Tommy Sheridan speaks to London Socialist Alliance rally
Unity in the fight to change the system
IT GIVES ME great pleasure to offer the fullest solidarity of the Scottish Socialist Party to the London Socialist Alliance in the forthcoming elections.
We hope this will begin to set a trend that will bring the left and the working class together united around clear unequivocal socialist demands and a socialist programme that bring back on to the political agenda the need for the redistribution of the massive wealth and resources that exist in our country.
We have a problem in relation to socialism in that perhaps we have a great number of socialist parties but not enough socialists. What we have to try to do is to find a way to maximise unity by coming together, working together, building up trust and mutual respect of each and everyone’s backgrounds and trends, everyone’s talents and energy and what they have to offer in terms of a new socialist movement.
In Scotland at the end of 1995 we came to the conclusion that if we didn’t form something that was able to offer an electoral alternative to the Labour Party then we would lose a generation of young people in particular but also of other workers to nationalism – to the Scottish National Party.
The SNP isn’t a right wing force – it’s actually left of centre – it’s actually much more radical than the Labour Party, although that wouldn’t be hard these days.
I think if Ghengis Khan were still alive, he would be more left wing than Blair. We had situations developing where the SNP were picking up support from left-leaning workers, from young people looking for an alternative to the old Tories, and the new Tories in the shape of Labour, and therefore we decided to try to bring groups together.
We came from groups like Scottish Militant Labour, the Communist Party of Scotland, radical greens, environmental activists, road protestors, trade unionists; people who were involved in their daily lives in struggling against the social and economic system but who were all doing this separately.
What we tried to do was to tie all of those various ropes together and see if we could have a bigger and a stronger rope.
We tried to do this at the end of 95-96 through forming the Scottish Socialist Alliance and we worked together until the early part of 98. We had our fall outs – we came from different backgrounds – some of us were Trotskyists, some of us were Marxists others were Stalinists, others had a reformist, Labour party background, others a green background: but at the end of the day we managed to find that there was a lot more that united us than divided us.
We found that if our energy was collectively organised we could be much more powerful together than in its separate component parts.
So we built on that and stood in the elections in 1997. We tried to offer an alternative to new Labour’s Tory policies in 22 of the 72 seats in Scotland. We were relatively successful and picked up 4-5% in some seats and in Glasgow we got 11 per cent. So it went alright, but what we managed to achieve in course of that campaign was a belief that we could organise together, that we could stay together.
Then of course after the election of Blair there was a huge disappointment, huge disillusionment from workers. Maybe they had been suspicious but hoped that the Labour Party was going to be different underneath to what it appeared on the surface – that once they got into power they would drop all the right wing rhetoric and they would actually be different. Of course many of us already knew the free market road that they had embraced; already knew that they would let down workers and would embrace the Tory agenda 100%.
We had built up a momentum, so that at the end of 98 we decided that there was actually enough trust, enough respect that we could turn that Alliance into a political party.
We formed the SSP in September 1998 – we brought together all of those various strands and said: let’s not have a political party that dictates that there is one way on the high way, let’s have a political party that allows the organisation of trends of opinion.
Let’s allow platforms to organise, where people feel free to dissent, but let’s make sure that we have a united programme that we can all get behind when it come to elections or supporting workers’ struggles.
We were formed in September 98 and were faced with elections in May 99. Like yourselves we were ignored – we were the fringe – we had no chance. Unfortunately for those faint hearts in the media we managed to break a few hearts as far as new Labour was concerned. Across the whole of Scotland this new party managed to take 2 %. of the total Scottish vote.
Some of you may say 2% is not very much and you would be right it is not very much. But then the SNP was formed in 1936 and between 1936 and 1964 it never recorded more than 1% of the total Scottish vote.
It took it 30 years until 1966 where it actually got 2 % of the vote when it had the breakthrough in the Hamilton South by-election – and to go on from there to where it is now where it regularly gets 20 and sometimes 30% of the vote.
Here was a political party that wasn’t a year old, and it managed to secure 2% of the vote. We stood in first past the post seats as well – in my own seat of Glasgow Pollock we managed not to take 2% - we took 22% - we nearly won that seat.
In Glasgow we won 8% of the vote – we won the sixth Glasgow list seat to get the first socialist elected to the Scottish Parliament.
We managed to show that that small political party with honesty and integrity, linked to a radical socialist programme for which it was bold enough to argue, could achieve success. A month later in June we had the European elections – many of you will easily forget them – but the SSP went from 2% to 4% across Scotland .
Last year we had the Hamilton South by-election where wee Robertson had to go off to NATO– he used to be a CND member and is now the warmonger general. The SSP polled 10%. We are told there is a four party system in Scotland – we are part of the "fringe" – but we came third in that seat; we beat the Tories and Liberals.
Last month in Ayr – which has 100 years tradition of returning Tories apart from the exception of 1997 – it’s one of those rare seats in Scotland –– we stood and took 4.5% and beat the Liberals – we got twice their vote.
Tonight in Hamilton there’s a council by election, where I’m confidently predicting we’ll be third or second and in two weeks time there’s another in Edinburgh, where I predict a similar result.
A new political force is being built, on the basis first of all of an Alliance, and now of an organised political party. Brothers and sisters, it’s not for me from Scotland to offer prescriptions or tablets of wisdom to socialists in London or anywhere else, but I certainly hope that the road that we have travelled is a road that you will also travel.
Through working together, through building up mutual trust and respect, hopefully a new political party will be formed on the basis of that activity. One thing I’m absolutely certain of is that we need an alternative for ordinary men and women to the right wing shenanigans of new Labour, of Blair and everything they represent.
In the little time I have it’s difficult to give you a flavour of the political activity in Scotland. The SSP has not just been built through standing in elections –but on the basis of assisting workers in dispute, whether they be council workers in the social work departments taking strike action or post office workers or the private sector who have occupied factories.
We have stood against the construction of new roads through communities, and against housing sell-offs. In other words it’s a party that has been constructed not just in elections but in action as well. I would hope the Alliance in London adopts the philosophy that elections are not in any way a substitute for the class struggle but a complement to the class struggle.
We have a political party in Scotland made up of people who are Marxists like ourselves but also people from different political backgrounds: but the common philosophy that runs through that party is the need to change the system, to tackle the horrible and obscene inequality of wealth and power that exists in our country.
Brothers and sisters I hope that each and every one of you will get involved in this campaign, involved in the construction, not just in London but in every part of England and Wales, of a viable credible alternative to new Labour – that has got to be the target.
The Office of National Statistics has just announced what we knew anyway. The rich are officially getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. After three years of new Labour we now have the top 20% with a larger share and the bottom 20 % with a smaller share of wealth.
Brothers and sisters isn’t it about time for change? I would argue with every single one of you: for the sake of our pensioners, for the sake of our children, for the sake of our low paid workers, we need a socialist alternative that argues for decent wages, for a shorter working week, for increased public and social control of our industries.
The sketch of Rory Bremner says it very well – it should be compulsory viewing – he’s the best politician on the TV. Two of his mates are in the pub and one says " My car got stolen the other night" "Oh, that’s terrible" "It’s even worse than that –the guy that stole it knocked on door last night and he offered to sell it back to me." "But that’s theft!" he says. " No, that’s privatisation!".
Brothers and sisters is it not time that we took back what is rightfully ours – our telecoms and our transport and our utilities ?
Then, when we get the momentum, we can carry on to take over the banks and insurance companies and the rest of industry – because we can run them a darned sight better than the spivs in the city.