The Scottish Socialist Party will host the fifth annual Jim McVicar lecture on the 22nd of March. This lecture, entitled ‘Socialist Answers to Reform UK’ will be held in the Renfield Centre, Glasgow.
This annual event is held in honour of former SSP Treasurer and much loved comrade Jim McVicar, who passed away in 2020. The lecture is a much anticipated and lively event, completed each year with music and refreshments, and attended by socialists from across the country. It is a public event – members and non-members of the SSP are invited to attend.
This year’s lecture will be delivered by SSP Co-Spokesperson and former MSP Colin Fox. Fox – who has decades of experience fighting the far right – had this to say about the occasion:
“Jim was a friend and comrade of mine who, as you may know, died from complications arising from Covid in 2020.
“We decided to inaugurate this memorial lecture in 2021 for two reasons. First, as our way to remember Jim and pay tribute to the immense contribution he made to the socialist cause in Scotland over 40 years. And second, to use it, as he would have wanted, to inspire others and direct the SSP’s work going forward.
“Jim was a founder member of the Scottish Socialist Party and its predecessor the Scottish Socialist Alliance. Before this, he was a member of Scottish Militant Labour and the Militant Tendency inside the Labour Party. As a revolutionary socialist/Marxist he was elected first as a Labour and then a Scottish Militant Labour Councillor in the Baillieston/Shettleston area of Glasgow. A stalwart of the anti-poll tax federation he helped defeat the Thatcher government in 1991 and was a union activist at the British Rail Engineering works in Springburn.
“I first met him when we were both Labour Party Young Socialist members in the early 1980’s. He made an enormous contribution to the struggle for socialism in Scotland and was a highly valued member of the SSP with a long responsibility for our finances as National Treasurer… it is rumoured he was a Celtic supporter too!
“He died, as I said, as a result of complications arising from Covid and has been a huge loss to both the SSP and Celtic ever since. I know he will be with us in spirit on March 22nd. He would be both heartened and humbled to find our attention focused on him. And yet this lecture will take as one of its themes that in the present political situation the future of the working-class movement internationally today relies on people like Jim more than ever. “
Fox joins a line of talented and experienced speakers including SSP National Trade Union Organiser Richie Venton (Socialism Returns in the 21st Century, the inaugural Jim McVicar lecture, and again last year as one of two lecturers on The Great Miners’ Strike), the RMT’s Gordon Martin (Independence, Solidarity, and Socialism), author and activist Henry Bell (The Life of John McClean), and former NUM member and striking miner Alex Shanks (The Great Miners’ Strike).
Click the link below to book your ticket now, and be sure to invite your socialist friends and family members. Also available below is the pamphlet version of the first lecture, Socialism Returns in the 21st Century.
Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism!
Book your ticket here:
Purchase the text version of the first Jim McVicar lecture here:
Socialism Returns in the 21st Century » Scottish Socialist Party