SSP joy at union's new cash gift rule

Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan today welcomed a move by the UK's biggest rail workers' union to let members give cash to his party. In the "watershed" decision at their annual conference in Glasgow, Rail Maritime and Transport Union delegates said total disaffiliation from Labour was inevitable after they launched bitter attacks against the government. As well as the move to let members give financial support to other political parties, the union also decided to halve its annual donation to Labour to £12,500. Senior Scottish Labour Party sources said the RMT had been "semi-detached" from the party for years and that the loss of the union's affiliation fee would cost it just £310 north of the border. A Labour insider said: "It's not the end of the world as far as money is concerned."

Mr Sheridan said the union's decision was "truly historic" and at the heart of creating a party to represent working class Scots. He said: "The SSP has survived and developed over four years without a single penny of trade union funding or official trade union support. That is coming to an end. "The RMT's decision will enable the further development of the SSP. "The question now for other trade unionists is whether they continue to support the big business anti-trade union Labour Party or the pro-socialist, anti-war SSP." Mr Sheridan recently became the first non-Labour politician to address the general council of the RMT. Glasgow Evening Times


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