For a separate Scottish party(?)

There’s still plenty of appetite for a new, popular socialist party in Scotland. Councillors and party members from the Scottish Greens are jumping ship, and the party doesn't even exist yet. TUSC and the Scottish Left Alternative has skipped the Your Party initiative and are aiming directly at the May '26 parliamentary elections and the question of fielding candidates; their hope is to 'fold in' to Your Party when (if) it gets off the ground.

⁠I've heard a lot of quiet scepticism from Scottish leftists about Your Party being 'run from London.' That might've been a lesser problem if the English leadership hadn't also proven to be a complete liability for this project, through their egoistical manoeuvres and hijinks, poor instincts and work ethic around coalition-building, and a secretive, unaccountable approach to organisation. For those of us trying to bring new people into the party, it's embarrassing and difficult to advocate for, especially to those who are aware of their conduct. And these dynamics have failed to develop a broad base of organic party leadership, aligned around an agenda for the party and for social change. While there is some courting, the broad Scottish left, the trade unions, social movement activists and progressives in the third sector have yet to commit substantially around Your Party. Instead we're all left in the lurch: unengaged, at logger heads, treading water, waiting to see what happens while the world goes steadily more nuts. One wonders about the balance of pros and cons of being run from England...

Then there is the proposed timeline for establishing Your Party, with branches formally established in March next year, leaving only a few months to go before the Scottish parliamentary elections in May 2026. This timeline leaves candidate selection to be managed by the England-oriented centre. But widespread distrust in the top of Your Party and its secretive, distant, skittish, slapdash approach does not bode well for meaningful, democratic Scottish direction-setting. In the absence of a trusted vehicle, the most advanced attempt has been the separate electoral coalition project of TUSC/SLA/SP/etc and, to a more localised and lesser extent, the nascent Your Party proto-branches in Scotland who are also just beginning to think through the prospect and approach to May '26 elections. Comrades who argue for Your Party to contest these elections in order to step up in the public eye are right to worry that the present direction of travel, fragile as it is, risks trashing that opportunity.

Many hope that things can "get back on track," but what does that look like, really? In order to develop the Scottish socialist political project out of the broad coalition of those who want it to happen, we need a clear plan to build the organisation in line with our shared principles, analysis, a political programme and a strategy. One can hope that Your Party's leadership and structures will look more appetising after founding conference, and make space for this to happen, but hope abstracted from strategy is neither pessimism of the intellect nor optimism of the will: that's blind faith. If the freedom of autonomy is being offered to Scotland, then to realise that—really seize the prospect—means we need to take collective action. In these doldrum circumstances, filled with complications and frustration and uncertainty and people hanging back, being buffeted by the English 'regional assemblies' consultation process and second-guessing the constitutional form of Your Party that'll be decided by them, there is a simple alternative. It could be galvanising to shake off the distant English leadership and their chaotic founding process, and instead reclaim political and operational agency for the Scottish radical left: in short, people could decide to build a new, separate Scottish socialist party.

There are downsides to going it alone. To a large degree, the political economy, supply chains, command structures and communication networks of digital-financial-imperial capitalism is shared by Scottish and English constituents alike. The ruling class which commands both nations is itself not fully divided by national lines, and some socialists (notably within the Democratic Socialists faction of Your Party) argue that it'd therefore be a folly to divide the British working class's political organisation along national lines because, they say, it would weaken coordination in movement and struggle. Yet others argue that breaking the unity of the British ruling class and its capitalist state is precisely the point of a campaign for Scottish independence and socialism, which would entail a genuinely autonomous campaigning organisation.

At the level of political theory and strategy, it seems correct to argue that an independent Scotland would require an independent Scottish socialist party, albeit in alliance with English and Welsh socialist parties. Such a 'sibling' relationship would mirror that of the Green Party movement's, and this vision is espoused by the Scottish Platform for Socialism & Independence. On a practical level it would be valuable to share resources, organisation and political analysis between sections of the international working class movement—but what is to stop this from happening in a 'sibling party' arrangement except good faith, political will and practical arrangements?

While the idea of a new, independent Scottish socialist party seems to have legs amongst people I've spoken to, it has yet to be practically mobilised and made good on. Regardless of whether the Scottish party remains an autonomous element within Your Party, or an equal sibling to its English counterpart, practical next steps in Scotland will be needed.

And whatever those practical steps look like, a Scottish conference will surely be part of it. Who's going to organise it?