SSPMajority

Sunday Herald, Lynn Malone, 20 August 2006

Sunday Herald, Lynn Malone, 20 August 2006

Scotland is big enough for more than one socialist party. I predict thousands will join us’

By Lynn Malone

FORMER Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) leader Tommy Sheridan has revealed that several Scottish celebrities, including actor and director Peter Mullan, are to join him in forming a new political party.

Sheridan, who was awarded £200,000 damages earlier this month in his case against the News Of The World, said in an interview with the Sunday Herald that he wants to start a new socialist movement.

“It’s time to build a new organisation out of comrades, not collaborators. I am confident we can build a new, bigger and better socialist vehicle,” he said.

He claimed that David McKay and Martin McCardie, both Glasgow-born actors, writers and directors, will join him forming the new unnamed party.

Sheridan said: “Peter Mullan, Davie McKay, Martin McCardie are among those I’ve had consultations with and they have said they want to be part of something new, along with miners, nurses and everyday workers.

“I predict hundreds, maybe thousands, of ordinary, everyday workers will fight for equality and justice. The war is with inequality, not with fellow socialists. And Scotland is big enough for more than one socialist party.”

In the weeks since Sheridan’s court case ended, the SSP has descended into civil war, with Sheridan branding some members of the party as “political scabs”.

However, in an interview with the Sunday Herald’s sister paper The Herald yesterday, Sheridan claimed he regretted his use of the word “scabs”.

Last night he added: “It was the only term I could think of at the time. It was how I felt. But I damaged my dignity by lowering myself to the level of the name-callers. It should have been kept for an internal meeting.”

But Sheridan insisted some party members were “vile” and that the atmos phere within the SSP was “poisonous”.

He said several members, including a retired female teacher, had told him that they were frightened to go to branch meetings because of the level of intimidation.

The fighting within the SSP has became so bad that one party member physically attacked another in a street brawl in Edinburgh two weeks ago, according to an anonymous caller who contacted the Sunday Herald.

Sheridan said: “The atmosphere a faction in the SSP has created is poisonous and unacceptable.

“It’s obvious that those who are involved with the faction, which has hijacked the SSP and all its apparatus, have hatred for me as their motivating factor.

“The SSP have been bastardised, they’re now a grotesque caricature of what we had hoped. It’s time for them to fight among themselves. It’s time to make a clean break.

“The new party will share some of the political ideology of the old SSP and the internal regime will be one of tolerance, friendship and genuine solidarity.”

It is not known whether Sheridan will lead the new party. He said it is a decision that will be made by the electorate.

He said: “I don’t know who will lead it. Those who join it will decide who, but it has to be grassroots and will concentrate on politics, not personalities.

“The electorate of Scotland are intelligent enough to make up their own mind. In nine months’ time we will wage war on poverty and inequality. The party will be bigger and better.”

The politician, who received more than 1000 e-mails, 460 cards and 260 letters during and since the defamation action, does not believe the court case has damaged him politically, but that it might have damaged the SSP.

He said: “A theme running through all the correspondence I have received isn’t just congratulations at beating Murdoch’s empire, but about an SSP that is damaged, with backstabbers bereft of solidarity and dignity.”

Sheridan also revealed new details for plans to discuss the new party at a public meeting. “There will be a public meeting on September 3 at Glasgow’s Central Hotel for those who want to build a new vehicle in Scottish socialism and promote peace and tolerance.”

But current SSP leader Colin Fox has said there is no room for another socialist party in Scotland, that it would confuse the public, and claims he is confident voters will stick with the SSP.

He said: “Tommy has got it badly wrong. There is no scope for another socialist party; there is only space for one. And we will get the support of the voter on the basis of our political programme, not personalities, however exalted they may be.”

But Sheridan said: “It’s clear I’m not welcome at the SSP. I could fight and maybe win. That would feed the media frenzy but do nothing for socialism.

“The electorate will know from the bile-infested comments that Tommy Sheridan has nothing to do with the Scottish Socialist Party.

“The new party will be about solidarity, against poverty and inequality, working to help asylum seekers and promoting independent, nuclear-free social independence.”

20 August 2006

Glasgow Herald, Robbie Dinwoodie, 21 August 2006

Glasgow Herald, Robbie Dinwoodie, 21 August 2006

SSP executive says Sheridan is on the road to oblivion

ROBBIE DINWOODIE, Chief Scottish Political Correspondent August 21 2006

THE SSP executive will launch its campaign towards next May's Holyrood and council elections at a rally on September 2 – the day before Tommy Sheridan's planned meeting to discuss forming a breakaway party.
In some of the strongest language employed yet in the civil war between the former comrades, the executive issued a unanimous statement yesterday entitled "Tommy Sheridan on the road to oblivion" accusing him and his supporters of "an act of political irresponsibility which can only delight the enemies of socialism in Scotland".
As expected, the executive called off the next meeting of the national council now that the party's future will be determined at the rival meetings on September 2 and 3 and at the national conference the following month.
Accusing Mr Sheridan of seeking to "rupture the most successful socialist unity party in Europe" and a "betrayal of the hopes" of supporters, the statement adds: "This breakaway is not based on any political principle. It is a vehicle for the out-of-control ego of an individual and is based on the fiction that Tommy Sheridan has been the victim of a conspiratorial frame-up by his own party."
It continues: "Despite his abominable behaviour before, during and after the recent libel case in the Court of Session, there was never any threat of disciplinary action against Tommy Sheridan. Indeed, the door was left wide open for him to pursue his ambition of returning as party convener if he could muster enough support.
"Despite the extraordinarily tolerant attitude of the party towards him, Tommy Sheridan has chosen to run away from the SSP, and wreak as much damage as he can in the process."
Referring to the former leader's references to "stitch-ups" and "scabs" the executive claim: "He has lost comprehensively because the membership of the SSP were not prepared to sign up to Tommy Sheridan's fictitious rewriting of the party history . . .
"To paraphrase Berthold Brecht: the party membership has forfeited the confidence of the great leader, so the great leader will now elect a new party membership. Tommy Sheridan's breakaway will fade into oblivion because it is based on a fraud."
Acknowledging damage to the party in recent weeks, the executive insists it has remained intact and is poised for recovery, with the vast majority of members and supporters standing by it as it fields candidates next year for Holyrood and local authorities.
To that end a rally in Glasgow on September 2 sill launch under the slogan, "For unity, truth and socialism".
But there is every indication that a breakaway party could be launched at a meeting called the following day by Mr Sheridan and the only other MSP to stick with him, Rosemary Byrne.
Mr Sheridan said last night that there was an "unstoppable momentum building up" for the creation of a new socialist party in Scotland to replace an organisation that had become "grotesquely distorted".
He said two groupings within the SSP, the SWP (Socialist Workers) and CWI (the former Militant) had voted to leave the existing SSP, as had the South of Scotland regional committee, where Ms Byrne is based.
"I can't win either way. If I stay I am a problem, according to my MSP colleagues who say they will not work with me again, but if I go I am splitting the socialist cause.
"Frankly the SSP has been distorted by the faction which has hijacked its apparatus and the internal regime is now no longer conducive to building a socialist party.
"More than 50% of the Scottish electorate did not use their vote in 2003. There is plenty to play for in the election of 2007 and I intend to be involved with a new organisation of comrades not collaborators."
The name of the party was still not decided but it was now inevitable that it would be launched on September 3. "There is an unstoppable momentum building," he said.

Letter in Herald Norma Anderson 21/08/06

THE contribution made by Colin Fox regarding the ongoing SSP saga is very interesting. Has Colin, or has he not, been the Convener of the Scottish Socialist Party for the past 18 months? How, then, can he accuse Tommy Sheridan of being the "driver" of the "colossal train wreck" that the SSP has turned into? Does Colin Fox not remember the warnings of many colleagues who told him the faction which has now become the United Left were out of control?
Colin Fox goes on to argue that Tommy Sheridan should stay with the SSP and fight his corner - but argues that a formal split within the party "would do him [Tommy Sheridan] no good, or us." At last, we seem to be approaching the truth: there is a "them and us" mentality among the current leadership of the SSP which was aimed specifically at ousting Tommy Sheridan from the party.
If Tommy goes on to form a new party we will find out once and for all what the majority of rank-and-file members, and SSP supporters, really think of the way we have been dragged into this crisis. If I were Colin Fox, I'd be looking at the Situations Vacant columns now.

Norma Anderson