Refugee joins anti-war calls

An Afghan refugee will join Scottish Socialist Party leader Colin Fox in calling for British soldiers to be withdrawn from Afghanistan at a meeting in Edinburgh tomorrow.
Mohammad Asif, chairman of the Scottish Afghan Society, will tell students at Edinburgh University that his countrymen bitterly resent the presence of British soldiers in their lands.
He said: "Afghans see Britain and America illegally occupying our country for the past eight years and we want them to leave immediately.
"Mr Fox said opinion polls showed a majority of Britons also want to see the troops brought back home. The open meeting starts at 1pm in Room G.02, William Robertson Building, George Square.

Referendum relevance

This article appeared in the Morning Star newspaper on 23/9/09.
At the same time as Alex Salmond was presenting his Governments legislative programme for the coming year to the Scottish Parliament, including as it does the Bill for a referendum on Independence, undertakers were presenting two corpses to the army for burial. Twenty four year old Kevin Elliott from Dundee and his comrade Stuart Millar from Inverness were killed in a war 60% of Scots don’t support.
Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat MSP’s far removed from the hell that is Helmand province, lined up to denounce Salmond’s referendum as ‘an irrelevance’. Labour leader Iain Gray said it was ‘constitutional vandalism, an unwelcome distraction from the job of fighting the recession’. Annabel Goldie for the Tories accused Salmond of ‘posturing’ and Tavish Scott dismissed it as ‘being more about the SNP’s internal politics’ than anything else.
As ever in politics it pays to look at the context of any debate. Scotland is a nation which has repeatedly made it clear that, left to its own devices, it would not have troops fighting, and dying, in Afghanistan. Yet we are not afforded a referendum on that choice. Scotland also asserted its opposition to the war in Iraq but got no referendum then either. Our opposition to nuclear weapons based on the Clyde and our opposition to the monarchy is similarly ignored.
Scotland’s political ‘centre of gravity’ has been to the left of New Labour for some time. The SNP have exploited this fact in recent years. People rejected PFI but New Labour pressed ahead and privatised schools, hospitals, prisons and council housing. Scots favour redistribution of wealth and public ownership but the party of neo liberalism rejected these values.
Salmond argues that the referendum is no dry constitutional argument and he’s right.
This is about democracy itself and Labour in particular is in a complete ‘fankle’ on the issue. Iain Gray’s predecessor Wendy Alexander claimed, during her brief and ineffectual spell at the helm, that Labour would welcome a referendum. ‘Bring it on’ she goaded Salmond famously, believing voters would reject Independence outright. She calculated this tactic would ‘shoot Salmond’s fox’. In the end the only thing ‘shot’ was poor old Wendy herself, forced to resign after a Parliamentary Committee found her guilty of tawdry financial misdemeanours.
Yet the argument for the referendum remains potent, ‘Let the people decide’. Those who deny Scots their say risk being branded ‘democracy deniers’ by voters.
Of course there is a legitimate concern within the left that the ‘break up’ of the UK could weaken the working class movement as a whole in these islands. But it need not be so. Our movement has never moved at the same pace throughout Britain throughout history. The important advances made by working class activism in East London, Merseyside, South Wales, Clydeside, Yorkshire or the North East for example in the 20th century didn’t hold us back from developing general unions, the shop stewards movement, advancing women’s suffrage or defeating the poll tax.
The Referendum may not happen at all if MSP’s vote the Bill down but the wider Independence debate will continue nonetheless and in an altogether different atmosphere if, as seems inevitable David Cameron wins the Westminster General Election. This outcome will inevitably lead to yet another ‘democratic deficit’ for Scotland. It was just such a painful and enduring experience under Thatcher which ultimately forced the arch-centralist Tony Blair to concede a Scottish Parliament in 1997, an assembly he famously and accurately described as having all the powers of a ‘parish council’.
The Scottish Socialist Party supports a referendum on Independence because we believe the voice of the people should be heard after an informed debate with the option of Independence thoroughly evaluated. We will campaign for a ‘yes’ vote because we believe the break up of the British state to be a thoroughly progressive step. Let’s not forget this is the state which as well as leading us into senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is also the 4th largest arms exporter in the world, with its own nuclear ‘weapons of mass destruction’ based on the Clyde, which has been at the forefront of neo liberal exploitation worldwide and maintains the worst anti trades union legislation in Western Europe. The ruling classes in Britain vehemently oppose any diminution of that power. We should not.
The Scottish Socialist Party is convinced working people and the poor in Scotland, the strongest advocates for Independence today, will be economically, socially, culturally and politically better off if we are able to determine our own future. We believe that the question should now be put.

Public Meeting on Aghanistan

Picture taken at the public meeting on Afghanistan with Rose Gentle from Military Families Against the War.

Fox tells Gordon Brown: 'bring home British troops or resign'

Article published on today's Edinburgh Evening News:

SCOTTISH Socialist Party leader Colin Fox will tell a public meeting in Edinburgh this week that Gordon Brown should either bring home British troops from Afghanistan or resign.Amid reports of a low turnout in the Afghan presidential elections - just150 voted in an area which saw some of the bloodiest fighting involving British soldiers - the former Lothians' MSP said Labour's strategy had been reduced to "tatters".
He said: "The unparalleled British casualties sustained during July and August from this aggressive operation now appear to have been for nothing."
Sharing the platform with Mr Fox at Wednesday night's meeting in Jury's Inn,Jeffrey Street, will be Rose Gentle from "Military families against the war". She lost her son Gordon in Iraq, and recently met the PM to express concern that lessons learned in Iraq were not being used in Afghanistan.

Public Meeting on Afghanistan

Afghanistan: 8 years of a pointless war is enough, its time to bring home the troops

Over the past few weeks the Scottish Socialist Party has stepped up our campaigning against the war in Afghanistan. We are in favour bringing the troops home and letting the Afghans run Afghanistan.
No other party in Scottish politics can hold a candle to the SSP's record in opposing the senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since it is now 8 years since Tony Blair took us to war in Afghanistan alongside his chum the 'Texan terrorist' George Bush we are entitled to draw up a balance sheet on what has been achieved. Tens of thousands of innocent Afghan civilians have been killed, tens of millions now consider Britain and America to be occupying their country against their express wishes, and more young British soldiers have been killed than died in Iraq, that other pointless, senseless war.
In the face of these facts the bankruptcy of Gordon Brown is clear for all to see as the best he can say is that 'we must resign ourselves to being in Afghanistan for a further 40 years'.
Well I tell you what, rather than us resigning ourselves to another 40 years of this senseless, pointless war, it is Gordon Brown who should be resigning and we should bring home the British troops now.
In the next few weeks the Scottish Socialist Party in Edinburgh will hold a public meeting on the issue to offer the public a chance to have their say. Rose Gentle, who lost her son Gordon in Iraq, from Military Families Against the war, will join me on the platform to outline why the majority of the British people now oppose the war and wish to see British troops withdrawn.
Watch this space for details of the meeting.

Peoples Festival celebrates songs of protest

In the year Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ and Woody Guthrie’s ‘This land is your land’ were sung at the inauguration of a US President and we celebrate the 250th anniversary of songwriter and poet Robert Burns the Edinburgh People’s Festival presents a musical tribute to those protest tunes which changed the world.
Musicians Fiona Keenan, Lee Paterson and Wendy Weatherby will join rock bands Townhouse and Enradgey in the Nelson Hall, St Leonards on Saturday night [15th August] for an evening celebrating political songs of protest.
This year more than most we have cause to reflect on how the power of music and song can change the world. People in this city and beyond have used music and songs throughout history to express their feelings, campaigns and struggles for justice and equality. The People’s Festival presents a wonderful array of talent using various musical genres to show how music and song has changed the world, whether that be in the fight for civil rights in the US, for peace in the world, on picket lines or against apartheid and other forms of oppression.
‘Songs of Protest’ starts at 7.30pm on Saturday 15th August. Tickets are available on the door on the night priced £2.00.*
[*The People's Festival acknowledges the support of the city's trade union movement in allowing us to keep ticket prices within everyone's reach]
For full details of the Edinburgh People’s Festival visit www.edinburghpeoplesfestival.org