It’s more than five years since Holyrood was last graced by any SSP MSPs, and Parliament is the worse for the absence of any representatives of the traditional left. A distinct if small section of the electorate isn’t represented nationally, and the terms of debate are narrower, despite the presence of other principled left voices: the Greens and a few others from the Labour and SNP benches.
The reasons for the SSP’s absence are well-understood, of course, with the saga of Tommy overwhelming all. Without wishing to rake over that in detail, the fact remains that one side of that dispute were broadly either perjurers or supporters of perjurers (trading as Solidarity) and the other side were essentially maligned and and innocent (the continuing SSP).
Of all the unfair things that happen in politics, being damned for your enemies’ shortcomings would have to rank pretty highly, despite the caveat that the party was forged in large part around Tommy’s ego, and many of those who did the right thing in the end did always know he was too flawed to be a stable foundation.
Before the split, they also did themselves no favours when the choice was between grandstanding or being parliamentarians. The Gleneagles farce and its consequences for Hep C campaigners is the most obvious example, where a photo op trumped both democracy and the needs of some very vulnerable people, and Rosie’s wee submarine did look a bit daft. And colleagues in Glasgow certainly found their campaigning style abrasive and beyond what parties should expect from each other.
But equally, Tommy’s achievement on warrants and poindings in the first session was a true left victory, and it would be hard to doubt their intention to speak up for Scotland’s working class. Even when they were wrong, it was sometimes useful. Their “free public transport for everyone” pledge was seductive, even though the reality would have been overburdened networks unable to expand without truly eyewatering additional expenditure from taxpayers. But extending free passes to the unemployed, to students and to those on low incomes: their campaign made that seem obvious even if you don’t see it as a step towards a truly free system.
And there were plenty of points of agreement with the Greens, over issues like bringing rail back into public ownership, opposition to vandalism like the M74 Northern Extension, protecting taxpayers’ interests by ending PFI and related schemes, and many more. Despite those points of overlap, the two parties brought largely different demographics to the ballot box, ensuring that the breadth of radical Scotland was properly represented at Holyrood, during the “rainbow Parliament” at least.
Good minds and good people were tied up in the disastrous split, too, people like Carolyn Leckie and Alan McCombes. Many more fiercely principled and intelligent campaigners were totally burnt out by that episode (or series of episodes), and have been lost to politics, some probably permanently. Whether or not you agree with them, that disengagement is surely to be regretted.
I don’t want to see an independent Scotland carrying on with business as usual, just a smaller nation still venerating egomaniac billionaires, cleaving to the House of Windsor, building endless uneconomic and unsustainable new motorways, or launching a damaging race to the bottom on corporation tax. To stop all that, radical Scotland will need all the strength it can muster, which probably includes the SSP getting its act back together and getting back into Parliament.
#1 by James on July 10, 2012 - 1:49 pm
Oh, and on the demerit side I forgot to mention the SSP joining the Tories and SNP in opposing the congestion charge (despite surely even more of their voters using public transport). Still..
#2 by Steve on July 10, 2012 - 3:58 pm
SSP have been getting their act together with regards to the independence referendum and the yes campaign. I think SSP and Greens both have an important role to play in broadening out the attraction of independence to voters.
#3 by Doug Daniel on July 10, 2012 - 4:33 pm
I think that Herald article about the SSP being “to blame” for hepatitis C sufferers losing compensation cash is a bit rich. It wasn’t the four SSP MSPs being absent who were to blame – it was Andy Kerr, who proposed the amendment in the first place. A bit like a murderer blaming other people for not stopping him… And I notice too that the SSP had a habit of annoying Bill Aitken – do we need any more reason to want them back into parliament?!
(Okay, so he’s not there any more, but meh…)
They maybe took things a bit far on occasion, but who hasn’t? Even the man now trusted to lead Scotland had his moments in the early days of his political career! I would say the best politicians are campaigners first, politicians second. I follow Carolyn, Rosie and Alan on Twitter, and while I may not agree 100% with everything they say (hence why I’m not in the SSP…), they all speak so much more sense than most others.
I’ve always been saddened that the showing by the SSP (and the Greens) in 2003 hasn’t been repeated. You’ve both been squeezed by the constitutional question, which is why it’s important that it’ll be dealt with this session. Otherwise, we might have seen an all-SNP-and-Labour parliament in 2016! I’m hoping we vote for independence in 2014, and that the 2016 election sees an explosion of support for other parties to go along with the explosion of ideas that I expect to follow a “yes” vote. In fact, I think regardless of the result, we’ll see people who voted for the first time ever/in ages in the referendum taking their place in the political process. I remember Alan McCombes on Twitter a couple of months ago predicting/hoping for a turnout of around 90%, and it’s hard to imagine we’d drop back down to under 50% for the next election if it’s even as low as 70% for the referendum.
Surely, surely the SSP and Greens could get something out of that. I hope you both do, because I like the idea of us having a political make up more akin to Norway than the UK, and as much fun as it was seeing the SNP winning a majority last year, I don’t want it to happen ever again.
(I also don’t want it to need to happen ever again, of course…)
Colin Fox taking a seat on the Yes Scotland advisory board could be an important part of the SSP getting back into the picture. Let’s hope so!
#4 by Richard Laird on July 10, 2012 - 4:58 pm
Before I joined the SNP, I spent the best part of four years as an SSP member and I look back on the party as it being a tremendous opportunity missed.
While, with retrospect, my own politics were not best-suited to SSP activism, the party was responsible for pushing a lot of then-unfashionable policies into the political mainstream, particularly the abolition of the Council Tax and of prescription charges. It also succeeded in reaching out to a lot of people who would not otherwise become involved in politics, as well as demonstrating that politicians do not need to be grey, middle-aged, middle class men. That said, it was doomed by its inability to deal with its own internal contradictions.
I think the competing demands of SSP activists and SSP voters put its MSPs in a difficult position. Most people who voted SSP wanted MSPs who would get on with parliamentary work, while activists expected MSPs to be campaigners, not legislators. Political parties require credibility to be successful and the propensity of SSP MSPs to protest and engage in stunts harmed the party’s credibility among those who voted for it. Alongside this, the SSP was one party which included at least two others.
Factionalism is an inherent part of the socialist left and, until it can be overcome, it will continue to be its downfall. The bitter nature of the 2006 split means that this part of the left in Scotland will probably remain fractured for a generation. While undoubtably successful for a good five/six years, I suspect socialism in Scotland is now further back than it was before the SSP was formed in 1998, and the Scottish bodypolitic is worse-off as a result.
#5 by Allan on July 10, 2012 - 7:55 pm
Hmmm, to be honest the best analogy is that of a rock band where the lead singer gets maybe a little too big for their boots and the rest a little disgruntled at the lead singer. There’s a little blame on both sides (Tommy’s crew for thinking that he was the messiah, when in fact he was a very naughty boy, the rest for… well not really handling the Tommy thing that well).
The resulting spat has been a disaster for the left in Scotland, particularaly as Labour have moved to the right while the SNP build their MacNew Labour project. It has left a whole constituancy unrepresented at a time when their message would have seriously resonated. Who knows, “Scottish” Labour might even be in a worse state had the SSP kept itself together.
Whatever you think of Tommy, he did have that something that made people sit up and take notice. It’s something that Rosie kind of had, but I don’t think any of the others had. Certainly Colin Fox doesn’t really have that prescence and passion. Sheridan used to be good, in fact the best… I just wish his ego (and to be truthful, his conspiracy complex) didn’t get in the way.
Good post James, and about time someone noticed the gap stage left.
#6 by Jim Monaghan on July 10, 2012 - 9:31 pm
The fact is that the Sheridan trials had little to do with the result of the 2007 election. We can follow the votes of the Scottish public easily from turning to the Greens and SSP in 2003 when the SNP had the weak leadership of Swinney, to the return of Salmond in 2007 elections. Every list vote, almost to exact numbers, returned to the SNP from the Greens and SSP. The Greens had almost exactly the same vote in 2007 as they did in 1999, the SSP/Solidarity vote was the same, returning to the 1999 total. In 2006, like most people, I had to choose whether I believed one set of people’s version of events over another. In 2010 it was made easy for me. The witnesses who made the cupids claim had came to court with yet another new date for the alleged event (their third). Miraculously, the two witnesses had changed to the same date again despite claiming to having never collaborated, they had just coincidentally changed their stories twice and did so at exactly the same time and came up with exactly the same dates. This time round they came up with a date I knew to be a lie. On the night that they claimed to be in Manchester I, and several others, met Tommy in Glasgow. Since then, as we all now know, the woman who made the original accusations has owned up and told the police the real story which will lead to arrests and yet another perjury trial. My own book on the subject will be reased this summer and, hopefully, then more people will see what really happened.
#7 by Cat on July 11, 2012 - 12:38 am
As a member of the SSP – interesting wee piece. I still haven’t formulated my views on the SSP in Parliament. I think Richard is quite right there are tensions in a broad based socialist party straddling parliamentarism and activism – its not just riding 2 horses in the circus but riding a motorbike and crazy horse whilst juggling a chain saw whilst wearing a suit, tie and high heels. I am sure it’s not impossible but bloody tricky all the same.
On the G8 I think you are a wee bit unfair, what do you do when the world;s leaders are in town, carving up the world’s economy in the interest of capitalism and you are a socialist Parliamentarian? Hanging about with a wee sign in the chamber really is the least you could do. I think there was a moral panic from all the parties including the Greens and media about it. Their punishment was unjustified – loosing a month’s salary and expenses particulary compared to how Wendy Alexander and some others were treated.
The Hep C debacle really was Andy Kerr’s fault and really the consequence of banning the SSP, the other MSPs have to take responsibility for their own actions and consequences here!!
On the wee submarine, this was a Trident Ploughshares activity and Rosie was supporting this stunt, why would she not when she was in Trident Ploughshares?
I think the SSP was completely right about congestion charges, socialists usually oppose taxes that treat everyone as the same and equal when they clearly aren’t. The Greens and Labour supported and drove through the trams in Scotland and the consensus is that wasn’t such a great idea, cost Edinburgh nearly a billion pounds and wrecked the city.
On the Tommy nonsense, the issue isn’t about one side being “maligned and innocent” it really was “one side” was abused and continually and publicly abused by Tommy and his supporters. I am still completely raging about it but getting bored of it now.
I think Scottish politics is weaker without the SSP in Holyrood and become boring. I think it is more complex than the “SSP getting its act together” but there are processes the SSP needs to go through in order to decide what type of socialist party we are – a parliamentary based one or an activist based one? After all the circus tricks are awfy difficult and tricky. I suppose there are interesting and exciting times ahead. I am looking forward to the Independence Referendum.