Weekly Worker 627 Thursday June 1 2006 Subscribe to the Weekly Worker

Defend SSP’s Alan McCombes

Earlier this week the Scottish Socialist Party’s press and policy coordinator Alan McCombes was found guilty of contempt and fined £500. But he will have to pay costs of around £45,000 in total

Summer Offensive 2006 No nonsense I have excellent news to report in this, the first of my weekly columns detailing the progress of this year’s Summer Offensive, the Communist Party’s annual fundraising drive. In the first seven days of the campaign, we have already received just under £3,210 towards our £30k minimum, with a number of comrades taking large chunks out of their individual targets. In particular, thanks go out to comrade PK, who has stumped up £700 - courtesy of a nicely timed rebate from the taxman. In addition, comrades MJ and MM have produced a sturdy £200 and £140 respectively, comrade AM has pushed her standing order contributions to the party up to £300 a month for the duration, comrade AD has given us £100 and PM £200, a no-nonsense start to his push for £1,000 by the end of July. The same comrade writes: “Last year I set myself a modest target initially - I was tight for cash and thought I would be stretched for both time and money. But I had a few good badge sales (the Make Poverty History event in Edinburgh and the SWP’s Marxism proved productive) and I also organised some extra classes where I teach. In the end I notched up just over £1,000. So this year I have decided to be more ambitious and set my target at £1k from the off. Again I am teaching once a week right through July and will use all the extra income for the SO.” (read full article) Click here to download a standing order form - regular income is particular important in order to plan ahead. Even £5/month can help! Send cheques, payable to Weekly Worker, BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX Donate online:

Last month comrade Alan McCombes spent a long weekend in Saughton jail for refusing to hand over minutes of the November 9 2004 SSP executive meeting which forced Tommy Sheridan to resign as convenor. Comrade Sheridan insisted on his right to bring an action for defamation against News International, publishers of the News of the World, after alleged details of his private life were published. News International, in defending the action, demanded to see the minutes, believing they would contain information that would aid its case.

Comrade McCombes and the EC majority refused to comply with the decision of the Edinburgh court of sessions that the minutes must be handed over on the grounds of their confidentiality. This position was overturned by the highly charged and bad-tempered May 28 national council meeting, when comrade Sheridan himself called for the document to be given to the court. While the EC was prepared to let comrade McCombes languish in jail in order to shame Sheridan into dropping his action, the latter was equally determined to deny McCombes his martyrdom.

The Sheridanites won the vote - thanks in part to the Committee for a Workers’ International and the Socialist Worker platform - and the next day the minutes were released and so was Alan McCombes. But the judge had sent messengers-at-arms to search SSP offices and comrades’ homes in a vain attempt to find the required document. Costs for this first legal round come to £45,000.

While both sides of the SSP dispute have behaved foolishly, not to say recklessly, that does not give News International and the state carte blanche to financially wreck the party - while comrade McCombes is personally liable, there is no doubt that the SSP will assume responsibility for raising the money. There is a deliberate agenda on the part of sections of the media and no doubt the secret state to see off the SSP.

We communists have not been reticent in slating both wings of the SSP for their opportunistic and abject surrender to nationalism. Both have been equally guilty of dividing the working class movement in Britain and thus weakening our ability to resist the very forces that are now intent on killing the SSP.

But when a section of that movement, for all its faults, comes under attack, we know which side we are on. We will do all in our power to defend Alan McCombes and the SSP, while continuing to relentlessly criticise their failings.

Tommy Sheridan was targeted in November 2004 by the News of the World. The smutty allegations and innuendoes had all the signs of being inspired by the secret state. The SSP was becoming a nuisance for New Labour, as it contemplated the 2005 general election and a much thinner majority.

However, the executive committee of the SSP urged Sheridan not to fight the thing out in the courts. It voted unanimously to tell him to fight using other, political, methods. Events so far have tended to indicate this would have been the best course.

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