{"id":95,"date":"2006-10-06T16:23:09","date_gmt":"2006-10-06T16:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=95"},"modified":"2014-03-21T22:05:31","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T22:05:31","slug":"the-future-of-socialism-in-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/06\/the-future-of-socialism-in-scotland\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Socialism in Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a letter to party members, Tommy Sheridan signals his intentions to split the SSP<\/acronym><\/h2>\n

Comrades and friends,<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to make a short contribution to the debate now raging about the future of organised socialism in Scotland.<\/p>\n

We came very far in a short period of time with the SSP<\/acronym>, but that party may have reached its historical limits. The ULN<\/acronym> faction has come to dominate key positions out of all proportion to its weight in the SSP<\/acronym> and has abused our democratic structures. Individuals within that faction have ignored the will of the National Council. They have crossed the class divide in siding with the NOTW<\/acronym><\/cite> against a socialist and, consequently, have turned the party we have built together into a colossal train wreck.<\/p>\n

They have tarnished the SSP<\/acronym> banner \u2013 perhaps beyond all repair. At meetings with comrades individually and collectively over the last few days I have raised the following points for consideration, which I would now like to raise with you \u2013 the 360 signatories to the SSP<\/acronym> Majority.<\/p>\n

I have no doubt we could recapture the party apparatus and leadership at our conference in October \u2013 but we must ask ourselves what would be we be recapturing? The ULN<\/acronym> will remain a constant thorn in our side, its extreme gender politics, fixation with personalities and infantile ultra leftism dragging the name of the party through the mud. Its obsession with rewriting the verdict of my defamation trial would continue to be a stone weight around our necks.<\/p>\n

The policy and press co-ordinator of our party, Alan McCombes, declared in the Herald<\/cite> last week that the EC<\/acronym> is now at war<\/q> with me. I thought the only war we were interested in conducting was the class war against injustice and inequality.<\/p>\n

Do we really wish to spend our energies and talents fighting an incessant internal struggle with these people for the next two months and beyond, without an end in sight? Or would it perhaps be better to make a clean break and begin anew, with a fresh, untarnished vehicle for socialist politics in Scotland? Is the best use of our time fighting an internal enemy while thousands of people out there in the real world want to build on the victory over Murdoch?<\/p>\n

Would we not perhaps be better to take the best of our number \u2013 the trade unionists, members and branches who have stood united around principled socialist politics \u2013 and build a new party of the Scottish left that would be the kind of broad, open, campaigning party working people and their families can once again believe in?<\/p>\n

I have in mind a new movement that would continue the battle for the vision we all hold dear \u2013 of an independent socialist Scotland free from poverty and want, of internationalism, of freedom from environmental destruction, of opposition to Bush and Blair\u2019s imperialist wars \u2013 but bigger, bolder and better than anything that has gone before.<\/p>\n

I raise these questions with you in the most serious manner and ask that you ponder over them over the next few days and weeks. I hope you will come to the All-Scotland meeting called by Rosemary and myself and have your say on these issues. The meeting will be held at: The Central Station Hotel, Glasgow. 1.00pm on Sunday 3rd September.<\/p>\n

We have a historic decision to make. Whatever that decision is to be we must make it and take it together, standing and fighting as one.<\/p>\n

Tommy Sheridan.
\n16 August 2006<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a letter to party members, Tommy Sheridan signals his intentions to split the SSP Comrades and friends, I\u2019d like to make a short contribution to the debate now raging about the future of organised socialism in Scotland. We came very far in a short period of time with the SSP, but that party may…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,41],"tags":[276],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emancipation-liberation","category-issue-13","tag-author-tommy-sheridan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":4657,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1849,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/1849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}