BY SARAH STEPHEN
Some media commentators have ridiculed the fact that the Scottish Socialist Party doesn't expect to win any seats in the UK general election on June 7. The unfairly high deposit of 𧺬 combined with the "first past the post" voting system puts the SSP, as a fairly new party with no large financial backers, in a disadvantageous position.
The SSP's sole Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), Tommy Sheridan, explains that "We're doing in two-and-a-half years what it took the SNP [Scottish National Party] 40 years to do, which is to stand in every seat in Scotland".
Many journalists have asked Sheridan how he feels about the role the SSP could play in some seats in taking votes from the Labour Party, and possibly helping return the Tories. Quoted in the May 23 Press & Journal, Sheridan replied: "The question we would have to ask is which Tory do you mean? We do not see any fundamental differences any longer between the new Tories of [Tony] Blair or the old Tories of [William] Hague. The old Tories are certainly more poisonous on the surface, but underneath, if you scratch the New Labour party you will find a divisive and free-market capitalist party, just like the Conservatives."
Sheridan has publicly denounced New Labour as "the champions of the millionaires but not the millions". "Under New Labour", he explains, "there has been a 17% increase — equal to 74,000 people — in millionaires in the UK."
The May 20 Observer ran a story entitled "Socialists to flout free-run tradition", reporting that while it was "not the done thing", the SSP was challenging the speaker for his seat in the House of Commons. There is usually a "gentleman's agreement" that the main parties stand aside to give the sitting speaker a free run back to Westminster.
Carolyn Leckie, North Glasgow branch secretary of the Unison (the public sector union), is contesting the seat of Springburn against House of Commons speaker Michael Martin. The Observer continues: "Leckie — says the interests of the poor must be represented and she argues that the Labour Party is not doing this. 'They are not concerned about the issues affecting people's lives. Labour has become the party of big business. It is no coincidence that company directors write to the {London] Times pledging their support for Blair. He is their prime minister'."
The May 23 Glasgow Herald reported the results of a poll which found that across all age groups and areas of Scotland, the SSP is running at an average of 3% support, which will bring it close to getting the target of 100,000 votes.
A free-to-air TV election campaign broadcast went out on May 22, for parties fielding candidates in all 72 Scottish seats. The SSP's campaign broadcast — entitled "Final Warning", which the Glasgow Evening Times describes as "packed with talent that many big screen ventures would envy" — was written and directed by award-winning film maker Peter Mullan, with music by Craig Armstrong, who also wrote the music for Baz Luhrmann's film Romeo and Juliet.
The election broadcast highlights what the SSP sees as the inevitable future of privatisation. It opens with a dramatic scene of family left to suffocate because they couldn't pay their oxygen-supply bill. The ad is aimed at illustrating the dire circumstances facing thousands of low-paid pensioners and families, unable to pay for privatised electricity and water supplies.
In the broadcast, Sheridan highlights his party's election message that, in spite of the wealth of Scotland, millions still have to survive on the breadline, with inadequate benefits and "poverty wages".
A sympathetic article in the May 21 Independent reports: "Much of Mr Sheridan's pitch is to exaggerate the space that New Labour has undoubtedly created for far-left politics. His voice-mail message at home in his MSP-constitutency of Pollock says he is sorry he is not in but he is out 'fighting Tony Blair's new Tories'."
"Feelings have been running high [in Glasgow]", the Independent reported, "after 70 known attacks this year on asylum seekers, some of them appallingly brutal."
Sheridan was invited to take part in an action organised by the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, at which he made one of the more practical proposals for reducing long-term prejudice against refugees — that asylum seekers should be invited to schools to explain the persecution they are fleeing.