Bill Bonnar

Bill Bonnar

At a Scottish Trades Union Congress rally in October 2014
Residence Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality Scottish
Political party
 Scottish Socialist Party

Bill Bonnar is the co-chair and a founding member of the Scottish Socialist Party.

Personal life

A socialist activist of 40 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.

Bill has a degree in Politics and History from University of Stirling. He is married with two children.

Political career

Bill became involved in politics as a teenager, joining the UK's 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. He was to remain a Communist Party member until its dissolution in 1991.

While in London, Bill 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, Bill 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 1997.[4] He became a founding member of the Scottish Socialist Party in 1998,[5][6] and stood as the candidate for Glasgow Rutherglen in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, where he won 2,259 votes (9.6%).[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.[8]

Bill Bonnar was re-elected as the Scottish Socialist Party's co-chair alongside Frances Curran at its 2014 conference.[9]

He is the SSP candidate in Glasgow South West at the 2015 UK general election. He will speak at an SSP public meeting at Penilee Community Centre on 29th April 2015.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "End to fighting is first priority in South Sudan" (PDF) (430). Scottish Socialist Voice. p. 15. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  2. ↑ "Rutherglen & Hamilton West". Archived from the original on 6 July 2006.
  3. ↑ "Cinema to star in pounds 20,000 Govan revamp". The Herald. 6 April 2005. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  4. ↑ "Sheridan aims to fill vacuum left by Blair's 'New Toryism'". The Herald. 24 January 1997. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  5. ↑ Armstrong, Allan. "Scottish Socialist Party Conference Report". Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  6. ↑ "Party launched to unite the left". The Herald. 12 February 1996. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  7. ↑ MacLeod, Catherine (2 May 2003). "Sheridan's socialists now a force all over the country". The Herald. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  8. ↑ Spencer, Ben; Dickie, Douglas (31 January 2008). "Remembering Spanish Civil War volunteers". Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  9. ↑ "Scotland: Spirited socialist conference tackles post-referendum challenges". Green Left Weekly. 1 November 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2014.