For a party to have members who advocate voting for a different party would be untenable – both for Respect and for SR.

5) Underlying this issue is an important political question; namely the right of the Scottish people to self-determination, including the right to independence. Therefore we reject the idea of English based parties organizing in Scotland.

6) We still haven’t managed to build Respect on an England-wide basis – a decision to stand for election in Glasgow will inevitably lead to the de-prioritisation of Tower Hamlets.

We therefore urge the leadership and membership of Respect to avoid this course of action and to reject the proposal to organise in Scotland, avoiding both the undemocratic nature of such a decision and its consequences for the unity of the organisation.

Socialist Resistance, 13.11.10