created which ATTAC has occupied.
Left activists from different political parties, unions and campaigning organisations have turned to ATTAC to look for political answers they can't find elsewhere. European Social Forum How are you mobilising for the European Social Forum in Florence? Are broader social forums developing in France as they are in Italy for example?
Florence is being organised by the anti-globalisation movement years. ATTAC now has several tens of and the left-wing of the trade union movement.
The Forum's charter and French traditions over the relationship between political parties and social movements have meant that there has been much debate about the role of political parties in the Forum. LCR members are very active in mobilising for the ESF in the various campaign organisations and in the unions.
And the LCR will also be well represented in Florence, as a political organisation, with its own explanations and politi cal proposals. What role can the ESF play in the development of left unity in Europe? Do you think it should begin to prepare an electoral
challenge at the 2004 elections for
the European Parliament?
Because of the problem of involvnot directly make decisions about electoral coalitions. Nevertheless, the development of the movement for a different type of globalisation and, in particular, for the construction of a social Europe inevitably poses the question of the development of a political movement capable of representing the anticapitalist aspirations of the social movements and trade union left on the electoral field.
The European elections in 2004 will be he mobilisation for the ESF in a major opportunity. But we still have a long way to go, given the scale of the challenge. In Scotland the Scottish Socialist Party is level with the Tory Party in the opinion polls. Are we likely to witness the formation of a similar phenomenon of a new broad anticapitalist party in France?
-or a decade the LCR has argued - for the perspecive of a broad anticapitalist party. Such a party would defend the demands and aspirations of the social movements with the same determination that the right-wing parties defend profits and shareholders
But today there is a gap between the radicalisation and growth of the social movements and what is happening in the political parties. No other political organisation shares the CR's project of building a broad anti-capitalist party. This situation acts as a brake on trade union and campaign activists making the commitment to such a party, because many of them fear they will find themselves alone in it with the LCR.
On the other hand, a layer of activists from the Socialist and Communist Party tradition are arguing that the LCR should be part of an alliance with a section of the Left parties.
This is a question that must be clarified by discussing the political fundamentals starting with a balance sheet of the Left's record in power, not only the Socialist Party but also the Communist Party and the Greens who participated in the Jospin govemment. We do not want to rebuild what was a pitiful failure.
The LCR has taken the initiative of organising a series of meeting throughout
We are inviting everyone who wants to participate to discuss political perspectives, the need for a new party, and the key elements of its programme.
The electoral results of the LCR allow us to raise these questions with muct greater credibility than before. But the struggle for a new party will be a long haul
The discussions taking place are a step along the road, but in the short term will not result in a new party
For that, we will need new experences, for example a new mass social movement such as the strikes and demonstrations of the winter of 1995
That is what we are working for
page 18 of the scan
INTERVIEW Three and a half years ago people from the Scottish Socialist Alliance, including Scottish Militant Labour, took the initiative to form the Scottish Socialist Party. To some it seemed like a wild adventure that would fall on its face. But according to ALAN McCOMBES, a central leader of the SSP and a member of its International Socialist Movement platform, the SSP has helped put socialism back into the political mainstream. SR: After several years experience, what's your balance sheet of the decision to set up the SSP? What has it achieved?
When we first began discussing he idea of a new party, we pointed to the stark contradiction between the potential support for socialism and the harsh reality that the active forces of socialism in Scotland - as in the rest of the UK - were weaker than they had ever been throughout most of the twentieth century. ... the first time.
That doesn't mean we have thousands of hard core cadres, but we do have at least several thousand people who are identified as SSP members in their workplaces and communities. In a small coun try like Scotland that has a huge impact.
We've also politicised tens of thousands more who are not yet politically active but who have been influenced by the SSP and generally identify with the politics of the SSP.
We've certainly dragged the ideology of anti-capitalism, of socialism, back into the political mainstream.
Not only has the SSP rebuilt the forces of socialism in Scotland, but we ve reconstructed socialism on a completely differ ence basis from the past when it was heavily influenced by Stalinism and by topdown. old Labour style parliamentary reformism.
Although there are different versions and interpretations of socialism within the SSP, there is also a remarkable degree of unity around certain core principles, such as anti-Stalinism, internationalism, support for direct action and defiance of the law, support for republicanism and for the break up of the British state.
There is very little to report on the negative side of the balance sheet. I think it would fair to say that even those groups and individuals within the old Scottish ...... bans on foxhunting or whatever. But most people in the Highlands or the south of
ELDHOMES NOT BOMBS LOS EIFORE CAS Westminster and can only shuffle that cash around rather than generate extra
BUILD HOMES NOT BOND
The Tory collapse has probably saved Labour's skin in Scotland because 20