crash.
Although aged only 26, Neil ten years and a leading member nine. For three years he was the Scotland, and had been For sedang commutices.
ESTEEM The esteem in which Neil was held by the whole labour and socialist movement in Scotland was shown at his funeral, which representatives from the la was attended not and the Fourth International but from section of the labour movement in Scotland.
Members from Party branches, officers from four trades councils, from the women's movement, and from 01 dicies of major trade Scotland made up the greater part or me more tan zou people who attended funeral.
Janey Buchan, the Labour Party chairperson in Scotland, THE INTERNATIONAL Marxist Group and the socialist movement suffered a major loss on October when Neil Williamson died following a car was There in capacity, as was the President of the Scottish National Union of Students. well-known socialist writers in organiser mn Scotland such as Louis Sinclair, the bibliographer of Trotsky, and her ticklin and Mcnae.
Cox from the journal Critique.
extraordinary range of activities. He was well known for his writing on a range or socialist Issues. particular consciously set himself the task of producing an analysis of the only new prominence of the national queston m scotland.
At the time of his death he was significant comrade en oil comrade, Cuesuon. us manuscros even six Labour before publication, had already established Neil as one of the theoreticians national question in Scotland and its publication will contirm it.
ACTIVIST
the But Neil's impact came from the fact that he was not merely a writer but a total revolutionary activist. His first involvement
OTTICIal During his
Anso nere were entire Presidency Representative Council. only rentected Nell's Recentiv League In The nad ABILITY For the IMG the particularly on this The LO the tion. in politics was at the age of 16 in his native Denny, where he was fellow school students in building the Party. Labour Party Young Socialists years at only too most right-wing in Britain, Neil led the fight to get it to join the to lose. National Union of Students and in 1973 he ran as candidate left for the the Students for The had played a leading role in the Anti-Naz WOrk Edinburgh and helped to organise the Scottish realise it. Carnival Against the Nazis.
loss IS severe. Neil had played the key role in leading national question in Scotland.
through important experiences such as work in the Scottish bookshop Labour Party, and during his something full-time organiser he had established a political centre and bookshop for the IMG in Glasgow as a base for the Scottish organisaBooks, Neil was a strong advocate of unification of revolutionaries, months was ICHEC neec to ceveos inks with ine Socialist Workers His combination of theoretirare in Britain, and one the MG could not attord In his last conversation before his death, Neil had remarked How Dueue use wuure seemed revolutionary socialism. Although tragically he will not now be part of that future, his and example will strengthen all those fighting to A Neil Williamson Memorial Fund' has been set up for which donations have already come from a wide range of socialist figures in Scotland.
This will be used to publish a collection of essays on the national question in memory. Any money left over will be used to launch an appeal to develop a major socialist in Glasgow Neil had always All donations, which will be acknowledged, should be sent to Neil Williamson Memorial Fund, c/o Scottish Socialist Queen Street, Glasgow. Further details will be published in Socialist Chalthe present situation as a thankful return to the uncluttered days of Tory against Labour, bosses against workers, politics of the period before the rise of the SNP. Everything points to the opposite conclusions. For better or worse the national question is an integral part of the British political crisis. The sooner we get used to it the better.
—Neil Williamson, The Left and Scottish Nationalism, Socialist Challenge, 12 Jan 1978. Many on the left look at Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 15
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