Letter agreed (10.3.2008) at SSP International Committee to be sent out to organisations in Ireland, Wales and England

The Scottish Socialist Party is inviting your organisation to send a speaker to Socialism 2008 to be held on …………… at ……………… Our last Conference agreed to arrange a meeting of socialists in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. It is clear that the ruling classes of the UK and Ireland have come to a shared…

Motion Passed at SSP Conference in October 2007

The SSP agrees to contact socialists in England, Ireland and Wales to discuss a republican socialist strategy to counter current US and British plans to maintain imperial control over these islands on behalf of the global corporations. If the initial discussions prove fruitful then the SSP should, if possible, organise a conference in 2008 to…

‘Celtic Tigers’ And ‘Celtic Lions’ Both Pussycats For Big Business

I have come to Dublin to set our aspirations for Scotland’s future. Alex Salmond, speaking at Trinity College, Dublin, 13.2.2008 There two official economic visions currently being offered to the electorates of these islands. The first has been promoted by Blair, Brown and New Labour. Their British imperial vision involves bowing and scraping before the…

Ken Livingstone: The End of Road

Gerry Fitzpatrick (Socialist Resistance), provides a personal memoir of the evolution of ‘Red Ken’ the first celebrity socialist. Today he has betrayed the Black, Irish and socialist activists who battled against the ‘Met’ – the corrupt police force ‘Red Ken’ now defends. Some years ago in the early 1970s – it seems a very long…

Respect Split

Ed Walsh, (Irish Socialist Network) gives his personal views on the recent split in Respect Originally printed at http://www.irishsocialist.net The British Left has now experienced two acrimonious splits in the space of eighteen months. After the grim transformation of the Scottish Socialist Party into two bitterly-divided camps (The SSP split has been covered in back…

Prospects For Socialists In Scotland

Allan Armstrong interviews Alan McCombes, a key influence on the theoretical direction of the SSP and a member of the SSP national executive. He gives us his views on Salmond’s SNP government, the future prospects for socialist unity, and the SSP’s constitutional conference. How do you assess the current situation with the new SNP government?…

The Role Of Platforms In The SSP

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…