I was an SNP researcher. Now I'm an SSP member – here's why

Until July 2024, I worked as researcher for SNP MP, Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock), at Westminster. Son of an Ayrshire coal miner and Second World War hero, Allan is a self-described socialist. He spoke many times in Parliament and wrote in the media against attacks on the poor, the disabled, the Palestinian people and other innocent victims of war, human rights, LGBT rights, animal rights, the Waspi women and on behalf of other disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. He wrote, in The National, several times to warn of the profound dangers of Labour’s plans for new nuclear power stations in Scotland.

Former SNP MP Allan Dorans It was a pleasure and an honour to work for him. I stayed with him despite personal concerns about the party’s apparently uncritical support for Nato actions and puzzling hero-worship of Hilary Clinton, but recent events such as the meeting with Israeli ambassadorial staff by Angus Robertson, the return of flawed right-wing economic theory to the Cabinet and signs of distancing from human rights priorities, have been too much, pushing me into resignation from the SNP and to join the Scottish Socialist Party.

What would SSP MSPs do? In 2003, they gained six regional list MSPs across Scotland. Despite their small number, they put forward bills and members drove the campaigns for free school meals, taking the railways back into public ownership, ending prescription charges and abolishing the council tax. They also ended warrant sales – a debt-recovery practise commonly used to humiliate the poor. Per head, the SSP put forward more bills than any other party.

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A well-publicised internal split opened the party up to a media assault and no seats were won in 2007.

In the following years the SNP have done much for the people of Scotland, managing a shrinking budget to prevent health strikes, to compensate for the cruel Bedroom Tax, to maintain free prescriptions, free bus travel for the elderly and under 24’s, free higher education tuition and perhaps most impressive, the Child Payment which is making in-roads into child poverty.

Sadly, these achievements have begun to appear under threat and changes in the sounds coming out of the Scottish Government’s Cabinet ministers suggest they are losing the confidence and courage they will need to fight the current tide of UK Labour Government measures to punish the poor, the vulnerable but also the majority ... in order for the UK Treasury to fill a black hole that does not need to be filled.

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Would a vote for the SSP in the regional lists be a wasted vote? It was not in 2003. With energetic campaigning, especially in social media, and with some media coverage, there is no reason why there cannot be a group of around six elected.

Let me be clear: I dearly hope for an SNP landslide in the constituency vote but, realistically, a resurgent Conservative Party in the north east and in the south, and a slow-to-learn electorate in some Labour strongholds will prevent that.

We do not actually know what electoral support there can be for the SSP in Scotland for the simple reason that pollsters do not ask about them but, importantly, we do know that the issues they uniquely are utterly dedicated to fighting – the cost-of-living, workers’ rights, affordable housing, protecting the NHS, living wages, nationalising utilities and infrastructure – are the issues that poll after poll tells us the electorate prioritises too.