11.10.2006

Siding with Murdoch

As the Scottish Socialist Party held its annual conference over the weekend of October 7-8, the feud between Tommy Sheridan and his former comrades spiralled out of control. Nick Rogers reports

If Tommy Sheridan, the Socialist Worker platform and the Committee for a Workers' International had remained in the SSP, as they originally intended, then last weekend would have seen the culmination of the struggle for control of the party. The conference was brought forward from the spring of 2007 in order to allow new elections to take place for every single leadership position. Tommy Sheridan had promised to "purge" the party of his opponents. Blood - quite possibly literally as well as metaphorically - would have splattered Glasgow's Caledonian University.

Instead 220 delegates and up to 100 visitors generally witnessed low-key debates - against the backdrop of another Sunday's tawdry headlines in the News of the World. Squeezing the second part of the secret video recording made by SSP member George McNeilage for every salacious detail, Rupert Murdoch and his media empire continued to exact vengeance on Tommy Sheridan for his £200,000 defamation victory.

The key strategic task before the conference was to decide how to combat the previous month's split that has produced the rival socialist organisation, Solidarity. Conference was told that the SSP had retained 80% of the party's membership and 75% of its branches. Yet Tommy Sheridan's high-media profile guarantees that any organisation he leads will attract attention - even more so after the drama of the libel case. It is Tommy Sheridan, rather than Colin Fox, Rosie Kane or Carolyn Leckie, who is scheduled to appear on the BBC's Question time this week.

The SSP exploited Sheridan's reputation as a genuine working class hero for all it was worth. His picture appeared on every election leaflet; his name was added to the party's on every ballot paper - "Scottish Socialist Party (Tommy Sheridan, convenor)". Even if Solidarity does not eclipse the SSP, the danger remains that the two organisations will fight each other to a standstill in next May's Scottish parliamentary and local elections.

The very first motion on the agenda paper discussed how the SSP should move forward. "Principled unity" is to be the watchword. The rallying cry - ""¦ we are confident that our unblemished principles, our unrivalled track record, our fighting socialist policies and our dedicated, genuine socialist membership will rebuild the strength of the SSP around those founding principles". Yet the actions of George McNeilage and the response of the SSP leadership call the party's "unblemished principles" into question, to put it mildly.

Last week's Weekly Worker front page calling for the expulsion of McNeilage met with a cool response from most conference delegates. Despite a degree of disquiet at his methods, there was evidently widespread sympathy for McNeilage, who has been a stalwart of Militant, Scottish Militant Labour and the SSP for over 20 years - not to mention a friend of Tommy Sheridan since boyhood. And there was outright opposition to any call to discipline McNeilage - or "hang him out to dry", to use a phrase used at the conference. Alan McCombes saw no fundamental difference between the release of the videotape and making public the minutes of the November 9 2004 executive meeting.

George McNeilage has behaved disgracefully not only by secretly recording another socialist, but by handing it over to that socialist's very worse enemy for a cash payment - the amount being quoted is £20,000.

Collaboration

What many SSP comrades fail to appreciate is that the party itself is edging perilously close to crossing the line of collaboration with Murdoch and the state in order to politically defeat other socialists. In the week between the first News of the World revelations and conference a number of leadership figures have confirmed their belief that the tape is true. A statement from Frances Curran is carried on the home page of the SSP's website. Alan McCombes appeared on TV to say that he was convinced that the tape was genuine. Even Colin Fox's statement seeking to distance the SSP from the production and sale of the tape goes on to say that "the tape is clearly authentic and blows apart Tommy's preposterous allegations against his old party comrades".

Whether or not anyone else in the SSP knew of the existence of the tape before it appeared in the NOTW, the leadership is in effect making full use of that tape in their battle with Tommy Sheridan and Solidarity.

Let us consider what is at stake. We are not talking merely of which socialist organisation emerges triumphant next May, but whether socialists go to prison. The police are now conducting a perjury investigation, a charge that carries an unlimited prison sentence in Scotland. Tommy Sheridan and the four executive members who denied he admitted visiting Cupids face the prospect of long prison terms.

There is no doubt that the SSP and its political leadership have been sorely tested over the last two years. In the face of the original allegations by the NOTW about an affair with Fiona McGuire and visits to sex clubs, Tommy Sheridan rejected the demands of the SSP executive. The executive gave Sheridan the choice of either insisting that his private life remain private or making a public statement setting out the facts. The SSP executive was correct to try and dissuade Sheridan from pursuing a libel case based on contesting such allegations and to force him to resign as convenor when he ignored them - actions that were subsequently endorsed by the SSP national council.

And the executive was absolutely correct to take minutes that explained the rationale for sacking their most prominent leader. Without such a record how could the executive be held to account by the rest of the party?

Sheridan's behaviour in November 2004 broke the lines of accountability a socialist leader must maintain with his party. As his day in court approached a few months ago, the steps Sheridan took to establish his libel action on a solid footing placed his own personal reputation over the survival of the SSP. His May 28 open letter (issued to the media even as the explosive national council was in session) declared war on the leadership of the SSP. In court during June and into July he alleged that executive members (and former sexual partners) were conspiring to manufacture evidence against him as part of a political vendetta. And after persuading seven of the 11 jurors to back him, he took £20,000 from the Daily Record to label his former comrades "scabs".

The bitterness of the individuals who have had their reputations and their personal lives (including sexual histories) publicly trashed in this way is perfectly understandable. As is the need to defend the integrity of the decision that the executive took in November 2004.

But the SSP collectively had to pick a very careful course in their reaction to the outcome of the court case. The minutes of the November 9 2004 executive had been released to the court (after Alan McCombes imprisonment for refusing the reveal their location). Executive members had explained their perspective on events to the jury. When the case ended it was correct to make the minutes public. I have argued that they should have been released at the time of the executive's decision a year and a half previously. In failing to do this the executive itself effectively began the process of hiding the truth about the resignation of Tommy Sheridan. It was also legitimate to set out a narrative about what happened in the weeks leading up to November 9 2004 and in the months that followed. Evidence that had already substantially appeared in court. Alan McCombes did this in the SSP members' bulletin.

What was illegitimate was the launching of a public crusade to try and overturn the result of Sheridan's libel action, or to cooperate in any way with a perjury investigation. Socialists do not support the right of the News of the World and the rest of the tabloid press to expose the personal lives of any individual - famous or otherwise. A cursory examination of the naked women and sexual sleaze filling the pages of last Sunday's NOTW should be enough to convince anyone of the paper's rank hypocrisy on all questions of sexual morality.

The jurors who voted to award Tommy Sheridan £200,000 in damages did not necessarily believe every word of the story he spun in court. Whatever the instructions of judges, jurors apply their own moral compasses to the decisions they reach. Sheridan's decision to represent himself was a masterstroke. Exposed to his undoubted charisma and the portrayal of himself as a working class David battling the Goliath of News International, who would not have wanted to deliver a black eye to Murdoch?

Political fight

Whatever the internal dynamics of the jury room, once the jury had reached its decision it was not the business of the SSP to try and unpick it. A sober reiteration of the facts surrounding Tommy Sheridan's resignation was sufficient. The SSP could have publicly welcomed the result on the basis that a despicable newspaper had received a drubbing - even while decrying Sheridan's behaviour.

A struggle for control of the SSP was inevitable, but this should have been conducted unremittingly on a political basis. The struggle against the personality politics and opportunism of Solidarity should be similarly political. For that matter, wherever possible, the SSP should seek cooperation around campaigns and electoral pacts with Solidarity. Having raised Tommy Sheridan to prominence in Scottish politics, the SSP must avoid the trap of turning the political and personal destruction of their former leader into their foremost preoccupation.

The SSP leadership should have been advising all individuals caught up in the libel action on how to respond to the provocations and pressures they faced. Rosie Kane should not have "demanded" a perjury investigation in her newspaper column immediately after the close of the libel action. Minutes secretary Barbara Scott should not have handed over to the police the notes that formed the basis of the disputed minutes. And Katrine Trolle should have been strongly advised against agreeing on the first morning of conference to an interview with the News of the World. However raw she feels about the appalling grilling she received at the hands of Sheridan in the courtroom, the personal attack on Gail Sheridan quoted in the next day's newspaper is unedifying. And no SSP member should be declaring: "I would be delighted to see Tommy go to prison ... I want to see him and his witnesses publicly humiliated because of what I and 17 other people have gone through."

Some in the SSP claim that they were just as much a target of the perjury investigation as Tommy Sheridan and his allies and so have been driven to defend themselves. But the response of the SSP, far from welcoming the investigation, should have been to tell the public prosecutor and police to stay out of the SSP's internal civil war.

SSP comrades should have taken all possible steps to block the progress of the investigation. Instead, the very clear suspicion is raised that many in the SSP are looking to the police and perjury charges and News International's appeal against the libel decision to vindicate their - unquestionably accurate - version of events. And, what is more, to destroy Tommy Sheridan as a viable political force. Colin Fox in his statement just about says as much: "We believe that events are now rapidly approaching a conclusion that will have seriously damaging consequences for Tommy Sheridan and his breakaway political organisation, Solidarity, founded on the basis of a lie and fraud ... With a perjury investigation now underway, we are confident that the good name of the SSP will be restored 100%."

Despite their huge significance for the kind of party the SSP is to become, these issues were barely discussed on the floor of the conference. Moving a motion calling for greater discipline in dealing with the state and the media, Mary McGregor referred to the videotape as the "elephant in the room". She reported that some were saying, "all is fair in love and war". Mary retorted that, on the contrary, "the ends do not justify the means". Socialist morality demanded that the videotape should be condemned. Its existence put at risk the SSP as a principled party.

On Sunday an attempt initiated by Workers Unity comrades to debate an emergency motion condemning the videotape was blocked by the conference arrangements committee on the strange grounds that a story appearing that same day was not a genuine emergency. A vote against that interpretation won 25% of the conference, but the 75% of delegates backing the CAC ensured that no discussion was to be had on the story gripping Scotland.

Earlier on the Saturday, in an echo of the furore that would have gripped the conference if Sheridan had sought to seize control of the party, rather than quitting, Scottish RMT president John Milligan condemned the ineptitude of the SSP leadership and the behaviour of the United Left. He congratulated Tommy Sheridan on winning the court case and announced that the RMT in Scotland was consulting its membership about whether to remain affiliated to the party. In the meantime, the RMT withdrew its motions from the agenda (conference voted to debate them anyway) and limited its participation in the conference to a minimum.

Structural fix

A large number of motions dealt with the attempts of the SSP to learn the lessons of the unrolling crisis of the last two years. These broadly reflected the priorities set out by the United Left platform: participative education, a broadening of democracy (including term limits, an extension of policy networks, the abolition of the position of convenor), and making feminist aspirations a central concern. Many of the motions that involved changes to the structure of the party were remitted so that a commission to examine the constitution can take place after the May elections.

It is four years since there was previously a review of the SSP's constitutional arrangements. However, the problems that have afflicted the party since have less to do with structures that were established and much more to do with a failure to encourage a culture of accountability and the full participation of all members.

For instance, a parliamentary committee working in liaison with the executive was supposed to supervise the work of the party's MSPs. Yet it has met extremely infrequently, making it impossible to carry out the tasks that were envisaged for it. Other committees have virtually never met.

Regional organisers have assumed powers close to autonomy from the rest of the party. Hence the ability of those associated with Tommy Sheridan to take most of their regional organisation with them into the new party. Some have blocked the annual elections by members of their regions to which they were supposed to submit themselves.

Provisions already exist for members to form networks. Few have been established.

Will participative structures provide part of the answer in encouraging more members to become active? The idea seems to be to run meetings with breakout sessions and role-play to encourage everyone to take part. Most workplace training courses adopt similar techniques. This may well be a way to give new members (and some old members) the skills and confidence to participate more fully in the party. It may even facilitate thinking about issues in new ways.

Ultimately, however, policies need to be debated and majority decisions reached. The hard work of tussling with theoretical issues has to be done if the party's ideology is not just to be the property of a small leadership elite. There can be no substitute in the life of a vibrant party for the sharp clash of ideas.

The United Left statement to conference seems to positively welcome the Solidarity split: "We believe the main individuals and platforms opposed to the UL's cardinal principles have now left the party." The view that the SSP is better off without organised platforms presenting a variety of political perspectives speaks of a certain contempt for the pluralism that is necessary to take forward the socialist project after the disasters of the 20th century.

In the absence of the SWP and CWI there is a clear danger that the SSP will sink into a culture of dull conformity where it is more difficult than ever to challenge the direction of the leadership. The failure to properly discuss the McNeilage tape and all its implications points to very tight limits on the kind of debate the leadership and the United Left is seeking to encourage.

Independence pillar

A motion calling for the SSP to "unreservedly" support "an independent Scotland, regardless of whether the Scottish people choose to elect a socialist government or not" and to "take every opportunity to press the independence agenda" in the run-up to next year's Scottish parliamentary elections was overwhelmingly supported by conference. A Workers Unity-inspired motion opposing the SSP's support for the Independence Convention and calling for it to "take a leading role in initiatives to form a British socialist party" was debated, but fell by default when the pro-independence motion carried.

Independence therefore remains one of the "pillars" of SSP strategy and policy. How far will the SSP be prepared to go to encourage a vote for the SNP in first-part-the-post seats the party is not contesting? And what would it be prepared to offer to sustain a minority SNP administration? These vital questions were not debated.

Victims

Conference debated policy on prostitution on Saturday morning, passing a motion that committed the SSP to "support only legislation designed to eradicate prostitution". Specifically, the party is to campaign for "criminalising the purchase of sex" rather than the prostitute - a position "informed by the Swedish model".

The potentially reactionary implications of this stance were confirmed when Catriona Grant successfully opposed an amendment that called for the organisation of prostitutes into trade unions. Catriona argued that prostitutes were victims of abuse rather than workers.