UNITE WITH A 24-HOUR GENERAL STRIKE

“Things have changed in the last few months. There's a real feeling of change that's great to see, and so many young people getting involved, adding their energy.”

Those were the words of a train driver to me on the most recent TransPennine Express picket line. 

The scale of the strike wave keeps expanding. Of course, there are ebbs and flows in individual disputes, but the general direction is towards increased armies of the working class entering the fray; rising up off their knees in rebellion at being robbed of their wages, their livelihoods, quite often their jobs and rights at work, as well as of the services they provide to the public.

A Million Strikers

About a million trade unionists across the UK are now either already engaged in strike action or have live union ballots to do so.

Rail workers have been forced to declare escalated strikes after brutal rejection of their appeals for reasonable offers during negotiations. They may have suspended previous strikes in good faith, after promises of ‘intensive negotiations’, but the railway bosses have spat in their faces, under instructions from a Tory government hell-bent on making workers pay the price of a crisis we did not create.

Over 115,000 Royal Mail workers are stepping up their strikes amidst escalated attacks not just on their wages but with the threat of 25,000 job losses. Gangster capitalists who seized control of the 500-year-old public service seem hell-bent on transforming it into yet another gig economy cash machine for the profiteers, slaughtering conditions of work, making posties deliver later at night, putting in longer days in the dead of winter than during summer months, and replacing existing unionised staff with casualised, lower-paid replacements.

Scottish teachers, members of the EIS, have launched the biggest strikes in their history - and indeed the first in nearly 40 years - with vibrant, colourful mass pickets and massive rallies. They are overwhelmingly young and majority female workers, fresh in the battle and determined to win their demand that the Scottish government ‘Pay Attent10n'!

Universities across Britain are witnessing mass pickets both of academic and professional services staff as they take the most widespread action ever on pay - which has been slashed by 25% since 2009 – cuts to their pensions of at least 35%, and rampant casualisation and job insecurity. An incredible 68% of research academics are on fixed-term contracts and 41% of teaching academics are on hourly paid contracts. Perhaps what best sums it up is that on average, university staff work more than two unpaid days a week. That's the equivalent of working 20 weeks of the year totally unpaid!

Civil service workers - who for many years held the line against government attacks, frequently standing on the field of battle on their own - are about to stage a wave of strikes in the biggest collective action in the history of the PCS union.

Mood of Radical Change

Perhaps most incredible of all is the declaration of pre-Christmas strike dates by the Royal College of Nursing; an organisation which historically sheltered people who were opposed to the whole notion of taking strike action and had a no-strike policy throughout the 106-year history of the RCN. 

Such is the fury of NHS staff at being underpaid, cruelly overstretched and understaffed, suffering burnout particularly after the horrendous experiences of the Coronavirus, that nurses and other health workers are prepared to withdraw their labour. Strikes not just in defence of their livelihoods but indeed for the safety of the patients who suffer the consequences of it being commonplace to have only one nurse to a ward of 30 patients.

There is indeed a mood of radical change, with new forces coming into struggle, new faces on the picket lines compared to previous strikes at the same place, and an encouraging number of younger workers taking part in most disputes, after years of low participation by young people in unions.

The mood and readiness to fight back must not be squandered. Opportunities to broaden and deepen the fight, for a greater share of wealth for those who produce it in the first place, don't come all that often.

For 6 months, the Scottish Socialist Party and I have consistently advocated maximum coordination of the strikes in different sectors, to enhance their impact and demonstrate the power of united workers’ action - not only to workers themselves, but to the employers and governments they confront in this class war, launched by the Tories and capitalist profiteers. Specifically, we have advocated serious preparation of a 24-hour general strike.

Imagine if the national trade union leaders agreed the date for combined strike action by – at the very least - the one million workers who have already voted for strikes, with mass rallies in town centres and outside the Parliament. It would certainly concentrate the minds of the employers and the governments as they wield the axe to pay and services.

STUC Budget Lobby, 8 December

In a very welcome move, the Scottish TUC have called a Rally at the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 8th December, a week before the Scottish government declares its Budget.

The STUC’s modest demands include a real pay rise for all public service workers; warm homes through municipal energy companies; action to tackle rents; universal free school meals; cheap publicly controlled public transport; a social security system that loosens the grip of poverty; more support for childcare, and enforcement of Fair Work.

Scottish and UK union leaderships should have named the 8th of December as a day of action, including combined strikes, to mobilise the pressure on the Scottish government around these modest demands.

As a minimum they and the STUC should now use this pre-Budget Rally to declare and systematically build for a 24-hour general strike to bring the full might of united working-class action to bear on governments and employers alike.

Demand a 24-hour General Strike

Union branches and stewards’ committees should bombard their own leaderships with demands for this concrete course of action, in the knowledge it would gain widespread support from workers.

After I had been invited to speak at the UCU strikers’ rally outside Strathclyde university and raised this demand - to warm applause - many strikers came up asking, “How close do you think we are to a national strike?”, others commenting “Absolutely, we need a general strike instead of us being out all sorts of different days in different workplaces. After all, we are all fighting around the same demands, so why not come out together?”

Conversations we've had on numerous picket lines of posties, school teachers, railway workers, university staff and Coop coffin factory workers over the last month have evoked similar agreement with the need for a one-day general strike. 

The mood for combined action needs to be harnessed with urgency by national union leaders - not allowed to dribble away as employers seek to divide and conquer workers in their crusade to rob pay for the benefit of profit.

The Tories have declared all-out class war on workers. Any hesitation by trade union leaders will be perceived as weakness.

Stand Up for the Scottish Working Class

Scottish workers now face not just one but two governments of austerity. The Coalition government of the SNP and Scottish Green Party plead “We have a fixed budget”, that “We have no more money.”

Humza Yousaf tells NHS workers he cannot pay them any more. Shirley-Anne Somerville appears on TV to tell teachers the same. Deputy First Minister John Swinney responds to being forced into conceding substantial pay increases (£2,000, roughly 10%) to striking local authority workers by immediately announcing £500million cuts to public services – only to top up his planned cuts to £1.2billion weeks later. 

The SNP/Scottish Greens rightly condemn Westminster, but display a complete and utter lack of any plan of action to win back more funding; to defy and defeat the Tories’ butchery. John Swinney repeats his mantra, “We have nowhere else to go.”

Defy Tory Austerity

As we have consistently argued, the Scottish government face a stark choice: defy or comply with Tory cuts to pay, public services, jobs and community facilities.

The SNP-Scottish Green Coalition can either mobilise alongside the trade union movement and working-class communities to forcibly demand and win back some of the £5billion stolen from Scotland by Westminster since 2010 – or devolve the devastation to communities who elected them as an anti-Tory, anti-austerity government.

So far it seems clear they've chosen the latter course, with John Swinney announcing £1.2billion cuts to public services - and the Scottish Greens acting as the green mudguards for the SNP’s dirty work.

Workers cannot afford to wait for a Labour government, which in any case only offers so-called ‘economic stability’ from a Starmer leadership just as unwilling to promise to halt and reverse Tory austerity as they are unwilling to give one word of support to workers who, here and now, are fighting back. 

It would be dangerous folly to pause the struggle and wait for the capitalist Second Eleven to come into government, where fundamentally nothing will change.

Pound the Politicians

The renewed, replenished trade union movement of course should pound the SNP/Green government with demands that they defy all Tory cuts; to set a No Cuts Budget on 15th December that protects every single job and local service, and that funds pay rises to (at the very least) insulate workers against the ravages of inflation. And then join forces with workers and communities in protests, strikes and civil disobedience to compel the Westminster razor gang into conceding the funds to balance the books.

Why should workers be presented with the choice of either cuts to pay OR cuts to services? That is what the Holyrood government is doing; blaming workers in desperate need of pay that matches inflation for government butchery to services just as desperately needed by working-class communities – including the same workers striking on pay! 

The SNP/Green government must not get away with trying to rob Peter to pay Peter!!

Trade unionists, communities and socialists need to take things into our own hands – not meekly wait for or plead with the Scottish government to save us. The STUC should help mobilise masses of people against cuts to pay, jobs, services and workplace rights, regardless of whether this wrecking ball is wrapped in a blood-stained Union Jack or tartan ribbons.

For an Independent Socialist Scotland

The national question in Scotland can be divisive – or turned into another weapon in the hand of workers against the brutality of the 222nd-richest man in Britain and his unelected Tory government.

It should go without saying, the SSP will continue to build solidarity with workers in struggle regardless of whether they are for or against Scottish independence. Workers are and can be united in fighting to protect their wages, working conditions and lifeline services regardless of their views on Scottish self-government.

But how on earth can any conscious trade unionist or socialist wishing to stand up for the interests of the working class cling onto the tired old arguments against Scottish self-government? It’s the obvious escape route from Tory rule and ruination of working-class people, who haven’t given the Tories a majority in a single election in Scotland since back in 1955!

The Tories have absolutely no mandate to dictate over the working class anywhere, after a mere 200 MPs chose the latest Prime Minister to preside over the lives of 67 million people; that’s even more the case in Scotland.

A Means to a Socialist End

However, independence is only a means to desirable ends for the working class, not the actual solution to the crisis facing the majority of the population.

Unless we forge a movement boldly declaring for a Scotland that guarantees a Scottish minimum wage from the age of 16 upwards, based on at least two-thirds male median earnings; wage increases to match inflation; abolition of all zero hours contracts and a guaranteed minimum 16-hour week for every worker who wants it; pensions and benefits based on a decent minimum wage; abolition of all anti-union laws – why would any worker be persuaded for independence?

Unless we battle for a self-governing Scotland that takes all forms of energy, public transport, construction, major industry and banking into democratic public ownership, and uses that power over production to provide clean, green affordable energy; build 100,000 new, environmentally sustainable Council houses for affordable rent; install free insulation, draught-proofing, eco-boilers and fast broadband in every house; and build a vastly expanded network of public transport, free at the point of use – how otherwise can we tackle the agonising levels of poverty, inequality and environmental degradation in Scotland?

Two families own more combined wealth than the poorest 20 per cent of the Scottish population: two families have more than a million people in the same nation! Is that the kind of Scotland the current Scottish government offer us after independence?

Another ten years of austerity, as ‘promised’ in the SNP government's Sustainable Growth Commission Report, subsequently adopted as SNP policy? What’s attractive about that for any working-class family, let alone those still to be convinced of the benefits of independence?

These are obscene statistical reminders of the need not to change flags, but to change whole systems; for an independent socialist Scotland, instead of the butchery to working-class living standards - either by the Westminster Tories or the current Scottish government, as it lies on its belly in submission to Tory austerity.

People not Profit

The tidal movement of workers from numerous occupations striking back is the most hopeful prospect for years, if not decades. The leaderships of the organised trade union movement have a duty, responsibility and opportunity to harness that movement, unite it to the maximum, including through a 24-general strike in the short term, and provide a vision of an entirely different society worth fighting for.

The case for socialist change has never been clearer, or more urgent. Join the SSP in advancing the cause of a socialist future where the working class not only produce the goods and services in society, but own and control them collectively, putting people’s lives, health and happiness before profit.

First published in The Scottish Socialist Voice on 3 Dec 2022

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UNISON SCOTLAND DEFENDS THE RIGHT TO VOTE ON INDEPENDENCE

Well done UNISON!

At the Scottish Council of branch delegates in Scotland's biggest trade union, an overwhelming majority voted in support of a second independence referendum at the time of the Scottish parliament's choosing.

This is a momentous breakthrough for democracy, from the biggest component member of the biggest civic organisation in Scotland, the trade union movement. 

A full debate was held before the vote - with roughly a 3:1 majority - for the Motion proposed by the union's Scottish Committee,  which reads: 

"Unison Scotland was party to the Scottish Constitutional Convention, Claim of Right and acknowledges the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs. Unison Scotland supports the call for a second referendum, at a time to be determined by the Scottish parliament, by means of a Section 30 Order or an amendment to the Scotland Act as a satisfactory means of transferring the power over independence referendums." 

This is a mighty blow in favour of the democratic right to choose; the right of the Scottish people to self-determination. 

Of course it is not an actual vote by Unison to advocate independence, but it quite rightly stands for Scottish Unison members and Scottish workers in general having the opportunity to vote on independence, rather than be denied that choice by a dictatorial Boris Johnson government in Westminster. 

Unison is now committed to taking this issue into the wider trade union movement, including at the STUC conference in Perth.

SSP Champions the Right to Choose

In taking this brave and democratic stance, Unison has a ready-made ally in the SSP.
For 21 years since our foundation, we have championed both the right to self-determination and persistently campaigned for an independent socialist Scotland. 

Back in mid-December, a few days after the disastrous election of BoJo's Tory government, I wrote to all trade unions in Scotland appealing for support for an STUC-led demo "in the earlier part of 2020" against a Tory government "with absolutely no democratic mandate to rule and ruin Scotland", pointing out it was the 17th successive general election since 1955 in which a large majority of Scottish voters rejected the Tories - but are now saddled with this reactionary regime. 

Build an STUC Demo

In our letter to Scotland's unions, I advocated an STUC-led demo on several grounds: solidarity with workers in struggle; defence of workers' rights (against bans on the right to strike); defence of the NHS; defence of migrants from the vicious racism and division incited by government and media. But the final suggested theme of an STUC Demo was to:

"Defend the right of the Scottish people to decide their own future (regardless of your view on independence) instead of having it imposed by a Tory government the Scottish majority haven't voted for since 1955."

In articles in The National newspaper and our own Scottish Socialist Voice we made further calls on the trade unions in Scotland to "defend the right of the Scottish people to choose."

So the SSP warmly welcomes this immensely important, indeed seismic shift in union policy towards the right to self-determination. 

And we would repeat our appeal to the entire trade union movement - all 48 affiliates to the STUC - to debate this issue amongst their membership, and stand up for the ABC democracy that the trade unions were in part born to champion: the right to vote! 

For an Independent Socialist Scotland 

But as we've also written in the articles already mentioned, there is a world of difference between upholding the right to vote on independence - which is a critical issue we hope the entire trade union movement can unite and rally around - and actually mustering a working-class, pro-trade union, socialist case for independence.

That is precisely what the SSP has done throughout our 21 years' existence, including in our trade unions. After all, unless we convince workers that they won't be swapping decades of brutal Westminster austerity for a further decade of austerity in an independent Scotland - which is the repugnant prospect on offer in the SNP government's Sustainable Growth Commission Report - there is not a snowball's chance in Hell of winning a working-class majority for independence. 

Unison Scotland have broken the logjam. The task of all trade unionists and socialists now is to win the same policy of defending the right to choose, the right to vote on Scotland's future, in other unions. Whilst simultaneously showing millions of working class people there is a force determined to defend their rights, livelihoods and services from the ravages of a Boris Johnson government, including by demanding a union-led Demo that puts thousands on the streets in unity against  minority Tory rule over Scotland.  

RAGE AGAINST THE TORY MACHINE with no Scottish mandate

Angry. Sick. Frightened. Despairing. Utterly bemused. 

Those are a few of the sentiments expressed on this Friday 13th - a day already laden with superstition - by many working class people at the prospects of five more years of Tory rule and all it threatens to the rights and conditions of workers and their communities. 

I'll postpone any attempts at a wider analysis of the root causes of the reactionary,  anti-working class Old Etonian, Boris Johnson, getting away with pretending to be the leader of what he today had the typical, lying audacity to declare "this people's government"! 

For now, suffice to say that although the radical social and economic manifesto of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership won Labour over 10 million votes for only the second time since 2001 - the other time being under Corbyn's leadership in 2017 - this was largely buried beneath the toxic choices and utter confusion whipped up in "the Brexit election". 

Not to mention the vicious, systematic, non-stop lies poured out against Corbyn by the media, including especially the BBC, in the panic of the ruling rich at the potential popularity of his Manifesto amongst the working class, and the expectations of radical change it would arouse. 

Scottish Labour Wipeout 

In the fundamentally different terrain of Scotland (a different world in this Dis-United Kingdom) the virtual elimination of Scottish Labour in a country where they had 50 MPs elected as recently as 1987, is their reward for decades of taking the working class for granted, using them as voting fodder. 

Infamously 'weighing' the Labour votes, only to preside over cuts and corruption in Labour-run councils; sending in the Sheriff Officers and issuing wage arrestments as they implemented Maggie Thatcher's hated poll tax; getting into bed with the Tories in the 2012-14 Better Together campaign against the right of self government for the Scottish people. 

And then compounding that undemocratic, myopic position with their current refusal to even grant a second independence referendum, let alone put a socialist stamp on the case for independence, as the SSP has persistently done since 1998, with our championing of an independent socialist Scotland.  

Labour Right on Rampage 

Those are the core reasons Labour has been wiped out, not Corbyn's radical manifesto, as a chorus of treacherous Blairites in his own party lined up to claim throughout election night, from within five minutes of the polling stations closing, in a blatantly orchestrated assault, using the identical, spurious arguments in the opening moves to drag Labour back into being an unashamed, undiluted capitalist party. 

This diatribe against the most radical Labour manifesto in years came after rightwingers spending much of the election campaign undermining Corbyn's efforts to cut through the noise of Brexit  - including a cabal of former Labour MPs taking out paid adverts calling on voters to back the Tories against Corbyn! 

No Tory Mandate in Scotland 

So where does this sorry state of affairs leave the Scottish working class majority? What immediate steps should we advocate? 

The Tories have absolutely no mandate to rule and ruin Scotland. They were roundly rejected at the ballot box. But we can't afford to sit back in mourning for the next five years. Nor can we switch from passively 'waiting for a Labour government' to relying on salvation by 'waiting for an SNP government in 2021'.

We need rapid preparation of resistance to BoJo and his reactionary band. And the biggest single organisation in civic society  - the trade union movement - has a duty to lead that resistance. In a fashion that can heal the toxic divisions between Leave and Remain voters, between the false choices of a capitalist EU or a capitalist Little England/Little Britain.  

Demand Trade Union Demos Against Tories 

The STUC and individual union leaderships should kick off 2020 with thorough preparations in the workplaces to mobilise for mass rallies and demonstrations, in defence of our rights and livelihoods from a Tory onslaught. 

Such rallies should declare and build wider support for workers already in struggle, including the posties, university workers and RMT members. 

They should be held in opposition to the crucifixion of the NHS in Brexit trade deals with Trump's USA, whereby whatever happens to the NHS in England has consequences here. 

Rallies should include demands to defend workplace and union rights, including the right to strike, which is under threat in the Court rulings against the CWU posties' strike, and in the Tory plans to ban the right to all-out strikes on the railways. 

And the STUC and affiliated trade unions should also include at these rallies the demand for the right of the Scottish people to choose their own future, not have it imposed by the Tories we never elected. 

Defy the Tories in Action 

The sweeping majority for the SNP does not just signify a narrow nationalist upsurge. It was in part a harnessing of Remain voters against Brexit, in part a straight forward anti-Boris Johnson vote, enlisted by Nicola Sturgeon's call to "stop Boris" and "lock Boris out of Number 10" by voting SNP.  

That purely electoral strategy has crashed into the roadblock of a massive Tory majority. So the potential power of collective workers' action needs to be harnessed to halt the mayhem that the Tories intend to impose on us. 

Independence and Socialism 

Working people should not stunt their ambitions to merely being voting fodder for the SNP,  instead of for Labour. We need to combine struggles to be free of rule and ruin by Boris Johnson with battles for a vast redistribution of wealth through fighting socialist measures on wages, hours, public services and a socialist Green New Deal to combat poverty and pollution alike. 

During the election, numerous people asked me for advice on how to vote, because they liked Corbyn but didn't trust Scottish Labour; wanted independence but were attracted to Corbyn's manifesto; wanted to vote for independence but dislike the SNP; and combinations of these quandaries. As I said at the time, the first-past-the-post election system is rigged, the media is rigged, so the choices these people wrestled over between radical socialist change and self government is a false choice. 

Build Mass Socialist Party 

The bigger task confronting us is not how to tactically decide on voting between two parties - neither of which is socialist, and one of which is dogmatically opposed to self-government for Scotland; it is to patiently forge a mass, working class socialist party that combines class-struggle politics with the democratic demand for national independence. The SSP's demand for an independent socialist Scotland. 

My appeal in the face of the Tory nightmare, this Friday 13th, is twofold.  

Discuss in your trade unions how to demand action, rallies, demos in the New Year to help defy and defeat the multiple attacks from an emboldened BoJo Tory regime with no democratic mandate in Scotland. 

And to all the genuine socialists who voted either Scottish Labour or SNP, or who indeed are members of either party, to break free from your political imprisonment. 

You don't have to curb your wishes to stand up for the working class or fight for  socialist change just because you want Scottish independence - which is the fate of self-defined socialists in the SNP. 

You don't have to support the right to self-determination for nations across the globe whilst denying that same right here in Scotland, falsely counterposing class issues to national rights - which is the fate of those socialists still in Scottish Labour. 

For both sets of socialists, there's a natural political home in the SSP, who have consistently fought for class-based socialist solutions on the material issues facing millions of workers, whilst advocating national independence as the most realistic route to a clean, green, socialist Scotland. 

The stark divide between the election results in England and Scotland propels the case for Scottish independence to the fore, and socialist policies to transform the lives of millions are the irreplaceable weapons of persuasion required to convince the working class majority of independence. The SSP offers both; join us.

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SCOTLAND NEEDS SOCIALISM & SELF-GOVERNMENT - not Labour Civil War

As Jeremy Corbyn gathers crowds on his whistle-stop tour of Scotland, socialists, trade unionists and young people need to wrestle with whether Scottish Labour is about to be transformed into the vehicle for radical, socialist change.

It would appear most of the events Jeremy is addressing lack much opportunity for friendly debate; in fact, mostly none at all. But that’s precisely what’s needed, (in addition to the indispensable role of campaigning rallies) if the people who are drawn to Corbyn’s message “for the many, not the few” are to clarify how best to win far-reaching and irreversible change in our society. Socialist change in favour of the many millions, unashamedly at the expense of the few millionaires – in Scotland’s case, broadly for the 5.3 million, not the 10 billionaires!

Is it really wise for socialists to invest their time and talent in Scottish Labour on the coat-tails of Jeremy Corbyn's impact on working class and young voters in the recent general election - specifically in England? Should they ignore the profound differences in the political landscape of Scotland compared to England, or the baleful history of Scottish Labour? 

Scotland has an already-existing socialist party in the form of the SSP, founded in September 1998, and it has never once flinched from socialist principles and working-class solidarity. 

The SSP welcomes the boost to public debate around anti-austerity, anti-war, left-wing ideas that Jeremy Corbyn's leadership has triggered. 

Jeremy’s honesty and decency - with policies to the left of anything Labour has offered for years – has attracted large numbers to the message "for the many, not the few”. Although, it has to be added, the crowds attracted in Scotland bear no resemblance to the mass upsurge and outpouring of adulation for Jeremy at events in England; a reminder of the very different political forces on the field of struggle for allegiances north of the border.

Capitalist and Blairite Sabotage

The sabotage and onslaught from the capitalists, their media, and Labour's right-wing enemies of socialism is a warning that halfway measures won’t succeed in winning a transformation of lives for the working-class majority. 

Even the very modest reforms promised by Jeremy would require full-blooded socialist measures to succeed. In fact, measures advocated by the SSP, but NOT included in Corbyn’s manifesto! 

To use one simple illustration, the SSP stands for outright, complete, democratic public ownership of the entire railway system - not the partial, gradualist, potentially chaotic Labour plan to take over each separate rail franchise as it expires, years apart from each other. 

Labour Civil War - or United Socialist Party? 

Leadership is critical in any struggle, whether in a workplace, local community, national campaign on a specific issue, or more especially in the grandiose task of changing the system of political economy we live in. But whilst the role of an individual can be of enormous consequence to the outcome of such struggles, no one person can change society. That requires the collective.

Winning welcome reforms - like a £10 minimum wage, abolition of Zero Hours Contracts and expansion of education - will require a determined, united, socialist party, rooted in the workplaces, communities and colleges, committed to democratic public ownership, and prepared to lead mass struggles. 

Not a Labour Party riven by civil war, with MPs utterly opposed to Corbyn and socialism, biding their time to knife their own elected leader.

Scottish Labour bears no resemblance to Corbyn’s ideals. 
Its key leaders (including Kezia Dugdale and Ian Murray MP) are sworn enemies of Corbyn; they helped stage failed coups against him.

In the words of Labour’s own Campaign for Socialism group, “In Scotland, we looked more like Jim Murphy’s Labour Party than Jeremy Corbyn’s”. (BBC, 21 July 2017)

Beware of False New Friends 

And as I've observed at the initial events addressed by Corbyn on his current whirlwind visit to SNP/Labour marginal seats, there is little in life that's more nauseating than right-wing Labour hacks, MPs and MSPs pushing aside anyone in their path to grab a selfie with Jezz, like a bunch of besotted teenagers. These include Labour politicians who wouldn't have spat on Jeremy if he was on fire six months ago, and pointedly refused to attend his election rallies, or even allow any mention of him on their election literature. 

How can Corbyn - or more to the point, working class people seeking radical change through Corbyn - have any faith in such superficial, latter-day converts, who echoed the Tories' and media's vitriolic abuse against Corbyn and his policies mere months ago? With new-found friends like that, Corbyn doesn't need the open, right-wing enemies that still control the Labour Party machine, at both Scottish and UK level. 

Scottish Labour's Real Record 

Since our formation in 1998, the SSP has fearlessly, persistently defended socialism - whilst Scottish Labour has acted as thinly-disguised Tories, abandoning the aims of Keir Hardie and other pioneers. 

Imposing the bedroom tax just like they did the poll tax; slashing council jobs and services; shutting schools to cut spending; keeping all the Tory anti-union laws; threatening to jail workers who dared strike against Glasgow Labour’s municipal butchery; spurning numerous opportunities to extend public ownership, or reduce inequality – including during coalition with the LibDems at Holyrood.

Judge by Deeds, not Press Releases! 

People genuinely wanting a society ‘for the many, not the few’ have a duty to judge parties by their deeds - not just the words in their latest press release. Let’s glance at a few case histories that illustrate this; contrasting the principled track record of the SSP with Scottish Labour's deeds, as opposed to any recent words they've discovered! 

The SSP pioneered the battle to abolish NHS prescription charges, in the streets, communities, unions, and Scottish parliament - only to be voted down by Labour MSPs.

The SSP has campaigned for No Cuts budgets, in defiance of Tory austerity - and frequently led fellow-workers in strikes; communities in protests and sit-ins… against Labour council closures of schools, community facilities and their slaughter of jobs and services. 

Not one single group of Scottish Labour councillors has ever voted to stop ALL cuts, and unfortunately Jeremy’s leadership has never once made a clarion call for Labour councillors to do so.

The SSP has campaigned since 1998 for abolition of the Council Tax. For a replacement Scottish Service Tax, based on income, with over 77% of households paying less, but the rich coughing up; DOUBLING income for local jobs and services (from £2bn to £4.1bn in 2015 figures).

For years, Scottish Labour relentlessly defended the Council Tax. Even since their extremely belated conversion (in August 2016) to the SSP’s mantra "abolish the unfair council tax”, Scottish Labour still refuses to call for an income-based, progressive replacement, based on ability to pay. And UK Labour’s ‘For the Many’ manifesto merely pledges to “review the council tax to make it fairer” – incidentally, the same position as the SNP!

£10 Now! - Not in 2020

The SSP has fought for 3 years, since September 2014, for an immediate £10 minimum wage for all over 16, with equal pay for women - in contrast to the welcome, but feeble, recent pledge by Corbyn's Labour of £10 by 2020 - and then only for workers over 18. 

In a nutshell, there's a 6-year gap between the SSP and Corbyn's Labour on the issue of a £10 minimum wage, plus a 2-year gap between us when it comes to eliminating age wage discrimination. 

And as I've written in a previous blog (and before that in Break the Chains), if Labour is serious about fighting for a £10 minimum, why don't they immediately use their positions as councillors and MSPs to demand a voluntary £10 Living Wage in the forthcoming budgets in Scotland's 32 local councils and Scottish government? That would overnight transform the livelihoods of many of the 500,000 workers employed by these bodies. 

War and WMDs 

The SSP has never wavered in its opposition to war and nuclear weapons.

Alongside SCND, we initiated the Scottish Coalition for a Justice not War, within days of the 9/11 atrocity - and subsequently mobilized 100,000 on the streets of Glasgow against the invasion of Iraq... as implemented by Labour's Tony Blair! Of course we were on the same side of that momentous movement as Jeremy Corbyn. 

The SSP has protested with others against renewal of Trident, demanding the £200bn squandered on weapons of mass annihilation be spent instead on the NHS; green energy schemes; schools; public housing and transport. 

We have always – in common with SCND and the STUC – advocated jobs diversification, to peaceful, socially productive use of workers’ skills… schemes that would vastly expand jobs, not threaten them.

Under Jeremy’s leadership, Labour’s ‘For the Many’ manifesto commits a Labour government to renewal of Trident. An incredible abandonment of the struggle to stop £200bn being squandered on weapons of mass murder.

Appeasing the Blairite Enemy 

Since this stance contradicts Corbyn’s lifelong opposition to nuclear weapons, it can only be seen as yet another attempt to appease and pacify the Blairites who still infest Labour’s ranks - especially amongst its MPs and Scottish leadership. 

One of many such futile concessions by Corbyn’s leadership to the pro-capitalist, anti-socialist Blairites in the past two years. All in vain; they are still busy plotting to undermine and overthrow Jeremy, emboldened by the capitalists and their media.

The Democratic Right to Self-government 
In the Scottish Referendum, Scottish Labour alienated hundreds of thousands of workers and young people by their shameless collaboration with the reviled Tories in Better Together. 

That Tory-funded, Labour-fronted lie machine confused enough people to ensure we now suffer several more years of ruthless Tory rule from Westminster.
In stark contrast, the SSP championed the aim of an independent socialist Scotland - a different vision entirely from the pro-capitalist aims of the SNP.

In the 2017 general election, Labour focused all its fire on the SNP, relentlessly denouncing independence – letting the Tories off scot free for their crucifying assaults on ‘the many’. Scottish Labour leaders advocated tactical voting against the SNP… which meant voting Tory in some areas! 

This concrete expression of Labour’s denial of the democratic right to self-determination for the Scottish people helped the Scottish Tory vote leap 5,500 per seat. Scottish Labour only gained 1%. It helped May cling onto power. 

Labour continues to deny the Scottish people the right to self-determination - unfortunately not only Dugdale and the Blairities, but also Corbyn and his allies. In Corbyn Labour's recent 'For the Many' manifesto, there is no room left for doubt: "we will campaign tirelessly to ensure Scotland remains part of the UK." 

Left-wingers in Scottish Labour who wax lyrical about the right to self-determination for other nations and nationalities across the globe deny that democratic right to the people of Scotland. 

Who are Labour's Chief Enemies?
Even Jeremy's chosen itinerary for his current speaking tour of Scotland - clearly putting Labour on an election footing in case the enfeebled Tory government falters - is very telling. He and Labour have decided to make a pitch in SNP marginal seats, but not gone near a single one of the Tory marginals in Scotland.

You don't have to be an apologist for the SNP (and I'm certainly not one!) to point out that surely the priority should be to drive the Tories out - by popularizing socialist arguments and mobilizing working class voters - in order to defend working class conditions, rather than continue to turn Labour's guns on the SNP? 

This speaking tour is a softened version of the Labour focus of attacking the SNP rather than the Tories in the recent general election campaign. And meantime, the hapless Kezia Dugdale only seems to become animated in the media when she blasts the idea of Scottish independence, at every given (or invented) opportunity. 

Independence and Socialism 

Failure to call for independence - but give it a distinctive socialist content, for an independent SOCIALIST Scotland, for the millions, not the millionaires - is the Achilles heel of Labour, even if Jeremy’s influence spreads to Scotland. 

It alienates people attracted to Corbyn's social and economic policies, all too often driving them into the arms of the SNP, a party committed to the continuation of rule by profiteering big business, with its track record on privatisation of ferries, hospitals and the business wing of Scottish Water as living examples of this capitalist ideology. 

As one woman expressed it at a recent Scottish Socialist Voice forum on socialism and independence, she and other SNP members "suffer cognitive dissonance, because I'm a socialist attracted to Corbyn's ideals, find the SNP too right wing on economic policies, but want independence". And as I responded at the time, there's a ready-made cure for that condition: the unequivocal socialism AND pro-independence stance of the SSP! 

The Hand of Solidarity in Action 
The SSP offers the hand of friendship and solidarity in action to those looking to Corbyn for change. We appeal to Corbyn supporters to arrange meetings with the SSP to discuss serious battle plans around our common aims - £10 minimum wage; abolition of zero hours contracts; rail renationalisation, etc.
But we also appeal to 'Corbynistas' to look ahead at the harsh choices that loom. 

Labour Civil War 

Scottish Labour faces an existential crisis that spells prolonged strife, civil war, and subsequent diminished electoral prospects.
The Scottish leadership will not cease to wage civil war against Corbyn and his left ideals.

They will be backed and boosted in their treacherous sabotage by a capitalist class and media terrified at the thought of a left-leaning Prime Minister, and the expectations and demands for radical change which that would unleash amongst workers and young people.
These forces of capitalist backwardness have no intention of reversing the transformation of Labour into the reliable agency for billionaires and bankers - the bastion against socialism - it was moulded into by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Brutal Choices 
So Corbyn supporters face brutal choices. Purge Labour of its capitalist wing (including deselection of MPs, MSPs and councillors) to begin to construct the embryo of a socialist party. Or continue retreat after retreat in a vain attempt to appease the right - as unfortunately Jeremy has tried for two years. 

The other critical choice confronting 'Corbynistas' is this: continue to alienate huge swathes of the Scottish people by opposing self-government. Or join with the SSP campaigning for an independent socialist Scotland, as part of an alliance of socialist democracies across Europe. 

Thereby uphold democratic and socialist principles, but also win over radicalized workers and youth to the socialist banner, instead of them being fooled by the fake radicalism of the SNP leadership.

Scottish Labour a Million Miles from Socialism
The central problem facing those mobilized by Jeremy's laudable, left-wing aims is that Scottish Labour is a million miles removed from being a socialist party.
To begin to transform it into one would require naked, full-scale civil war in the party.

Why devote time and talent to what may well be a fruitless attempt to oust Labour's pro-capitalist right wing, or spend years trying to fashion genuine socialist policies in a Labour party which, historically, has never in government pursued comprehensive socialist measures anyway? 

No Westminster Road to Socialism 

Experience proves there is no Westminster road to socialism; it's one of many institutions designed to block socialist change. 

You only have to examine the history of Labour in government - even its most left-wing variants - to see the truth of that. And any reforms, such the NHS, that were won through Westminster Labour governments, were the result not of parliamentary debate but of mass struggles outside parliament. 

In the aftermath of the conscious demolition of most of the nationalized industries of the past, and the removal of any substantial influence for workers' unions in the decision-making structures of Labour, there is far less prospect of radical change through that Westminster route than at any time in modern history. 

Exclusions of Socialists 
Labour's history is littered with unfulfilled promises, anti-working class measures - and expulsions of socialists for being socialists, including many of us now in the leadership of the SSP! 

Even since the extremely welcome election (twice over) of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader - as an expression of an uprising against austerity, a similar phenomenon to the mass Yes movement in Scotland in 2012-14 - the Labour machine is still busy expelling and excluding socialists. And even some of the pro-Corbyn Momentum grouping are implicated in these maneuvers - hardly a harbinger of the outright socialist transformation of the Labour Party, let alone of society! 

Join With the SSP... and Join the SSP! 

My appeal to those in Scotland attracted by Corbyn is two-fold. 

Combine with Scotland's existing socialist party, the SSP, in joint campaigns on immediate priority issues such as a £10 minimum now; democratic public ownership of rail and transport; opposition to all cuts at council or national level; and for an independent socialist Scotland.

And consider joining Scotland's already existing socialist party, the SSP, with already existing socialist policies (which you can also influence and shape at our annual conferences), and an annually elected socialist leadership.

Scottish Labour not Socialist - and Wrong in Opposing Self-government 

The time, talent and hopes of large numbers whose sights have been raised by Jeremy Corbyn will be dashed on the rocks of brutal civil war inside Scottish Labour if they imagine it is on the brink of morphing itself from watered-down Toryism to the vehicle of socialist change. 

And whilst it's a radical breath of fresh air compared with the stale, capitalist dogma of past Labour leaders and manifestos, Jeremy's 'For the Many' manifesto is still very modest, gradualist, and lacking in the full-blown plans for socialist change that this exploitative, unequal society screams out for. 

On top of which it is simply wrong and alienating for vast hordes of the Scottish people in its crude, unbending opposition to independence - not even upholding the right to self-government, let alone recognizing that in modern Scotland, socialism and independence go hand in hand. 

Scotland needs Socialism - not Labour Civil War 

Jeremy Corbyn has revived interest in socialist ideas for masses of people. But the natural home for people inspired by his message is NOT Scottish Labour. Far better to add to the existing socialist forces organised in the party with 20 years of unstinting dedication to socialism in Scotland, the SSP. 

Why throw yourself into naked civil war to try and overcome Scottish Labour's entrenched, anti-socialist machine - with no guarantees of success, as they've alienated so many of the most radical workers and young people, making it harder to recruit fresh left-wing fighters? 

Why not instead throw your energy and ideas into building the strength of a party whose entire membership and leadership are already unashamedly socialist? 

WIN INDEPENDENCE FOR WORKERS' RIGHTS: don't rely on EU bosses bearing gifts!

The SNP government's declaration of a second Referendum, including its timing - and the brutal, dictatorial response of unelected Tory Prime Minister, Theresa May - has framed the whole debate about independence around EU membership and Brexit. 

As the Scottish Greens, rightly, help the SNP vote for Indy Ref2 in the Scottish parliament, they both - wrongly - make Brexit and membership of the EU and its Single Market the centrepiece of the case for Scottish independence.

Socialists unequivocally support Scottish independence - but not as a means of making life more comfortable, more obscenely profitable for the capitalist elite, whether home-grown or multinational.

We want to win independence as a means to end Tory dictatorship from Westminster, on behalf of the bankers and billionaires, wielding the butchers' knife to public services, pay, job security, rights at work, and our civil rights. 

The SSP's call for an independent socialist Scotland is an inspiring goal that would transform the lives of the working class majority of the population, from the cradle to the grave. Independence would empower a Scottish government – provided it was a government with the principles, policies and political will to confront the capitalist powers at home and abroad – to redistribute wealth and power from top to bottom.

That also makes the case for a socialist Scotland an indispensable weapon of persuasion in the battle for self-rule. Without that message being heard loud and clear, working class people won't be inspired to vote for change, and could be thereby imprisoned in at least another decade of Tory savagery, especially given the enfeebled, war-torn state of Labour. 

Separate Fight for Indy from the EU 

Socialists and trade unionists need to wrestle the case for independence away from being about membership of capitalist Brexit Britain or the capitalist EU. 

It's true enough indeed that the 62% Remain vote in Scotland being ignored by the Blue Brexiteers adds to the case for the Scottish people being empowered to make their own decisions, through independence. But that alone will never win independence; for starters, calling on the 400,000 pro-Indy voters who chose Leave to now vote for independence so Scotland can Remain in the EU is utterly divisive and counterproductive.

I strongly believe we need to demand two key things alongside describing the transformational vision of what could be achieved in an independent socialist Scotland, to decouple the case for Indy from the divisive, confusing issue of the EU. 

Firstly, call for a separate decision on an independent Scotland's relationship to the EU to be fully debated in democratic forums AFTER winning independence, including a post-independence Referendum on the options then available. 

And secondly, here and now broadcast that we want an independent socialist Scotland to help forge cooperation between equals, on the basis of an alliance of socialist democracies across Europe - instead of either the Blue Brexiteers' capitalist, isolationist hell-house, or the EU of brutal big business interests. 

Tell the Truth - about Brexit

In fighting to convince a majority of working class people to vote Yes, we need to tell the truth - including on what needs to be done to defend and vastly enhance workers' rights, at work and in their communities. 

Those who imagined a Brexit vote would turbocharge a wave of united workers' struggle against the Tories and capitalist bosses are indulging in a dystopian version of La La Land. Whilst for many the Leave vote was a raging against years of neglect by the capitalist machine, the Brexit outcome has sown even more confusion and division, including the scapegoating of migrant workers, and handed the Tories an unexpected golden opportunity to bludgeon to death the flimsy rights workers cling onto. If we let them away with it!

Tell the Truth - about the EU 

But when the SNP and Scottish Greens advocate the gushing glories of Scotland keeping its place in the EU, they are at bottom advocating a continuation of the capitalist Age of Austerity, and the interlinked attacks on workers' rights. 

Whilst most ordinary people who voted to Remain in the EU did so for honourable, internationalist ideals – and in rejection of the axe-wielding, service-slashing, pay-cutting Tories, plus the ugly racism of Farage, Boris Johnston and their Leave leadership - many also shared the SSP's view that it was the lesser of two evil choices in the binary EU Referendum. 

One of the key tasks of socialists, including in our workplaces and unions, is to unmask the debilitating, demobilizing nonsense peddled not only by the SNP and Greens, but especially (and more importantly) by most trade union leaders, that membership of the EU is the road to salvation for workers' rights. 

Struggle is the only Guarantee 

Our fundamental message needs to be that united, collective struggles by workers is what's won the all-too-limited rights we have; not some benign handouts from the EU and its ruling, unelected executive, the European Commission (the selected heads of 28 Member states). 

And whether in or out of the EU, it will require massive resistance and action by workers and their organizations to halt and reverse the tide of assaults on our rights and conditions. Just as we need to hoist high the case for a Scotland run by its working class majority, a socialist Scottish republic, so too we need to enhance people's understanding that class-based struggle is the only guarantee of decent wages, workplace conditions, equality, humane public services, environmental protection...

Evolution of the capitalist EU 

Like any institution, the EU has changed over time, reflecting wider trends throughout the capitalist societies it was founded to uphold and develop in the first place. And those changes are reflected in the EU Directives, Regulations and policies - issued by the European Commission, or sometimes ruled on by the EU's Court of Justice (ECJ). Some have been helpful to those struggling for better rights andconditions for working class people in the various member states; others have been downright dangerous, obstructive and regressive. 

Space prevents a full description, but suffice to say in an earlier period of the EU, particularly from the late-1980s - some progressive regulations were issued, encapsulated in the term 'Social Chapter'. But the EU never pretended to be a socialist institution; it preferred the term 'Social Market' - the model of post-War Germany, with some limited state regulations over the excesses of the capitalist market.

Social Chapter - a Passing Phase

Compared to the red-in-tooth-and-claw savagery of Maggie Thatcher’s monetarists of the 1980s, EU President of the time, Jacques Delors, won rapturous applause at the 1988 TUC conference, for his promises of what became the Social Chapter at the following year’s Strasbourg Summit. What Delors carefully concealed, of course, to the assembled TUC delegates, was his role – as its Finance Minister - in helping the ‘Socialist’ Mitterand government of France abandon all the promised reforms that had enthused millions in the previous elections.

In the face of subsequent defeats at the hands of Thatcher’s civil war against workers’ rights and livelihoods, culminating in the defeat of the 1984/5 miners’ strike, a big majority of union leaders sheltered behind the mildly progressive rules and Directives issuing from the EU Commission in that period. It was a substitute for giving leadership in struggle. It ran in tandem with their constant refrain during the 13 wasted years of Tory rule: “Wait for a Labour government”. It was one feature of the defeatist, class-collaborationist philosophy of far too many union leaders at the time – which aided and abetted the biggest wealth transfusion to the rich from the rest of us over 30 years of them discouraging a more combative course by workers.

As the crisis of capitalism intensified, the EU’s phase described as the Social Chapter died; morphed from being a sweetener to bitter pills, to being the poison of austerity and deregulation of the market itself; from being a partial shield from Thatcherism in Britain to being a vehicle for the spread of ‘Thatcherism’ across the EU.

The EU's lifelong adherence to the interests of monopoly capitalism has increasingly meant the Commission, European Central Bank, and European Court Justice have helped national governments enforce vicious austerity, particularly since the 2008 bankers' crisis. 

European Decency Threshold Downgraded 

A few examples illustrate the general trends, and the central lesson that we need to rely on working class struggle, not the EU, to resist the savagery of the capitalist class and their pliant politicians. 

In the past, the European Decency Threshold, which called for the national minimum wage in each EU country to match 68% of the national average wage, was a very useful weapon in the hands of those of us fighting against the growing theft of wages for profit. But it was only ever an aspiration, not legally enforceable on each state's government. And as social democratic parties and governments converged with the traditional conservatives in unabashed defence of capitalism - as in New Labour - the EU reflected this and drastically downgraded the Decency Threshold, rendering it almost useless in the fight for a decent living wage here or abroad.

Workers Won Reforms, not EU bosses 

Many of the positive rights attributed to the EU by its zealous advocates are either the product of class struggles by workers in one or more EU state, or actually have nothing whatsoever to do with the EU! 

When the TUC General Secretary, Frances O'Grady, last year wrote that "It's the EU that guarantees workers paid holidays, parental leave and equal treatment of part timers" - a claim repeated almost verbatim by Jeremy Corbyn, who added "equal pay" to the list - they were at best misleading workers.

Dangerously misleading, in a fashion almost designed to make workers rely on the benign EU Commissioners rather than defend our rights and conditions through the organised trade unions and their allies. 

Nothing to do with the EU!

Entitlements to paid holidays vastly predate the very existence of the EU, or even its EEC predecessor. French workers won guaranteed annual paid leave of 12 days back in 1936, when they forced the elected Left Front government to take action by occupying the factories and striking! 

Trade union struggles in the UK won the Holidays Pay Act in 1938. 

And even today, organised union pressure has meant UK workers are guaranteed 5.6 weeks paid holidays, well better than the 4 weeks the EU demands.

Equal Pay 

Equal pay - still disgracefully denied to millions of women in practice - was legislated for in the UK in 1970, well before Britain even joined the Common Market/EEC, in 1973. And the Equal Pay Act was forced upon the British government by the ground-breaking strike action of women workers in Fords Dagenham plant in 1968. Furthermore, the same women had to launch a more prolonged strike years after the Act was passed, to actually get the equal pay it promised! 

So whilst anti-discrimination Directives from the EU are welcome, they merely reaffirmed what was won on the picket lines and workers' demonstrations. 

The EU Directives guarantee 14 weeks paid maternity leave; decades of campaigning has won the concession of 37 weeks here. 

Health and Safety laws in Scotland are based on the 1974 Act that was conceded on the wave of industrial struggles that overthrew Ted Heath's Tory government in February 1974; it was not a generous handout from either British capitalists nor their EU co-thinkers. 

Some EU Regulations, like the Working Time Directives, acted as a dented, limited shield in the face of savage attacks by Thatcher's, and subsequently Blair's governments. In terms of capping compulsory hours of work at 48 and insisting on guaranteed minimum break times during and between shifts, they are welcome reforms. 

But all along the British government insisted on opt-out clauses, and can do so entirely legally, within the framework of EU regulations and rulings. For instance, the Tories' railroading laws to remove doctors and nurses from the 48-hour limit underlay the Junior Doctors' strike last year. And all workers in Scotland can 'choose' - often under 'subtle' duress from employers - to waive that right anyway, fuelling the life-threatening long hours culture we are cursed by.

Capitalists Pick and Choose 

The positive EU measures are often ferociously resisted and bypassed by the Westminster club of capitalist politicians, but the equally numerous anti-working class EU Directives and regulations are eagerly seized upon to back up their drive to privatize, slash public expenditure and make workers pay for a capitalist crisis caused by bankers and the profit system. 

And in the case of Scotland, these EU Directives have been frequently used as an excuse for inaction, or regressive measures, by the SNP government. We shouldn't forget that as an added reason to decouple the case for Scottish independence from the SNP's advocacy of the EU as a land of milk and honey.

Strangling Public Spending 

For decades, and increasingly in recent years, the EU has framed laws to aid the privateers and the help enforce the capitalists' chosen path of austerity. 

The EU Stability and Growth Pact prohibits government budget deficits above 3% of GDP, thereby banning state expenditure to provide jobs, houses and services, reinforcing the downward spiral of cuts. 

A 2008 Directive called for postal services to be "fully open to competition by December 2012", adding to the Tory (and Labour) armoury in shedding the 400-year-old, public sector Royal Mail. 

From the EU's First Rail Directive in 1991, to its more recent Fourth, the EU Commissioners seek to break up and privatize the entire rail networks of all EU states. 

Successive British Tory and Labour governments needed no encouragement from the EU to privatise all and sundry, or apply a scorched earth policy to public services. But they certainly got encouragement, as increasingly anti-working class governments in the member states huddled together in the one and only EU institution with the powers to initiate rules and Directives - the unelected European Commission.  

SNP Hide Behind EU Directives 

That's an example of where the SNP government chooses to comply rather than defy all that's reactionary and regressive about the EU. 

On both the issues of railway renationalisation and Scotland's ferries, they chose to obey the laws of the capitalist market, including its EU bureaucracy, and hide behind them instead of proceeding to implement the oft-expressed wishes of the overwhelming majority of Scottish people by taking the entire transport system into public, democratic ownership. 

It was only after strike action and legal challenges by the RMT union that the SNP government conceded on keeping some of the ferries in the public sector, and retreated on implementing their contract clause for ScotRail that insists on driver only trains - in itself the product of their refusal to nationalise the railways, regardless of EU rules.

Undermining Wages 

Another major weapon used by employers and national governments in their war on wages is the EU Posted Workers Directive (PWD). This, and associated ECJ rulings, allows profiteers to set up shop abroad, or post workers from one EU country to another branch of their operations, to undermine wage rates. 

In its actual wording, the EU PWD states: "Member states shall guarantee workers posted to their territory the terms and conditions of employment...which in the member state where the work is carried out...are laid down by law, regulation or administrative provision." 

On the surface, harmless sounding? On the contrary, it means bosses paying only the national minimum wage to migrant workers, not the rate for the job negotiated and fought for through the unions in the host nation.
For instance, last year construction workers' unions in Rotherham, Yorkshire, waged a battle against a Croatian subcontractor company hiring Croatian workers to build a power station on £7 an hour, undercutting the national industry collective agreement rate of £16.64 an hour. The unions rightly fought to organise the migrant workers and win equality, the rate for the job, rather than fall prey to the racist division this Posted Workers Directive inevitably triggers. 

Tory Brexiteers Wage Class War 

The Tories are hell-bent on inciting division during the Brexit process, to ease the path to further crush workers' rights, public services and wages as a share of national wealth.
It's no accident their recently-implemented Trade Union Act has taken full effect in March 2017, with barely a whisper of protest, as the white noise around Brexit lets rip. 

But to counter this reactionary plan by the Tories and employing class, it's worse than useless, indeed downright dangerous, to counter-pose it with claims of the EU being some Nirvana of workers' rights and protection of all that's civilized. 

We need to advocate Scottish independence as the best, quickest escape route from Tory dictatorship.

An opening to demand and enforce a Charter of Workers’ Rights, alongside other key measures like a £10 minimum wage for all at 16 (in 2017 figures); a maximum wage no more than 10 times the minimum to help close the chasm of inequality; the union-negotiated rate and rights for the job for migrant workers; guaranteed minimum 16-hour contracts instead of zero hours serfdom; public ownership of all services, energy, banks and landed estates.

Greek Tragedy 

But that's got nothing to do with false claims that EU membership would gift the Scottish people a secure, pleasant future. 

On the contrary: not only will that claim drastically undermine the case for independence, but it is selling a lie to the working class. And underneath it all is the pernicious message that we don't need to organise in an almighty class struggle for transformational change, but that we should just rely on benign politicians to hand out workers and communities rights and services like sweeties issued by kindly grandparents. 

Try telling that tale of 'EU bosses bearing gifts' to the Greek people, who voted massively against austerity, and then were told by the EU to slash spending even further, despite starvation on the streets and hospitals running out of painkillers, and to tax the poorest as part of a grossly misnamed 'rescue package'. 

For an Independent Socialist Scotland - In a socialist Europe

We need to decouple the issues of independence and the EU.

For an independent Scotland that can then proceed to debate and decide its place in Europe and the wider world after gaining self government.

For an independent socialist Scotland that could help pioneer collaboration between equals in a future alliance of socialist democracies across Europe.

Most important of all perhaps, we need to unmask the demobilizing myth that Scottish people should rely on the EU and its benign regulations to protect us from capitalist exploitation.

Anything protective, however limited and feeble, that the EU calls for is the result of struggle by workers' organizations, and in any case hedged with umpteen opt-out clauses.

And as the populist right and hard-faced capitalism holds more and more sway across Europe, the EU act as thuggish enforcers for the Age of Austerity. 

Working class people need to rely on their own organised strength, demanding all that's best in Europe for the people of Scotland, and likewise defying all that's worst in the EU capitalist club. 

We need independent workers' struggle, an independent socialist Scotland, and an alliance of European socialist democracies to confront and eradicate the crimes of profit against people.