02.12.2004

Members back Sheridan sacking

Conducted in an atmosphere of high secrecy - comrades were instructed not to talk about the proceedings to anyone outside the party and even barred from taking notes - it brought together 115 delegates and a good number of party observers to debate the national executive’s decision to push comrade Sheridan into resigning as national convenor. No doubt the EC would have preferred not to have called the special meeting at this time, but such is the turmoil amongst the membership that they really had no other option.

The room was locked before discussion of the EC statement commenced. No other motion and no amendment to the EC statement was permitted - a whole raft of motions from branches and platforms were ruled out of order. The statement, like the November 9 EC motion before it, had been, members were told, agreed unanimously.

This was something of a mystery, since comrades from the Socialist Worker platform, which has three EC members, spoke strongly against the executive statement. Platform comrades expressed regret that “mistakes had been made” - including by their own comrades, obviously - at the November 9 meeting.
The statement itself was split into two parts. The first was the most controversial, since it asked the NC to support the November 9 decision to demand Tommy Sheridan’s resignation. The second part stated that the NC “confirms its acceptance” of Tommy’s departure. It would have been difficult to do otherwise, as comrade Sheridan himself made it clear that he supported both parts of the statement and had no intention of fighting to retain the convenorship.

The statement went on to describe him, despite everything, as “a valued member” of the SSP team in the Scottish parliament. It denied he was a victim of any “factional power struggle or any other form of internal in-fighting” and declared that the SSP “does not wish to comment” on press allegations concerning comrade Sheridan’s private life, which “may be the subject of a future libel action” (see p4).
The first part of the statement was carried with 85 in favour and 20 against. Those opposing consisted of the SW platform and a smattering of others, but when it came to the second part the SW comrades were isolated in voting against. This time there were 93 for and only 10 against (with two abstentions).
Significantly, after comrade Sheridan’s speech it was the SW platform that led a standing ovation. Equally significantly, something like two thirds of those present refused to join in.

The SW platform’s position was outlined in its (unpublished) motion to the NC: “We do not need lessons in morality” from the bourgeoisie, it stated, and it was the duty of the working class movement to stand by leaders of the socialist and anti-war movement when they come under attack.
That is correct, of course - as far as it goes. And it is undoubtedly true that a small minority of the SSP membership, including some at the top, were filled with moralistic outrage at the claims concerning comrade Sheridan’s private and sexual relationships that have featured so widely in the Scottish press, not least the Scottish News of the World. Such comrades have allowed enemies of the working class movement and their allies in the sensationalist media to set the agenda.

At the NC meeting SSP policy co-ordinator and effective leader Alan McCombes talked darkly about the spreading of “lies and misinformation”. He had previously referred to “our own Iago” in a TV interview. There were hints from other comrades that agents of the state could well be involved in leaking the various stories.

This is hardly far-fetched. In the run-up to a general election, where the SSP’s votes could help determine the result in several seats, a state-sponsored campaign to blacken the name of working class politicians is not something unheard of. The SSP has also been closely involved with the Military Families Against War campaign, and comrade Sheridan himself has worked alongside people like Ruth Gentle, mother of the Scottish soldier killed in Iraq. (Of course, the SSP calls for “Scottish troops” to be pulled out of Iraq - English and Welsh ones can stay put, it seems. Nevertheless, such campaigns, even if at present they influence only a small minority of military personnel, need to be nipped in the bud as far as the ruling class is concerned.)

But is the situation as simple as the SW platform makes out? And what of the SSP majority, which undoubtedly believes that a comrade’s private life and sexual preferences should normally be of no concern to the party? To what extent was the leadership influenced by the barrage of embarrassing ‘revelations’ and adverse publicity? Exactly what happened at the November 9 EC meeting which ended in Tommy’s resignation is still a closely guarded secret. How many motions and how many votes were there? Nobody is saying.

It is universally admitted that the line originally spun - that comrade Sheridan had resigned to devote more time to his family - was untrue. He was told to go. But the circumstances that led to his resignation are unclear. We know that the leadership opposed his proposed libel suit and wanted him to refuse to be drawn on any detail of his private life. Tommy refused point blank. It is rumoured that at one point comrade Sheridan walked out of the November 9 meeting and for a short time it seemed that relations had completely broken down between himself and the rest of the party. There was even talk that he had left the SSP.

The fact that the EC would not back the comrade in his libel case was made all too clear the following week in the Edinburgh press conference that brought together Alan McCombes and the six MSPs. The intention had been to give the impression of a united front, but quite the opposite impression was created. Comrade McCombes and the others were evasive when asked if they supported Tommy’s decision to pursue the Scottish News of the World through the courts.

Of course, the advice not to pursue the libel case was a sound one. If comrade Sheridan loses his case, or if he is labelled a liar as a result, that could indeed be very damaging. However, there is something to be said for the position of the Committee for a Workers’ International, which no longer has representation on the EC. The CWI thought the decision to dispense with Tommy’s services had been over-hasty.

It seems that the EC was rushed into a decision in the knowledge that alleged details of Tommy’s private life were about to be splashed all over the tabloids. Some comrades have dismissed the accusation of “presbyterian moralism” made in the Weekly Worker on the grounds that most leading members are atheists and many come from a catholic background (November 18). An obvious and rather desperate attempt at evasion. Anyway, at the very least, we can say that the EC allowed itself to be panicked on the one side by a prurient tabloid press and on the other the SSP’s own moral purity brigade.

However, it is also true that there were other considerations. Comrade Sheridan is perhaps the best known MSP - much more easily identifiable than the SSP itself. According to the constitution, the convenor is not the party leader, but its ‘main spokesperson’ (a role undeniably filled by comrade Sheridan - the press would usually seek out Tommy’s opinion, not the SSP’s). Yet there has been a growing feeling that the party is ‘more than one man’.

Clearly there are lessons in all this for the way in which the affairs of a working class organisation ought to be conducted. Of all the SSP comrades I spoke to, very few have attempted to justify, or even understood, the leadership’s gagging order. As far as I can tell, nothing that would have compromised SSP security (or comrade Sheridan’s libel case) was revealed at the NC.

It is time to come clean on this whole business - especially where the EC discussions that led to the decision to ‘resign’ Tommy are concerned. For one thing, the truth is bound to leak out - neither spin nor silence, as demanded by national secretary Allan Green (see p4), will be able to contain it. But, more importantly, political conclusions need to be drawn - about the role of working class leaders, the unsavoury influence of the media and the power of the state, to name just a few.