Scottish Militant trouncing Labour
By Frank Noakes
EDINBURGH — Scottish Militant Labour, formed by activists expelled from the Labour Party, has had a series of victories in local council elections in Scotland's largest city, Glasgow. SML member Christine McVicar won a seat on the Strathclyde regional council, the largest local authority in Europe, in a by-election last month.
McVicar beat her Labour Party opponent by 850 votes, receiving 54%. Previously, the Labour Party had considered this seat safe, holding it by a margin of 3000 votes.
This rejection of the Scottish Labour Party, whose membership has halved to 17,000 in the last couple of years, reflects a growing perception that Labour represents the establishment and not the people. Consequently, Scotland has the smallest base of Labour Party membership in the whole of Britain.
In May, SML won four seats from Labour in Glasgow, one of the most economically depressed areas in Britain — 30% of males on some of the housing estates are unemployed, and housing conditions have been described as "obscene". It is reported that many young people from these housing estates that do have jobs are being paid as little as £1 an hour.
Scottish Militant Tommy Sheridan won his seat from a prison cell while serving a sentence for refusing to pay the hated poll tax. He was released in July. Militant Tendency is increasingly active outside of the Labour Party as a result of an ongoing witch-hunt against it orchestrated by the Labour leadership.