30.04.2003

Example to follow?: Scottish Socialist Party

Newspaper: Scottish Socialist Voice (weekly).

Website: www.scottishsocialistparty.org

Prominent members: Tommy Sheridan (national convenor and member of the Scottish parliament), Alan McCombes (editor SSV), Allan Green (national secretary).

Size: Between 2,000 and 3,000.

Comments: Unlike its all-Britain counterparts based in London, the SSP has made a real impact north of the border. Its vote has steadily risen and it looks set to send a batch of representatives to sit alongside Tommy Sheridan in the Scottish parliament after the May 1 elections.

Whereas the SWP has fought shy of leading the Socialist Alliance in England and Wales along the road to becoming an inclusive party, that is precisely what Scottish Militant Labour did within the Scottish Socialist Alliance in the late 1990s. In comrade Sheridan's words, the coming together of the left groups produced something that was much bigger than "the sum of its parts". So much so that even the SWP (belatedly) felt obliged to take its members in Scotland into the SSP.

Factions - or platforms - are constitutionally permitted, although party guidelines state that platform publications should only be distributed internally, not publicly. Nevertheless, members enjoy a regime of openness that is largely lacking south of the border. However, in its current form the SSP cannot become the model for the kind of left unity we need, since it has bought into Scottish nationalism hook, line and sinker.

To be able to take on and defeat the UK state the working class needs an all-Britain, revolutionary party, not a formation which demands the break-up of Britain as a matter of principle and envisages a reformist socialism in one tiny country.