Colin Fox

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Colin Fox MSP

Colin Fox (born June 17, 1959, Motherwell) is the Convenor (leader) of the Scottish Socialist Party, and a member for Lothian in the Scottish Parliament. He lives in the Inch, Edinburgh, with his partner and two children.

He is the justice spokeman for the SSP, and has campaigned for the abolition of prescription charges, including putting a bill to that effect before parliament.

In June 2005 he took part in a peaceful protest, along with the other three SSP MSPs, to highlight the parliament's refusal to allow protest outside the Gleneagles Hotel where the G8 were meeting. As a consequence, he was suspended from the Scottish Parliament for the whole September, his correspondence was deleted, he was debarred from entering the building and the party was fined £30,000.

On November 28, 2004 he announced his candidature for Convenor of the Scottish Socialist Party after the resignation of Tommy Sheridan. At the SSP conference on February 13, 2005 Fox was elected with 252 votes against 154 for Alan McCombes. He was re-elected unopposed at both the February and October 2006 conferences.

He was a leading activist in the struggle against the poll tax in Edinburgh as a member of Scottish Militant Labour, and became Lothian regional organiser of the SSP. He was selected as its leading candidate in Lothian region for the Scottish Parliament election of 2003, and was elected. He co-organises the Edinburgh Mayday Festival and founded the Edinburgh People's Festival in 2002.

He was one of several SSP members who gave evidence in the Sheridan defamation case