Scotland: Colin Fox on the RISE left alliance's launch and platform

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August 25, 2015 – STV News, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – On August 29 in Glasgow we will see the birth of a Rise, a new left wing anti-austerity movement designed to shake up Scotland's political establishment and win seats at next year's Holyrood elections.

Born out of the referendum campaign using an umbrella model based on SYRIZA in Greece, the alliance brings together activists from different left-wing strands on a platform spelled out by its name: Respect, Independence, Socialism, Enviromentalism.

The group's website carries a statement of intent, which reads: "There is a need for something truly new and original to be born out of the independence movement that can manifest itself at the ballot box in 2016 and beyond. We do not presume to have all of the answers, but we intend to start a conversation around certain core principles that must be represented in politics once more.

"That is why this project is being launched. It will be based on the principles of radical social change: participatory democracy, democratic public ownership, the redistribution of wealth and power from the rich to the poor and full independence from the British state and its monarch.

It will stand for the two spirits of ’45: the vast grassroots movement that inspired 45% of the population to vote Yes for social justice and equality in an independent Scotland; and the year of 1945, when the generation that had defeated fascism created the National Health Service, even while public debt was at its highest ever."

One of the founders of Rise, the Scottish Socialist Party's Colin Fox, spoke to Scotland Tonight (above) about the movement.