The Scottish Socialist Party ( SSP) is a republican Scottish party pertaining to the radical left which fights for the socialist independence of the Scotland. It had six deputies with the Scottish Parlement before the crisis and the scission of 2006.

Recent party (1998), resulting from the Scottish section of the group trotskist " The Militant" who was an internal tendency of the workers party (Labor Party), he knew a rapid growth and has sections in all the areas of Scotland. He profited recently from the disaffiliation of certain trade unions of New Labor Party of Tony Blair, like the trade union of the firemen.

Its political program is republican, favorable to the independence of Scotland and hostile to the liberal Mondialisation. It took part in the campaigns against the war in Iraq and against the presence of nuclear bases on the Scottish ground. At the Scottish Parliament, the first and single deputy of the SSP, in 1999, was the elected official of the popular quarters of Glasgow, Tommy Sheridan, which had been pointed out in the fight against the Poll tax, local tax decided by Margaret Thatcher.

The SSP and its deputies conducted campaign:

• for free meals in the school canteens
• for other forms of imposition less favorable to the easy classes
• against the privatization of the public services
• for the legalization of the Cannabis
• against racism and for the defense of the right to the Political asylum
• for the support for the Palestinian people

In May 2003, with 128.026 votes (7.68%), the SSP manages to make elect six deputies at the Scottish Parliament: Tommy Sheridan and Turned pink elected Kane of Glasgow, Hake Fox elected of Edinburgh, Rosemary Byrne elected of Scotland of the South, Frances Curran elected of Scotland of the West and Carolyn Leckie elected of central Scotland.

Four of these deputies were temporarily excluded from the Parliament during the month of September 2005, a little earlier, to have protested vigorously in Parliament even against the behavior of the top of the G8, with Gleneagles.

The SSP was often regarded by militants of other countries as a model of regrouping of the radical left. It was constituted as an organization “multi-tendency” inside which several currents or “platforms coexist”, which profit from considerable rights - even if its “historical” direction is mainly resulting from only one current trotskist. This “model” is distinguished from that, traditional, of the majority of the groups of extreme left which preserved an organization more or less inspired of the “democratic centralism”, but also of that of coalitions of independent organizations.

The crisis and the scission

However, of the internal problems, relayed by the Tabloïd S British, led Tommy Sheridan to give up its station of spokesperson of the SSP, at the end of 2004. Colin Fox succeeded to him. In August 2006, Tommy Sheridan gained its lawsuit in slandering against the Tabloïd News off the World which showed it light manners, but this lawsuit revealed the existence of an internal crisis engraves SSP. Part of the leaders of the SSP agreed to testify in front of justice to the internal debates to the organization.

At the beginning of September 2006, part of the members of the SSP like two organized currents (the platform Socialist Worker and the Scottish section of the Committee for an International worker) chose to leave this party to found a new movement called Solidarity (Solidarité (socialist Movement of Scotland)). This party had two deputies at the Scottish Parliament: Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne, four other members of Parliament having remained with the SSP. Several trade unions which had adhered to the SSP are disaffiliated from the S.S.P. Solidarité held its first congress in November 2006.

The electoral failure of 2007

With only 12.731 votes (0,6%), SSP lost all its deputies at the time of the elections of May 3rd, 2007. Worse for him, it was largely preceded by its young competitor, the party of Tommy Sheridan, Solidarité.

External bonds

• Site of the SSP.

• an analysis of the scission by the platform Socialist Worker,

• Site of Solidarity - Scotland' S Socialist Movement

Simple: Scottish Socialist Party

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