Tommy Sheridan – Murdoch’s new offensive

THE NEWS of the World (NoW), which suffered a sensational defeat at
the hands of Tommy Sheridan in his defamation case against them in
August, has unleashed a massive new offensive against him.

Philip Stott International Socialists, CWI Scotland

On 1 October, NoW claimed to have bought a video tape from a member
of the SSP and the United Left faction, which is the de facto leadership
of the SSP. The tape for which the NoW paid a reported £20,000, the NoW
claims, shows Tommy Sheridan admitting to an SSP member and former
friend, George McNeilage, that he did visit a swingers’ club in
Manchester. Something he denied in court.

The NoW have said that this video tape was secretly recorded by
McNeilage in his house in November 2004, a few days after the SSP
Executive Committee meeting that effectively sacked Tommy Sheridan as
SSP convenor.

Tommy Sheridan has condemned the video as a fabrication. The NoW have
handed the tape to the police. In a separate development the Scottish
Procurator Fiscal has announced a police inquiry into the whole case to
see whether perjury was committed by any side during the defamation
trial.

Press attacks

This continued campaign by the NoW, with the backing and the
resources of the Murdoch media empire, is an attack on Tommy Sheridan
for having the temerity to defeat the biggest media organisation
internationally.

But it is also, and is primarily so, an attack on a socialist.
Someone who, despite the political differences we have with Tommy
Sheridan, has been the most prominent advocate of socialist ideas in
Scotland over the last decade-and-a-half. Someone who, when he was a
member of the Militant and the CWI, played a leading role in the mass
anti-poll tax struggle.

There is no group of workers in struggle, no fighting trade union or
socialist leader who has not been attacked, targeted and vilified by the
Murdoch press. There is no prominent socialist or trade unionist who
will not be attacked by organisations like News International in the
future. That is why the International Socialists welcomed Tommy
Sheridan’s victory over the NoW in August.

We described it as victory for all socialists and the left
internationally over one of the most vicious anti-working class,
anti-trade union and anti-women gutter rags in the world.

Conversely, if the NoW succeeds in their campaign against Tommy
Sheridan it will represent a setback for socialists. The NoW campaign is
being waged to intimidate, cow and bully all those prepared to put their
heads above the parapet and speak out for workers’ rights and socialist
ideas.

If Tommy Sheridan were to be defeated by this campaign, which
reportedly has the backing, if not active encouragement of Rupert
Murdoch personally, it would be used to deliver a message to all those
prepared to challenge the big business and capitalist class interests
that News International defends.

SSP leadership

IT IS against this background that the actions of the SSP leadership,
who are now acting in concert with the NoW and News International, have
to be condemned. Rather than accept Tommy Sheridan’s victory in August
they used it as a green light to go on the offensive against him.

The pages of The Sun and the NoW have become more akin to the
in-house journals of the SSP leadership since Tommy Sheridan’s victory.
With page after page devoted to prominent SSP members who have demanded
police enquiries, perjury investigations, and now the resignations of
Tommy Sheridan and fellow Solidarity MSP Rosemary Byrne from the
Scottish parliament.

But it was the SSP leadership that kept detailed so-called ‘minutes’
of the November 2004 Executive Committee, which claimed that Tommy
Sheridan admitted visiting a swingers’ club in Manchester. These
minutes, deliberately and consciously kept, were clearly designed to
force Sheridan to drop the defamation case or face the consequences in
court.

As the NoW case gradually fell to pieces during the defamation case
the NoW increasingly had to rely on the SSP members to undermine Tommy
Sheridan’s case. Eleven SSP members, who the NoW described on Sunday as
"men and women of honour" and "decent and honest", gave evidence for the
NoW in court. The SSP’s website and newspaper has been dedicated to
their continued campaign against Tommy Sheridan – no wonder the SSP are
being dubbed the Stop Sheridan Party.

Socialist ideas

And now we have the making and then selling of a "video" to the NoW,
clearly in an effort to destroy Tommy Sheridan. How ironic it is that
the "men and women of honour" in the SSP leadership and their supporters
are now prepared to provide the NoW with the bullets and the guns to
politically and personally assassinate Tommy Sheridan.

How ironic is it that the "decent and honest" SSP leaders seem to
have forgotten the role of News International against the print workers
and their unions during the Wapping dispute in 1986-87.

The SSP leadership are dragging the name of socialism through the
mud. While discrediting themselves, they seem to have no motivation
other than to assist the bitterest enemies of socialism and the working
class in their campaign against Tommy Sheridan.

The International Socialists will continue to fight these attacks by
Murdoch and others, which are aimed at politically destroying Tommy
Sheridan, and through him, the socialist movement in Scotland.