SCOTLAND: Socialists refuse to apologise for parliament protest

September 14, 2005
Issue 

Alex Miller

The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) has abandoned its plan to mount a legal challenge to the banning of four of its parliamentarians (MSPs) from the Scottish Parliament for the month of September.

Colin Fox, Frances Curran, Carolyn Leckie and Rosie Kane were banned from parliament for a month and stripped of their salaries and allowances following a silent protest on June 30. The socialists were protesting the Scottish Executive's failure to uphold the right of protesters to hold a peaceful demonstration at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July.

A statement posted on the SSP website on August 31 explained: "The SSP has been given legal advice which clearly states that any legal action would have to be preceded by an apology for the protest of the four MSPs on June 30th. Legal advice given to the SSP is that the four MSPs were in effect in contempt of parliament and that contempt would have to be purged with an apology, an apology the MSPs are not prepared to make.

"While the SSP's legal advice was that the party had an extremely strong case, it was also indicated that if the case was lost and costs were awarded against the party the final bill could be more than £100,000."

SSP national convener Colin Fox wrote to George Reid, the presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament, "asking that the draconian sanctions be reconsidered by referring the matter to the Standards Committee". On August 29, Reid refused to discuss the sanctions with SSP representatives on the grounds that the matter was sub judice.

A September 4 SSP media release explained that the SSP MSPs "were tried in their absence, without any kind of due process, right of appeal or any of the basic human rights that are enshrined in law". Colin Fox contrasted the draconian penalty imposed on the SSP with the treatment of disgraced Labour peer and MSP Mike Watson. Lord Watson is resigning his seat after having pleaded guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to charges of deliberately starting a fire at a top Edinburgh hotel in November 2004. On resigning, Watson will gain substantial amounts of cash, including a pension and a "winding down allowance".

On September 4, Fox stated: "The support and messages of solidarity we have had from across Scotland and from socialist and left organisations and individuals across the world has been marvellous ...

"George Reid said the SSP must choose between the barricades and parliament, but in the month of September we will continue doing both, taking our message of socialism onto the streets of Scotland at the same time as Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne keep the red flag flying in the parliament. That red flag includes the first stages of the bill to abolish the council tax that Tommy Sheridan is steering through the parliament, a bill that would lift the grotesque burden of an iniquitous tax from the low paid and pensioners of Scotland."

The SSP held a protest outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on September 6, and further protests will take place throughout September in many Scottish towns and cities.

From Green Left Weekly, September 14, 2005.
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