had always had within the SSP. He was not just the first SSP MSP but the personality around which the SSP was built. For such a central personality to lead a split -even a completely unprincipled one - is bound to be a massive problem for a political party.
This celebrity factor no doubt contributed Solidarity gaining more votes than the SSP
The SWP, who (shamefully) backed Sheridan throughout these events, recognises the rather obvious fact that it was the division of the left which helped to wipe out far-left representation in Parliament.
Socialist Worker puts it this way: "although the electoral draw of the SNP did not completely obliterate the far left vote, it was fragmented between three parties [Solidarity, the SSP and the SLP]. Although Solidarity gained twice as many votes as the other two added together, a split vote denied the party any seats.
"Had Sheridan received even half of the 5,259 votes that went to the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and the Socialist Labour Party, he would have beaten the Green candidate for the fifth regional list seat in Glasgow" It goes on, however, to contradict this analysis by saying that the results are: "a tribute to the work of Solidarity members over Salmond leaping for joy as SNP scoops up anti-Blair vote The SNP gained 20 seats, Labour lost 4, the Tories lost 1, the Lib Dems lost 1 whilst the SSP, Solidarity, the Greens and independents lost 15 between them. the past months and vindicates their decision to split from the SSP".
So are we to conclude that the fact that Solidarity got more votes than the SSP vindicates a split which wiped out the far-left representation in Holyrood?
It is this kind of smallminded approach which will ensure that Solidarity will not have a long-term future.
What is now opening up, with as looks likely a minority SNP adminstration in power in Holyrood, is a turbulent time in Scottish politics
As the SSP's Alan McCoombes argues
"The small print of Alex Salmond's economic policies were drowned out by the headline promises of an independence referendum, the removal of nuclear weapons, Scottish troops out of Iraq and more immediately, the scrapping of the Council Tax. "Labour, the LibDems and the Tories have all been tested in government in recent times, either at Westminster or Holyrood level, while the SNP is as yet untarnished by power."
But the SNP will not deliver what the majority of their voters want or expect. They showed themselves willing to look for deals on the referendum in talks with the Lib Dems. The economics of their council tax proposals don't stand up. They want to cosy up to their big-business friends like Brian Souter of Stagecoach not the thousands of working class people in Scotland who voted for them.
No doubt the Scottish left will be building an opposition to all this back-sliding. It will be onto the streets into the campaigns and into the unions. This is what will ensure that the 2011 elections show a different picture of the radical potential of Scottish voters.
In this, the principled basis on which the SSP has been built will show through. In the meantime, those on the left in Britain and internationally who have stood with the SSP in its time of crisis, need to do so more than ever now. Socialist Resistance is more than happy to be part of that chorus.
the Welsh Assembly, and
another 500 lost
Labour council
seats WHERE does a gorilla sit in a cinema? Anywhere he likes.
The old joke applies with almost equal force to Gordon Brown and the unions. As the union leaders grovel and jockey for position with the prospective next Prime Minister, we could reasonably ask who is putting pressure on whom?
One of the more bizarre aspects of the long- run-up to Blair's announcement that he was standing down has been the agreement among so many leading trade union officials that they would NOT throw their support behind John McDonnell - who supports and fights for their policies - but instead back Brown, who has opposed and blocked them for ten years.
One of the more dogged opponents of a McDonnell campaign has been UNISON's Dave Prentis.
He clearly prefers to cling on to the vaguest of deluded hopes that a victorious Brown might prove more amenable as leader than he has as Chancellor, than to allow the union, now the second largest affiliate to Labour; to support a challenge by one of its own sponsored MPs and an eager proponent of UNISON policy.
So far the pickings from this strategy have been miserable. Health workers face a real-terms cut in pay imposed by Brown; public sector workers face further attacks on their pensions, jobs and working conditions; two UNISON bugbears, privatisation and the Private Finance Initiative, are rampant and eagerly endorsed by Brown; Brown can also be counted upon to continue Blair's Future onslaught on civil liberties, asylum seekers, and migrant workers, and to funnel in the billions needed to replace Trident and fuel the war machine in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The only shift of emphasis that Brown has promised so far as the campaign starts up is to "listen" and to make a few tinkering changes towards accountability - but neither of these pledges should be taken seriously, especially when the unions have taken such a servile attitude, which puts no pressure on Brown to fulfil his promises.
Indeed even under Tony Blair the unions were able to secure the appearance of concessions No-brainer: which one to trust? in the form of the 2004 Warwick Agreement which paved the way for the 2005 election campaign: too bad that three years and a general election later so few of the long shopping list of union aspirations which Blair appeared to accept have yet found their way into legislation or government policy.
The most optimistic reading of Brown's candidacy is that he represents a continuity of New Labour: in fact it seems that some policies, such as privatising NHS reforms could be pressed further and faster than they have so far.
But the union leaders are not only wedded to the bankrupt strategy of influencing Brown, they are also hiding behind the cosmetic contest for deputy leader as a substitute for a real fight over policy and backing John McDonnell.
Unite in particular has pumped in resources to promote the candidacy of John Cruddas, the only relatively progressive person among the six vying for the post: but as they do so, Brown has made it clear that the deputy post is to be downgraded even from the largely ceremonial level it had under John Prescott.
There is no chance that even a left wing deputy could carry much influence on Brown, while the Party as a whole long ago gave up any genuine democratic structure.
Those with votes through trade union affiliation should vote McDonnell and Cruddas, but only if the union leaders begin to punch their weight can we expect to see any dramatic changes at the top.