Democratic Left Scotland

Democratic Left Scotland (na Deamocrataich Chli na Alba) is a non-party political organisation, membership of which is open to both those who belong to political parties and those who do not. DLS has members and supporters in the Scottish Green Party, the Scottish National Party and the Labour Party, and DLS members are active in a range of trade unions, community groups, networks and campaigns.

Democratic Left Scotland does not stand in elections, though several Scottish left democrats are elected representatives through the political parties of which they are members, including Maggie Chapman, Scottish Green Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for North East Scotland, and a number of local councillors. (When he served as Scottish Green Party Member of the Scottish Parliament for Lothians, Mark Ballard was active in DLS). The organisation currently has a particular profile in Dundee, and also has members and supporters in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Fife, south-west Scotland and other parts of the country.

One of DLS’s key understandings is that ‘there is more to politics than parties’. It aims to offer spaces for people to come together to discuss ideas and policies, and to support them in their campaigning work. The organisation ‘promotes collaboration and alliances around values and possibilities’ rather than ‘positions’ and ‘programmes’. It aims to ‘engage in practical activities that help push forward a transformational politics that reflects the reality of people’s experience and their hopes for a different kind of society based on radical, feminist and green principles’.

Democratic Left Scotland was formed as an autonomous organisation in May 1999, as the Scottish Parliament was being established. This involved an agreed separation from the UK-wide Democratic Left, which subsequently merged into the London-based campaigning organisation Unlock Democracy. Democratic Left was the constitutional successor to the Communist Party of Great Britain (1920 – 1991), and so Democratic Left Scotland is the successor organisation to the CPGB in Scotland.[1] This legacy does not define the organisation in any limiting way: although some current members were active in the ‘democratic’ / Eurocommunist wing of the CPGB, others were not, and the organisation ‘draws freely on a range of values and perspectives developed by socialists and Marxists, feminists, greens, anti-racists’ and others.

Between 2002 and 2016, Democratic Left Scotland published a print magazine, Perspectives. It publishes occasional pamphlets, including one by Neal Ascherson on the life and work of Tom Nairn: Painting Nationalism Red? (This 2018 publication marked the presentation to Dundee City Council of a portrait of Nairn by Sandy Moffat, which was commissioned by DLS). The organisation currently produces a regular PDF newsletter and publishes a range of ‘news, views, perspectives, reviews and reflections’ on the Democratic Left Scotland website

Democratic Left Scotland defines itself as ‘a European organisation’ and is a partner organisation of the Party of the European Left, which organises left-wing, green and radical parties and networks across the continent.

References
  1. Laybourn, Keith (2006). Marxism in Britain: dissent, decline and re-emergence 1945-c.2000. Volume 3 of Routledge studies in modern British history. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-415-32287-1.


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