Sheridan abandons hope for the SSP and tries to form new party

[Fullyplumped]

I think we're past the defamation case, and it's time for a fresh political thread.

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.


Yesterday, Mr Sheridan made his own preference quite clear. "The reality is there's no place for me. Some people will stay with the SSP but I hope that some will come with me and help form a new movement," he said.


He also denied reports any new party will form an alliance with George Galloway's party Respect. "I'm sure George will support what we do here in Scotland but it won't be a version or a form or an extension of Respect."


Steve Arnott, SSP organiser of the Highlands and Islands and spokesman for the SSP Majority, said a number of suggested names had been put forward for a new party including Solidarity, the Socialist Majority, the Democratic Green Socialists or Independent Scottish Socialists. However, no final decision will be made until a vote is put to supporters in early September.
​

I think he might scrape up enough votes for a list seat in Glasgow, but he's probably done in Rosie Kane. I imagine that he will suffer for his sexist language - "do you want to vote for a man who describes women as witches"? The Greens will benefit, as will the SNP, riding on general dissatisfaction with Labour, but I seriously doubt if any other of the current SSP MSPs will get back - including Rosemary Byrne.

I am very please that he says he's having nothing to do with George Galloway. I wonder if he'll grow a moustache like George's, or even like Lech Walesa's. There will be enough time before the May elections, I suppose, and it might help his male modelling career.

 

[Paul Marsh]

Lets hope the party slogan is "Tommy Says .....Make Love Not War!"

 

[Streathamite]

Lets hope the party slogan is "Tommy Says .....Make Love Not War!"

top one!

 

[munkeeunit]

It's time like this I have to agree with anarchists that if it was less about personalities to begin with, then it would be less about personalities as things progress, and there would be less confusing the medium with the message, and the ensuing fall out and targeting of personalities from that.

Except that when it comes to anarchism things tend to fall apart in a matter of months instead of years.

If figures were to emerge with genuinely new (not blairite denial of class) ideas for the left, then I think there would be room for and a need for such figures to take the lead, but as it stands the like of Sheridan and Galloway are not even close to the mythical oratory figures of history they seem to think of themselves as.

As with the rest of the left, the are empty of anything new to reinvigorate the disorientated, less than skilled in economics, excessively PC, left which remains stuck in its terminal fits of splinter grouping, cult of the personality mentality and organisational method.

Bring on the intellectual left.

 

[justuname]

Two minutes ago Tommy was claiming he and his supporters were the 'SSP majority'. A lie. Now he's wanting to split the SSP in two for reasons that are solely to do with his personal ambitions and is seriously considering calling his personality cult 'Solidarity'. If he does, it will be another lie. It's all getting a bit Orwellian in Tommyland.

Tragic.

 

[munkeeunit]

I think he might scrape up enough votes for a list seat in Glasgow, but he's probably done in Rosie Kane. I imagine that he will suffer for his sexist language - "do you want to vote for a man who describes women as witches"?

Such attacks from the likes of Rosie Kane undermine only the utterly pathetic extent to which the left is easily mired in and sidetracked by the invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-style PC finger pointing.

A lot of women I know take being called a witch as a complement, as that is what they are

 

[Fullyplumped]

Such attacks from the likes of Rosie Kane undermine only the utterly pathetic extent to which the left is easily mired in and sidetracked by the invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-style PC finger pointing.

A lot of women I know take being called a witch as a complement, as that is what they are

Rosie Kane didn't say that - I did, as an example of how people opposing Tommy Sheridan in the election would make a telling point about the charismatic leader. I am no supporter of Rosie Kane, but I don't think she's a witch. Glasgow women electors are not generally impressed by PC but they know a patronising sexist creep when they see one, and are probably less likely to be happy about being called a witch than your pals!

 

[munkeeunit]

Rosie Kane didn't say that - I did, as an example of how people opposing Tommy Sheridan in the election would make a telling point about the charismatic leader. I am no supporter of Rosie Kane, but I don't think she's a witch. Glasgow women electors are not generally impressed by PC but they know a patronising sexist creep when they see one, and are probably less likely to be happy about being called a witch than your pals!

Then all of the above applies to yourself, and I'm sure you'll happily trash this thread with a slanderous PC, finger-pointing rant at myself for saying it. The left is dead, and all of the above have killed it.

 

[Fullyplumped]

Then all of the above applies to yourself, and I'm sure you'll happily trash this thread with a slanderous PC, finger-pointing rant at myself for saying it. The left is dead, and all of the above have killed it.

Pointy-point-point! I wouldn't want to slander you though.

All I was saying was that I think Tommy Sheridan has behaved in a way that will put many women off voting for him. Gail Sheridan, with a column in the Record or Sunday Mail, might do better though. But there's only so many family members.

 

[munkeeunit]

Pointy-point-point! I wouldn't want to slander you though.

All I was saying was that I think Tommy Sheridan has behaved in a way that will put many women off voting for him. Gail Sheridan, with a column in the Record or Sunday Mail, might do better though. But there's only so many family members.

Many women and men behave in a way which puts people off voting for the left for all the reasons outlined above.

From where I'm standing the internalised, and excessive, character assasinations of those on the left, who have spent their lives fighting for equality (but who are flawed human being, like all of us) is the most recognisable feature of the left nowadays to all who stand outside it (either reluctantly, or by choice).

In between campaigning for all the things I care about (without caring a dot for the occassional foot in mouth comments I might make, and the disproptionately viscous reaction of all of the above), I intend to spend time thinking of genuinely new economic ideas for the left to help us out of this malaise.

Do I have a hope in hell? Probably not, especially as there is a distinct absence of intellectual peers on the left nowadays to bounce any such ideas of off. A surplus of finger pointers provides only a dull and stalled movement.

Without economics Socialism is not Socialism at all, but merely secular fabianism without anything to offer beyond clawing at each other to gain the moral highground, which has slipped away from all of us, for that exact reason.

 

[tollbar]

I think we're past the defamation case, and it's time for a fresh political thread.

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.


Yesterday, Mr Sheridan made his own preference quite clear. "The reality is there's no place for me. Some people will stay with the SSP but I hope that some will come with me and help form a new movement," he said.


He also denied reports any new party will form an alliance with George Galloway's party Respect. "I'm sure George will support what we do here in Scotland but it won't be a version or a form or an extension of Respect."


Steve Arnott, SSP organiser of the Highlands and Islands and spokesman for the SSP Majority, said a number of suggested names had been put forward for a new party including Solidarity, the Socialist Majority, the Democratic Green Socialists or Independent Scottish Socialists. However, no final decision will be made until a vote is put to supporters in early September.
​

I think he might scrape up enough votes for a list seat in Glasgow, but he's probably done in Rosie Kane. I imagine that he will suffer for his sexist language - "do you want to vote for a man who describes women as witches"? The Greens will benefit, as will the SNP, riding on general dissatisfaction with Labour, but I seriously doubt if any other of the current SSP MSPs will get back - including Rosemary Byrne.

I am very please that he says he's having nothing to do with George Galloway. I wonder if he'll grow a moustache like George's, or even like Lech Walesa's. There will be enough time before the May elections, I suppose, and it might help his male modelling career.

I wouldnt rule out Rosemary Byrne altogether. She has quite a high profile in the Irvine area and South Ayrshire which just might save her aided by the fact that nearly all the SSP branches in that part of the world would go with Sheridan.

A lot will depend on what sort of movement Sheridan can put together that is different to the SSP, and given the forces involved if he can hold it together.

 

[JHE]

Tommy's new party: the 'Veritas' of the Scottish left?

 

[munkeeunit]

A lot will depend on what sort of movement Sheridan can put together that is different to the SSP, and given the forces involved if he can hold it together.

When there are no new ideas, nothing will change, a new hotch potch of moribund forces without an economic clue will simply turn on each other in due course. Everyone's clumsy comments will be simply noted, filed and stored for the when the time comes to claw each other to pieces.

 

[treelover]

Yes, he is certainly no John Maclean

If figures were to emerge with genuinely new (not blairite denial of class) ideas for the left, then I think there would be room for and a need for such figures to take the lead, but as it stands the like of Sheridan and Galloway are not even close to the mythical oratory figures of history they seem to think of themselves as.

 

[Wilf]

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.

Thats the telling point, that shows it was pure ego. He was going to regain the party - found he couldn't - so invented 'irreconcilable differences'.

Wonder if he consulted the rest of the SSSP 'Majority' when deciding to launch this new Party? Aren't any reports of mass meetings to work this new strategy out are there.

By the way, have the CWI and SWP worked out their attitude to the new Party yet? I'd love to know.

 

[junius]

Thats the telling point, that shows it was pure ego. He was going to regain the party - found he couldn't - so invented 'irreconcilable differences'.

Wonder if he consulted the rest of the SSSP 'Majority' when deciding to launch this new Party? Aren't any reports of mass meetings to work this new strategy out are there.

By the way, have the CWI and SWP worked out their attitude to the new Party yet? I'd love to know.

SWP will do as Tommy demands. CWI will have reservations, demand an 'explicitly socialist' grouping and with full factional rights. Since both factions loathe each other, it won't be long before they fall out.

 

[Fullyplumped]

Sheridan regrets 'scab' comment

It's a bit late, Tommy!

Tommy Sheridan has spoken of his regret at using the word "scab" to describe Scottish Socialist Party colleagues who gave evidence against him. He said that with hindsight he might have chosen his words more carefully.​

 

[cutandsplice]

Tommy's new party: the 'Veritas' of the Scottish left?

Well, he's got a tan like kilroy. Let's hope he gets covered in shit as well.

 

[JHE]

Well, he's got a tan like kilroy.

And the same extraordinary level of vanity.

Let's hope he gets covered in shit as well.

Is he into 'scat'? I must get the News of the Screws tomorrow and find out.

 

[nightbreed]

A few years ago the SSP was the example of how the left should operate in a post entrist/the Labour Party is a capitalist party, type of world . What a complete fuck up! It has ended in tears.
I feel embarrassed for all those on the left who held the SSP up as an example of how the left should organise.
Can the RMT have their affiliation money back, please?

 

[JoePolitix]

Tommy's justification

Comrades and friends,

I’d like to make a short contribution to the debate now raging about the future of organised socialism in Scotland.

We came very far in a short period of time with the SSP, but that party may have reached its historical limits. The ULN faction has come to dominate key positions out of all proportion to its weight in the SSP and has abused our democratic structures. Individuals within that faction have ignored the will of the National Council. They have crossed the class divide in siding with the NOTW against a socialist and, consequently, have turned the party we have built together into a colossal train wreck. They have tarnished the SSP banner – perhaps beyond all repair.

At meetings with comrades individually and collectively over the last few days I have raised the following points for consideration, which I would now like to raise with you – the 360 signatories to the SSP Majority.

I have no doubt we could recapture the party apparatus and leadership at our conference in October – but we must ask ourselves what would be we be recapturing? The ULN will remain a constant thorn in our side, its extreme gender politics, fixation with personalities and infantile ultra leftism dragging the name of the party through the mud. Its obsession with rewriting the verdict of my defamation trial would continue to be a stone weight around our necks.

The policy and press co-ordinator of our party, Alan McCombes, declared in the Herald last week that the EC is now “at war” with me. I thought the only war we were interested in conducting was the class war against injustice and inequality.

Do we really wish to spend our energies and talents fighting an incessant internal struggle with these people for the next two months and beyond, without an end in sight? Or would it perhaps be better to make a clean break and begin anew, with a fresh, untarnished vehicle for socialist politics in Scotland? Is the best use of our time fighting an internal enemy while thousands of people out there in the real world want to build on the victory over Murdoch?

Would we not perhaps be better to take the best of our number – the trade unionists, members and branches who have stood united around principled socialist politics – and build a new party of the Scottish left that would be the kind of broad, open, campaigning party working people and their families can once again believe in?

I have in mind a new movement that would continue the battle for the vision we all hold dear – of an independent socialist Scotland free from poverty and want, of internationalism, of freedom from environmental destruction, of opposition to Bush and Blair’s imperialist wars – but bigger, bolder and better than anything that has gone before.

I raise these questions with you in the most serious manner and ask that you ponder over them over the next few days and weeks. I hope you will come to the All-Scotland meeting called by Rosemary and myself and have your say on these issues. The meeting will be held at: The Central Station Hotel, Glasgow. 1.00pm on Sunday 3rd September.

We have a historic decision to make. Whatever that decision is to be we must make it and take it together, standing and fighting as one.

Tommy Sheridan.

 

[nightbreed]

Comrades and friends,

I’d like to make a short contribution to the debate now raging about the future of organised socialism in Scotland.

We came very far in a short period of time with the SSP, but that party may have reached its historical limits. The ULN faction has come to dominate key positions out of all proportion to its weight in the SSP and has abused our democratic structures. Individuals within that faction have ignored the will of the National Council. They have crossed the class divide in siding with the NOTW against a socialist and, consequently, have turned the party we have built together into a colossal train wreck. They have tarnished the SSP banner – perhaps beyond all repair.

At meetings with comrades individually and collectively over the last few days I have raised the following points for consideration, which I would now like to raise with you – the 360 signatories to the SSP Majority.

I have no doubt we could recapture the party apparatus and leadership at our conference in October – but we must ask ourselves what would be we be recapturing? The ULN will remain a constant thorn in our side, its extreme gender politics, fixation with personalities and infantile ultra leftism dragging the name of the party through the mud. Its obsession with rewriting the verdict of my defamation trial would continue to be a stone weight around our necks.

The policy and press co-ordinator of our party, Alan McCombes, declared in the Herald last week that the EC is now “at war” with me. I thought the only war we were interested in conducting was the class war against injustice and inequality.

Do we really wish to spend our energies and talents fighting an incessant internal struggle with these people for the next two months and beyond, without an end in sight? Or would it perhaps be better to make a clean break and begin anew, with a fresh, untarnished vehicle for socialist politics in Scotland? Is the best use of our time fighting an internal enemy while thousands of people out there in the real world want to build on the victory over Murdoch?

Would we not perhaps be better to take the best of our number – the trade unionists, members and branches who have stood united around principled socialist politics – and build a new party of the Scottish left that would be the kind of broad, open, campaigning party working people and their families can once again believe in?

I have in mind a new movement that would continue the battle for the vision we all hold dear – of an independent socialist Scotland free from poverty and want, of internationalism, of freedom from environmental destruction, of opposition to Bush and Blair’s imperialist wars – but bigger, bolder and better than anything that has gone before.

I raise these questions with you in the most serious manner and ask that you ponder over them over the next few days and weeks. I hope you will come to the All-Scotland meeting called by Rosemary and myself and have your say on these issues. The meeting will be held at: The Central Station Hotel, Glasgow. 1.00pm on Sunday 3rd September.

We have a historic decision to make. Whatever that decision is to be we must make it and take it together, standing and fighting as one.

Tommy Sheridan.

Fuck me!!! I think I have lost the will to live.

Rock on Tommy!!

 

[JHE]

its [the United Left's] extreme gender politics, fixation with personalities and infantile ultra leftism

Leaving aside vain Tommy 'Man of Steel' Sheridan's claim that the people he shat on have a fixation with personalities, I would like to know what he means here.

• What are the UL's extreme gender politics? How do their views differ from Tommy's?
• In what way are the UL, but not Tommy, guilty of infantile ultra-leftism? How does their programme differ from Tommy's?

I suspect Tommy is pretending that there are political differences that don't really exist. (The bust-up has been caused by Tommy's vanity and mistreatment of his comrades.)

 

[JoePolitix]

Leaving aside vain Tommy 'Man of Steel' Sheridan's claim that the people he shat on have a fixation with personalities, I would like to know what he means here.

• What are the UL's extreme gender politics? How do their views differ from Tommy's?
• In what way are the UL, but not Tommy, guilty of infantile ultra-leftism? How does their programme differ from Tommy's

I suspect Tommy is pretending that there are political differences that don't really exist. (The bust-up has been caused by Tommy's vanity and mistreatment of his comrades.)

This is the sort of sloppy shallow crap that I'd expect to read in the mainstream press. If you'd bothered to find about about the internal disputes within the SSP you would know that there are very strong political differences over the gender question. Tommy for one, unlike the UL supporters, does not support the 50-50 representation policy for example. This has been represented in the liberal press, with the aid of the UL and various sectarians, as "macho" Tommy's war against feminism. In fact the dispute is far more nuanced. This is what one of TS's supporters, Norma Anderson writes:

"When I talk about the SSP being 'gender obsessed' - and I do - I am doing so from the viewpoint of a lifelong feminist! Feminism is NOT about burning bras and demanding positive discrimination because you believe that's the only way you will get anywhere. Feminism, as far as I am concerned, is about challenging inequality wherever it exists. I opposed 50-50 in the party for several reasons. Firstly, I'm a socialist and, therefore, a feminist. The two go hand in hand. I have NEVER come across discrimination (other than geographical) in the SSP."

There are serious political differences underscoring the factional dispute within the SSP, it's only the people who can't be bothered to find out about them that endless personalise this dispute.

As for the UL being "ultra left" (probably in reference to the trot backgrounds) I'd have to say that Tommy got that one wrong. They are totally opportunist - prioritising nationalism over socialism, trying to carve out an alliance with the SNP as a "fast track to socialism" and capitulating and aiding the rightwing press.

 

[DexterTCN]

Leaving aside vain Tommy 'Man of Steel' Sheridan's claim that the people he shat on have a fixation with personalities...

QED

 

[justuname]

There are serious political differences underscoring the factional dispute within the SSP, it's only the people who can't be bothered to find out about them that endless personalise this dispute.

Of course there are differences, the SSP is an alliance, that was its success. But the polarisation here is entirely due to Tommy's handling of his personal life and his creation of a crisis that need not have been.

Really, it's tragic.

 

[exosculate]

I always thought he was a twunt following his outrageous comments after The Poll Tax 1990 demo.

 

[JoePolitix]

Of course there are differences, the SSP is an alliance, that was its success. But the polarisation here is entirely due to Tommy's handling of his personal life and his creation of a crisis that need not have been.

Really I thought it was started when one of Tommy's factional opponents leaked the "story" to the press.

 

[JoePolitix]

"Scotland is a big enough for more than one socialist party"

http://www.sundayherald.com/57447

 

[Bear]

Leaving aside vain Tommy 'Man of Steel' Sheridan's claim that the people he shat on have a fixation with personalities, I would like to know what he means here.

• What are the UL's extreme gender politics? How do their views differ from Tommy's?
• In what way are the UL, but not Tommy, guilty of infantile ultra-leftism? How does their programme differ from Tommy's?

I suspect Tommy is pretending that there are political differences that don't really exist. (The bust-up has been caused by Tommy's vanity and mistreatment of his comrades.)

On gender politics the UL do differ from Tommy. They want positive discrimination - he doesn't.

As for infantile ultra-leftism, I don't know how they differ, both sides are clueless idiots who don't seem to understand (or care) about economic realities.