In response to Tommy Sheridan’s Open Letter (above) and the events at National Council 28th May, the SSP United Left platform was formed. This is their founding statement. This is not a time to rage, but a time to reason. Not to fight within ourselves, but to unite behind the fight for a better world.…
SSP Crisis: Rebuild on Socialist Principle
A statement from the Workers’ Unity platform in the SSP The split in the Scottish Socialist Party is a tragedy. The Workers’ Unity platform has made strong criticisms of important aspects of the SSP policy and strategy. We were specifically formed to oppose the SSP’s turn to nationalism. And to oppose its determination to split…
Meetings and Documents, November 2004
Background Information Paper, Allan Green, SSP National Secretary This document was produced by the SSP National Secretary in the run up to the National Council meeting on 28th May 2006. He details, in chronological order, the meetings and decisions taken by SSP bodies in November 2004 and corrects some of the distortions that had become…
Open Letter to SSP members
YES to class solidarity and socialist unity; NO to political witch-hunts and personal character assassinations Tommy Sheridan and his supporters distributed this letter to the media and delegates at the SSP‘s National Council meeting on 28th May 2006. Comrades I write this letter with a very heavy heart. The Party I have invested so much…
After the Verdict
Following the announcement of the trial verdict, Alan McCombes, the SSP‘s policy and press coordinator wrote an assessment entitled The fight for the truth, which was reproduced in an SSP Members’ Bulletin. We did not have enough space to reprint it in the magazine, so present the extract we published SSP United-Left statement in response…
Scottish Socialist Party Split by Sheridan
Socialist Resistance statement (August 27 2006) Former convenor of the Scottish Socialist Party Tommy Sheridan won the first round of his defamation action against the News of the World in (the Scottish Court of Session in early August, on a majority (7- 4) decision of the jury. He was awarded his claimed £200,000 in damages.…
International Platform Against Isolation
Steve Kaczynski reports on the IPAI symposium held in Paris in December 2005 In December 2005, I attended a symposium in a cinema in north-eastern Paris, organised by the International Platform Against Isolation. The event sprang from solitary confinement and other forms of state repression – a major fact of our time. Since 2002, these…
Choreography of the Pratfall
by John McAnulty (Socialist Democracy, Belfast) ‘Independent’ Monitoring Commission blasts Provos – Paisley lays out agenda for ‘new’ Ireland Commentators on the various ‘historic turning points’ meant to restore life to the corpse of the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland often use the word ‘choreography’. Translated the term means that the agreement, and all its…
Hard Truths
John Wight argues that the anti-war movement has failed to live up to the challenge After four years of existence it is time to face some hard truths with respect to the anti-war movement in this country. And in facing those truths it becomes impossible to deny that by and large this movement has failed…
Imperialism’s Nuclear Hypocrisy
Nick Clarke exposes Labour’s double standards when it comes nuclear issues Nothing better illustrates the hypocrisy of imperialism and its apologists at the United Nations than the nuclear issue. The break up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent diplomatic thaw ended the Cold War. The peace dividend that was supposed to flow from this…