The Scottish Socialist Party Group in the Scottish Parliament met at the end of the last session of the Parliament to consider what attitude our MSP’s should take to the official opening of the new Parliament by the Queen on October 9 this year. Our group decided unanimously to boycott the event. We believe that…
Blunderwall
This wall between us slowly grows slinking along the dusty earth like some snake in the desert sands Once in Jericho it fell down by those who now do the building the heirs of the trumpet blowers Once Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall, Daniel read the words Mene, mene, tekel, parsin. The days…
Torture, Rape, Murder….It’s the American Way
Matt Siegfried exposes the systematic abuse of Iraqi prisoners as an extension of the US penal system. This article originally appeared in Fourthwrite (see p27). The photographs of US soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners have become symbols of American conceit, American hypocrisy and brutality. The folly of the Iraq adventure seems to be summed up by…
The role of platforms in the Scottish Socialist Party – Why are the RCN a platform?
Platforms, tendencies, factions – call them what you will – exist in all organisations, not just in political parties. Sometimes they are suppressed (by the controlling and usually undeclared, leadership faction, of course), sometimes they are tolerated and occasionally they are welcomed. This article argues that not only are platforms inevitable, but that they are…
Emancipation & Liberation, Issue 8, Autumn 2004
Issue 8 of Emancipation & Liberation is out now. If you would like to buy this issue or subscribe, contact us. Comments are open, so until articles are online, feel free to discuss the articles below. When they are online you can discuss the article in it’s comment section. The role of platforms in the…
Emancipation & Liberation, Issue 7, Spring 2004
Issue 19 of Emancipation & Liberation is out now. If you would like to buy this issue or subscribe, contact us. Comments are open, so until articles are online, feel free to discuss the articles below. When they are online you can discuss the article in it’s comment section. Editorial, RCN Occupation is not liberation,…
A good, if one-sided, account
Donald Anderson (SRSM platform in the SSP) responds to Allan Armstrong’s article Beyond Broadswords and Bayonets (Emancipation & Liberation Issue 5/6) The 35 pages of an A4, 3 columned article by Allan Armstrong on the Covenanters are well worth reading. Allan has become quite an authority on the Covenanters and Republican United Scotsmen. For some…
The debate continues: The Jacobites strike back
Below we publish a contributions to the debate on the Scottish revolution from Dave Douglass (NUM, South Yorks.) This will be followed by another from and Donald Anderson (SRSM platform in the SSP) defend Jacobitism. In our next issue Neil Davidson (Socialist Worker Platform) will be making a further contribution to the debate. Provocative and…
The Scottish Independence Convention
Independence under the Crown or a Scottish Republic? Allan Armstrong examines the case put by the proponents and opponents of the Scottish Independence Convention in the SSP and develops the RCN’s distinct republican approach. The political nature of and the ambiguities in the Pro-Convention camp After last May’s election to the Scottish Parliament, Alan McCombes,…
Strengthening the Anti-Capitalist analysis
D. Rayner O’Connor Lysaght (Socialist Democracy, Dublin) welcomes the Declaration, but also highlights some of its weaknesses. On 10-11 November 2003, the European Anti-Capitalist Left in the European Social Forum produced a Resolution challenging the various reformist parties’ hegemony over the working class and left wing forces of the ‘subcontinent’. In itself, it is a…