Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tommy Sheridan to stand in the Euro-elections

Just seen this in today's Daily Record. Tommy Sheridan former Scottish Socialist Party leader, former Big Brother housemate and law school drop out is to stand in the Euro-elections in the Scottish region at the head of the RMT's anti-EU list.

The list, according to rumours, intends to stand in every region in the UK (although probably not the Irish bit come to think of it) as "No to the EU - Yes to Democracy". Bob Crow will probably head the London list.

I say the RMT list but obviously the RMT members haven't made or even been informed of this development and candidates' selection has been in smoky backrooms rather than by any sort of democratic process. Personally if I was an RMT member I'd be pretty pissed off about that, but apparently it's Crow's union to do what he wants with, so away they go.

There will be a number of anti-EU parties at the coming Euro-elections including the organisation Libertas, funded by the Irish businessman who bankrolled the successful anti-EU constitution campaign last year. I suspect none of these ventures are going to make much of a ripple and will do more to harm the UKIP vote than anyone else so I'm not massively worked up about it.

However, I am narked by the way union funds can be spent on a completely new project which takes the union in a fundamentally new direction without even taking it to the members first. Democracy? Not much.

2 comments:

James Mackenzie said...

Tommy didn't exactly confirm it in that story, though. I think standing as Solidarity leader is more likely, if less newsworthy.

Jim Jepps said...

It's in other bits of the press too.

the BBC quote a spokesman as saying "Tommy is interested in principle and we are in discussions with the RMT."

I accept that's putting it less strongly than the Record's piece though...