Ordinary people can change the world - Speech to SSP Conference 2018

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The text of my speech, for election as National Co-Spokesperson of the Scottish Socialist Party, at party conference 10th November 2018:
I first became politically active during the 2014 Independence Referendum and, like so many young people from that period, I found myself in the SNP. I can identify with those people: never politically active before, pushing for change but stuck in a conservative, restrictive party machine. It’s easy in that situation to say: “I’ll just leave it to Nicola, I’ll just leave it to Jeremy” but I could see that, the only times in history when change did occur, was not when ordinary people left it to some great leader, but instead happened when ordinary people took it upon themselves to make that change. Pulling people out of their political passivity is one of the great challenges facing us and that’s why I’m proud to be in a party which says: “don’t wait for others to make the change, join us and be the change”.

Co-Spokesperson is a public and a joint role. It requires professionalism, dedication and the ability to work as a team with the male Co-Spokesperson, Colin Fox, and the whole EC. As the Lothians Branch Secretary, I already work closely with Colin and I’m motivated by the confidence he has in me. I believe I can complement Colin’s role by bringing a fresh, young perspective to sit alongside his experience.

This husting is about the future of the SSP, it’s about building a young, energetic and active party. A party that working people can identify with, can call their own, the voice for the voiceless. My generation has never known anything other than austerity, other than insecure underpaid employment, other than the ‘hiring fair’ that is the GIG economy. The task facing socialists today is enormous; we’re trying to recruit a generation of young people who don’t know what a trade union is – people who’ve lived their whole life in a society convinced that - there is no other way. Our task is to meet people where they are, build them up, and show them it doesn’t have to be this way. To build a community who, through our collective strength, through our friendship, through our solidarity, can transform Scotland from the bottom to the top. Who can make this country - a Scotland for ordinary people.

In the very core of my being is an unwavering belief that ordinary people can change the world. That when we reach out to one another and pull each other up, encourage one another, build the confidence of the working class that we can demand more. I believe that when we do this, everything is possible.

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