The Herald: McAllion quits Labour and eyes the SSPJOHN McAllion, the maverick Labour MSP who lost his seat at the last election, yesterday announced that he is quitting Labour and advised all true socialists to follow his example.
The former MP for Dundee East and Tayside council leader said he was likely to join the Scottish Socialist Party. "Maybe I won't join today but it will be soon" he told an SSP rally in Glasgow.
Mr McAllion said: "I believe in a mass party to help the working class but new Labour is no longer that party. In Scotland, the SSP is the only party where socialists should be."
Speaking to The Herald later, Mr McAllion said he was increasingly pessimistic that the changes brought about in the Labour party's stance by Tony Blair and his supporters could be reversed. Labour was now as committed to capitalism and the free market as the Tories or Liberal Democrats, he claimed.
Although he was considering joining the SSP, Mr McAllion said his first choice would be to be a member of the Labour Party as it was in the post-second world war period.
"It has now dropped forever any idea of a future for the workers in a world outside capitalism," Mr McAllion said.
Denouncing the last Labour conference and its support for the prime minister, he added: "If they can give Tony Blair a seven-and-a-half-minute ovation, then either they or I are in the wrong party, and I think it is probably me," said Mr McAllion.
It was obvious the fiery left winger had become increasingly disenchanted with new Labour and often spoke out against Scottish Executive policies in the parliament where most MSPs agreed he served with distinction as the convener of the public petitions committee.
Remaining resolutely old Labour, he often collaborated with Denis Canavan, his former Westminster colleague and now an Independent MSP, and Tommy Sheridan, leader of the SSP, on issues such as abolishing poinding and warrant sales or campaigning for free school meals for all state primary pupils.
During a debate on the Iraq war before the May elections, he denounced Mr Blair and called for his downfall. He had also hinted that if he was not allowed to speak out against the war he might leave and join the Scottish socialists.
Last night an SSP spokesman said:"The party is delighted John is breaking with Labour finally and we hope he will soon be joining the SSP.
An SSP spokesman said: "He will be extremely welcome there, as he was at today's rally, and we urge all socialists left in new Labour to come and join us with him."
Mr McAllion, who was a member of the Nationalist tendency in the Labour Party, lost his Dundee East Scottish parliament seat to the SNP by just 70 votes, in last May's parliament elections.
He had first won it from the nationalists in 1987 when he replaced Gordon Wilson as the Westminster MP there.
His political profile in the city had been raised due to his position as leader of the former Tayside Regional Council. He became an MSP in 1999, but the seat remained a tight Labour/SNP marginal in the 2003 contest which he lost to Shona Robison.
Mr McAllion, who is 55, has recently become a full-time campaign worker with Oxfam and said yesterday that he was also doing some writing for left wing publications and considering his political future.
The Herald
