SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 26/08/05

Festival of politics audience votes 3-1 to lift ban on excluded SSP MSP’s

At the ‘Parliamentary Questions’ session of the Festival of Politics held in the Scottish Parliament this afternoon, the audience voted 3-1 that the ban on the four suspended Scottish Socialist Party MSP’s should be lifted.
On the panel of 6 MSP’s, only Tommy Sheridan spoke against the ban with the SNP’s Kenny McAskill saying that “the punishment entirely fits the crime and the Greens turning red with embarrassment as Mark Ruskell poured his glass of water over himself.

Tommy Sheridan said afterwards;
“The message from the people of Scotland who gathered in the parliament today was loud and clear; lift the draconian sanctions on the 4 SSP MSP’s immediately.
“There can be no clearer proof that Scotland’s politicians are completely out of touch with the public mood.
“Mark Ruskell of the Green Party made a complete fool of himself by kowtowing to the establishment politicians; his radical colleagues in Green Party’s across Europe will be mortified at his behaviour.
“As for the ex radical lawyer Kenny McAskill, we can only hope that he never becomes Justice Minister in Scotland or flogging and hanging will surely be reintroduced.
“The shame faced politicians need to do a reality check, these draconian sanctions appal the fast majority of the Scottish people and should be lifted immediately.”
[ends]

SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit Press Release: 25/08/05

Support pours in from around the world for suspended SSP MSP’s

Socialist and left organisations from around the world have rallied to support the 4 Scottish Socialist Party MSP’s who have been suspended from the Scottish Parliament for the month of September.

On the 30 June 2005 four Scottish Socialist Party parliamentary representatives were summarily suspended and stripped of their pay and parliamentary allowances for staging a silent protest in the Scottish Parliament This unprecedented and draconian penalty was imposed through a process which makes a mockery of natural justice. The SSP MSPs were tried in their absence, without any kind of due process, right of appeal or any of the basic human rights that are enshrined in law.

The four suspended MSP’s are Colin Fox, Lothians, Carolyn Leckie, Central Scotland, Rosie Kane, Glasgow, and Frances Curran, West of Scotland.

After appealing for solidarity from socialist and left parties and individuals, the SSP has received messages of support from all over the world. Immediately after the suspensions were announced 41 Members of the European Parliament and 8 members of the Portuguese Parliament contacted the SSP to offer their support. In the weeks following messages of support have been received from;

Partido Socialismo E Liberdade, Brazil
Socialist Alliance, Australia
Freedom Socialist Party, USA
Parti Sosialis,Malaysia Esquerra Unida i Alternativa, Catalogne, Spain Red-Green Alliance, Denmark
Ligue communiste révolutionnaire, France
Socialist Party, Ireland
Socialist Workers Party, Ireland

In addition trade unions have responded to the call for assistance and solidarity with the RMT trade union pledging £2,500 and Edinburgh’s CWU postal workers branch donating £500. Messages of support have also come from Merseyside TUC and the Hospital Employees' Union, Canada

Colin Fox , Scottish Socialist Party national convenor and one of the four suspended MSP’s said today; “The support and solidarity we have received internationally has been an inspiration and a vindication of the stand we took over the right to protest at Gleneagles. “The events in Scotland during the G8 summit have echoed around the world and the attempts of the police and authorities to sabotage the right to peaceful protest right up until the last minute prove that the protest action we took was necessary to defend civil liberties. “The SSP thanks every organisation and individual that has sent messages of support and solidarity, we remain committed to raising the banner of protest against injustice and for a democratic socialist world at every opportunity.” [ends]

SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 25/08/05

The Scottish Socialist Party today issued the following statement in relation to a story that appeared in The Herald on SSP MSP's donations to the party.

An SSP spokesperson said;
"All the SSP MSP's are pledged to live on the average wage of a skilled worker, approximately £25k.
"The amount all our MSP's gives to the party is calculated according to a formula which takes into account the loss of benefits that an individual would have received were they on the average wage of approx 25K.
"The major benefits lost would be the working families tax credit, childcare tax credit and the young student bursary.
"They would also lose any means tested disability benefits.
"All the payments to the party released by the Electoral Commission comply with the formula agreed by SSP conference.
"The SSP is immensely proud of the fact that our MSP's have fulfilled their pledge to live on the average wage of a skilled worker, in stark contrast to MSP's from every other party who are happy to draw a salary and receive allowances that the vast majority of working people in Scotland can only dream of."
[ends]

SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 24/08/05

SSP MSP Colin Fox today backed the first ever strike by police support workers and called for a living wage for the whole public sector

Colin said:
"Essential workers such as police support workers have the same right to strike as any other worker, and the SSP fully backs this strike action.
"For far too long, local and national government have relied on the goodwill and dedication of underpaid public sector workers.
"1 in 3 Scots earns below £6.50 an hour - a third of them in the public sector. That's a disgraceful statistic.
"The cost of living is rising, driven by oil prices, and public sector workers are rightly demanding a wage rise to reflect this.
"We wish the police support workers - as well as the public sector workers fighting pay cuts in Aberdeen - every success."
[ends]

SSP Rally

Civil liberties under attack!
Defend:

• Civil Liberties


• Right to free speech


• Trade Union Rights


• Right to peace

Rally 6th September - 7.00pm St George’s West Church Shandwick Place, Edinburgh

• Colin Fox SSP Convenor - Expelled from parliament in Sept



• Suhayl Saadi - Author (tbc)



• Margo MacDonald MSP



• Gate Gourmet striker - denied the right to organise



• Jean Charles de Menezes family campaign



• Alex Brownridge - CWU

Hear the MSPs they tried to ban

Four SSP MSPs have been banned from the Scottish parliament for the month of September. Their entire month’s wages have been docked - all of them live on a skilled worker’s wage - all have young families.

The month’s wages of their backup staff have been docked - even though they were not even part of the protest!

The public will be denied access to these MSPs in parliament in September - whether by phone, by post or by email.

The MSPs’ crime? A brief, peaceful, silent protest in the parliament on 30 June, demanding that Jack McConnell uphold its own previous decision (last March) to defend the right to march against the G8 summit in Gleneagles on 6 July.

Three quarters of people in Britain believe there is a link between the illegal occupation of Iraq and the terrorist attacks on London.

Break the spiral of death - Bring the Troops home from Iraq! Jean Charles de Menezez was executed Police. Oppose shoot to kill!

Low paid workers for Gate Gourmet have been denied the right to organise in their workplace. Fight to repeal the anti-trade union laws! Racist attacks on our minority communities have increased. Oppose racism - defend our communities.

A message from PSOL Brazil

SOLIDARITY MESSAGE

Dear comrades of the SSP, this message is to express to you the solidarity and support of myself and my party, PSOL, with the four SSP members of parliament who were unjustly punished for their silent five minute demonstration in the Scottish parliament in favour of the right to protest against the G8 meeting in Scotland in July this year.

I want to express the very strongest protest against this arbitrary attack not only on the four MSPs and their workers but also on the SSP itself, whose tireless struggle against imperialism and neo-liberalism have made them the objects of attacks from both the right wing and from the major parties in Scotland.

I stand alongside all those across the world who are fighting so that democracy, liberty and freedom of expression will triumph over the repressive and totalitarian system that capitalism is intent on imposing across the world.

Luciana Genro Member of the Federal Parliament of Brazil for PSOL (Freedom and Socialism Party), Rio Grande do Sul

The Herald

CAMPAIGNERS called last night for a Ugandan hunger striker to be released from Dungavel detention centre after the news that another had been released south of the border. The Scottish Socialist Party said that 28-year-old Charity Mutewba should be set free immediately or "another innocent person would die needlessly in custody in Scotland". Mrs Mutewba, who has not eaten for 26 days, was transferred last week from England. She says she is prepared to starve to death rather than be deported to Uganda. She came to the UK in September 2003 seeking political asylum, claiming she had been tortured and raped for being a member of an opposition political party. She went on hunger strike last month with nine other African women at Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre in Bedford in protest at the conditions and their deportations. Harriet Anyangokolo, a spokeswoman for the group who had not eaten for 29 days, was released yesterday. Rosie Kane, the Scottish Socialist MSP, said: "Charity requires both medical and psychological help as she is a rape victim. She should never have been forced to sit in a van for 12 hours when being transferred. Once again it just shows the utter disdain the Home Office has for human life." Mrs Mutewba said she would continue without food for as long as it takes until the government reviews her case.

Edinburgh Evening News: "TWO and a half weeks from now, MSPs will be back from their summer recess. But unless they can overturn a decision of parliament through the courts, four of Scotland's elected representatives will be missing.

Four Scottish Socialist MSPs who staged a protest in the chamber on the last day of business before the recess have been suspended for the whole of September.

They've not just been barred from the parliament's premises, but stripped of their salaries and allowances too, with a knock-on effect on staff wages.

MSPs in the other parties were enraged at the SSP's 'antics', which brought parliamentary proceedings to a halt for about an hour. But there is now a feeling in some quarters that the unprecedented penalty imposed on them was over the top.

The protest, during First Minister's Questions, was over what the SSP claim was Jack McConnell's failure to uphold a previous resolution passed by the parliament supporting the right to march on the G8 summit at Gleneagles.

The four Socialists - SSP leader Colin Fox and fellow MSPs Carolyn Leckie, Rosie Kane and Frances Curran - left their seats at the back of the chamber and stood behind Mr McConnell's chair, holding up pieces of paper which said 'Defend Democracy'.

Presiding officer George Reid suspended the four until the end of the next day, the maximum penalty he could impose, but also referred the matter to the parliament's standards committee, which agreed the further measures.

Mr Fox claims the sanctions are 'an authoritarian over-reaction' and the SSP has embarked on court action, arguing the four were tried in their absence without due process.

The 30-day suspension does seem harsh compared with past penalties imposed at Westminster, where five days' suspension is the norm. When flamboyant Tory Michael Heseltine swung the Mace, symbol of the Queen's authority, over his head in 1976 he was only suspended for the rest of that day's sitting. In 1987, former Leith MP Ron Brown was suspended for five days after he seized and dropped the Mace and refused to apologise. And in 1972, Bernadette Devlin was back in the chamber within five minutes after she physically attacked Home Secretary Reginald Maudling over remarks about Bloody Sunday."

Defend Scottish Socialists - Socialist Worker Online (USA)

SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 24/08/05

SSP Central Scotland MSP and former midwife Carolyn Leckie today spoke out in support of a critical report by the Scottish Women's Convention on maternity services.

Carolyn said:
“This report confirms the views of thousands of women living in the areas affected by maternity service cuts and centralisation.
“Forcing women to travel hundreds of miles to have their babies is not just an inconvenience.
“Both mothers' and babies' lives will be put at risk by delaying access to specialist consultants and putting mothers through the ordeal of travel at a time when they should be concentrating on their health.
“The debate on maternity services will not go away until the Executive and the Health Boards take the opinions of service users and local communities seriously.”
[ends]

SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 23/08/05

SSP convenor Colin Fox today called for Scots to fight for an independent socialist Scotland, crying 'freedom' from poverty, inequality and injustice

Colin said:
"Clearly things have moved on from William Wallace's days.
"We might not be waging war on an invading army, but it doesn't mean we've won.
"Scots are still fighting daily battles against poverty, inequality and injustice.
"Our young men aren't being hung, drawn and quartered in the Tower of London
- but they are being signed up to fight an illegal war in Iraq, marched off to Barlinnie or dying of drug misuse.
"Wallace's demands were simple - freedom for the people of Scotland.
"We echo those demands in the twenty first century. We want freedom from the burden of poverty, debt, violence, racism and oppression.
"Independence on its own wouldn't change a thing. We call on all those who look to Wallace for inspiration to join the fight for an independent socialist Scotland - and REAL FREEDOM!"
[ends]

SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 21/08/05

Scottish Socialist Party national convenor Colin Fox today accused the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland of views akin to that of the British National Party and of making remarks that will further justify the wave of racist and Islamophobic violence sweeping the country.

Colin said today;
“It is absolutely astonishing that the Moderator of the Church Of Scotland should choose this moment in time to parrot the racist and Islamophobic language of far right racists like the British National Party when there has been an unprecedented rise in violence and abuse directed at Muslims and black and Asian members of our community.
“It is absolutely unacceptable for an individual in Reverend Lacy’s position to use the language of hate when the current situation facing Muslims and ethnic minorities in our communities is one of violence and abuse.
“The comments of the Moderator will instil fear in Muslims and give succour to those who direct hate and fear towards our Muslim brothers and sisters.
“The Scottish Socialist Party unequivocally condemns the Reverend Lacy’s remarks and I will be seeking a meeting with the Reverend Graham Blount, the Scottish Churches Parliamentary Officer, at the earliest opportunity to convey my grave concerns about the intervention of the Moderator in this volatile situation.”
[ends]