18.07.2001

Separatist provocation

On July 11, the CPGB office was sent two identical e-mails, generated from a Hotmail address. Headlined ?Threat to the CPGB?, the text of this message reads: ?If you do not stop your criticism of the SRSM and its officers then your members in Scotland - who are known to us - like XXXX and XXXX, whose addresses we have - will be attacked and their homes burned. Your last warning.?

This vile little note is signed ?SRSM? - the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement, a recognised platform in the Scottish Socialist Party.

We seem to be consistently upsetting someone out there. Comrades will remember that in the Weekly Worker of January 11, we reported that on January 2 we had received over 300 nuisance postings of the same message. This told us to ?stay out of Scottish politics or you and your members, whose addresses are well known to us, will be receiving our attention in the very near future?. The message originated with the Scottish Separatist Group, the ?political wing? of Scottish National Liberation Army.

It is reported that members of the SRSM in Scotland are actually apoplectic with rage about this new threat and full of apologies to the comrades named as targets. They are denying any involvement in this foul provocation. Indeed, rumours abound that the offending e-mail originated beyond these shores, with an especially malevolent and putrid little sociopath with a personal grudge against the SRSM.

Superficially, this version of events seems credible. The two comrades named are actually not members of our organisation. As active SSPers, SRSMers would presumably be well aware of this. A person relying on our newspaper for information might make the error. Especially if said person couldn?t read without moving their lips.

Second, the fact that the note is signed ?SRSM? is simply too crude. The e-address and the ?military? threats in the text imply that it originates with the ludicrously misnamed ?Scottish National Liberation Army?. The SRSM is a legal organisation, a platform in the SSP. Its politics stink, but we don?t think it is that stupid.

Therefore, we believe the note is the handiwork of a demented individual. However, it should be taken seriously. We have written to the SSP executive, calling on them and all platforms in the party to repudiate the letter and the anti-working class methods of thuggery it displays. We are confident that the leadership, the SRSM and all SSP platforms will do so.

But even if it distances itself from this stunt, the SRSM?s hands are not exactly clean when it comes to threats against political opponents. Earlier in the year, Donald Anderson of the SRSM was blustering that ?if Delargy [a CPGB supporter - MF] wants to jump the hospital queue, then he is sending out the right signals. How else does he think this will be resolved? Does he think we?ll send him a lawyer?s letter?? (Donald Anderson, UK Left Network digest, January 4).

More recently there are reports of the same man boasting on the SSP?s discussion list that a particular socialist in Glasgow was forced to change a political position ?for the good of his health?. Whatever the SRSM?s relationship to this latest provocation, they are a pretty unsavoury group that have the potential to cause huge embarrassment to the SSP.

Comrades in Scotland are calling for the SSP executive to make clear their attitude to threats and physical intimidation directed against some members of the SSP by the extreme nationalists of the SRSM and its like.

Mark Fischer