The Sheridan affair and the left in Scotland

Submitted by martin on 27 December, 2010 - 10:14 Author: Dale Street
Sheridan

Former Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan was found guilty of perjury on 23 December, and will be sentenced on 26 January. The judge has already said that a jail sentence is likely. Dale Street discusses the fall-out for the left in Scotland.


“We do not take lessons in morality from the Murdoch press. The central issue is the defence of a working-class leader from attacks by the right-wing press. ...”

“Throughout history, from Charles Stuart Parnell and Oscar Wilde in the nineteenth century through to Martin Luther King in the twentieth century, the ruling classes have regularly used sex scandals as a means of trying to destroy its leading opponents, both socialist and anti-imperialist ....”

“The attack on Tommy Sheridan is also an attack on the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and on the anti-war movement.”

Despite its windiness and sketchiness about history, this motion, passed by the Livingston SSP branch in 2004 after the News of the World had published allegations about Sheridan’s private life, sums up what was positive in the thinking of those who rallied to Sheridan’s defence in 2004.

The News of the World was, and is, a foul right-wing scandal rag masquerading as a newspaper. The Murdoch press was after Sheridan because of the leading role he played on the Scottish left. And some of the claims made by the News of the World – such as that Sheridan snorted cocaine and drank alcohol – were manifestly lies.

Later events seemed to add weight to the view that “the central issue is the defence of a working-class leader from attacks by the right-wing press”, backed up by the forces of the state in the form of the police and the Procurator Fiscal.

After Sheridan’s successful libel action against the News of the World in 2006 a perjury investigation was launched. Its target was not those whose testimony had been rejected by the jury in the 2006 trial, but, without known precedent, the person whose testimony had been accepted, i.e. Sheridan himself.

Vast amounts of money, running into well over a million pounds, were spent on the police investigation. Resources normally reserved only for the most serious of crimes were allocated to it.

An early-morning raid was carried out on the Sheridan’s home by fifteen police officers, terrorising the Sheridans’ child. The subsequent charging of Gail Sheridan with theft was quickly abandoned, but not before police had leaked information about it to the press.

Despite the time and money spent on the investigation, allegation after allegation against Sheridan was abandoned by the prosecution in the course of the perjury trial itself. And all charges against Gail Sheridan were eventually dropped. Had there ever been any point to such charges other than to put pressure on Sheridan to do a plea bargain?

The fact that some, or all, of the above events have been demagogically exploited by Sheridan’s factionally-driven supporters does not make them any the less worthy of condemnation.

To side with a socialist in conflict with a right-wing and anti-trade-union media empire is a healthy gut instinct for anyone on the left, especially when that socialist has been a victim of double standards by the state.

We should oppose and denounce Sheridan being jailed as a result of his clash with the News of the World.

But the Sheridan saga of the past four or six years – the News of the World published its allegations in 2004, and the libel trial was in 2006 – is not so simple.

Sheridan decided to sue the News of the World after it had reported his visits to a swingers’ club in Manchester. He wanted the SSP to back him in his legal action.

The SSP refused; and with good reason. The only issue at stake in the legal action pursued by Sheridan was his personal desire to preserve his personal image. There was no reason why the SSP should have meekly fallen in line behind such an ego-driven legal escapade. Politically, it was much better just to let the scandal pass with minimal comment.

Sheridan went ahead anyway. This was the trigger for the subsequent chain of events. Whatever plot the News of the World and/or the police and/or New Labour had had against him, it was Sheridan's decision to sue that inflated the thing from a small irritation into a major cause of damage for the left in Scotland.

First off, it split the SSP. It reduced an organisation which had won 10% of the vote in Glasgow for a period, and recruited a membership equivalent (in proportion to Scotland's population) to 30,000 in Britain, to two small rump groups.

To win the subsequent libel case Sheridan had to persuade the jury that the SSP members who contradicted his version of events were liars motivated by personal malice. He succeeded in doing so. After the close of the trial Sheridan went a step further and denounced them as “scabs”.

Sheridan followed up his success in court by launching “Solidarity – Scotland’s Socialist Movement” (SSM) together with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and what is now the Socialist Party Scotland (SPS). This was despite the fact that the SWP and, even more so, the SPS had previously been sharply critical of Sheridan’s politics.

Although the SSM had little life left in it after its failure to secure Sheridan’s re-election to Holyrood in 2007, the SWP and the SPS maintained a loose electoral alliance with Sheridan in the following years. As the perjury trial of 2010 drew closer, they swung into action in Sheridan’s defence.

The Campaign to Defend Tommy Sheridan (CDTS), launched in 2007, sidestepped the question of whether Sheridan was guilty of the charges of perjury raised against him. Instead, its defence of Sheridan was based on the argument that there was a witch-hunt underway, and that elementary socialist principles required solidarity with its victim.

The SPS issued a statement explaining that it was “outraged at this monumental witch-hunt of Tommy Sheridan. We offer our full support to the campaign to drop the charges against Tommy.” For the SPS the looming perjury trial was “a scandalous vendetta against Scotland’s best-known socialist.”

According to Chris Bambery, then editor of Socialist Worker: “The whole thing smells of a McCarthyite witch-hunt. Full support to the campaign to defend you. Venceremos.” An article in Socialist Worker explained that the perjury trial was “a disgraceful attempt to smear socialists and underline the power of the media to smash those they oppose and fear.”

John Rees, at that time Respect National Secretary, chipped in with a message of support as well: “Full support and solidarity. All the best to you and your family.”

Most of the CDTS’s support came from members of the SPS, the Socialist Party (SP), and the SP’s sister parties abroad (fellow affiliates of the Committee for a Workers International, CWI), backed up by a scattering of support from SWP members.

Virtually the only other supporters of any note for the CDTS were Bob Crow and George Galloway. They made a joint statement: “Tommy’s real crime in the eyes of News International is that he has spent his entire political life speaking truth to power... Working people in Scotland saw through this farrago the first time round. I am confident they will do so again.”

This attitude - not just protesting at the prospect of Sheridan being jailed as the outcome of his clash with the News of the World, but in effect endorsing his stance 100% - was the ‘reductio ad absurdum’ of an approach to politics which has characterized and paralysed sections of the left for decades: the simplistic notion that whoever is my enemy’s enemy must be my ally.

In the bigger political picture of international politics this has seen sections of the left variously line up with police-state repression (Stalinism), military dictatorships (Galtieri), clerical fascism (Iran and Hamas), regimes characterized, in the language of Trotskyism, as “Bonapartist” (Venezuela), plus various brands of anti-Semitism, Holocaust revisionism and Islamic fundamentalism thrown in for good measure.

All such anti-working-class forces and regimes supposedly merited support from socialists because they were the enemy of our enemy (the British state, British capitalism, American imperialism, world capitalism, or whatever).

Of course Sheridan's vagaries do not put him in the same league as Stalin or Ahmedinejad. The fervent support for Sheridan from the SP, SWP, etc., over a dispute about a couple of visits to a dingy swingers’ club on an industrial estate in Manchester, was an absurd miniature caricature of the old "enemy's enemy" approach. It made the SP and SWP look silly rather than disdainful of the interests of workers in the USSR or Iran.

The Murdoch press accused Sheridan of attending a swingers’ club. The police accused him of lying about this in court. Never mind the facts! Never mind the ‘collateral damage’ inflicted on others by supporting Sheridan!

Against the Murdoch empire and the police, ran the ‘logic’ of Sheridan’s supporters, there could be no dispute but that Sheridan had to be defended.

“The trial pits working-class socialists against the might of the media and the police... Tommy and Gail Sheridan deserve our full support,” wrote the SWP.

“The current trial sees the biggest media empire in the world, the police and the legal and political establishment on the one side, and a fighter for the working class and the poor on the other. It isn’t difficult for genuine socialists to decide which side they are one,” wrote the SPS.

It was as if time had stood still since the motion passed by the Livingston SSP branch in late 2004. But even in 2004 the knowledge that a socialist leader lay in one direction and the right-wing press in another was an inadequate political compass.

Well before 2010 it should have been clear to all that Sheridan’s decision to sue the News of the World had brought with it massive ‘collateral damage’. Its knock-on effect had been to split the SSP, wipe out an independent socialist presence in the Scottish Parliament, and see the combined left vote in successive elections overtaken by the BNP.

In denying the News of the World allegations Sheridan had also boxed himself into a corner. He had to label his court opponents liars who were engaged in a conspiracy against him. As more evidence emerged after the libel trial of 2006, Sheridan’s only defence was to conjure up claims of an ever more fantastic conspiracy against him.

The inevitable result was that when the perjury trial of 2010 took place Sheridan’s defence consisted of a succession of accusations and attempted character assassinations of long-standing socialists which would hardly have been out of place in a 1930s Moscow show trial.

If the trial was one, as claimed, which pitted a working-class socialist against the mighty Murdoch empire, there was certainly nothing socialist about how Sheridan conducted his defence.

According to an SSP statement issued after perjury trial: “We now draw a line under this sorry saga and move on.” In fact, the “guilty” verdict simply marks the start of a new chapter.

The diatribe against Sheridan on the website of Scottish Socialist Youth (autonomous from the SSP, but effectively its youth section) and the fact that a book is already being written giving the SSP’s analysis of “this sorry saga” do not point in the direction of drawing a line under it.

Nor do the kind of comments recently posted by SSP members on left blogs: “Sheridanistas, you lost and the great one is finished. We no longer have a gag on our mouths and can come back fighting. Be prepared to see the comeback of the SSP in 2011. Enjoy your Christmas here on this irrelevant blog, greetin’ about how Tommy lost. Sad bastards.”

The idea that the SSP is going to draw a line under past events is also at odds with earlier statements.

According to a statement of 2009, for example: “Once all of the legal obstacles have been cleared from our path we intend to initiate a full, open and democratic discussion around left unity in Scotland and the role that the SSP can play in achieving it.” But such a discussion could not take place without reference to the 2006 split in the SSP.

The SSP is also going to have to confront those on the left who, while having no sympathies for Sheridan, now have no sympathy for the behavior of some SSP members either (and, by extension, the SSP itself).

Most obviously, in relation to the behaviour of George McNeilage.

SSP members in the 2006 trial could legitimately argue that they had been dragged into court against their will. This does not apply to McNeilage. He sold his video tape of Sheridan’s confessions to the News of the World for £200,000 and signed a contract under which he agreed to write an article for the paper and assist the paper and the police in any subsequent legal proceedings.

It is no exaggeration to say that McNeilage gave evidence in the perjury trial under contract to the News of the World.

An attempt to move an emergency motion at the 2006 SSP conference, condemning McNeilage for handing over the tape to the News of the World, was successfully opposed by the SSP leadership.

Sheridan’s supporters show no sign of “drawing a line under this sorry saga” either. Given their starting point – that Sheridan had to be supported simply because he was up against the News of the World – the “guilty” verdict simply confirms for them that Sheridan was indeed the victim of a media and state witch-hunt. And one which was backed up by the SSP.

One posting by a Sheridan supporter on the “Socialist Unity” website readsd:

“During 2009 people were spitting in the faces of SSP members in Glasgow on campaign stalls. After 26th January (when Sheridan gets sentenced) what will happen to the scabs? I only hope the working class of Glasgow and elsewhere sort the SSP out Glasgow-style. The scumbags that worked with the police and the News of the World should be left in no doubt that they are the scum of the earth in the eyes of any decent working-class person.”

There is no reason to believe that an end to the Sheridan saga is anywhere in sight, or that the conclusion of the perjury trial paves the way for a process of reconciliation on the Scottish left.

On the contrary, the post-trial hostilities point in the opposite direction. And the actual sentencing of Sheridan in January will trigger a further bout of emotionally driven recrimination and denunciation.

The Holyrood elections in May will see a split left vote (between the SSP and some kind of bloc between the SWP, SPS, SSM and some RMT branches) plus a bid for a seat in Holyrood by Galloway. If an independent left candidate gets elected, it will owe more to the peculiarities of the d’Hondt voting system than to a resurgence of the left as an electoral force.

The inevitable focus on Sheridan will also continue to push into the background the fact that much of what passes for ‘new thinking’ about the nature of the socialist project in Scotland is really an abandonment of class politics, a re-hash of Scottish populism, catchpenny sloganising, and Stalinism.

To give just one example, as this article deals with the Sheridan saga rather than the politics of the Scottish left, the most recent issue of the SSP’s magazine contains what must rank as one of the worst articles about China to have disgraced the pagers of a socialist publication in recent years:

“The belief that China should move towards some kind of multi-party system displays a profound ignorance of Chinese politics and culture. For most Chinese, the Communist Party (CP) and the state are so entwined as to be one and the same. As the state is revered as the bastion of nationhood, culture and civilization, to oppose the CP is like opposing the state and makes little sense.”

So: criticising Sheridan makes sense – but opposing a regime responsible for the deaths of countless millions does not? And this is the way to revive socialism in Scotland?

The Sheridan debacle certainly help pushed the left to the sidelines of Scottish politics. But reviving its fortunes and transforming it into a force committed to working-class emancipation will require a lot more than just overcoming his legacy.

Comments

Submitted by guenter on Mon, 27/12/2010 - 13:10

sorry, as iam not familar with the story,and my english isnt perfect, i didnt fully understand the article: WHAT was sheridan blamed and judged for? for visiting a swinger club and lying about? isnt that his private affair, or is it against the law in scotland, to visit swingerclubs? and if this is so, shudnt socialists defend his right to have his sexual life as he want it?
in germany, 1 ex-parliament member of the "left party" did open up a swinger club. in the past, this wud have been a headline in the yellow press, but nowadays they dont use that anymore. it wudnt outrage the public anymore.

Submitted by martin on Mon, 27/12/2010 - 16:48

The News of the World published an article saying that Sheridan had gone to swinger clubs and so on.

Everyone on the left, as far as I know, agreed that this was malicious, and that Sheridan's personal life was his own affair.

Conflict started when Sheridan said he would sue the NoW for libel, and demanded the SSP support him in doing so. Other SSP leaders said they couldn't support him in suing for libel (a) because it would make the initial malicious comment more damaging; (b) because some of what the NoW had reported was factually true.

SSP leaders were legally obliged to give evidence in the libel case, and said there that some of what the NoW had reported was true. (Some SSPers went further than they were legally obliged to: see comment above on McNeilage).

Sheridan won the libel case. But the police (presumably pushed into it by the Murdoch empire) then put together a prosecution against him for lying in court during the libel case.

SSP leaders were once again obliged to appear in court, and said that what they had said during the libel trial was true.

The jury convicted Sheridan of perjury, that is, of lying on oath in what he said in court during the libel case.

Submitted by guenter on Mon, 27/12/2010 - 19:57

thanks to martin 4 again explaining the facts to me in short.
i also think, that in the beginning, sheridan should have simply let the story die, ignoring it, or say in public: i was in this swingerclub, so what? not ur business.
but some guys just have problems 2 mention that in public; in germany, such a lie to a court wud cost him some money, but it seems that in UK he has to go 2 jail 4 it. that sounds hard and strange to me, and shudnt socialists protest that judgement, even if sheridan created a mess for the left?
of course, in the long run its more important to discuss what "celtic" brought up.

Submitted by AWL on Tue, 28/12/2010 - 10:34

In reply to by guenter

But Guenter, isn't the point that he didn't have to say "I went to a swinger's club"? As you note, he could just have said "No comment". In fact that would have been the most principled thing to do!

Sacha

Submitted by ann field on Tue, 28/12/2010 - 00:03

By way of an oversight, the article does not include links to various statements put out re. the trial and verdict. Apart from the Scottish Socialist Youth statement mentioned above by Keith White, there are:

SSP statement:

http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org/new_stories/statements/sheridan-conviction.html

SWP statement:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=23459

"Solidarity Scotland" statement:

http://www.new.solidarityscotland.org/

Socialist Party Scotland statement:

http://socialistpartyscotland.org.uk/

For a flavour of the post-verdict debate, see comments at:

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=7408

and at:

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=7415#comments>

Finally, a controversial but readable article by Gerry Hassan at:

http://www.gerryhassan.com/?p=1461#more-1461

Submitted by guenter on Tue, 28/12/2010 - 13:22

@sacha

no, i think the point is, if there shudnt be solidarity against his judgement/jailing anyway, whatever faults and mess sheridan has done.

Submitted by Mark on Tue, 28/12/2010 - 19:09

Keith. Did you post the SSP Youth link because you think what they have to say is right, or wrong? A bit of politics, please.

Submitted by Mark on Wed, 29/12/2010 - 23:40

The issue with the SSP Youth statement is that it is not very political. The main criticism of Sheridan, repeated over and again, is that he is a 'mad shagger' - i.e. Sheridan likes sex.
It seems Sheridan likes sex in places like 'Cupids'. From the point of view of a left wing political organisation - so what? what's the problem? and what's it got to do with us?
Are we - people inteested in political programme, ideas - supposed to take this seriously as a political assessment and balance sheet?
One of the staggering things about this whole mess is the ability of one individual to smash up, disperse and discredit a socialist group with some significant support amongst the Scottish w/class. How did he manage it, and in such a short period of time? One aspect of the matter is that the SSP leadership clique built a cult up around Sheridan - which was shortsighted and opportunist; it exploded in their face. (Venton etc learnt little from the experience of the idiot-spiv Hatton in Liverpool).
Another aspect is that the SSP attempted to build a stable organisation about a general 'socialism' - as if 'socialism' is not now a deeply problematic matter (there are many, many socialisms, many of which contradict each other). And an organisation without cadres, who are rooted in a common understanding, method etc, is going to be vulnerable to all sorts of destabilising stupidities. And an aspect of that political undercooking is the ex-Militant leadership clique at the centre of the SSP which itself has been degenerating politically into a sort of warm mush for years and years.

Submitted by AWL on Thu, 30/12/2010 - 12:30

Hi Guenter,

Isn't this absolutely clear?

"The News of the World was, and is, a foul right-wing scandal rag masquerading as a newspaper. The Murdoch press was after Sheridan because of the leading role he played on the Scottish left. And some of the claims made by the News of the World – such as that Sheridan snorted cocaine and drank alcohol – were manifestly lies.
"Later events seemed to add weight to the view that “the central issue is the defence of a working-class leader from attacks by the right-wing press”, backed up by the forces of the state in the form of the police and the Procurator Fiscal.
"After Sheridan’s successful libel action against the News of the World in 2006 a perjury investigation was launched. Its target was not those whose testimony had been rejected by the jury in the 2006 trial, but, without known precedent, the person whose testimony had been accepted, i.e. Sheridan himself.
"Vast amounts of money, running into well over a million pounds, were spent on the police investigation. Resources normally reserved only for the most serious of crimes were allocated to it.
"An early-morning raid was carried out on the Sheridan’s home by fifteen police officers, terrorising the Sheridans’ child. The subsequent charging of Gail Sheridan with theft was quickly abandoned, but not before police had leaked information about it to the press.
"Despite the time and money spent on the investigation, allegation after allegation against Sheridan was abandoned by the prosecution in the course of the perjury trial itself. And all charges against Gail Sheridan were eventually dropped. Had there ever been any point to such charges other than to put pressure on Sheridan to do a plea bargain?
"The fact that some, or all, of the above events have been demagogically exploited by Sheridan’s factionally-driven supporters does not make them any the less worthy of condemnation.
"To side with a socialist in conflict with a right-wing and anti-trade-union media empire is a healthy gut instinct for anyone on the left, especially when that socialist has been a victim of double standards by the state.
"We should oppose and denounce Sheridan being jailed as a result of his clash with the News of the World."

Sacha

Submitted by guenter on Thu, 30/12/2010 - 13:02

hi sacha,
sorry that i really overlooked something like the last sentence of urs in that article. in hasty reading i probably searched 4 the word solidarity- still shaken by the experience here, that AWL organised no solidarity events 4 wikileaks & 1 of ur comrades here replied me "what solidarity?" and denounced my slogan "solidarity with wikileaks" as "simplistic".

Submitted by Peter burton on Fri, 31/12/2010 - 17:45

I think its right that the "SSP draws a line under this sorry saga" after the verdict in the sense of getting back to doing what socialists get active in politics to do- To educate ,agitate and organise and at this particular time there ought to be a focus on buidling effective ,broad resistance to the cuts .

However moving on and ending the obsession with Sheridangate should not be an excuse for either not learning lessons, or quickly forgetting them.

No more cults of personality around one individual- a collective approach to organising , the importance of rigorous honesty about ideas and honesty in approach to the party's methods of work - a shared pride in Marxism as a theory and worldview instead of being embarressed by it and locking it firmly away in a closet marked "Unpopular but probably still relevant".

Left Unity. There is no credible force to merge with at present. The SSP is going to have to go through the painful process of steadily rebuilding its numbers and credibility largely alone. There are better opportunities around the corner for this than there has been for years, but if advantage is going to be taken of the rise in class struggle , then that means having more of a French far-left approach to organising - i.e being harder politically - dropping the populism and nationalism in favour of Marxism, orientating seriously towards public sector workers and public sector unions - (and getting fractions going in these unions - Richie - is there any chance you might do this in my lifetime)?

The leadership should see the branches as the lifeblood of the party and encourage branch activists to get outside workplaces with political/industrial bulletins that encourage a spirit of fighting back, rank and file organisation, and workers drawing political conclusions about the problems of macho-management and corrupt, aloof, privelaged politicians. Students and unemployed workers should be involved in this type of work to give them an education and a discipline.

Education ought to be on-going , mixed in its method of delivery, comprehensive in subject matter and enjoyable. We cannot create able activists and organisers if we do not give the membership a good Marxist Education - Period.

If the party has this approach it could recover in the light of the recent verdict. However without a reorientation I think it will fade away.The verdict alone will not change the SSP's fortunes.

Pete

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