KitNotes

From The Sunday Herald:

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.”

Oops. Am I that slow?

This is from The Scotsman:

TOMMY Sheridan yesterday vowed to turn his back on the Scottish Socialists and to set up his own party, after admitting he had no future in the organisation he founded.

Mr Sheridan urged those in the SSP to join him in a new movement, which his supporters said could be called the Solidarity Scottish Socialist Movement - a reference to the shipworkers’ opposition movement in communist Poland.

However, rivals poured scorn on the idea of Mr Sheridan using the Solidarity label and vowed to fight any new party.

Following Mr Sheridan’s successful defamation case against the News of the World, the party has been split.

Many of the “United Left” faction claimed during his libel trial that Mr Sheridan had admitted visiting swingers’ clubs, and they now refuse to work with their former leader. But another faction calling themselves the “SSP Majority” want Mr Sheridan reinstalled as leader.

The two sides were due to battle it out at the party’s national conference in October. However it now seems Mr Sheridan will lead his supporters in a new movement before it goes to the vote. From more than 50 branches, so far he has fewer than a dozen nominations for the leader’s position.

Other suggested names according to that Scotsman report include Solidarity, the Socialist Majority, the Democratic Green Socialists or Independent Scottish Socialists.

In any case, whiffs of Lech Walesa aside, it seems that I overestimated old Tommy. Apparently this new party won’t just be a Scottish RESPECT (though one cannot rule it out in all honesty), but it’s still a damaging development. No doubt that people who came to socialism because of Tommy Sheridan will still hold some loyalty for him, however misplaced it is. A lot of people - actors and directors included - were loyal to Gerry Healy, and look what happened to him. I believe the phase is ‘hoisted by one’s petard’.

The chances are that the CWI and SWP platforms inside the SSP will join ‘Solidarity’, which will cause it to splinter further. The CWI in the rest of Britain are pushing their propagandist and substitutionalist ‘Campaign for a New Workers Party‘ while the SWP are pushing RESPECT.

Meanwhile, despite Colin Fox’s best attempts, the SSP are up shit creek without a paddle. They’ve just lost their ’star’ (though it may be no great loss from their perspective) but are also saddled with massive debts, a disillusioned membership, and a huge PR problem, and no, I’m not talking about proportional representation.

For once, I don’t think I have the answers. Well, not right now. What needs to be done is to develop the party into a firmly internationalist, revolutionary, socialist direction which relies less on MSP celebrities and more on building an educated, active membership party.