This piece by SSP Co-Spokesperson Colin Fox was initially published in the National on 17/02/2026.
THE Scottish Socialist Party marked its 30th anniversary last week. Founded as the Scottish Socialist Alliance on February, 10, 1996, in the City Halls in Glasgow, we marked the occasion by finalising our plans to stand in all eight regions at Holyrood on May 7.
We will introduce our candidates in due course, but feel it appropriate given the corruption and greed again exposed in careerist politicians like Peter Mandelson, to reiterate that each of us will live on the average wage of those we seek to represent. We stand as “workers MSPs on a worker’s wage”. This the SSP have always, uniquely, done.
I took the average wage when I was an MSP between 2003-2007 and followed the wise advice given by James Connolly who famously argued elected representatives of working people should “rise with your class, not out of it”.
I have been selected to head up our Edinburgh and Lothians East list and I’m proud to stand alongside my outstanding colleagues Natalie Reid and Ally Maxwell.
Like all SSP candidates, I will put my record in campaigning for socialism and progressive democratic change over the past 40 years in front of the electorate for their fullest consideration. That’s surely what democracy entails?
I can assure voters of my steadfast commitment to them and in turn remind them of the regular campaigning which my comrades and I conduct on Princes Street three days a week.
I will seek their support for both this level of engagement over decades and after serving them faithfully as their MSP for four years where among many other things, I presented the bill that led to the abolition of NHS prescription charges in Scotland. [Now, incidentally, £9.90 per item in England].
SSP candidates will make the case for public ownership over privatisation for example, unlike Mandelson, for redistribution of wealth over widening inequality, for peaceful co-existence, not warmongering, and for collectivist solutions to common concerns.
We are fully committed to independence and advocate it every day in working-class communities in a way the SNP cannot. For us independence means Scotland’s working-class majority will be economically, socially, politically and culturally better off.
The polls show it is more popular in communities like ours because it is perceived as offering profound change to the way things are in Scotland today.
We want an independent socialist Scotland, a modern democratic republic, and as a party we work every day to encourage working people to get involved in politics and to recognise that exploitation, injustice and oppression, all inherent in capitalism, must be ended.
We believe Scotland to be fundamentally constrained by anti-democratic forces in an out-of-touch corporate elite ignorant about the day-to-day circumstances in which the wider population lives.
We aim to show that Parliament is not where power lies in Scotland today. Rather it is held in the unelected corporate boardrooms and state institutions that remain beyond the control of EH99 1SP.
Our manifesto will be published in due course, but I can assure you the measures we prioritise will seek to staunch the flow of wealth out of the hands of Scotland’s working-class majority.
We will replace the hated and unfair Council Tax, for example, with one based on people’s ability to pay where the poorest will be exempt and the wealthy are obliged to contribute more.
We will renegotiate the tens of billions of pounds tied up in punitive PFI contracts which previous Labour-Liberal and SNP administrations signed in our NHS, schools and other public services.
This will release up to £200 billion for programmes to eradicate child poverty, to provide universal free public transport, full employment and a social care system we can be proud of rather than ashamed.
The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) will make Gaza our international priority over the next five years to end the war, halt the military occupation of the West Bank and help deliver the state the Palestinian people were promised decades ago.
The SSP’s record in campaigning for justice for the Palestinian people over the past 30 years is without peer.
Finally, I feel I must address the decision by Your Party supporters and candidates to stand at this late hour and risk splitting the “left” vote as it were.
Many will wonder why we need another socialist party in Scotland, and I’m tempted to answer as Tony Benn did famously in the 1980s, lamenting the fact “there are too many socialist parties and not enough socialists”.
But, as that runs the risk of sounding trite and insufficient, let me point out the following facts.
The SSP made clear our intention to contest all eight regional contests at Holyrood again a year ago.
Our annual conference endorsed that decision. We selected our candidates and have gone door to door across Scotland for months introducing them.
We have 30 years’ experience standing in parliamentary elections. Winning six MSPs in 2003, we secured the highest vote any socialist party has ever achieved in these isles.
On independence, we want an independent socialist Scotland, a modern democratic republic.
We are not merely in favour of a second referendum, we will campaign for a Yes vote, as we did in 2014.
And as stalwarts of the movement, we are widely respected for taking both a principled position on the matter and for our collaborative work promoting self-determination.
Our orientation is to the schemes, workplaces, picket lines and community struggles across Scotland. No other party can say the same.
We wrote to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana in London on July 10 [in other words, as soon as Your Party was declared] seeking to avoid any electoral clashes and suggesting they consider standing in some of the 73 individual constituencies, unfortunately we received no reply.
Colin Fox will represent the Scottish Socialist Party in the Edinburgh and Lothians East region on May 7. He was the SSP’s Lothians list MSP from 2003-2007 and sat on the Yes Scotland advisory board 2012-14