... My former party the SSP

Written in response to an article written by Carolyn Leckie in The National Newspaper.

Weird seeing a whole article on the ssp in today's national by a former member, who couldn't see past those who attacked me for saying basically the same thing after the original Rise conference. Thing is, she won't have to go to the police like I had to, after threats of doxing etc came from the Rise leadership.

Colin Fox WAS and IS politically wrong to position the ssp as outright enemies of the snp. Many of us who were in the ssp at the time of the first Rise conference a few months prior to the last Scottish Election, expressed that. Many of us knew a campaign similar to the 1999 and 2003 ssp campaigns in which we asked Labour Party members to give us their list vote in order for us to pull the  Scottish Labour Government to the left, was appropriate, only this time saying the same thing to left snp supporters. Colin seemed to want to take on the tens of thousands of members of the snp and the hundreds of thousands of supporters - the sheer idiocy of such a campaign is patently clear now to all except, it seems, Colin.

The ssp stood to make great gains in the last Council elections (and perhaps even some gains in the Scottish elections) after an amazing ssp online campaign in the lead up to Sept 2014 (I should know, I was the online organiser throughout the Yes campaign) . Our online campaign, complemented by a speaking series by Colin fox, Richie Venton, Jim sillars, Sandra Webster and others brought in hundreds of new members and thousands of people who although throwing their hat in with the snp, were ready to lend us a vote. We had managed to attract one of the superb voices of the left Indyref campaign, Allan Grogan which some of us hoped, would lead to more Labour for Independence people coming over to us, who in the pre Corbyn /post Indyref Labour Party, were not welcome in their party.

Locally our branches were thriving. Our branch had embedded itself in the Yes campaign, and were hugely visible on the ground, in local public meetings and as part of the local Yes leadership (I was one of the three party political leaders of Yes in East Dunbartonshire). This was the case throughout Scotland. Ric made a headline or two in the national press, but the ssp were in local press and local yes public meetings every week.


The Rise project was from a marketing point of view, saying "our long serving product we sold you is actually shit, this unproven new thing noone has heard of is better." And this was then compounded by the odd speech Colin made to the rise conference saying that he was now going to "take the fight to the snp."

The utter confusion in the lead up to this within the ssp was soul destroying. We had went from a conference of less than 50 delegates in early 2012, to two conferences after the independence referendum of around 300 activist delegates. Our working with indy live stream people brought our conference to many more hundreds across Scotland. This was small, of course, compared to the snp, but what promise! 300 people saying, this is my party, and I want to be active building it and getting out a positive message. And many more watching across Scotland at vibrant debate and discussion about socialism!

The leadership in deciding to create a vehicle they thought would lead to “ric sized conferences of possibly 3000 people,”(as one member of the leadership told me) and membership of as much as 2000 from Ayrshire alone, according to another, then turned on any dissenting voices. This was the tactics of people very far removed from what had actually happened to build the ssp or Ric. People who still firmly believe stalls and paper sales AND glossy websites were all it took. And as someone in a key position re publicity who wasn't shy in trying to defend and build what we had accomplished, the hounds were set upon me.

The flaws in thinking they would create a ric political party were many fold. Those I raised were that 1 ric was composed of snp, greens and ssp. We could not create anything near to the size of the indyref conferences ric did. 2 ric was a campaign, not a socialist party. In fact many who helped out with ric were not socialists. Radical has many different meanings. Green's who would be to the right of the ssp, or indeed the snp leadership, consider themselves radical. Snp right wingers consider themselves radical. Rise was really composed of ex ssp folk who had fallen out with Colin, ex swp folk who had left the swp with Chris Bambury (who had helped Sheridan split the ssp) and the newly invigorated ssp. 3 the precursor and basis to rise, slp, was hugely undemocratic (creating committees and leaders no one voted for) ... The ssp needed democratic reform within, not the replacing of one undemocratic cadre with another.

My disagreement was that we should be continuing building the ssp and not creating a "New Coke" "Ratners" marketing disaster. We should be saying to those who were outside the ssp that they should join and help in the further transformation of the party. And many of the people in the ssp who had hung on through the disastrous Sheridan shows agreed. Many of us held on even when the rise motions were passed at our early 2015 conference, even as Colin Fox and Frances Curran unleashed a dreadful culture of bullying and secret whispers in toilets and rumour mongering tore like a Heather fire through the party, and the newly planted seed - New members - walked. And then the Rise leadership (of which Colin was an inconsequential part) joined in. Without going in to detail (I have elsewhere) I had to call the police in twice, as a Rise leader insinuated I was trolling, and was being "creepy" and threatened to dox me and reveal where I worked on her twitter etc.

Don't get me wrong. There were many people involved in Rise who were so for good reasons. But the fact is that it was built on the heavily fracked, earthquake cracked egotistical, personal vendetta riven, sectarian landscape of the Trotskyist left. And those shaking foundations made it impossible for new secular shoots to take root. Those of us wanting to stay outside those fights and who criticised the subterfuge openly, were painted as traitors and “enemies of the party.” Secularists were not wanted. What was, were people who took sides. I wasn't on any of their sides. I was on the side of building a secular SSP, as were many of those Colin berates. And I wasn't going to take sides with Frances, so became party traitor number one for a short time, until someone else took my place. And this is how the ssp plays out, year after year.

Carolyn Leckie praises Frances Curran for trying to democratise the party. Frances, who until the lead up to the Rise debacle I had a lot of time for, proved herself to be as bullying and undemocratic than Colin and those around him. The factions built around Colin AND Frances are the problem. Equally. Her support for the rise leader who wrote a dreadful letter to the ssp EC about me-and her own insinuations about me revealed another side to her. This as well as her telling Alan Grogan at his second conference that he "wasn't in the party long enough to have an opinion," and her rumour spreading  witnessed by many, really brought this clever woman who could have led the ssp to better things, far, far down in my estimation.

I left the party at this stage, because my leadership praised those meting out online bullying as "guilty only of building the party," and I was followed out by two major branches made up of people who had been part of the ssp from the outset. A deceased Comrade (someone with many years of experience in politics and a founder member of the ssp) said of what happened to the ssp on the run up to the Rise conference, "this is what happens when you impose things , rather than bring your members with you."

The culture of bullying in the ssp goes back a long time. The branch I organised managed to stay well out of it and we built local campaigns and made great inroads in creating a good name for the party locally. That branch was killed off when the leadership decided to disassemble a superb culture of friendship and activity, by imposing a culture akin to old militant tendency meetings. I notice the party praised one of our quieter members, who died leaving lots of money, for the second year in a row. Unfortunately for him, the leadership wrecked the branch he loved by meddling and basically ensuring disagreements were not allowed. Our branch had thrived on different opinions, discussion and debate. None of that, which was the reason many of us joined the pluralist party of the left in the early 2000's (some were members from the party's inception in 1998), was allowed anymore.

Imagine an ssp allowed to thrive. One free of the sectarian politics that has all but killed off the organised left in Scotland. That's the ssp Colin and Frances should aim for. And to make that happen, they need to step aside. A huge swathe of people politicised by the ssp are now running snp branches and are, indeed Msps, councillors etc. The ssp did amazing things. Unfortunately since 2007, the ever decreasing circles of Colin and Frances, and some of those around them has the ssp just really a great memory. The need of these people to control and to "win," rather than allow a rainbow coalition that encourages dissent has killed off what the ssp was.

Like Carolyn Leckie, I'm party-less. I'm not without political thought and the want to express it though. But with these people still driving the ssp, some of whom have never been voted in position by the bulk of what makes up that yet again tiny party, im not likely to share a party with those who shone brightly between 2003-2007.

Closure.

I need to write this. Its not what I want to write, but I have to, for me. For some sort of closure.

2014-15 was in three ways a really shitty time for me. A time that redefined my relationship with my work and my politics.

In 2014, after two and a half years solid campaigning, I crashed when Yes lost the Scottish referendum. But I still had my political party. One that then decided (via its hidden leadership and their manipulations) to pour us all from a large bowl into a smaller cup in order for self selected cadre to lead us all into a war against the gargantuan SNP. To cut a long story short, both cadre involved in what became Rise, didn't like some of us opposing their manipulations of new members and they set their useful idiots on me to silence me/get rid of me. I fought for a while, as I was torn between my brilliant branch that I'd help build and maintain and campaign locally with, but by summer 2015, I had had enough threats and nastiness, and left (though after speaking to some members who said they would be fighting back in 2016,rejoined for a short time and was kicked out by the compliant EC).

And third, my work life crumbled. I am a teacher and had until three and a half years earlier been a long term supply teacher for my council. Without letting me know I was made permanent in the school I was supplying in. This school had two problems for me, a really old fashioned outlook on education, and a deputy head teacher who admitted she hated children and men. She bullied every man who came to the school, one student was totally smashed by her, yelling across classrooms at him and in the end he left, defeated and then left teaching. She found me more difficult. I was a Union rep. And I pulled her up a few times at some if her goings on. And represented her when she needed representing. But when the head teacher retired in 2014, and she got the post, my card was marked. She hounded me, and made me a nervous wreck following me and setting a new acting deputy on to me, who also followed me, and stood outside my classroom etc. The Head called me, “autistic,” and in fact said that all men were autistic. Anyway, I won't go through the litany of shit she threw at me and the children (who I spent my time protecting from her) and by Christmas 2014, I felt crushed. Work really shouldn't be like that, especially teaching and trying to make children's lives better.

The weeks leading up to Christmas I was just taking one day at a time. I was physically and mentally exhausted. On the last day before the holidays, I cried as I left the children down the path at home time. All I could think was, “in two weeks I'm back to this shit again.”  I was torn between the children and my own health. I really felt I could not face the place again.

During the holidays, my family visited us in Scotland and everyone came down with the flu. I prayed that I would, and thankfully a few says before the end of the holidays, I caught it. I hoped it would last and last, but a week or so of being off work, I began to feel better, and panic set in. I knew if I went back there, this woman would hound me out of teaching. And noone on the staff seemed to want to stand in solidarity with me. So I had to admit defeat and go to the doctor. I was very clearly depressed.

I was signed off. And I went to my union. By summer 2015, I had been extricated from the school and started working with the superb colleagues I still share a school with.

I really don't miss my old party, but do miss the branch meetings in Kirkintilloch with Ron, Willy, Mary, Mark, Bill, Angus, Sonya Pamela, Allan and the others. I really don't miss the atmosphere in my old school, but felt at the time, I was abandoning those children.

In the past few weeks, my old political party is now again embroiled in an internecine fight regarding the same sort of nonsense. And the Head Teacher has been forced out of her post by her employer because of complaints over her conduct.

I can't disguise the fact I feel vindicated regarding the bullying I received in the SSP and in my school. Politically and democratically, I feel I am a fair person. The party I joined became something i didn't recognise. And regarding workplace bullying, I know I was right to stand up to that Head Teacher. If I set the ball rolling that took her away from the children she daily yelled at and the staff she bullied, I am happy.

The next independence referendum is ours.

Quick Links to my Northern Ireland stuff, and my fiction...

CLICK HERE

My favourite number...

Every class I've ever taught knows my favourite number. I use it all the time for number problem games and for giving them clues to answers of sums. It's an odd number to be a favourite, but it links three things, friendships, my grandparents on my mums side, a series of films that were, as a child and beyond, some of my favourites.

My pre-teen friendships, from probably the age of five or six, centred around Mickey Neeson. I had a good few friends as a child, but Mickey was perhaps one of the most influential people on my life, because he was wild, funny, and really pushed all of us to new things. When I think of him, I think of Tucker Jenkins from Grange Hill, Luke Duke, from the Dukes of Hazard, and The Fonz from Happy Days. He was that kind of person. And Mickey was the only Catholic in our wee group - and I can honestly say that through him, and my Grandfather, Billy Mulligan, I learned to question all around me in my mid-Ulster Troubles cradled childhood. This isn't about Mickey, or the troubles… Let's leave those to another time this is about my favourite number. The link Mickey has to my favourite number is through “New Town.” A place he, Mark Anderson, Paul Jackson, David (Doice) Anderson and I created.

Mickey’s mum and dad owned shops. Shops that sold large “white goods,” - Washing machines, cookers and tv’s. I don't remember who had the idea, but I remember having huge fun with the huge boxes left over from sales in Mickey's parents shops.

We used a massive one as a sleigh down a steep grassy hill, one hot summer. About ten of us lying flat, holding on to an edge and whooshing and screaming down the grass.

But that wasn't the idea. That wasn't the link to my favourite number. “Newtown” was. Newtown was created by flattening out lots of large boxes on the floor of an old outhouse at the back of Mickey’s House we had been given the use of as a gang hut by his mum and dad. During a fall out between me Mickey, Mark and Doice, they had painted it and graffitied it with their names. When I refriended them, we turned it into a club house, a nightclub and then Newtown.

Newtown was sketched out on the flattened boxes - roads, lanes, car parks and waste ground. And we played with our Matchbox, Corgi and Dinky cars. We begged in shoeships for boxes to make buildings (I remember one shoe shop owner saying we were “Very enterprising,” which we had no idea what it meant, but it sounded great, and we repeated it a lot in her posh, middle class, mid Ulster tongue). And characters were born, territorialism created and cars swapped, crashed and destroyed. Mickey had two town characters I remember. Both called Bill. Bill the Mechanic…

(he was no mug, Mickey. Our painstakingly written out and cut Newtown currency seemed to go entirely into Bill’s green Clark's shoe box garage. It was my first experience of economic theory, and money soon became almost worthless as we injected massive amounts of quantitative easing into the small town. We needed petrol for our cars, servicing and other car stuff. Our plastic soldier characters never seemed to need food from my cafe)

… and Bill Civince. Bill Civince was a spelling mistake. Mickey wasn't the best speller. He meant to write “Bill Chinese” on the bottom of his Japanese soldier character. Geography wasn't really his thing either… But Bill Civince stuck, and became the top fighting and Dukes of Hazard style driver in his Matchbox 2CV, crashing through cardboard garage roofs etc Dukes of Hazard style, while Mickey screamed, "Yeeeehah!" And setting fire to shoebox buildings we found our miniature working firetruck couldn't cope with and having to kick the burning town into the street while we coughed and spluttered for air.

I can't remember any of my characters, just my cars. In particular one I had customised, which is the link to my number. I'll come to that later.

Another friend of mine was Clark Davison. He was in my class in school until we were separated by the 11plus. Which to me at the time seemed more cruel than Mickey going to a different school from the start. Clark shared my interest in war comics, and in particular, Warlord. Both of us were Warlord secret Agents. And then Fireball Agents. But mostly Warlord Agents and weekly followers of the posh spy, Lord Peter Flint. Mickey, Mark or Doice had no interest in Warlord, or secret agents, or jumping off Clark’s garage roof etc. The weird thing was Clark and Mickey didn't seem to get on, or at least, Clark wouldn't play with Mickey, so the twain rarely met. Looking back, I wonder if it was because Clark’s da’ was in the RUC - this was the height of the Troubles... The height of suspicion..? Or maybe both just liked to be boss. I don't know.

Anyway, my favourite number linked these people, and my favourite series of films. And Clark in turn was in a weird way linked to my grandparents through a different number.

My grandparents had a phone, well before our family ever did. And their phone number was seared into my memory, 23941. Clark had a phone as well. Clark had a lot of things I liked. He had a Pink Panther car, a real fur rug in his living room, a guitar, and a colour TV that we sat in front of on a Saturday afternoon and ate snacks his mum brought to us. His mum looked like Farrah Fawcett Majors (well, had her hairstyle), wife of the best TV character in history, well up until that point in the seventies. “Steve Austin… Man barely alive, we can rebuild him, we have the technology, we have the capability to build the world's first bionic man…” Clark’s phone number was 23940. And that one number away from my grandparents was a coincidence, a link to Clark I've always remembered, a link to a man whose joie de’vivre infected me and all who knew him, and a “Nanny” so kind she would have given you the food from her plate.

So there are all of the people linked by this number, the number of Clark’s house, and the number on the bonnet of my Newtown customised matchbox car, customised with white model paint and a number carefully painted in black. And the number of my next birthday. And the number on the bonnet of the star of my favourite series of childhood movies…

Showing my age... And Herbie. 

Downfall Redux...

This article was originally written for, and published by Ungagged! HERE

I’ve always found hero worship odd. I’ve never had rock n roll/pop heroes, religious heroes or political heroes. 

Back in1979, friends of mine flocked to Knock, Dublin and other places to see John Paul 2. Although I was 13,and not from the community the Pope came to speak to, I saw a spotlight on our place, shone by the entourage of journalists and commentators he brought with him. As I write this, a smaller crowd are greeting the present Pope, who is busy apologising for child abuse meted out by his church, but not apologising for the incredible male-ness of his permanent entourage and decision makers. 

As heroes topple, most of them men, its the behaviour of those around them that fascinate me. 

Many friends of mine were absolute hero worshippers of Morrissey and the Smiths. As the working class pseud sang about the plight of the “his community,” and their culture in the eighties, millions dressed like him, had their hair cut like him and quoted his lyrics almost as I imagine fans of 18th and 19thcentury romantic poets did. He was of that lineage. 

Cut to the late nineties and two thousands, and Morrissey’s increasingly anglocentric, British nationalism and seemingly uninformed sexism was brushed aside almost as “mistakes, flaws,” by their still heroised bard. His more recent behaviour, praising alt-right tropes etc, hasn’t pushed his back catalogue to the back of the record collection, yet. The Smiths and early Morrissey are still untouchable in a way Gary Glitter’s back catalogue will never be. He still has a stage in front of thousands, no, millions of people to whom he can spout his message of “Viva Hate!” Unfair? I don’t think so. Like all monsters, the monster in Morrissey must be denounced. And someone with the huge power of a public voice should be humbled. The price if not, is that more politically vulnerable fans are not given clear messages of what is acceptable politics and unacceptable fascism. How the fans/ex fans react is hugely important. 

In the seventies and early eighties, Fascist imagery, lyrics and speeches from the stage were made unacceptable by the superb “Rock Against Racism.” Eric Clapton, has spent years apologising for his drunken racist outbursts, and many fans, radio DJ’s etc, to this day body swerve his music. If you find some of his outbursts on YouTube, fans can be heard booing him. Bowie and others from the avant garde school of pop/rock were forced to abandon fascist imagery and nowadays, no right wing music or bands get beyond backstreet pub gigs. 

The fans spoke. They condemned and they refused to buy tickets. Rock Against Racism changed the rock and pop industry every bit as much as Thatcher, Stock Aiken and Waterman, Island or Simon Cowell. An unhealthy and imbalanced relationship between ego-ist, and at best, niave pop stars and unacceptable symbols and politics of hate, was averted by major bands, fans and record labels signing up to Rock Against Racism principles. 

Back in early 2005, branches of the then thriving Scottish Socialist Party, of which I was a member, were called to extraordinary meetings in which we were told that our then heroised by many, “Convenor,” Tommy Sheridan, had badly erred. Tommy, at meetings some of us attended, apologised. In those days, Me Too, the movement of support for those who have been victims of abuse, did not exist. Powerful men were the norm. Heroes out to save us from the enemy. There were no subtleties in public discourse. To many of those in the SSP, Sheridan was a hero, and although he had more subtle options, he was going to “fight The News of the World,” which had published details of a visit to a swingers club in Manchester he, some friends and a reporter had made. Sheridan’s behaviour, and those who then sought to gain politically within the Socialist movement were crucial to what then happened in Scottish (and subsequently, UK wide) socialist politics. 

Sheridan pursued a tactic of outright denial-which on its own could well have seen this issue blow over. To add to the denial, Sheridan decided to sue the Murdoch empire. Most of the rest of the SSP disagreed with this tactic–to throw our at that time sizeable forces at this would ensure we were caught up in something for years that was far from why activists from across the left had come together, volunteering time, money and energy to the SSP. Activists would burn out totally, if the raison d’etre of the party became the sanctity of “The Great Hero Leader,” who, in fact, was a very naughty boy. But it was those who saw political capital for them and their small factions who turned a small body blow into the destruction of, until then, Europe’s most successful socialist alliance. I won’t go in to detail about what followed, Alan Mccombes book, Downfall does a pretty good job of telling what happened, as does this Thousand Flowers article.

The thing is, during all of this, naively, I thought politics could continue as normal. We could continue to fight the Blairist Government, and fight for amazing socialist reforms. I remember, clearly, going to a small SSP Regional Council meeting in The Piper Bar, in Glasgow City Centre. The main protagonists were there, including Sheridan, and his until this point in time, best friend Keith Baldassara. I was there to ask Sheridan our MSP, advice on a proposal our branch had discussed regarding education, but the entire meeting became an argument between Baldassara and Sheridan about Sheridan’s stance on suing the News of the World. After a long time of intractable argument, I asked could we turn to other business, to which Baldassara told me, “you don’t know what you are talking about here, Neil. This is more important.” And clearly it was, to them. To me, as someone who had joined the SSP in spite of not liking Sheridan’s insincere rhetorical style and obvious ego, the most important thing was politics, not the preservation of the great leader, from whatever side you took.

Subsequently, Sheridan pulled together groups of people whose egos he stroked and factions that hitherto had tried their best to take over control of the alliance. Such was sectarian socialist politics. And those groups and fans who felt Sheridan was a hero or a ticket, wrecked a movement. Sheridan dragged people through the courts, and using his influence in the press, dragged the reputations of women who had been comrades in arms, and innocent bystanders through the mud. Many of us built a group within the party to try to save it, and to support those comrades Sheridan had decided to try to destroy. It had limited success. After 2007, the SSP and the Scottish Socialist movement  went into a decline it still has difficulty pulling up from. And that tarnish went on to infect the Independence movement as Sheridan flapped about trying to find income streams and ego stroking crowds. 

I watch the current left heroes across the UK, two in particular, through the lense of  experience of the SSP and that of Rock Against Racism, and know that if the worst aspects and mistakes of what has become known as “Corbynism” are not called out and addressed, the Labour Party will flounder in its attempts to pull the party left yet again.  And here in Scotland as people line up in solidarity with an alleged abuser and victims in the SNP, I can only hope the lessons of the past become the voice of the majority.

One “hero” is not a movement. The refusal of men to admit their fallibilities will wreck all that is good about what has been built. Defending one man should not be our raison d’etre. Change should be. Let’s hope these current heroes and their fans understand that. 

Da Yessss Mehnz...

Man o man.

A pattern seems to have emerged amongst  activist men in Scotland since circa Sept 2014.

Man becomes politically aware.

Man believes he is the most politically aware man.

Man says a few politically affirming things that others agree with.

Man builds fan base and loud groups of social media shouters around him.

Man is invited to Yes groups to affirm their beliefs.

Man is appropriated by Sheridan /hanger oan groups around Sheridan.

Man is wanked off by them.

Man falls out with Sheridans lot.

Man takes some fans with him and vows he'll take Sheridan etc doon.

Man gets burned out and crashes in an explosion of ego, hidden money, accusations and capitalised sentences about the Yes movement being destroyed...

Man oh man oh man...

The SSP

Many people on the outside of the Scottish Socialist Party are watching the current internal row and scratching their heads, bemused at people fighting over the bones of something many thought was long dead. Some of us, though, had for a while, thought that the party was revitalised post indy ref, with a flood of new members, and a lot of new money.

(to see SOME of what this is about, see  HERE, HERE, and HERE and this public Facebook post...

This hope turned to dust as the stranglehold of a small group of people and their personal dislike of each other, played out under the guise of creating the Ill fated Rise, crumbling with it, the reputations and trust worthiness of the “new cadré” hoping to replace that of the warring factions of Colin Fox and Frances Curran.


For many, the SSP was under stress well BEFORE Tommy Sheridan dragged members through court in his ill fated pursuit of The News of the World. Those of us who stayed may well have left the party a long time ago even if Tommy Sheridan not have been revealed to have been the charleton many now know him to be. The stresses and strains of the factions like the various Trotskyite groupings and the Scottish national question could well have destroyed the party a few years after 2005, if the Sheridan Show had not taken place, but out of loyalty to some of those attacked and degraded by Sheridan, some of us stayed, and didn't rock the boat, hoping against hope that something of the original project could be salvaged.

The superb independence campaign conducted by the SSP both in community halls and online looked like it had turned the party’s fortunes around, and injections of new blood and much needed funds saw a new enthusiasm blossom within the party,albeit temporarily.

The core leadership, under Colin Fox, suspicious of any activity in the party that was not initiated by them, began to hack at strangely perceived threats. This, combined with an ego that had Colin believing he could regain a seat in the Scottish Parliament under a badly formulated “alliance”with a small group of ex - Socialist Workers Party activists, and ex-SSP activists under the leadership of Jonathan Shafi and Cat Boyd and the Machiavellian whispering and insinuations of Frances Curran, crashed a revitalised party that was beginning to pull in new members, platforms and interest within the large Yes movement. My own experience of this period was awful. I personally was threatened, and had insinuations made against me that had me having to go to the police. There are many within the SSP and many who helped form Rise from without the party, that I will never trust in positions of power. As I've said HERE, I have never revealed all of what was thrown at me, but it I still have all the evidence of threats, whisper campaigns etc ready for such time it is needed.  I was just one of quite a few people who, when disagreeing with the core leadership of the party, were thrown under a bus... the current, young, National Secretary (joining the ranks of "enemy of the party," etc, like me, Allan Grogan, and many others ) and National Chair being the latest two.

All of this and the current problems (which are rooted in pre-Sheridan Show siege mentalities and personality battles) have exposed a party not fit for the purpose it was created for. Socialists in Scotland, unfortunately, do not look to the Scottish Socialist Party as a party to join (nor do they look to the SPS, SWP or any of the smaller socialists groups either).

Socialists I've spoken to do not look at the SSP and say, “hopefully they will sort out these problems.” Few really seem to care, beyond watching how the very personal spat between ex-MSPs plays out. And that, to me shows perfectly what Fox, Curran et al have done in the past few years.

And the pity is, that presently with the most right wing Tory party in living history in power, the working class in Scotland are in dire need for real, socialist representation.