The following letter was sent on October 22 by Democratic Socialist Party national secretary John Percy on behalf of the DSP political committee to the national executive of the International Socialist Organisation. It was in response to the ISO NE’s letter of September 29 to the DSP NE, reprinted in GLW #513.

Thank you for your letter outlining some of your worries and the issues you think should be flagged following the DSP National Executive’s (NE) letter announcing the proposals we were presenting to our membership regarding the Socialist Alliance (SA), namely that next year the DSP cease to build itself publicly and instead put all its efforts into publicly building and strengthening the Socialist Alliance.

On September 2, the Democratic Socialist Party’s national executive agreed to propose to the party’s membership that the DSP cease to operate as a public organisation from January 2003 so as to devote much more resources to building the Socialist Alliance.

On May 1, the Socialist Workers Party in Scotland joined the Scottish Socialist Party, an historic development creating a united socialist party in Scotland for the first time in generations.