Backing for Convention from SSP

Backing for pro-independence stance

Scottish Socialist members have backed party bosses over their role in the Independence Convention - despite fierce opposition among some sections of the SSP. The convention, launched on November 30 last year, brought together the SSP and the other main pro-independence parties, the SNP and Scottish Greens.

The SSP annual conference in Dundee's Caird Hall endorsed a motion by the party's executive committee, instructing it to remain in the convention. Some members had demanded that all convention participants sign up to an independent republic, while others insisted the SSP should not co-operate at all with "pro-business" parties.

However, SSP press and policy co-ordinator and former leadership candidate Alan McCombes insisted the SSP must be on the "front line" of the drive for independence. Mr McCombes acknowledged that the SSP's vision of an independent Scotland - a socialist republic - was "radically different" from the other two parties.

And he denied the SSP had "blurred" the ideological differences between itself and these parties.
But achieving a socialist society would require a "prolonged battle for the hearts and minds" of Scots over many years, Mr McCombes told delegates.

"In the meantime there may be the possibility after 2007 or after 2011 of moving towards Scottish independence - of fracturing the British state. The fracturing of the British state can help accelerate the long-term drive for socialism - provided that the socialist forces are on the front line of the battle for independence itself."

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