The election in Glasgow East should have a few heads in the CWI and SWP hanging in shame. Until 2005, both organisations were part of the successful alliance that was (and is) the SSP. Both organisations when working within agreed parameters added to this alliance and were helping it move away from the one man band the party had been during the first sitting of the Scottish Parliament. Both organisations fought each other for control of its EC - but were counter balanced by the now dissolved ISM and other platforms within the organisation and of course, those within the SSP who were socialists without a platform whose numbers were greater than both the SW and CWI platforms. And there is the rub.
When both groups saw the Tommy Sheridan fiasco as a way to break the party and then control what was left over, they became politically redundant where the people of Scotland- and the left in Scotland are concerned. The party they and Tommy’s family (and some, quite frankly, “fans”) produced, Solidarity, was never a serious attempt at a political movement, as some within it’s hero worshipping confines would have led the UK left to believe. It became nothing more than a political Tommy fanclub. This has been evident in their street work during the election- parading Tommy as some sort of Presidential figure and having virtually nothing about their candidate on leaflets, only “A message from Tommy Sheridan”. During the campaign, they were molesting potential voters outside the Forge Shopping Centre in the constituency with, “Don’t vote for scabs” if they spotted an SSP leaflet in the hapless punters hand. The coup d’etat was the use of Tommy’s name on the ballot papers. The result of all of this was a collapse of their vote. It was evident on the streets that some of the opportunists who broke from the SSP because Tommy was “the only showin town” had had second thoughts (perhaps with the exception of their candidate).
Glasgow is a small village and the people of Glasgow know the truth- or know what they know about Tommy Sheridan. The SWP perhaps have realised this with their obvious absence and less than enthusiastic endorsement of the campaign. The CWI have pushed themselves to near destruction as they led their less than political Glasgow East campaign. The two organisations, of course, are pushing the “confusion” over the Curran name and other ridiculous excuses as reason to their collapsed vote- which doesn’t ring even near to true- and considering the inclusion of “Solidarity- Tommy Sheridan” as the party Tricia McLeish’s name was beside on the ballot paper, name confusion was not what saw the decimation of their previous pollings in this area.
Perhaps their membership should be pushing their leadership for a more honest dissection of the events of the past three or so years rather than another stretching of the parameters to expound the “wemake no mistakes” viewpoint so common with them.
What this election proved was that the people cannot be fooled. It also shows how stupid a divided left is in Scotland. An undivided left in this by-election would have beaten the Lib Dems and perhaps placed the Tories in fourth place. For the latter alone- in the constituency of John Wheatley- the groups who egged Sheridan on his path of destruction should be ashamed.
Those wishing to “Defend Tommy Sheridan” should do so without trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the working class voters by claiming this support group is in any way political and Tommy should go ahead with his rumoured `Jimmy Reid’ and jump to the less than socialist SNP. Those who feel they need to control political movements or impose a leadership should play their middle class vanguard ideas out in the Student Union; The SW and CWI approach to socialist movements- ie. control and the worship of an elitist “Great Leader” is one proven (and proven over and over by the failures of the recent analysis and actions of these organisations) to be destructive. Those in Scotland who are serious about a democratic left party should start (and in the light of the recently produced brilliant SSP pamphlet “Red/Green” - continue) talking to those who have kept real politics an real concerns of working class people to the fore- the constantly evolving and democratising SSP- the left party who surprised everyone on the ground with how many people they mobilised and how many people they politicised during this election.
