Tommy Sheridan says he has been 'victimised' by Glasgow City Council
The city's Health and Social Care Partnership told former MSP Sheridan that all future applications for jobs would be rejected due to him serving jail time for perjury.
Glasgow City Council has declined to comment as there is an ongoing case over the issue at the Court of Session.
Sheridan told BBC Scotland News that his gender critical views on trans rights were a factor in the decision by the council, adding he had "no doubt whatsoever" that he was being blacklisted.
He said: "I don't think it chimes with the spirit of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act to hold against someone a 15-year-old conviction.
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"Particularly when I've already had to go through a vetting process, a very stiff vetting process from the body that was set up to regulate social care."
Sheridan (below) went to Scotland's highest civil court after he received a rejection letter in August last year, in a bid to get the decision overturned.
The Court of Session heard social work bosses refused to give Sheridan a job because of the 'unacceptable level of risk' his perjury conviction posed to a council.
(Image: NQ) In 2011, Sheridan was found to have had lied under oath during a £200,000 defamation action against the News of the World newspaper and was sentenced to three years in jail.
He was subsequently declared bankrupt in 2022 after running up debts while trying to prove he had been wrongfully imprisoned.
He appealed against his conviction in 2015, and again in 2016. Both applications were refused.
Sheridan's political career was derailed when stories appeared in the News of the World alleging he had taken cocaine and cheated on his wife Gail at swingers' parties.
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He had risen to prominence as a fierce opponent of the poll tax and led the SSP as a serious political force in Scotland, culminating in the passage of his bill to outlaw poindings and warrant sales.
But after successfully suing the now-defunct weekly tabloid for defamation, his case was reviewed and he was later found to have lied to court – resulting in a three-year sentence, of which he served one year.
Sheridan said: "If I was applying for a job in the PR department that may have been a consideration.
"But dealing with people who have got social problems, trying to help people, trying to use your values, your skills, your knowledge, trying to make people's lives better. I don't understand it at all."
He said he believed his views on trans issues were a factor.
"I think being a socialist is always difficult for some of the SNP councillors, but I think the biggest area would be my gender critical views," he told the Scotcast podcast.
"I don't share the SNP's position that someone can declare that they're a man or a woman. I believe in biology, I believe in science, and so does the law now.
"Now, those are gender critical views that Glasgow City Council SNP group don't agree with. So I've got no doubt in my mind that that's part of the package."
Sheridan previously led the Scottish Socialist Party at Holyrood. They won several seats in 1999 and 2003.
Most recently, he was elected to the governing body of the Alba Party and has put his name forward in the hope of being selected as an Alba candidate for the Scottish Parliament.
He said his own "lived experience" behind bars made him an ideal candidate for a youth social work job in criminal justice.
"I come from a very working class background, brought up in a housing scheme, having been in and around jails for the best part of 20-odd years," he said.
"I have intimate knowledge of the processes, challenges and what prison is really like."
Sheridan is still awaiting a decision on his action at the Court of Session.
His lawyer said the council acted unlawfully in its decision to permanently exclude him from social work jobs.
Glasgow City Council's lawyer Paul Reid KC told the court the local authority acted lawfully and were legally entitled to refuse employment.
Lord Young said he would issue a verdict in the near future.
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The failures of the SNP to deliver on its long-standing pledges to dual the A9 and A96 are a major part of that. I cannot stand again for the SNP and defend the indefensible. I believe the SNP has lost its way and that devolution itself – presently – is letting Scotland's people down. Holyrood is more fractious and tribal than ever before. Too much power rests unchecked in the hands of party leaders, free to choose candidates who will slavishly support them, rather than stand up for the people who sent them to Holyrood. Choosing the pliant over the talented. I did not join the SNP in order that the SNP run Scotland. I joined to see Scotland run her own affairs. And deliver a better, fairer country. Over the 14 years as a government minister I tried every day to help ordinary people, and to improve their lives. But over the past decade, the party seems to have deserted many of the people whose causes we used to champion. In oil and gas, farming, fishing, rural Scotland, tourism, small business and many other areas of life. Betraying generations who fought for women's rights. It's time for Holyrood to live up to the high expectations people rightly held for it, when my mother, Winnie, reconvened our own parliament in 1999. It came of age some years ago – surely now it's time for it to grow up. Over the past four years on the backbenches, I sought to offer advice as a critical friend, warning Nicola Sturgeon that to enter a pact with the Green Party was a strategic blunder which would only damage us. Then we saw the Bute House Agreement, negotiated by the present First Minister, gradually disintegrate as inherent flaws in its policies were exposed as manifestly impracticable and wholly unaffordable. These failures – plus a strange preoccupation with issues largely irrelevant to most people's lives – have all cost the SNP the loss of electoral support but also something else which is priceless. Public trust. Scotland is indeed in a state of 'managed decline', as Sir Tom Hunter recently said. To arrest that decline the main parties must work more closely together and replace brittle bickering with reasoned debate and the cross party co-designing of, for example, reform of public services and maximising economic growth and opportunity over the next ten to 20 years. Scotland and the UK now face the most serious economic challenges in an unstable world, with absurdly high energy prices threatening industry alongside staggering levels of national debt. To deal with these looming crises the main parties need to work together, whether in a grand coalition or a less formal arrangement. In each party there are people of talent and experience and a Cabinet of all of the best people could best serve Scotland. At present we can and do work together on committees in Holyrood; in cross party campaigns and in the constituency. I have myself sought to do so on every possible occasion both in Scotland and with many UK ministers and politicians. Ordinary people accept that they must work together in their own workplace –with everyone – whether they choose them as friends and allies or not. They don't have a pointless slanging match every Thursday as the supposed 'high point' of their week. It's time for politicians to work together for the interests of the nation. In short: It's time for Holyrood to grow up. We all can and must rise to this challenge. I do not need to stand again. I want to do so to serve the people of Inverness and Nairn and the people of Scotland. I want to use what experience I have to help bring about the kind of Scotland that our people deserve and strive for. That's achievable if we can set aside differences and work for the common weal. For those who say this is but a naive dream, let me ask this: How with just more of the same can we hope to turn around our parliament and help create the economic success over the next decades that in turn will enable quality public services? The same lack of delivery, the same blame game of 'it wasnae me' and lack of humility? It is better to heal division and work together in a national endeavour. Such an approach will be liable to attract far more people to stand for parliament. The most successful session of our parliament in the view of many people was from 2007 to 2011. It's no coincidence that was a minority government, and when cooperation between parties was at its greatest.
