Your Party Scotland held its founding conference at Dundee’s Bonar Hall on 7–8 February. Around 300 delegates voted on autonomy from the London leadership, Scottish independence, dual membership with other socialist organisations, and whether to contest the May 2026 Holyrood elections with barely fifteen months to build.
The numbers tell a story. The sister party vote passed at 59.16%: a clear majority, but with 41% resistance to breaking from UK-wide structures. Dual membership passed at 82%: near-consensus on regroupment. Independence at 63%. Standing for Holyrood at 70%. No-cuts budgets at 85%.
This podcast episode examines what those votes reveal about the formation’s real strategic prospects. We draw on the RISE experience of 2016, where a broad left alliance launched with 700 enthusiastic activists and won zero seats, and on Paul Murphy’s “elections as organising tools” framework from the international solidarity panel. The central question: can Your Party Scotland convert 40,000 sign-ups into the organising capacity needed to clear the 5–6% threshold for a regional list seat, while Reform UK polls at 20% by offering its own brand of anti-establishment politics to the same disaffected working class?
Red Mole will continue tracking the Scottish left’s trajectory toward May 2026
