Alan Thornett and It was a great relief, arriving at the SSP conference October 7, to participate in an event where the mood was so buoyant and confident. The SSP remains remarkably intact given what it has been through over the last two years - being dragged through the by Tommy
COUlL Sheridan's decision to sue the NoTW for defamation after admitting that some of the allegations it made were true.
In spite of Sheridan's walkout at the end of August, the SSP has retained 80 per cent of the membership, including the whole of the party's youth organisation, the SSY. It has also continued to produce its paper Scottish Socialist Voice on a weekly basis and maintain its offices.
Around hul members, including both the SWP and CWI platforms, have followed Sheridan to found Solidarity. The SSP has been particularly weakenea in the soutn oI Scotland and in the Highlands and Islands. The SSP had retained the bulk of the members in Glasgow and Edinburgh: the central belt the most populous part of Scotland - stayed with the SSP.
This conference we attended in Glasgow was in fact the 2007 conterence brought forward to October 2006. The 2006 conference had taken place earlier in the year, before the crisis reerupted.
It had been brought forward by common consent soon after the special National Council meeting on May 28 (which had met whilst Alan McCoombes was in prison for refusing to hand the minutes to the court) at which Tommy Sheridan issued his open letter that effectively split the SSP.
Sheridan, however, walked out in advance of the conference presumably because he had done his sums and concluded that he would have been unlikely to win a majority at it.
This meant that, instead of being a final showdown with Sheridan ending in all probability in huge bust-up, this was a conference designed to put the SSP back on the road towards the elections for the Scottish Parliament and local government in May next year.
350 members were in attendance including su delegates. Unsurprisingly the Sheridan events and the split were dealt with in the first session.
The resolution adopted endorsed the way the issue had been dealt with, condemned the breakaway and invited anyone who had followed the split to rejoin. The resolution continues:
"Conference reaffirms our founding aims of building a broad, inclusive, socialist party, based on class struggle politics, which simultaneously stands up The SSP retained the bulk of the members in Glasgow and Edinburgh and the most populous part of against inequality and discrimination on grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation disability or age".
John Milligan of the RMT attempted to sour the tone of conference by making a vitriolic speech blaming the leadership The SSP for Sheridan's split. He also said that the RMT was withdrawing its resolutions from the conference and would be consulting its members about whether they should remain affiliated.
Those who did not have other sources of information would certainly have thought that he had the authority of the union for all of his speech, which he did not at the time, although sadly the Scottish regional council did decide in a close vote to disaffiliate, and the leadership has endorsed the decision.
Those who responded in the debate. Darticular Richie Venton in summing up on the motion, remained calm and dignified in defending the line of the outgoing Executive. In this debate and subsequently, a number also made the point about how much the SSP values the trade union affiliations it has won and will seek to maintain.
Colin Fox gave a confident report as National Convenor, making the point that their could not now a be a single person in the whole of Scotland who had not heard of the SSP. In his written report to conference he had said: "Tommy Sheridan's decision to pursue his court action, against the advice of us all, will go down in history as one of the biggest political follies of our time".
Perhaps the best flavour of the trauma the SSP had been through was reflected in the written report of Barbara Scott, the minutes secretary:
"Well... what a rollercoaster ride of half a year this has been for the Minutes Secretary. Never again will taking the minutes be considered a dull and boring job.
"Who would have thought that I would be catapulted to infamy and daily appearances in the national press because of note-taking! ...I might add I've been accused of fabricating minutes; getting everything wrong; being invisable; in fact anyone would think I was some sort of evil genius. But no, I was just doing the minutes, same as ever, doing my best to preserve accurate records of our party's history".
second motion was passed which urged SSP members to avoid the use of the courts in such situation and avoid the use of the capitalist media when making allegation against other SSP members, and was aimed at the LaDo recording of Sheridan which had just been rel enced by George McNeilage. The mover condemned both the recording of the tape in the way it had been used. The resolution said:
"SSP members should not resort to the non-party media when making allegations against other SSP members. Such allegations should be brought initially before the appropriate party body at the level concerned with the right to appeal to a higher level"
After breaking to attend a demonstration in support of migrants and refugees, the conference went on to have a day and a half of policy debate on a lull range or Issues Iron. the war and the international situation, defending the public sector, the Gaelic language, prostitution, childcare, the environment and global warming, trade unions and campaigning priorities. The conference reaffirmed SSP policy for an independent
Sco and can get rid of Trident Socialist Scotland.
The conference was NT: BRITAIN'S WI