Bill Bonnar
At a Scottish Trades Union Congress rally in October 2014.
NationalityScottish
Political partyScottish Socialist Party

Bill Bonnar is a founding member of the Scottish Socialist Party.

Personal life

A socialist activist for over forty years in Scotland, London, and Sudan, Bonnar has wide-ranging experience in the trade union movement and community politics. He worked as an aid worker in Sudan before the 1989 coup,[1] and has worked full-time in the field of Community Development and Social and Economic Regeneration for the past 25 years.

He worked for two years as a Community Worker in South Lanarkshire, seven years as Development Officer with housing associations in Glasgow and South Lanarkshire, including Govan Housing Association,[2][3] and five years as a Social Enterprise Advisor with Glasgow Regeneration Agency.

Bonnar has a degree in Politics and History from the University of Stirling. He is married to Vivienne and they have two daughters, Katie and Jenny.

Political career

Bonnar became involved in politics as a teenager, joining the Young Communist League in 1974 and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1975. He was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Young Communist League and as Secretary of the Young Communist League in Scotland. At Stirling University, he was Secretary of the Communist Society.

At some point, Bonnar served on the editorial committee of Marxism Today,[4] a theoretical magazine generally seen as the standard-bearer for the "reformist" wing of the CPGB.[5] Bonnar remained a Communist Party member until the party's dissolution in 1991.

While in London, Bonnar worked for left-wing bookshop Central Books, and was chairperson of the Connolly Association's London South branch. He has held various trade union positions in Glasgow and London. During his time as an aid worker in Sudan, he was an active member of the then-legal Sudanese Communist Party in Darfur and Khartoum.[1]

After the dissolution of the CPGB, Bonnar helped found the Communist Party of Scotland and became its National Secretary. In 1996, he was a founding member of the Scottish Socialist Alliance (SSA) and stood as its candidate in Glasgow Anniesland in the 1997 general election.[6] He became a founding member of the Scottish Socialist Party in 1998,[7][8] and stood as the candidate for Glasgow Rutherglen in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, where he won 2,259 votes (9.6%).[9] He contested the newly-drawn Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat at the 2005 United Kingdom general election for the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), but failed to be elected. Bonnar finished in fifth place with 1,164 votes and a vote share of 2.7%.

Among other community work, Bonnar spearheaded a successful effort to commemorate ten volunteers from Rutherglen and Cambuslang who fought in the Spanish Civil War as part of the International Brigades with a plaque in Rutherglen Town Hall.[10]

Bonnar was re-elected as the Scottish Socialist Party's co-chair alongside Frances Curran at its 2014 conference.[11] At the party's 2015 conference six months later, he stood down as co-chair and was returned unopposed as National Secretary, taking over from Kevin McVey.[12] He was also his party's unsuccessful nominee for Glasgow South West at the 2015 general election.[13]

He was the SSP's candidate in the Govan ward in Glasgow at the 2017 and 2022 Scottish local elections. He was their candidate in the 2023 by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, where he finished 8th of 14 candidates with 271 votes (0.9%).[14][15]

References

  1. 1 2 "End to fighting is first priority in South Sudan" (PDF). No. 430. Scottish Socialist Voice. p. 15. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  2. ↑ "Rutherglen & Hamilton West". Archived from the original on 29 November 2014.
  3. ↑ "Cinema to star in pounds 20,000 Govan revamp". The Herald. 6 April 2005. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  4. ↑ "So what does revolution look like?" (PDF). Scottish Left Review. p. 6.
  5. ↑ Pimlott, Herbert (2005). "From "Old Left" to "New Labour"? Eric Hobsbawm and the rhetoric of "realistic Marxism"". Labour/Le Travail. 56: 175–197. Retrieved 24 May 2012. See p. 178ff.
  6. ↑ "Sheridan aims to fill vacuum left by Blair's 'New Toryism'". The Herald. 24 January 1997. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  7. ↑ Armstrong, Allan. "Scottish Socialist Party Conference Report". Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  8. ↑ "Party launched to unite the left". The Herald. 12 February 1996. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  9. ↑ MacLeod, Catherine (2 May 2003). "Sheridan's socialists now a force all over the country". The Herald. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  10. ↑ Spencer, Ben; Dickie, Douglas (31 January 2008). "Remembering Spanish Civil War volunteers". Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  11. ↑ "Scotland: Spirited socialist conference tackles post-referendum challenges". Green Left Weekly. 31 October 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  12. ↑ "Secretary KATIE BONNAR: 'There are big plans for the SSP in Glasgow this year'". 26 May 2015. Archived from the original on 12 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  13. ↑ "2015 general election results: Glasgow South West". UK Parliament.
  14. ↑ Gaddi, Billy (27 June 2023). "Scottish Socialist Party urges locals to sign Rutherglen and Hamilton West recall petition". Daily Record. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
  15. ↑ Meighan, Craig (6 October 2023). "Scottish Labour wins key Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election". STV News. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
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