About Us

Socialist Party Scotland is a campaigning socialist, Marxist and internationalist organisation that fights for the interests of the working class and young people. We have branches of the party across Scotland. We stand for socialist change both here and internationally – a democratic society run for the needs of all and not the profits of a few.

Socialist Party Scotland trace our political roots back to the launch of the Militant newspaper in 1964. Our ideas, programme and policies were embodied in the work of the Militant, then the Marxist tendency in the Labour Party. Militant grew to become a household name, with thousands of members by the mid 1980’s.

We led mass campaigns, including the momentous Liverpool City Council struggle that mobilised tens of thousands in a mass movement that won major concessions for the city from the then Thatcher government.

Militant provided the leadership for that movement and as a result thousands of new homes were built, as well as schools, community centres. Thousands of jobs were also created as a result. Today, the lessons of the Liverpool struggle should be re-learned by all those workers and communities looking to fight the savage cuts in public spending.

Militant won a majority for our ideas in the Labour Party Young Socialists ion the 1970s and by 1987 three Militant supporters had been elected as Labour MPs. This led to the opening up of a witchhunt by the right wing Labour leaders, egged on by the capitalists and their hired media. They were terrified by the support our ideas were gaining in the Labour and trade union movement and the wider working class.

The expulsions of Militant supporters from the Labour Party led to even more workers and young people joining the ranks of the Militant. The attacks against the Marxists in the Labour Party, were only a prelude to the complete expulsion of socialist ideas from the Labour Party. The abandonment of the socialist clause 4 from the party’s constitution and its transformation from a bourgeois party at the top but with a working class base into an out-and -out party of capitalism was complete by the time Blair was elected as prime minister in 1997.  

Militant also formed the backbone of the heroic anti-poll tax movement – that organised 18 million people in a mass non-payment campaign that by 1990 had finished the poll tax and sunk its architect, Margaret Thatcher.

1990s

The collapse of the Berlin Wall, and the bureaucratic, Stalinist regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s ushered in a more complicated period for socialist and Marxists internationally.   

The tops of the labour movement abandoned any pretence of standing for an alternative to capitalism and embraced neo-liberal ideas. The traditional parties that used to represent working class people, the Labour, social democratic and communist parties, became bourgeois parties and as a result were largely empty of workers and young people. We drew the conclusion that we needed to establish Militant as an open organisation in its own right and in the early 1990s we build Scottish Militant Labour into a powerful force in Scotland.

The political impact of the collapse of Stalinism ushered in a period of triumphalism by the bosses and their ideologues – claiming the final victory of capitalism over “socialism”. This was reinforced by the move to the right by the Labour and trade union leaders and the temporary growth in the capitalist system in the 1990s and the era of so-called “globalisation”. These factors all helped to produce the throwing back of consciousness and the undermining of support for socialism for a time.  

The Committee for a Workers’ International however was uniquely able steer a course through these relatively difficult years. Our analysis of the collapse of Stalinism, our economic perspectives and the tasks we set ourselves of defending the programme of Marxism and advocating the building new mass workers’ parties allowed us to maintain a viable Marxist international. Even while others bent or were broken by the more complex political period.

Nevertheless, these complications did result in some loses for our movement. In Scotland a number of the leaders of Militant abandoned the perspective of building a revolutionary Marxist organisation and dissolved themselves into the Scottish Socialist Party – a politically broad socialist organisation.

Unfortunately this directly led to them abandoning ideas they once defended and moving to a reformist and left nationalist position. After initial success, including the election of six SSP MSPs in 2003, the wrong political ideas of the SSP leadership resulted in them squandering the possibility to build on that breakthrough. Today the SSP is no longer a force of significance on the left in Scotland.

However, there were a number of members of Militant who did continue to work to build on the tradition of our ideas and we organised ourselves in the International Socialists and now the Socialist Party Scotland.

While building our own Marxist organisation, we also continue to advocate the need to build a new mass workers’ party. From 2010 until 2018 we have worked with other socialists and the RMT trade union, as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.    

We have played a leading role in the campaign against the Bedroom Tax in Scotland and we are also active in day to day campaigning work in defending the rights of working class people in the workplaces, trade unions, communities, schools, colleges and universities.

We campaigned for a Yes vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, while clearly standing for an independent socialist Scotland and a voluntary socialist federation with England, Wales and Ireland. 

We supported Jeremy Corbyn becoming the leader of the Labour Party and called on him to remove the pro-capitalist Blairites from the party. Today, we fight for the building of a new mass workers’ party that fights for socialism. 

Socialist Party Scotland members played a crucial role in the historic 2019 Equal Pay victory in Glasgow. Our members help lead the Glasgow City Unison branch   

We are actively building the Young Socialists – Young Workers’ Rights campaigns and fighting against the scandal of zero-hour contracts, for a living wage of £15 an hour and trade union rights.  

As capitalism dominates the globe, the struggle for genuine socialism must be international. The Socialist Party Scotland are part of the re-founded Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), a democratic, socialist international that organises internationally for socialist change.

Now, as we enter a more disturbed, convulsive period, one which will see mass opposition emerge to capitalism and a new generation open to the programme of international socialism. The ideas of the Socialist Party Scotland and the CWI as a whole will grow decisively. Join us today.  

What We Stand For

work and income

• For the unions to take immediate action to increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour without exemptions. For automatic increases in the minimum wage, linked to average earnings and inflation which ever is higher.
• Scrap zero hour contracts. Proper employment rights for all workers and trade union rights from day one of employment
• Replace Universal Credit with benefits that fully cover the cost of living. 
• A maximum 35-hour week without loss of pay.
• All workers, including part-timers, temps, casual and migrant workers to have trade union rates of pay, employment protection, sickness and holiday rights from the first day of employment.
• Scrap the anti-union laws. Build fighting trade unions, democratically controlled by their members. Full-time officials should be regularly elected and receive no more than a worker’s wage.
• An immediate 50% increase in the state retirement pension, as a step towards a living pension. Reinstate the link with average earnings now.

environment

• Major research and investment into replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and into ending the problems of early obsolescence and un-recycled waste.
• Public ownership of the energy generating industry. No to nuclear power. No to Trident.
• A democratically planned, low fare, publicly owner transport system, as part of an overall plan against environmental pollution.
• Socialist Change not Climate Change

public services

• No to privatisation and PFI/PPP. Renationalise all privatised utilities and services.
• A democratically planned, low fare, publicly owner transport system, as part of an overall plan against environmental pollution.
• A socialist NHS to provide for everyone’s health – free at the point of use and under democratic control. Kick out the private contractors.
• Keep council housing public. For a massive programme of publicly owned housing to provide good quality homes at low rents.
• Fully fund all services and run them under accountable, democratic committees that include representatives of workers and service users.

rights

• Oppose discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, disability, gender identity, sexuality, age and all other forms of prejudice.
• Repeal all laws that trample of civil liberties. For the right to protest. End police harassment.
• Defend abortion rights. For a women’s right to choose when and whether to have children.
• For the right of asylum. No to racist immigration laws.

a mass working class party

• Build a mass workers’ party based on the trade unions that draws together workers, young people and activists from workplace, community environmental and anti war campaigns to build a political alternative to the big business parties.

socialism and internationalism

• For a socialist government that takes into public ownership the top 150 companies and banks that dominate the British economy, and run them under democratic working class control and management. Compensation to be paid only on the basis of proven need.
• For an independent socialist Scotland and a free and voluntary socialist federation of Scotland with England Wales and Ireland.
• A democratic socialist plan of production based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people, and in a way that safeguards the environment.
• No to imperialist wars and occupations. 
• No to the bosses’ neo-liberal European Union. For a socialist Europe and a socialist world.