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Jim Sillars' national organising committee:
The National Organising Committee of the Scottish Labour Party have split the party down the middle. At the founding conference in Stirling at the beginning of November they subordinated the need for clear political discussion to their own narrow clique interests. In a savage purge they:
*Expelled five branches of the party without discussion, for alleged "disruptive tactics - simply because they fought for socialism and democracy within the party. A snap resolution was block voted through on Sunday to remove the Cumbernauld, Stirling, Stirling University and Kelvin branches. The Leith branch and seven named delegates had already been suspended on Friday. *Denied these branches and delegates even the elementary right to hear or answer the charges made against them, the NOC produced no evidence at all. Jim Sillars and Alex Neil weighed in with resignation threats to whip dissenters into line. *Drove scores of honest and determined socialists out of the party ranks in disgust. The tactics of the NOC were described by Dundee delegates who politically supported the leadership as "Straight out of the McCarthy *Produced a National Executive Committee representing nobody but themselves and accountable to nothing but itself, thereby depriving the party of any authoritative leadership.
The proposal to expel the four left-wing branches was discussed at a secret meeting of the Executive Committee from which a number of its members were physically excluded.
When it was passed, a majority of delegates, 80 out of 150 walked out. The expulsions were passed on a card vote where each branch's voting strength corresponded to their membership figures. Tiny villages in Sillars' South Ayrshire constituency had members in excess of Glasgow's.
The expelled branches and their supporters won the support of over half the delegates, representing on Alex Neil's estimate 25% of the membership, but probably nearer half the actual stated membership of 900. The active membership Sillars has in Glasgow after the expulsions can be counted on two hands. The NOC have reduced their supporters to a rump.
The split was not caused by "disrupters" - The split was not caused by "Marxists' . It was organised by the NOC and the party's two MP's. It was engineered to remove from the party any genuine socialist force which could threaten Sillars' delicate balancing acts with the SNP. The SLP leadership has shown that it can tolerate neither democracy nor socialism, and the hopes and goodwill which the party has accumulated in the last six months now lie with the delegates who walked out after the purges and convened a separate meeting in Stirling's Station Hotel. From this meeting, a call went out for a fresh conference on November 14th.