| Tommy Sheridan |
Tommy Sheridan
is facing yet another fight in his colourful career as Scotland’s best known
socialist. He has been arrested on suspicion of perjury arising from his widely
publicised defamation case against the News of the World for which he was
awarded £200,000 damages. Sheridan has not seen a penny of this, as the News of
the World appealed against their decision. This prompted a police enquiry into
allegations that Tommy and his supporters told lies at the trial held in 2006.
It has been
reported that nine officers raided his home in Glasgow whilst he was
broadcasting for a talk radio station in Edinburgh, causing truama to his wife
and young child. Tommy is naturally very angry at the police actions, which he rightly
claims to have been unneccessary and
over the top. Tommy has come out fighting declaring that Rupert Murdoch, owner
of the News of the World, has it in for
him.
All right minded
socialists would condemn any attempt by the wealthy and influential capitalist
press to use the resources and power of the police to do their dirty work for
them, as seems to be happening. It
seems that Murdoch, an American billionaire who doersn’t pay a penny tax in
this country, can just snap his fingers and get the police in Scotland to do
his bidding. Activists remember the thousands of hours of Liverpool police time
wasted trying to get some dirt on Derek Hatton, deputy leader of the Liverpool
Council guilty only of fighting the Tories on behalf of working people. We
remember the absurd charges circulated against miners’ leader Arthur Scargill
of siphoning off union funds in the great miners’ strike of 1984-85.
Socialists would also say that lies are sometimes justified against the forces of the establishment in order to defend the gains
of working people, and would quote the example of John McLean in his famous
declaration to the capitalists court
that "I come here not as the accused but as the accuser of capitalism."
However, the
problem for Tommy is that no one on the left in Scotland gives a damn what the News of the World says, as far as his alleged lies in
court are concerned. It was the
way Tommy and his accusers within his own party had a furious row leading
to a split that concerns us. The row was
about Tommy taking the NoW to court. The split apparently blew up out of
nowhere. In fact it was the inevitable outcome of a wrong turn, false
perspectives and a fundamental misunderstanding by the SSP of the tasks facing
socialists in Scotland.
In the process
the Scottish Socialist Party, including the faction of Alan McCoombes the ex Militant member, was
effectively destroyed. That is the main issue which concerns not only the SSP but
also Solidarity, the new party Tommy formed when charged with bringing the SSP
into disrepute, which is the real substance of the matter.
The damage not
only done to the SSP but to the socialist movement in Scotland will take many
years to heal. The SSP and Solidarity had disastrous Scottish election
results earlier this year. The SSP is a shadow of its former self with
membership down on previous years despite claims of a comeback. Solidarity does
not appear to be doing much better. Its only councillor recently defected to
Labour. Any signs of revival for those parties and the cause of socialism in general may well be stopped in its
tracks by another court case which will drag the present and former leaders of
the SSP through the mud of a perjury trial.
The history of this sorry turn of events can be traced back to the early
1990s and the split by former leading members of Scottish Militant, including Tommy Sheridan and Alan McCoombes away from their marxist ideals of working within
the mass party of working people, the Labour Party, and looking for an easy way
forward to socialism through the formation of an alternative party, the SSP. It was doomed to failure from the start,
despite temporary successes in electing six MSPs to the Scottish
Parliament. In drifting away from their
marxist roots and attempting to court populism through alliances with the
supporters of bourgeois nationalism, the die was cast for inevitable splits.
That is the way of sectarian parties which try to operate outside the mass
movement. The fact that these splits happened over Tommy’s alleged social
habits rather than political ideas were neither here nor there, and the results
are there for all to see. Socialist Appeal takes no satisfaction in another
court fiasco. Sadly, many of his ex colleagues who are still hurting as a
result of the consenquences of last year, will probably be hoping that Tommy
gets his come uppance from capitalist
law instigated by part of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. That is the extent
that the SSP has fallen and the danger
is that by association all socialists are suffering in the eyes of the very
people we strive to support and win over to the ideas of socialism.
