Scottish PSC AGM, Saturday 6 November, 1pm

Saturday 6 November, 1pm
Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

Scottish PSC members are invited to the Scottish PSC AGM in Edinburgh on 6 November.

Nominations for officers to be elected at the AGM:

Chair – Mick Napier
Vice-Chair – Jan Benvie
Treasurer – Ian MacDonald
Secretary – Sofiah MacLeod
Newsletter Editor – Ahmed Asif
Publicity Officer – Robert Stewart
Press Officer – Kevin Connor
Campaigns Officer – Tom McVitie
Events Coordinator – Niel Forbes
Student Coordinator – vacant
Trade Union Coordinator – Rob Paterson

Please email secretary@scottishpsc.org.uk to confirm your attendance.

ORGANISATION

1.      Membership DriveThis meeting believes that there can be no democratic accountability in any campaign unless the membership base is clarified, and the rights of membership are specified.

This meeting calls upon the Scottish PSC Coordinating Committee to:
1. maintain up-to-date records of paid-up members, including those active in a branch and members at large
2. specify the procedures and individual roles involved in signing up new members and processing their membership application
3. ensure that every member receives a regular newsletter from the Campaign
4. institute a re-registration and new membership push every New Year

2.      Membership
SPSC needs to develop a large membership base if we are to deliver a higher level of solidarity in the years to come.  We need, as a matter of urgency, to put in place the necessary systems and materials to recruit and retain substantial number of new members in the coming year.

3.      Delivering effective solidarityThis AGM
1. notes the wide range of issues that SPSC has engaged in over the years and the multiple opportunities and challenges facing us in the coming year
2. urges members to form all-Scottish teams to take forward specific projects of BDS and other campaigns
3. sees such campaign teams as key to ensuring success in the many of the areas we choose to fight, or which are forced upon us.

4.      Relations with other campaigning groupsThis meeting resolves that:
1. SPSC will establish relations with other groups having compatible aims, either by joining coalitions or by establishing bilateral relations
2. where such organisations operate at a Scottish or international level, the Scottish Coordinating Committee is charged with negotiating the basis for such cooperation: where a campaigning group is purely local, the SPSC Branch should do so
3. That such relations should be based on the following principles:
a. decision-making procedures should be based on a delegate structure enabling all affiliates, including the SPSC, to have a meaningful input
b. decisions should be made in a transparent manner
c. officers in such a coalition should be representative of the variety of groups affiliated

POLICY

1.      ZionismThis AGM agrees that Zionism is a racist ideology, since the theory and practice of a Jewish State on land stolen from others, which politically privileges Jews over non-Jews, is a violation of basic human rights.

2.      Political Campaigning and humanitarian fund-raisingThe Scottish PSC is a broad-based political campaign, independent of any political faction or party, and invites the active participation of members of many political parties and none.

This AGM resolves:
1. To campaign for Palestinian human and national rights and against those forces in Scotland and beyond that are complicit in the violation of Palestinian human rights.
2. To direct supporters of Palestine who want to get involved in charitable work, i.e. work that would qualify for charitable status under British law, to one of the many excellent charities which work to help the Palestinian people.

3.      HistadrutSPSC notes the central role of the Israeli Histadrut in

• the colonisation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine
• the expulsion of Palestinian workers from many workplaces and their replacement with Jewish labour
• the maintenance of Israel’s illegal occupation
• the functioning of an apartheid system which privileges Jews over non-Jews in the State and in the Histadrut itself

SPSC further notes the call for boycott from the entirety of Palestinian civil society, including all Palestinian trade unions (PGFTU, GUPW and others).

SPSC resolves to
1. educate supporters as to the true nature of the Histadrut in the above
2. support those Palestinian trade unions currently being penalised by international trade union bodies for their principled boycott of the Histadrut
3. campaign among British trade unionists for the expulsion of the Histadrut from all international trade union bodies

PALESTINE

1.      Who are we in solidarity with?This conference notes that every colonising project needs collaborators among the colonised.

This conference further notes & condemns:
- British government support for Abbas in annulling the results of democratic elections
- The role of the PA in suppressing resistance to Israel
- Abbas’s silence during much of the massacres in Gaza in January 2009
- The role of the British government and the PA in working to suppress the Goldstone report

This conference declares
1. its solidarity with all those resisting the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, siege of Gaza and racist oppression throughout ’48-’67 Israel
2. that the legitimacy of our solidarity with the Palestinian people derives from British government complicity in, and Palestinian resistance to, Israel’s bloody programme of ethnic cleansing

This conference resolves
1. to develop the closest possible links with the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), which represents signatories to the call for BDS, which includes the three main segments of the Palestinian people: in the occupied Palestinian territory; inside Israel; and in exile (mainly the refugee community)
2. to prioritise all calls from the BNC for specific solidarity initiatives