Writing this week in The National, SSP National Trade Union Organiser Richie Venton has reiterated that the Scottish Socialist Party is the party of socialist change in Scotland.
The SSP is preparing to stand candidates in all eight electoral regions in the 2026 Holyrood elections – fighting for the bold, popular, and genuinely transformative demands that will improve life for the working-class majority. You can join the Scottish Socialist Party here today.
Richie writes:
“Scotland needs socialist change like never before. It’s a matter of urgency, made more pressing with every passing day, and that urgency was reinforced by Saturday’s violent march of 100,000-plus far-right, racist and openly fascist contingents in London.
“The biggest such event since the 1930s, it was fuelled by failures and betrayals by mainstream politicians; normalised and reinforced by Keir Starmer’s echo of the far-right’s racist propaganda.
“The capitalist system we live under is rigged to make the rich even more grotesquely rich at the expense of the rest of us. Nobody doubts the fabulous natural, manufactured and human wealth in Scotland, so what is to be done to dismantle the pitiful reliance on food banks, the 250,000 people languishing on the social housing waiting lists, or the painful, sometimes fatal wait for treatment in our NHS?
“We need a politics with the vision and spine to mobilise Scotland’s working-class majority to take the wealth out of the hands of the millionaires, with a wealth tax, progressive income taxation, and public ownership of energy, construction, transport, telecoms, major industries, banking, landed estates and services.”
“For 27 years, the SSP have fought to abolish the regressive Council Tax and introduce an income-based Scottish service tax, where 75% of people would pay less but those on over £200,000-a-year (yes, 13,000 such individuals do exist in our midst!) would cough up £1 billion between them for the expansion of local jobs and services.
“The SSP pioneered and spent much of the last 27 years campaigning for public ownership of all public transport, including factories building railway rolling stock and buses, such as Alexander Dennis, to create a people’s transport service, free at the point of use, to combat poverty and pollution. We’ve fought – successfully – through our trade unions for a commitment to a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all aged 16-plus, scrapping age wage discrimination, and for outright abolition of all zero-hours contracts, with a guaranteed minimum 16-hour contract for every worker who wants one.
“But we need socialist MSPs to combine with trade unionists and communities to enforce such life-changing measures. It’s hardly rocket science to conclude that the answer to horrendous waiting lists, rip-off rents and slum landlordism is to build houses.
“The SSP are the only party to have persistently fought for the construction of 100,000 quality, eco-friendly council houses for affordable rent, accompanied by rent cuts and controls, to achieve homes fit for humans – regardless of race or country of birth – rather than loot for landlords and billions for the banking class.
“Given that 20 UK energy companies grabbed £483bn profit in the last three years, according to the End Fuel Poverty Coalition doesn’t it make perfect sense when the SSP demand democratic public ownership of all forms of energy, to remove profiteering, slash household bills, and rapidly transition to green energy production, led by the expertise of energy workers themselves, to combat pollution and create 70,000 new green jobs?
“Armed with these and other socialist policies that would fundamentally and irreversibly transfer wealth and power over decision-making from the faceless boardroom billionaires into the hands of Scotland’s working-class majority, the SSP are gearing up to stand candidates in all eight regional lists for Holyrood 2026.
“We have decades of experience in conducting elections – a record unmatched by any left formation in Scotland and one of the reasons we feel duty-bound to offer people a socialist alternative next May.”
“We have had six MSPs who moved legislation in the Scottish Parliament to scrap prescription charges; introduce universal free, healthy school meals; abolish barbaric debt collection through warrant sales; replace the Council Tax with the progressive Scottish Service Tax, which would double funding for councils while modestly redistributing wealth.
“But for the SSP, elections are not the only or even primary form of struggle against poverty, inequality, capitalist exploitation and for socialism. We have an unrivalled record of building solidarity with workers’ struggles, as recently as the striking university staff whose picket lines I was on last week.
“We led occupations of community centres against closures by Labour councils; initiated and led (along with Scottish CND) the mass movement that put 100,000 on the streets of Glasgow against the Labour government’s invasion of Iraq; marched and protested alongside tens of thousands of others against the current genocidal war and famine in Gaza.
“The SSP, in short, stand in elections as part of our struggles in the streets, workplaces, colleges and communities, to give those battles a working-class socialist voice in arenas like Holyrood.
“We have a proud track record as the already existing socialist party in Scotland, with 27 years’ readiness to revolt against capitalism and whatever party is in government imposing the consequences of that profiteering, inherently exploitative system.
“Even one socialist MSP would be an invaluable tribune for the struggles of people in our communities and workplaces.
“We want a return to the situation where working-class people have a reliable, uncorrupted voice in Holyrood. That’s why the SSP insist any MSP elected for the party would live on the average Scottish worker’s wage, not the £74,507 grabbed by those from every other party. In an age where people are enraged by political corruption and politicians they brand as self-seeking chancers, this core principle of the SSP – socialist MSPs living on a worker’s wage, in touch, uncorrupted – is not only unique, but an indispensable weapon against even more well-heeled chancers such as Nigel Farage gaining dominance – and whipping up racist division as he does.
“Scotland needs socialist change, and the SSP are ready and eager to help pursue that goal. Which raises the question of the proposal by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana to form a “new left party”, currently named Your Party.
“The numbers registering online interest in this proposal reflect what the SSP have argued for years, including in this column – basic socialist ideas like public ownership, taxation of the rich, and resistance to wars are immensely popular.
“But they need concrete expression; an organised force, a socialist party, to channel those aspirations and fight for them. Not just electorally, but in everyday struggles.”
“Once Your Party was declared, we sought a meeting with Jeremy and Zarah to discuss how to avoid confusion and divisions. To quote the letter we sent them on July 10, days after their announcement: ‘To discuss the unique political situation in Scotland and how we might work together towards advancing the socialist cause – and try to avoid creating the situation described by the late Tony Benn of there being ‘too many socialist parties and not enough socialists’.”
“After registering our disappointment that they hadn’t made any effort to discuss their plans with the long-established SSP before their announcement, and pointing to the policy areas we have agreement, we then respectfully went on to write: ‘We do of course recognise there are differences between us, on issues such as our advocacy of an independent socialist Scotland and our policy of elected representatives living on the average wage of a skilled worker.’
“‘Notwithstanding such differences, we would like to discuss with you both how we might work together in the struggle for socialism in Scotland going forward.’
“Ten weeks after we sent that letter, we still have had no reply, not even an acknowledgement of our approach, made in good faith. That’s unfortunate, to say the least.
“We still wish to engage with Jeremy and Zarah. They surely cannot be unaware of the SSP’s existence and at least an outline of our role in popularising socialism over 27 years.
“If they are willing to hold constructive dialogue, we can explain our unbending adherence to some core socialist principles – insistence that any socialist MSP should remain on the average worker’s wage, and that a socialist party in Scotland should not just hide behind the amorphous fudge of conceding the right to a second referendum, but vigorously agitate for an independent socialist Scotland.
“A Scotland where we don’t just swap flags and bribe multinationals for inward investment with even more cuts to Corporation Tax on their gluttonous profits, but a Scotland founded on democratic public ownership, progressive taxation, and workers’ control of the economy, workplaces and political decisions.
“The SSP are not and never have been sectarian towards other left-wingers and socialists. For several years we have discussed and arranged agreements with much smaller socialist groupings in elections, to maximise the socialist message.
“If indeed a new party is formed around Corbyn and Sultana, we are more than eager to discuss with them – but without us compromising basic principles, including those already mentioned. People are increasingly looking for a socialist alternative to the corruption, incompetence, and viciously anti-working-class practices of Starmer’s Labour.
“But in doing so, I would appeal to people to consider the simple truth that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel! Scotland already has a well-established socialist party, with a body of comprehensive socialist policies researched and democratically hammered out at its annual conferences, since the one on September 28, 1998, which established it; it’s called the SSP.”