the Scottish Socialist party have approved a report to go to their conference that thy should only contest list votes, and not put forward candidates on the list.
this could pave the way for the ssp to recommend to voters to vote snp, or other left of centre candidates who are pro-independence.
this could have major consequences for the 2007 Holyrood elections, where a number of seats could change hands from Labour to the SNP, and could help the greens and the ssp in the second ballot paper, and gain seats on the list - giving the possibilty that pro-independence parties will be in the majority.
this appears to me to make strategic sense for the ssp, and if approved, shows that they are prepared to get involved in real politic.
lets face it, they cant recommend voting new labour!
Originally posted by chris stephensTo explain to those unfamiliar with the nuances of Scottish politics. For the Scottish parliament, we have 2 kinds of seats. We have constituency MSPs, much like Westminster (though on different boundaries) and we have list MSPs, who are elected through a PR system.
the Scottish Socialist party have approved a report to go to their conference that thy should only contest list votes, and not put forward candidates on the list.
this could pave the way for the ssp to recommend to voters to vote snp, or other left of centre candidates who are pro-independence.
this could have major consequences for the 2007 Hol ...[text shortened]... repared to get involved in real politic.
lets face it, they cant recommend voting new labour!
In the last elections, in 2003, the SSP stood in (almost) all constituency seats, and all the lists. We got 6 MSPs elected (2 from the Glasgow list, 1 from Edinburgh, 1 each from West, Central and South regions). The Greens only stood in the list seats, and got 7 people elected. In practise, the SSP is unlikely to win a constituency seat (well, maybe one in Glasgow). Therefore, the list vote is what we're interested in getting.
There is some evidence that many voters did not understand the system fully, and viewed the list vote as some kind of 2nd prefence vote. There are many stories of people saying they gave their 1st vote to the SSP, and their 2nd to, say, the Greens or the SNP.
Because of this, there is a move within the SSP to agree that we should only stand in the list vote, so that we get every vote we can, in the right ballot.
The current position, though, is that the SSP is constitutionally committed to standing candidates whenever and wherever we can, other than in exceptional circumstances.
So, there is a motion to the Annual Conference to change the constitution accordingly. I'm not sure if this is the report Chris is referring to, or there is some other document. A report to Conference wouldn't be sufficient to change the constitution though.
The motion to conference only changes the constition so that the decsion on whether to stand is made at a regional level, if I've read it properly. So, it might mean we'd stand in constituencies in Glasgow but not in the Highlands.
I'm afraid though, even if this move is agreed (and that's far from certain) that there is a long way between the SSP tactically deciding to only stand in ballots we can win to us endorsing candidates from capitalist parties in constituency ballots. There is no move to do so, and I think it is unlikely in the extreme that there ever would be.