Terry Conway from spoke to Graham Cee who is standing for the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) in Springburn, the seat of the speaker of the House, Michael Martin. Graham will be the SSP's first black candidate. SR: What are your expectations in this election?
GC: We know that we will be squeezed in a Westminster election, as distinct from what we would expect for Holyrood. This is partly because the press will focus on the battle between Blair and Howard and as a Scottish Party we will struggle to get any coverage. Also in a nonproportional we expect to do less well.
The polls are currently showing us standing below 3 per cent, though we would expect to do better than that in areas where we have a greater concentration of members and a more consistent track record of campaigning - which is mainly in the big cities especially Glasgow.
My own situation in Glasgow North East is a particular one because there is a parliamentary tradition that the other main parties don't stand against the Speaker. So there will only be three candidates - Michael Martin, the SNP and me. My aim is to come second and to take 15-20 per cent of the vote.
What will be at least as important as the votes we get is increasing our membership and the number of activists. I think it is reasonable to set a target of 1000 new members from the campaign. SR: What are the main issues that the SSP will focus on in the NOW MARTY
PANTY CLOSE DOWN school meals for a long time. The reason there are free
meals in primary schools in Scotland is because of the pressure put on by the SSP through our campaigning and our bill at Holyrood. All the other parties voted against our proposals, but now they are starting to change their tune. SR: Are there issues that you will specifically focus on in your own constituency over and above these?
GC: The big fight here is against the demolition of homes. The SSP was heavily involved in the campaign against stock transfers two years ago, which unfortunately we lost. The estates were taken over by Glasgow Housing Association.
Now they are proposing to demolish 21,000 of the 73,000 homes that they control in the name of "regeneration". They are only proposing to build 3,000 new homes over the next ten years. They are not spending money on repairs in the places they plan to bulldoze.
I am very heavily involved in the "Save our Homes" campaign as is the party in the area. We have had a series of public meetings and have more planned. Tenants are clear that they want investSOCIALIST We have been involved in many protests at Dungavel -Scotland's asylum prison. ment in the existing stock, not demolition. SR: You were a black socialist activist in London for many years before you moved to Glasgow. How different is your experience as a black person in Scotland from that in London.
GC: and Immigration has been pushed up the agenda in Scotland in an astounding way. A Labour Party focus group recently carried out a survey in Dundee, where there are only three people currently claiming asylum.
A majority of white males, I think it was 52 per cent, said that Asylum and Immigration was the top issue that would determine how they vote.
There has been a lot of new migration over the last six or seven years, including from areas where people didn't come before such as Frenchspeaking Africa. On Sighthill now we have over 40 nationalities
Although the recent Observer survey on racial attacks didn't give a breakdown by police authority in Scotland, we do have the figures for Strathclyde, where there has been an increase in attacks of 120 per cent. Some of that is because of an increase in reporting - actually the people in the racial attacks unit in Strathclyde are quite sympathetic.
The SSP has had a consistent record on these issues. We were centrally involved in the campaign in Sighthill after the murder of Firsat Dag in August 2001, which cut across the divide and rule between poor indigenous people and asylum seekers by campaigning against poverty as well as for rights for asylum seekers.
We have been involved in many protests at Dungavel -Scotland's asylum prison. We have taken these questions up on the streets and at the same time our MSPs have raised them in Holyrood too. SR: What about black selforganisation?
GC: Yes this is growing too. Over the last couple of years community groups, and women's groups have developed apace based essentially on countries of origin. I spoke last week at a Kurdish community group for example
The immigration office here in Govan is atrocious -we had a good picket there yesterday as part of the April 2 day of action. I know one family who have lived in Glasgow for four years and who now have to be fingerprinted every Saturday. This tries - whether or not that is the primary reason they left. They fought for justice at home and now they are fighting for it here.
And there is the beginning of some networking between the groups as well. It's at the sort of stage that we were in London in the SR: Yes except then it was not based on countries of origin, there was a move towards a more general black self-organisation but politics generally have shifted
GC: Yes you are right, there is not a sense of black consciousness as such. SR: How do you see the situation inside the SSP?
GC: The last few months have been a difficult time for us. People were shell-shocked after Tommy Sheridan's resignation. But the membership has come out fighting - our recent conference was the best attended yet. I would say there has been a move to the right in terms of the balance of the leadership, so that should prove interesting.
There is a debate about the way forward inside the
Socialist Movement - the platform that has involved the majority of the SSP leadership and which I'm a member of. The ISM was divided over many important issues at the conference.
In my view we need a platform that is based on politics. I want to see an organisation that supports socialist feminism - we lost a lot of support when the ISM as a whole didn't support the 50-50 rule for women candidates, and an analysis of race and class.
I think we need a politics which is close to many of the ideas of the Fourth
and which breaks from the legacy of the Committee for a Workers International, from which many in the ISM come.
But these things are still being discussed - we have a big meeting coming up this week and we will have to see where we go from there.