​We are now in a position where the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats, think that we need to, at the very least, deepen our relationship with the EU and increase spending on defence. It is critical that the Scottish left takes these arguments on. Posed as a remedy to our economic ills and a means to keep us safe, they are neither. In fact they may well accelerate economic decline and help sustain illusions of post imperial glory.
​

Despite much talk of a £5 billion “black hole” in Scotland’s funding, identified by Scotland's auditor general last year there was very little said by Scottish politicians on how such a deficit would impact on Local Government during the Scottish Parliament election campaign.

​Any objective assessment of the performance of the SNP incumbent administration in the Scottish Parliament, from a working-class perspective, ought to see them out on their ear. No matter where you turn, whether it’s the Cost of Living or Further and Higher Education, or Local Government, or the Health Service or the Schools or the Ferries, we find the same old neo-liberal obsession with fiscal rectitude and underfunding or poor planning or maladministration or all four.

ON MAY 8, the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment is set to look markedly dif­fer­ent. Along­side the famil­iar party col­ours that sym­bol­ise the Scot­tish polit­ical Estab­lish­ment will arrive Reform UK as the sup­posedly insur­gent party ready to shake things up

This article is based on a speech delivered by Brian Leishman MP for the Morning Star Fringe at the STUC Congress, April 21st 2026.
​
​We had a decade and a half of austerity where the richest won and communities all over the country were ripped apart. The poorest and most vulnerable in society have been put back into Victorian era poverty.

​The Scottish Labour Party describes itself as “the party of devolution” but is that commitment shared by this Labour government?

​This week members of Unite will be receiving ballot papers for the elections of the Unite Executive Council which will hold office from 1st May until to 30th April 2029. The papers are currently being distributed and must be returned by 27th April. 

You can access the re-launched Citizen here: ​The Citizen — Campaign for Socialism

​Scottish Labour Party Conference on the last Friday of February was a strange affair. It happened, of course, on the day after the disastrous (well, disastrous for Labour)  Gorton and Denton by election, a string of polls saying that the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) was toast in the May Scottish Parliament elections and a futile attempt by Anas Sarwar to defenestrate his best pal Keir Starmer, a couple of weeks previously