The Scottish Socialist Party, once heralded by many on the left as the
most successful socialist experiment in recent times, is in the process
of tearing itself apart after sacking its founder and leader Tommy
Sheridan as the party’s convener. Officially he is now simply a
“backbencher”.
Sheridan was recently dumped as leader by a 19 – 0 vote by the
party’s executive committee apparently over his mishandling of
allegations about sexual infidelity with a party member that were to be
published in the News of the World. Sheridan strongly denied
any wrong doing, but went to the press saying he was resigning for
personal reasons – to spend more time with his family.
In fact Sheridan, far from voluntarily handing in his resignation,
was forced out, with some suggesting that his failure to resign would
mean that the executive would put information into the public domain to
force his hand.
“Nobody knows what exactly Sheridan has done that so outraged the
moral commissars of the SSP – but it clearly has nothing to do with
politics. The result has been that most predictable of outcomes – a
party collapsing in bitterness and rancour”, stated the Sunday Herald.
The party executive refused to back Sheridan and sacked him instead.
In fact, when Sheridan stated he was going to sue the newspapers over
the allegations, Caroline Leckie, a SSP MSP, said: “There is no
official backing behind any legal challenge.”
Alan McCombes, the SSP’s policy coordinator and one-time close
friend of Sheridan’s, said: “The executive committee does not want to
go down a road where we are helping Tommy Sheridan build a tower of
lies.” Earlier he had said that Sheridan had behaved honestly and
honourably “in his own terms”.
The row has thrown the party into turmoil and split the SSP group in
parliament, with different contenders throwing their hat into the ring
for the leadership. Character assassination and back-stabbing is now on
the order of the day as different groups and interests jockey for the
leadership.
At a disastrous SSP press conference, the attempt to present a
united front ended in a complete farce as the SSP MSPs jumped through
hoops to avoid supporting Sheridan. When he entered the room, his
fellow MSP, Colin Fox, announced: “The late Tommy Sheridan”!
To prove that everything was “normal”, the SSP executive issued a
statement saying, “The executive completely dismisses the rumours that
have circulated in the press that Tommy’s resignation was provoked by a
leadership challenge, a factional power struggle or any other form of
political internal infighting.”
However, this statement fools nobody. A few hours earlier Sheridan
on BBC Scotland had said: “We have the same intrigue and black arts
going on as in other parties now… Maybe there are some people who
want to undermine me.” This is clearly a convoluted way of saying that
the higher levels of the party are in turmoil. Different cliques are
using “black arts” to further their interests at the expense of
Sheridan and his supporters.
Established some five years ago out of the remnants of the old
Militant Tendency and other groups, the SSP had managed to win six
seats in the Scottish parliament and hoped to replace the Labour Party
as the main workers’ party in Scotland. This was facilitated by PR
voting introduced for the Scottish Parliament. The SSP attracted a
layer of people disillusioned with Blairism and even managed to secure
the affiliation of the rail union RMT in Scotland. Many on the
non-Labour left, including all the sectarian groups, saw the SSP as the
real way forward for the “realignment” of the left. Now they are
holding their heads in their hands in despair.
However, the party became increasingly opportunist in its policies
and moved in a distinctly nationalist direction. Its leaders began to
call for Scottish independence, aping the SNP, as “a step forward”. In
a completely reformist fashion, favourable comparisons were being drawn
with Norway and Sweden as a model for small nations.
The leadership of the SSP were desperate to find a short cut to
success, even to the extent of jumping into bed with the Scottish
nationalists and watering down their ideas to achieve respectability.
Tommy Sheridan was central to the initial success of the party. He
was prominent in the struggle against the Poll Tax and went to prison
for his convictions. He won a council seat from his prison cell and was
keen to project his image in the press. With the impasse of Militant
Labour, Sheridan and the rest of the group broke with the Militant in
England and Wales and launched their own broad-based party, the SSP.
Ironically it was the leaders of Militant in London who originally
promoted the nationalist line. The present crisis of the SSP has its
roots in this false perspective.
The SSP has been trying to pull together a coalition of different
factions drawn from environmentalists, feminists and anti-war
activists. The only way to hold this coalition together was by
promising ongoing successes. However, after the euro elections, things
have not been too bright. The party now finds itself in debt to the
tune of £200,000. Apparently Sheridan was forced to take out a personal
loan of £39,000 to prop up the finances. Things have begun to pull
apart, which is reflected by this crisis at the top of the party. The
rivalry between the MSPs has certainly added to this intrigue and
crisis. Some regard Sheridan’s leadership as a block to their own
personal ambitions. No longer prepared to co-exist in Sheridan’s
shadow, the petty jealousies and resentments have coalesced in this
decision to oust him. They all want to be big fish in a small pool.
The real danger now for the SSP, having ditched Sheridan, the most
well-known political figure in Scotland, is that they will sink into
rancour and obscurity. This was only a matter of time. The SSP’s
courting of the Scottish nationalists and their shift to reformist
politics, would sooner or later end in tears. According to John Curtice
of Strathclyde University, the SSP needs only to lose 1% of its vote at
the next election to lose all its MSPs, except ironically Tommy
Sheridan.
Whatever Sheridan’s plans and eventual political evolution, the
party he helped to found is heading for the rocks. As with Humpty
Dumpty, whoever wins the leadership, they will not succeed in putting
things together again. The SSP is well on the way to oblivion.
The honest rank and file members who thought they were building a
genuine socialist alternative must be asking themselves where they go
from here. Already a resolution has been passed by an Edinburgh branch
of the SSP protesting at the way in which the executive have handled
the issue and calling for a vote of no confidence in the leadership.
The genuine socialists in the SSP have to come out firmly against
the roots of this problem, which arose from the reformist and
nationalist orientation of the party. If these comrades want to save
the party from total oblivion the only way is by the adoption of the
fundamental ideas of Marxism.
These latest developments confirm what the Marxists of the Socialist Appeal have said all along. See our Open Letter to SSP Comrades for a more in depth analysis.
November 25, 2004
