Rebel AM plans new party BBC

Marek under attack as he gathers the left

Dr John Marek, the deselected Labour AM for Wrexham who won re-election as an independent, is hosting a "summer gathering" in his constituency that will be addressed by Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan.

Dr Marek said an increasing number of people realised that Labour was now a right-of-centre party and were ready to see the establishment of a new left-wing party in Wales that drew on socialist traditions. The Western Mail

 

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Family begin fight to stay within the EU

Rosie Kane, the Scottish Socialist Party MSP, last night returned from Berlin, where she had spent two days attempting to garner support for the Ays.

At a press conference at Edinburgh Airport, she criticised Jack McConnell, the First Minister, for not preventing the deportation of the family, even though immigration issues are a Westminster matter.

Ms Kane said: "Questions have to be asked of the First Minister.

"I should never have had to make this journey - the First Minister should have got off his backside and fought for these vulnerable children."

The MSP said the family were now "safe and secure" in Germany and were free to move around as they wish. The Scotsman

Deported family launch new appeal

Rosie Kane, the Scottish Socialist Party MSP who has travelled to Berlin in an attempt to garner political support for the Ays said that the fight to return the family to the UK continues despite the Home Office’s insistence that it has no jurisdiction over their case under international law. Ms Kane said yesterday: "I’m here trying to cut through the red tape and get their story into the public eye. They are safe and well, but we want to get them back to the UK and want to try and get the German government to send them back." The Scotsman

'Control freak' Swinney apes New Labour spin, claims challenger

While accepting that, to date, the Scottish public have been largely unconvinced of the arguments for independence, Dr Wilson claims that the tide is now turning, citing the growth of other parties such as the Greens and the Scottish Socialist Party. Both support separation from the UK.

"What the current leadership is heading towards is trying to get into power by abandoning their principles so we would have nothing to deliver, very much like the New Labour government," he contends. The Scotsman

'We are astonished and shocked you have detained a family for one year'

Anger as Ay children put on plane and deported to Germany

Jutta Graf, an assistant to Josef Winkler MP, the German Green party speaker on immigration issues, said she would also urge the government to grant exceptional leave for the family to remain in the country on medical grounds.

She had earlier met Rosie Kane, the Scottish socialist MSP. Later, Ms Kane said she was urging a Scottish Executive minister to fly to Germany to support the campaign.

She said: "It is completely unacceptable that ministers should wash their hands of this matter and stand back and watch a group of traumatised children forced onto a plane to be deported to Germany.

"Jack McConnell or one of his deputies would be of enormous assistance to the Ay family in Germany, helping to get their status resolved and removing the threat to send them on to Turkey."

She said that some German politicians had expressed their disbelief that the family had been kept behind bars in Scotland. The Herald



Daily Telegraph: Deported Kurd family will fight to return

Family to continue fight for asylum

Rosie Kane, the Scottish Socialist Party MSP, flew to Berlin yesterday, in an attempt to garner support among German socialists and green politicians. She hopes to meet with German officials to plead with them not to return the family to Turkey. The Scotsman

Ay family to appeal from abroad

Kurd family deported as final appeal fails

Asylum girl’s last appeal is in vain

‘I thought Britain was a country where they looked after children. But it’s not’

Rosie Kane, the Scottish Socialist MSP, said she would be travelling to Germany this morning to highlight the family's plight.

"The Home Office may think they're clever telling us these children are no longer in Scottish jurisdiction, but these children are still in the minds of the Scottish people. People here are appalled by the way the Home Office is currently trying to sneak them away like cargo to another country ... It is a clandestine cloak-and-dagger activity to hide the pain of young people who need counselling and support." The Herald

Asylum girl’s last appeal is in vain The Herald

McConnell forced to look other way over immigration The Herald

Shaming of Scotland

Ay family are failed by politicians' moral cowardice

Right up to the eve of departure, the silence remained as shameful as it was deafening. The best that can be said for the Scottish Executive is that it has been consistent throughout an affair that has blackened Scotland and its government. Not one word of protest or support on behalf of Yurdugal Ay and her four children, due to be deported from Britain today, has been uttered by ministers at Holyrood. They have stuck to the line concocted a year ago, when Mrs Ay and her children were taken to Dungavel detention centre in Lanarkshire to await the outcome of a protracted legal process to determine whether they would be granted asylum in this country. The mantra was repeated last night: this was a matter for the Home Office. If politicians had concerns about the case, it was the job of MPs, not MSPs, to raise them, as immigration was a reserved matter. Not all MSPs have been as supine as Holyrood ministers. Sandra White, the SNP MSP, said the treatment meted out to the Ays was a violation of human rights. Rosie Kane, the SSP MSP, accused the government of traumatising the children; emotive language, but difficult to challenge. The Herald

Kurdish teenager's last plea for asylum The Scotsman

Asylum children are deported BBC News Online

MEMBER OF SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT ON MERCY MISSION TO AID REFUGEE FAMILY

ROSIE KANE MSP TO TAKE AY FAMILY CASE TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT IN BERLIN

Scottish Socialist Party MSP Rosie Kane will tomorrow morning jet out to Berlin to confront the German government over the case of the Ay family whose deportation from the UK is imminent.

The case of the Ay family has come to symbolise the cold cruelty of the Blair government towards those fleeing persecution from around the world.

Yurdurgal Ay and her children were snatched from their home in Gravesend on Wednesday July 17th 2002 and had been held in Dungavel Removal Centre in Scotland until Friday 1st August.

From Germany they are likely to be sent back to Turkey, which their mother fled 15 years ago in the face of persecution. The children, aged between seven and 14, have never set foot in Turkey. Their father, who was deported by British authorities a year ago, has not been heard of since.

Speaking on the eve of her mission to Germany, Rosie said; "The case of the Ay family is a disgrace and casts shame on every heartless Home Office official and the Blair government ministers who set policy.

"We've got to throw aside the asylum laws, throw aside international boundaries to rescue these children.

"The Ay family have had to face psychological torture from the UK government; today I am truly ashamed to be British".

In Germany Rosie will be seeking meetings with the Schroder government and asking them to show some humanity in contrast to the callous cruelty of the Blair government.

She will also be linking up with German socialists, Greens and human rights campaigners to pile pressure on the German government to prevent the family being sent to Turkey.

Rosie said; "The Ay family need a stay of execution. Literally. Their lives are now in the hands of Schroder's government. "I'll be asking my German colleagues to join with me in demanding the family are at least given a breathing space in order to allow further negotiations to take place about their return to Britain. "We will not allow the Ay family to be disappeared by the brutal British government."

SSP up two points in Herald poll

"This means that Tommy Sheridan's Socialists (up two points) and the Greens (up one) are still moving ahead, although their findings fall within the margin of error.

The strong showing of the SSP, Greens, and Independents did more damage in May to the SNP than to Labour, which also lost six seats as minority candidates and parties broke through with 17 MSPs. Their combined second vote tally in the poll is 22%." The Herald

Herald Editorial

"The Baghdad factor, which exerted a major influence on the Scottish elections campaign until British troops went into battle in Iraq and the war appeared won, is again demonstrating its potential to dominate domestic Scottish politics. It is not only the SNP that has made a gain at Labour's expense. The poll shows that 22% of Scots would cast their second vote for a minority party (the Scottish Greens or the Scottish Socialists) or an independent candidate. Added to the SNP vote, that bloc would account for 49% of the electorate. But neither is that necessarily good news for Mr Swinney. His strategy for sensibly managing Scotland to independence by its nature rejects the protest and radical politics espoused by the others." The Herald

Body Politic

She smoke-bombed Glasgow City Council, got arrested at Faslane, climbed trees to stop the M77, snubbed the Queen and wore jeans to the Scottish parliament. Now she’s going to talk about vaginas. Vicky Allan meets SSP MSP Rosie Kane, the embodiment of ‘combat-trooserness’ and mistress of the stooshie Sunday Herald

Are the SNP’s hopes pinned on the best laid plans of mice or men? Sunday Herald

Nationalist Identity Crisis

The SNP under John Swinney is losing ground to other parties in its bid to break central belt voters’ loyalty to Labour. The Scottish Socialist Party, meanwhile, seems to be striking a radical Clydeside chord even beyond its natural base among the poor, articulating a regionalist voice similar to the SNP’s appeal in the northeast Sunday Herald

Reds plot fall of Welsh Labour
 
THE socialists who provided a huge election upset in Scotland are coming to Wales next week on a mission to undermine Welsh Labour.

Still on a high from the Scottish Parliament election in May, when his Scottish Socialist Party won six seats, leader Tommy Sheridan will be addressing what could prove to be a watershed conference organised by Wrexham AM John Marek.

Dr Marek, the National Assembly's Deputy Presiding Officer, was deselected by Labour after 20 years as an MP and AM but retained his seat as an independent, depriving Welsh Labour of a majority.

Now there are plans by Dr Marek and others to form a Welsh equivalent of the SSP. The Western Mail