Alan McCombes

Alan McCombes (born 1955) is a leading member of the Scottish Socialist Party and the former editor of the Scottish Socialist Voice. He is currently the party's policy co-ordinator.

Background

He first became involved in socialist politics in the 1970s, as a member of the Militant Tendency. Together with Tommy Sheridan he played a leading role in the anti-poll tax movement. His 1988 pamphlet, "How To Beat The Poll Tax", written a year before the tax was introduced, set out the strategy of a Scotland-wide united mass non-payment campaign. In 1992 he was a leading figure in the persuading Militant in Scotland to break with Labour resulting in the creation of Scottish Militant Labour. Throughout the 1990s, Alan challenged the traditional ‘British Road to Socialism’, fighting for the left to champion the idea of an independent Scottish socialist republic. In 1995, Alan called for a Scottish Socialist Alliance to unite the left. The new organisation was launched six months later, laying the basis for the emergence of the SSP.

Role in the Scottish Socialist Party

McCombes is the policy co-ordinator for the SSP, a position that he has held for a number of years. In this role encouraged comrades to rethink the educational approach within the party and adopt more marxist styles of engagement, influenced in particular by Paulo Freire. He has also argued that the party should embrace more diffuse structures than the traditional models of socialist parties - championing the introduction of issue based networks in addition to the geographic branch structure.

McCombes co-ordinated of the SSP’s successful election campaign for the 2003 Holyrood elections which saw the return of 6 MSP’s.

He announced his candidacy for convenor of the SSP on January 19, 2005. At the party conference on February 13, he won 154 votes from SSP delegates, losing by 98 to Colin Fox. He was a leading member of the ISM platform until its dissolution in 2006.

cottish Socialist Voice

In 1996 he established the Scottish Socialist Voice as a new fortnightly paper of the left, which he edited until 2003. During the bombing of Afghanistan Alan travelled to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to report for the Voice.

Involvement in the Tommy Sheridan Defamation Trial

On 16 May 2006, he appeared at the Court of Session following a demand by News International to hand over confidential internal SSP executive committee minutes. He refused. On 26 May 2006 he was jailed for 12 days and his home was raided by Messengers at Arms after he refused to comply with the order to hand over the documents [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5014452.stm] He was released on 29 May after a decision by the SSP national council [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5027852.stm] to hand the minutes over to the court.

On 7 July 2006, McCombes gave evidence in the defamation proceedings launched by Tommy Sheridan against the News of the World stating that Sheridan had admitted to him that he had visited swingers clubs. His version of events was supported by ten other people who were present at the meeting and matched the minutes of the meeting presented in court, though these were disputed during the court case.

He declared himself a hostile witness, describing the case as a "squalid little squabble" but was ordered to answer questions by the judge. He said: "I am here under the strongest possible protest."..."Your client, I have to say, the News of the World, symbolises everything that as a socialist I have stood against my whole adult life."..."It should have been settled by one of both parties before innocent people were dragged into this bizarre pantomime." [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5157866.stm]

In August 2006, in the aftermath of the Sheridan defamation case, McCombes publicly released an all-members bulletin addressed to members of the SSP, entitled "The Fight for the Truth" in which he said Tommy Sheridan's libel victory over the News of the World "could setback the cause of socialism by years if not decades" because of the divisions that had occurred within the party and went on to give his view of the events leading up to the trial. He also condemned Tommy Sheridan's announcement to stand for election as convenor of the SSP and said that Tommy Sheridan's support had been "based on the more middle class and rural sections of the party" and were "united only by their hostility to the majority of the leadership". [http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org/pdfs/Bulletinsummer06pdf.pdf]