Scotland

AGAINST AN SNP GOVERNMENT The SSP must be clear that the likely Scottish National Party (SNP) government, pro-capitalist and pro-independence, is no advance on a pro-capitalist and pro-Union Labour (or Labour/Lib-Dem) government. As the SSP has pointed out, "the SNPÅfs increasingly pro-business vision of an independent Scotland... promises hundreds of millions of pounds in corporate tax cuts to big business. This could only be achieved by plundering our public services". TURN TO THE WORKPLACES and TRADE UNIONS The SSP needs to make a turn to systematic workplace and trade union activity, and...

The Labour Party has “no moral authority left to govern Scotland, Scotland has chosen a new political path,” said Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Alex Salmond after the final results from last Thursday’s Scottish Parliament elections had been announced. The SNP, on the other hand, is obviously brimming over with the “moral authority” needed to govern Scotland, and to lead it along “a new political path.” The “moral authority” which it exhibited, for example, when it ditched its policy of re-regulating bus services in Scotland. The SNP’s gains in terms of seats held did not come from a...

“Bad result in those elections a week ago? Nothing to do with us, guv. It’s all the fault of that bloke over there. You know the one I mean - the one with the dodgy sun tan. Real chancer, that geezer. Gets people like us a bad name.” That pretty much sums up the statement from the Executive Committee of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), now posted on the SSP website, which purports to be an explanation of the party’s disastrous performance in the Scottish Parliament elections. The statement amounts to 64 paragraphs. 27 of those paragraphs concern Tommy Sheridan. And despite running to some 2...

The Scottish Socialist Party has been using its campaign for the 3 May Scottish Parliament and local elections to win back some of the ground lost when Tommy Sheridan split to form his personality-oriented “Solidarity” group last year. The SSP has used the campaign, through leafleting, stalls and public meetings, to attract a fair number of new members. It has distributed 60,000 freesheets in its main target areas. It has worked hard to build solidarity with the 1 May civil servants’ dispute, gaining support in the PCS as a result, and responded to the SNP’s list of one hundred prominent...

According to the polls, the Scottish National Party is likely to become the biggest party in the Scottish parliament after the election on 3 May. Opinion polls also show 51% or 52% in Scotland for independence, and the SNP has pledged itself to a referendum on independence, in 2010 or 2011. It looks as if the rise of the SNP comes from the same sort of disillusion with Blair and Brown that is boosting Cameron’s Tories in England; in Scotland, the Tories come from too low a starting point to grab the benefits of that disillusion. The SNP has made much of its endorsement from former Royal Bank...

By Keir Lawson, Glasgow SSP and Scottish Socialist Youth student organiser The Scottish Socialist Party is currently in the midst of campaigning for both councillors and MSPs in the upcoming Scottish elections. Unlike Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity, the SSP is standing on an explicitly socialist platform, while emphasising our key demands of free public transport for all, scrapping the council tax and opposition to the occupation of Iraq. The SSP has recovered a lot of lost ground, with the most recent national poll putting the party on 5%; retaining all our current MSPs and gaining a handful of...