BREAK FROM BILLIONAIRES' BREADLINE BRITAIN!

Since our formation in 1998, the SSP has consistently fought for an independent socialist Scotland. We are the one and only party to have done so for the past 16 years - tirelessly.

Throughout the two years of the Referendum campaign, we have championed the central argument that the Scottish working class majority are key to the outcome, having least to lose and most to gain - with the potential power to then go on to transform an independent Scotland into a socialist democracy.

It seems the enemies of democratic self-determination - the Unionist parties of Better Together - have woken up to this, in a perverse fashion.

That Tory-funded Fear Factory has been fronted by Labour for the past two years. They've built a cottage industry in the manufacture of lies, scare stories and attempts to intimidate working class Scots with the core message that we are too poor, too small and too thick to handle independence. The crowning glory of this insult has to be Johann Lamont's utterance that "the Scottish people are not genetically programmed to make political decisions".

Change of tack

Now the Unionist cabal are trying to switch tack, in panic at the backlash their insults, negativity, and orchestrated threats (for instance, about currency) has created amongst working class people.

Whilst Alistair Darling (of the rich) still peddles BT's doomsday scenarios about independence, other sections of the Labour hierarchy fear they've been rumbled as Tory collaborators, and have wheeled out Gordon Brown to tempt traditional Labour voters with a different shade of Unionist lies.

Brown is trying to distance Labour from their Tory paymasters in the No camp, by trying to breathe life into United with Labour - the Mini Me Labour offshoot of Better Together.

Like any one of successive Tory and Labour governments, these characters rely on sub-contractors; United with Labour, and figures like Brown, have been hired as sub-contractors to do the Tories' dirty work amidst the working class.

The workers are revolting!!

This move is rooted in the growing revolt within the trade unions at Labour being part of the toxic Better Together. Even the Scottish organiser of ASLEF, the first trade union to rush through affiliation to BT well over a year ago, with no genuine prior debate amongst members, admitted last week "on reflection it might have been better not to have joined Better Together".

He said so at the end of a Yes/No debate called by rank and file members through the Bathgate ASLEF branch, where I spoke for Yes (against a member of Labour's Campaign for Socialism and Red Paper Collective), at the end of which 85-90 per cent of the train drivers present favoured a Yes vote!

Hammer Labour's lies

In the final months of the campaign, Yes Scotland needs to roll up its sleeves, shelve caution and hesitancy, and get struck into Labour's cruel deceit of the Scottish working class. Along with hammering the false Labour promises, Yes Scotland needs to make its positive vision more concrete, on key issues like wages, jobs, services and workers' rights.
The pro-independence movement has worked wonders in canvassing and street activity, and the SSP, RIC and Yes groups have also revived the age of the public meeting, with hundreds cramming into dozens of community halls every night of the week. Another arena we need to systematically target are the workplaces, directly - as well as via where workers live, and through trade union meetings.

But then the crunch question is the message conveyed; the keynote arguments to convince working people they will be better off under independence.

Would you JOIN the UK?

Imagine there'd been no 1707 Act of Union, that Scotland was not part of the so-called 'United' Kingdom. Imagine we were having a referendum in September to JOIN the UK.
Would any self-respecting worker vote to join a United Kingdom with a record number of billionaires -104 - and where the richest 1,000 enjoyed a massive 15 per cent to their incomes last year, to a mind boggling £518billion - whilst many workers haven't had a pay rise in four or five years, and millions more have had 'rises' that are drastic cuts compared to inflation?

Would workers be wise to vote to be part of a state where the richest ten people in Scotland - yes, 10 - have nearly half the wealth of the annual Scottish government's budget for the other 5.3 million of us?

Or where the richest one per cent have as much wealth as the poorest 54 per cent of the population?

Or where billionaires glut on their wealth, with tax cuts for them by Westminster, whilst two million children in the UK are in poverty - an absolute majority of them in families with one or more parent working?

If most workers wouldn't vote to JOIN such a dysfunctional state, why should they vote to REMAIN part of it - which is what a No vote means?

Breadline Britain

Billionaires' Britain is Breadline Britain. The Channel 4 last week took a rest from preaching the virtues of British rule to expose heartbreaking poverty for families, through a chain of unemployment, benefit sanctions, zero hours contracts and foodbanks. Breadline Kids told the story of a man who had to stop working when his teenage daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia, and then had to scrimp and search for food for his two kids, especially when his benefits were delayed. And like him, the story of the mother on zero hours contracts, a proud woman who nevertheless was forced to turn to foodbanks to avert starvation for her child.

Scotland is a net exporter of food, yet we rely on over 1,000 foodbank to avoid starvation in the 21st century.

Why would we want to give a vote of confidence to that obscene track record, by voting to stay in the UK?

Labour's 'justice'

Gordon Brown and others in the Labour hierarchy have awoken to the fact growing numbers of their own traditional working class voters see a Yes vote as a 'get out of Tory jail card', or even a rapid escape route from a real and possible Tory/UKIP jail.

So Labour peddles the line 'vote No in 2014, vote Labour in 2015'. They try to seduce workers with the words of Ed Miliband that "we're only one Christmas away from a Labour government", with promises of "justice under Labour, a sharing of the greater resources of the UK across the regions".

In a recent interview Alistair Darling showed no sign of being ironic when he offered workers "the security of being part of something bigger, with a share of the larger resources".
But what has been the real life experiences of 'justice with Labour', as measured by 13 successive years of British Labour governments?

The most regionally unequal state in the whole of Europe. A state where 87 per cent of all the working cranes right now are in London and the South East. Where London's growth rates in the recent 'recovery' are over twice (nearly five times in some cases) that of other areas of the 'United' Kingdom.

Grand Canyon wealth gap

But this is not just geographical inequality. It's a class divide that dwarfs the Grand Canyon. London sucks in labour and capital, with massive property booms and obscene profiteering in the City of London casino economy. Meantime in the real city of London, a property company called Property Partners has installed metal spikes to stop the homeless from sleeping outside the doorways of their building!

When Gordon Brown tries to scare workers about the security of their jobs and pensions should they vote Yes, we need to remind the same workers it was Labour in government, with Brown at the financial helm, that demolished Final Salary Pension schemes; provoked public sector strikes in defence of pensions; abolished the 10p tax rate for the lowest paid; and announced the slaughter of 100,000 civil service jobs back in July 2004.

That's justice, Labour style!

Things can only get worse.

And worse is yet to come if a majority of workers are conned into staying chained to Westminster rule, the dictatorship of capital. Only an estimated half of the Tory-LibDem's public sector cuts have been implemented. And that's before adding on the additional £25bn of butchery announced by Gideon Osborne before Xmas.

Even if Labour achieves the unlikely by winning office in 2015, they have declared they will sustain the Tories' cuts.

No more money from Labour!

And even the limited concessions on extra devolution verbally promised in recent weeks by Labour, Tories and LibDems are neither guaranteed, nor a route out of the fundamental problems of poverty and inequality we face in Billionaires' Breadline Britain.

If these opportunists were serious about added powers being devolved to a Scottish parliament - as opposed to trying to con us into a No vote with empty verbal gestures as they see workers attracted to the chance of real powers to change things through independence - why wasn't a package of legislation on this included in the recent Queen's Speech at Westminster?

Johann Lamont has at least let the cat out of the bag, in an article in the Northern Echo, where she clarified Labour's promises on pathetically minor extra powers for Holyrood over income tax:

"Scotland will not be getting more money. It will simply be accountable for raising more of its money. I hope that dispels some myths."

Living wage

And none of their verbal promises offer any power to increase the level of the national minimum wage in a devolved Holyrood. Nor the levels of pensions, nor benefits.

Yet we live in a slave labour economy, one of the root causes of people relying on foodbanks to fend off starvation.

The current 'adult' minimum wage is worth only 35 per cent of average wages in the UK. Even a modest catching up with the 46 per cent of average wages enjoyed in France - hardly a socialist Nirvana! - would mean £8.14 an hour minimum.

And if this country matched New Zealand's national minimum wage as a proportion of average earnings, it would rise to £9.55 an hour. Hardly a king's ransom, but a real transformation of millions of workers' lives.

Job creation

The Yes campaign has a chance and a duty to focus on issues like a decent living minimum wage for all over 16, with pensions to match: the SSP has campaigned for at least £9 an hour, based on two-thirds of male median earnings.

The Yes campaign likewise needs to make more of a vision of massive re-industrialization of Scotland, centred around house building to tackle the 157,000-strong waiting list, and green jobs in the potential Saudi Arabia of clean, renewable energy that Scotland's offshore conditions alone could create. Well-paid, dignified jobs and apprenticeships.

Diversify to defend and create jobs

And defense industry workers could be guaranteed decent, secure jobs as part of such a plan, by designing and constructing the engineering equipment for the green energy sector.

Instead of relying on war and slaughter for work, the shipbuilders on the Clyde could use their skills to build such equipment, on top of the need to build a fleet of ferries.

Industry experts calculate that the insane £3bn spent to build each aircraft carrier could instead be used to build 200 new ferries, and that that would generate ten times as many jobs in the yards!

And Scotland needs 100 new ferries to replace the aging domestic fleet and meet new EU regulations on clean fuel. As a modest minimum, all that could create five times as many shipyard jobs as now exist, a sharp rebuttal to the vicious scaremongering and blackmail of the Unionists.

But such a plan can only fully succeed if energy in all it's forms, and the shipyards, are taken into democratic public ownership - something the three factions of Thatcherism who dominate Westminster would never countenance.

Transform Scotland

As we enter the last phase of campaigning, targeting workers with concrete alternatives, explaining how their lives and standards of living could be transformed - provided
independence is used to reshape Scotland from top to bottom - is critical to winning a Yes majority.

And the talent, knowledge of life and work, and the vast levels of thinking and engagement this campaign has stoked up all bode well for the future.

We need to hammer the lies of Labour, remind workers of their real track record, and paint a picture of how Scotland could be if the working class majority seize the chance and then construct a socialist government in an independent state.

Workers have least to lose, most to gain, by breaking from the Billionaires' Breadline Britain.

THE TIDE IS TURNING IN THE TRADE UNION RANKS

 

 It's been a good week for those of us campaigning as trade unionists for independence. Huge numbers of trade unionists have voted for Scottish independence after thorough, well-informed debate.  



And even those union leaders who unceremoniously imposed their union's support for the anti-independence camp with no - or entirely sham - consultation of Scottish members, are now desperately scrambling to distance themselves from the toxic, Tory-funded Better Together campaign. 



 Workers hold the key to Scotland's future - both on and beyond September 18th. We make up the vast majority population. We have most to gain from escaping the brutality of Westminster rule. 









We have the potential power to shape an independent Scotland's policies by forging a force for radical redistribution of power and wealth, for socialist change. And we have most to lose if workers continue to be ruled over and dictated to by the three factions of Thatcherism that dominate Westminster politics.  



 GENERAL GEORGE! 



On 13th February George Osborne sallied forth to Edinburgh like a colonial governor to tell the uppity natives that if we dare vote for self-government he will take away the pounds in our pockets. 

Workers could be forgiven for thinking Osborne and his millionaire razor gang had done that already, considering the savage pay cuts we've 'enjoyed' at the hands of various stripes of Tory, Labour and Coalition Westminster regimes in recent decades!  



Leaving aside for now the whole issue of the currency - which I strongly believe Scotland should own and control as part of genuine democratic self-determination - working people are furious at this dictatorship by the Tories. And if anything, trade unionists are even more incensed at Labour's carefully orchestrated support for Osborne's anti-democratic threats.  









 HIGH STAKES 



This assault on the right of the Scottish people to share the assets we have helped create over generations is a timely reminder of just how much is at stake. A confirmation of the fear of British capitalist politicians at losing Scotland's vast natural resources; huge financial assets; highly educated workers' talents and skills; nuclear bases for housing their USA puppet-masters' weaponry; and not least their power and prestige on the global stage of competing imperialist overlords.



 THREE THATCHERITE FACTIONS 



It is a timely reminder to working people that Tory, LibDem and Labour all piss in the same pot, in defence of the profits, power and prestige of capitalist dictators whose wealth depends on low pay, restricted workplace rights, and stoked-up divisions within the working class.  



We can't rely on any of them to rescue the working class majority population from obscene levels of poverty and inequality in this fabulously rich nation. Switching from Tory to Labour at Westminster is about as useful as switching energy suppliers so as to be ripped off and still left in fuel poverty under a different logo!  



The three factions of Thatcherism have proven the need for democratically electing our own Scottish governments with their carefully choreographed chorus of threats on the currency issue.






 WORKERS' REPLY 



And on the day after Osborne, Balls and Alexander played their roles as schoolyard bullies, workers employed by the Westminster government replied! 
The members' meeting of the 1,000-strong Glasgow DWP branch of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) voted by about 2:1 for their national union to recommend a Yes vote in the Referendum. And the one-third minority were NOT calling for a NO vote; they were personally for Yes, but wanted the PCS union to make no recommendation on it, to be 'neutral' as a national union. 






Days later, on 18th February, 570 members of the giant 2,200-strong branch of the same PCS union at East Kilbride Revenue and Taxes met and debated the same three options. After thorough and democratic debate the vote was 60% for PCS to recommend a Yes vote; 20% to remain neutral; 20% to call for a No vote.
Other PCS branches in the DWP, HMRC, Scottish Government and Driving Examiners also voted for Yes. 



 TRADE UNION NEUTRALITY? 



However, in several PCS branches the members openly and overwhelmingly declared they would be voting Yes, but then by (a sometimes slim) majority called on their national union to make no recommendation one way or the other.
Two distinct types of arguments were advanced for this. 



Tiny handfuls of Labour hacks and anti-independence campaigners argued for PCS neutrality because they knew there is a better chance of snow surviving Hell than of them winning members to a No vote; an entirely bogus stance.  



On the other hand some genuine members who actually intend to vote Yes have sincere fears that if PCS calls for a Yes vote it could divide the union and shed members; genuine worries, but entirely misplaced. 

PCS has a proud history of debating and deciding policies on a wide range of progressive policies, and have never seen a split in the union nor a mass exodus of members despite strongly held opposing views on issues such as abortion rights, apartheid, wars, Trident, etc.  

PCS members who see the merit of being in a union do not treat this as merely a private preference; they would never advocate 'neutrality' on whether the union should seek to openly convince non-members of joining PCS.  



Likewise when they are convinced of the need to take industrial action, even though a minority vote against it; the odd handful might leave the union in protest, but larger numbers have joined, impressed by a union with the courage of its convictions, standing up for its members and its democratic majority decisions. 



 ANSWER THE LIE MACHINE 



In reality there is no such thing as 'neutrality' available to the trade unions on this vital issue. Day and daily the government impose attacks on civil servants, with closure of HMRC Contact Centres, attacks on facility time for PCS reps to represent their members, and removal of the check-off system of union subs payments as a means of trying to cripple and crush the union as government agencies wade through jobs and services like a marauding army of occupation.  



Day and daily the millionaire media pummel PCS and other trade union members with lies, distortion and fantasy fears to cow them into voting No, into accepting Westminster's butchery of jobs, pay, services and workplace rights. To remain 'neutral' in this context would be to leave the Fear Factory unanswered. 



 INDEPENDENCE: THE ROAD TO IMPLEMENTING TRADE UNION AIMS 



In the specific case of PCS, repeated annual conferences have called for far-reaching progressive policies such as a decent living wage for all over 16; public ownership of the energy giants to combat fuel poverty; a free, publicly owned and integrated transport system to challenge poverty and pollution; abolition of all the anti-union laws; opposition to wars and nuclear weapons of mass destruction; democratic public ownership of the entire banking and financial sector; progressive taxation of big business and the rich elite to create jobs, fund public services and dismantle the gross inequalities suffered under the current system. 



These are precisely the policies pursued by the likes of the Scottish Socialist Party and the broad-based Trade Unionists for Independence. They are policies with precisely zero chance of being implemented by any of the three Thatcherite factions dominating Westminster. 

So in order to pursue these clean, admirable principles, first in Scotland, then in the neighboring nations, the PCS nationally should not pretend to be neutral, but forcefully campaign for independence. 

NO IS NOWHERE IN PCS UNION
Of course that is what their Scottish conference of branches will debate on Saturday 22nd February. Hopefully delegates will see that calling for a Yes vote is entirely consistent with the emerging intentions of most members, but also the best route to implementing the PCS unions' own democratically agreed policies and principles. 

But regardless of how they vote on 22nd, one thing is starkly clear: NO is nowhere within PCS! 



Members see no sense in giving a vote of confidence to successive Westminster governments which have slaughtered their jobs, slashed their services, plundered their pay packets and now robbed their rights at work.  



The anti-independence parties can salvage no comfort whatsoever even if the PCS union decides to make no recommendation for Yes/No, because members attending the debates have shown a decisive tide is running in favour of a Yes vote by individual members. 

For instance, in one big branch where a 58% majority opted for 'neutrality' on the part of their union collectively, just three members out of the 266 who voted favoured PCS calling for a No vote!! 



 VOTING YES DOES NOT MAKE YOU A NATIONALIST 



To their credit the SNP government has declared continued adherence to 'no compulsory redundancies' in the civil service and refused to implement the Westminster assault on the check-off system of collecting union membership fees. 



The SNP White Paper has pledged Commissions on pay and workplace rights that kick the door open to the unions demanding an entirely different set of rights at work and pay levels under an independent Scotland.  

 But the key thing also confirmed by recent debates and votes at union meetings is that trade union members are increasingly taking on board the point consistently made by the SSP and Trade Unionists for Independence, and by the more recent growth of Labour for Independence: voting Yes is NOT a vote for Alex Salmond nor indefinite SNP governments.  



It is not a vote for the SNP implementation of a 1% pay cap, nor for their failure to defy all Westminster public sector budget cuts with a clarion call for mass rebellion to win back some of the billions stolen from Scotland's budget. It is certainly not a vote to cut Corporation Tax by up to 3% whilst promising very welcome social reforms. 



 A VOTE FOR DEMOCRACY: A MEANS TO DESIRABLE ENDS 



It is a vote for democracy. For the actual right to choose and elect your preferred government. To then fight for measures like a decent living minimum wage for all at 16, with equal pay for women. For repeal of the anti-union laws devised by Thatcher, kept by New Labour, added to by the current Coalition, and with no prospect of being removed by any future Labour government. 
For public ownership of not only Royal Mail - as pledged by the SNP White Paper - but also of energy, transport and banking as demanded by the likes of the SSP and TUFI.  



 In other words, voting Yes is a means to a very desirable end: it opens the path to vast improvements in the rights and living standards of the working class of Scotland - which have absolutely no prospect of being achieved under a Miliband government let alone some computation of the Tories, LibDems or UKIP.
The Yes supporters within the Society of Radiographers have captured the choices facing workers perfectly in their graphic (see at top of this article). 



 A TIDE IN THE AFFAIRS OF HUMANITY  



As Shakespeare wrote, "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." And in the affairs of women, of course!
The tide is turning in the trade union ranks towards the gains to be made and organised for by winning a Yes vote in September.  

That's why trade union leaders like those of the GMB - who foisted their union's support for the No camp on members - are now desperately seeking distance from the Tory-funded but Labour-fronted Better Together campaign. 



For instance, when several union branches have approached Better Together for a speaker to debate the issues at members' meetings they are often offered people like Richard Leonard, GMB Scottish political officer (and member of the so-called Red Paper Collective, which makes grandiose claims to put class before nationality) who then insists he is no part of Better Together! 



That's also why the Scottish UNISON leadership have firmly resisted offers of UK UNISON funds from fake-left general secretary Dave Prentis to join the Better Together cabal.
And it's also the fundamental reason the giant UNITE union has pointedly refused to join Better Together. 




LEAD ON TO FORTUNE! 



Every trade unionist who supports independence should redouble their efforts to push this tide forward. 
The Yes Scotland campaign should go beyond the limits of the SNP White Paper and forcefully broadcast - as a bare minimum - the opportunity to repeal the anti-union laws; ensure the best workplace rights in Europe; achieve a living minimum wage for all over 16; and win democratic public ownership of Royal Mail, transport, energy and banking in order to create well-paid and secure jobs for all.  



Workers have suffered too many privations at the hands of the capitalist overlords of Whitehall and Westminster. We need to fight for the hearts and minds of the 630,000 Scottish trade unionists - and those workers too terrified by anti-union laws and anti-union employers to become members - with a vision of the "fortune" available to the working class, provided we organise not only for a Yes vote but also for radical changes in favour of the millions rather than the millionaires.

WORKERS FACE STARK CHOICES IN 2014

Working class people, the majority population of Scotland, face a stark choice this September. Vote NO to democratic self-government and get a renewed dose of attacks on jobs, wages, rights at work, benefits and public services from a Westminster regime emboldened by their success in seeing off any threatened 'Scots rebellion'. 

Or vote YES this year so that in 2016 and beyond we get the governments chosen by the working class majority, under a Proportional Representation system more in tune with voters' wishes, boosting the prospects of a government of the left, hastening the day when a radical socialist transformation of society banishes low pay, poverty, inequality and exploitation.
But nothing will be handed to us on a silver plate by the billionaires, bankers and business tycoons who currently rule the roost. Working class people, trade unionists included, need to organise to shape Scotland's future...not just fighting for a YES majority, but simultaneously forging the policies and measures that would decisively change the lives of the millions thereafter.

A NO vote is a Tory vote
The evidence is mounting that a NO vote is a vote for Tory dictatorship over Scotland - a message that trade unionists and workers clinging onto their Labour loyalties would be wise to heed.
The anti-independence Better Together is blatantly Tory-funded whilst Labour-fronted.
They must have thought Christmas was a good time to bury bad news, but no Labour voter can afford to ignore the announcement of £1.3m in donations to Better Together by 19 obnoxiously wealthy individuals who are also longstanding donors to the Tory party.

People like Andrew Fraser, City of London stockbroker, former head of Barings Bank (before it collapsed), and previously giver of £1m to the Tory party. He gave BT £200,000 to hold onto Scotland's wealth for his parasitic class.

Hotel and whiskey tycoon Donald Houston gave them £600,000.

London-based Deutsche Bank executive Ivor Dunbar donated £50,000.

Another £20,000 was handed over by two leading figures from Hakluyt, the 'private intelligence' company with links to state spy-network MI6.

Paying the Piper
So bankers, capitalist chief executives and spies - none of them resident in Scotland - want to fund the Fear Factory that is Better Together, in a ruthless bid to terrorise the Scottish working class into leaving the rich elite's political puppets at Westminster in charge, to sustain the profiteering and exploitation of workers and natural wealth they currently enjoy.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. 

As veteran leading Labour figure, former Glasgow Provost and trade unionist Alex Mosson astutely said,
"This roll-call of NO campaign donors should come as no surprise to anybody who understands the vested interests at play. This should act as a wake-up call to everybody, especially those in the Labour Party, if they're kidding themselves that the NO campaign is anything other than a Tory-led propaganda machine."

Back to the Future
The other Yuletide pronouncements that should put the fear of god into any worker bamboozled into thinking of voting NO was that of Tory Chancellor George Osborne. His declaration of class war included a further £25billion cuts, over half of them to welfare benefits, with plans to abolish housing benefits to the under-25s, slash Scotland's funding from Westminster through 'changes' to (or abolition of) the Barnett Formula, and target pensioners for cuts - a move previously seen as taboo, for fear of alienating the 'grey' vote. 

That's the future if working class Scots fall for the NO camp's scaremongering.
If you'll forgive the 'musical' pun, it's not even the Status Quo, but One Direction - backwards!

Labour panic at being found out

Some Labour Party and trade union officials who have done their members and supporters the unforgivable disservice of jumping into bed with the sworn Tory enemies of the working class are beginning to panic that traditional Labour voters have spotted their treachery.
They panic at polls showing one in five Labour voters already plan to vote YES, and the growth of Labour for Independence, with several Labour veterans recently supporting independence.

Some union officials, like the GMB's Richard Leonard, are desperately seeking to distance themselves from the Tory-funded Better Together, because their own members are up in arms about Labour and many union leaders joining forces with the party of the bedroom tax and naked class war.

Gordon Brown has been wheeled out to breathe life into United for Labour, which in reality is the Labour wing of Tory-funded Better Together, but talks hypocritical platitudes about being 'united for social justice' in the UK. Where was Gordon Brown, or BT's Labour poster boy Alistair Darling, when the last Labour government presided over escalating inequality, savage job and service cuts to fund the bankers' bailout, and continued use of hate-figure Thatcher's anti-trade union laws to cow workers into submission?

Labour in government 
Labour has had decades to prove their claims that workers are 'better together' under Westminster rule, but the real-life results included rampant privatization and profiteering (under New Labour), the most ruthless workplace repression in western Europe (by Blair's own admission/boast), the squandering of £1.3trillion of taxpayers' money to prop up the bankers and their bonuses, the worst levels of regional inequality (between the South East of England and the rest) of any EU country, and amongst the lowest wages, longest working week and poorest pensions in the whole of Europe. That's Blair, Brown and Darling's heritage, and the future they offer workers in a Labour-run capitalist UK.

Labour no longer exists
Sustained Tory or Tory-UKIP rule is an indescribable nightmare for the working class. But even the far-from-guaranteed prospect of a Westminster Labour government should fill workers with dread. British Labour are beyond redemption, beyond the reach of trade unions or socialists trying to reclaim the party founded a century ago to represent the working class. The party that generations of workers put their faith in no longer exists. 

And Scottish self-government is the only realistic route to reviving the founding principles of the labour movement pioneers, provided working class people get organised now to demand change after winning self-rule.

Hope through YES
That's where fighting for a YES vote and for the longer term combine. To win a majority of the working class for YES requires a bold, dynamic vision of a new Scotland, one where the fabulous wealth of resources and skills are deployed to boost the living standards of millions.

The SSP On the march...

This is a struggle for the hearts and minds of working class people, and the YES campaign needs to tap into the deep seated traditions of hatred for unfairness, injustice and inequality in the soul of Scottish workers. That's where the fighting demands for change put forward by not only the SSP but also broad-based campaigns like Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) become critical.

The Scottish SNP government's White Paper has put the NO camp on the run by exposing their complete lack of a clear vision of what would follow a NO vote. In contrast to their reliance on lies and scaremongering, the White Paper pledges numerous welcome reforms, such as childcare provision for all 3-4 year olds on a par with primary school hours; protection of pensions; defence of fee-free university education; a 5 per cent cut to energy bills; encouragement and involvement of trade unions; rises in the minimum wage to match inflation; restoration of 90-day consultation on redundancies; renationalisation of Royal Mail; removal of Trident weapons...to name a few.

...for a socially just Scotland...

A bold vision for Yes Scotland
But to win a YES majority in the population that counts most - the working class - Yes Scotland should boldly go beyond these welcome promises. And the SSP, TUFI (which includes Labour for Independence trade unionists) and individual union branches have a critical role to play in popularising measures that could and should be carried out after a YES vote.

Nobody expects a Coalition like Yes Scotland to embrace the entire socialist aims of the SSP, but they urgently need to go beyond the limited agenda put by their SNP component if they are to win the battle for the working class vote. 

Rather than merely promising to inflation-proof the current pathetic £6.31 minimum wage (with far lower youth rates) Yes Scotland should spell out a vision of a guaranteed living wage as the minimum for all at 16, without age discrimination.

In addition to public ownership of Royal Mail, they should highlight the opportunity for public ownership - at the very least - of our railways and energy companies to combat nauseating profiteering and the crime of fuel poverty.

...for YES in September 2013!

Workers' rights
And to expose the nightmare facing people at work if Westminster's dictatorship of the rich is allowed to continue, Yes Scotland should as a bare minimum adopt a charter of workers' rights that includes the right to join and organise unions without fear of victimization or blacklisting; legal guarantees for elected union representatives to function during works time to represent members; an end to state interference in the running of union affairs and internal elections; abolition of fees for Employment Tribunals; a constitutional right to strike and removal of the ban on solidarity action. By putting forward measures to lift the climate of fear in workplaces, allowing unions to function independently of employers and the government, Yes Scotland could give 630,000 trade union members and countless other non-members a glimpse of a new Scotland where they would be profoundly better off.

Gorbals Public meeting - come along and hear about OUR alternative!

Organise workers for change
Whilst calling on the umbrella Yes Scotland to travel this route, trade unionists should and will champion such policies as part of organising to shape Scotland's future in the interests of its working class majority.
That is why all of us should celebrate the overwhelming decision by the Scottish conference of the Left Unity formation in the biggest civil and public service union, PCS, to campaign for independence - which SSP members in the union played a major part in achieving. 

That is why Trade Unionists for Independence, embracing workers from several parties and none, has a major part to play and is stepping up its efforts to reach workplaces.

Socialism and independence

That is why the SSP - which is uniquely placed as the only party to have for fought for an independent socialist Scotland for the past 15 years - is determined to pick up the banner trampled in the muck by the Tory-collaborating Labour leaders. 

Our vision of an independent Scotland goes miles beyond the timid reforms advocated by the SNP leadership, as we champion taxation of big business and the rich; democratic public ownership of the major industries, services and banking; a socialist democracy where working class people gain the full fruits of their labour instead of being stripped of living standards and rights so the bankers and billionaires can amass obscene profits.

Working people, traditionally many of them Labour voters, face a stark choice. Socialists have a duty to help clarify that choice, show how a YES vote can kick open the door to radical socialist change, whereas a NO vote would condemn them to the jailhouse conditions suffered by millions in a capitalist Britain where different factions of Tory ideology are all that's on offer. 

The SSP is determined to help workers reach that conclusion and to organise to shape Scotland's future.