NAIL LABOUR'S LIES TO WORKERS

The working class holds the key to the Referendum vote. And the outcome of the Referendum is key to the prospects of better lives for the working class majority population.
So as 18 September looms, all of us who favour the democratic right to self government for the Scottish people, as opposed to Tory dictatorship from Westminster governments effectively elected by the middle class 'swing voters' of so-called Middle England, need to demolish the mountain of lies pouring down from the No camp and mainstream media.
And the most dangerous liars of all are Labour politicians; who in the Scottish working class listens to the Tories and their Mini Me LibDems, after all?

 

LIE: voting No means the security and stability of the status quo
Their central lie is that we have a choice between the stability and security of the status quo by voting No, and the scary insecurities - nay Armageddon - of independence.
Leave the scaremongering to Better Together, Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown, Johann Lamont and their likes: the harsh truth of life under Westminster rule already for working class people smashes their lies to smithereens. And a glance of what a No vote will lead to should be enough to scare the living daylights out of anyone who is not a banker, billionaire or over-paid Labour MP.
LIE: pensions safe with Westminster
They tell us workers' pensions are threatened by independence. But a string of No politicians - Labour's Ian Davidson, Coalition Pensions Minister Steven Webb included - have previously blurted out in parliamnet that state pensions would be perfectly safe and secure after independence. So too has the DWP, as far back as January 2013. Which hasn't stopped the lies from pairing out since, of course.
Many public sector workers are in pension schemes totally unconnected to the UK anyway. Strathclyde Pensions is a large example. 

And in other countries affected by independence, such as Ireland, private sector company pensions have been protected by agreement between governments.
So a Yes vote is absolutely no threat to workers' pensions. On the contrary, a No vote is a dire threat to us all: Westminster is rapidly raising retirement age to 70 for men and women, imposing increased contributions from workers, and slashing back the value of the state pension for those who manage to live long enough to receive it.
A No vote would leave a devolved government with absolutely no say over the criminal poverty level of the UK state pension. On average across 25 European countries, the state pension is worth 57 per cent of the average wage; the UK is the worst in the EU, with a state pension only worth 17 per cent of the average UK wage!
A Yes vote would give powers to Holyrood to banish that abominable treatment of older people, and the SSP will be at the fore of a battle to base state pensions on the level of a decent living minimum wage (at least £9 an hour in current figures), with voluntary retirement at 60. 

LIE: get more powers for Scotland by voting No to all powers!
The Labour liars tell us they and their Tory allies will concede more powers if we vote No to winning all powers of government to Scotland! You couldn't make it up. Nor can you afford to believe it. These promises are from parties that have a track record of serialized broken promises. On top of which Boris Johnson, arch Tory rightwing reactionary masquerading as a lovable buffoon, has entered the ring as future contender for Tory Prime Minister, telling the press "we don't need to give extra powers to Scotland".
But imagine these untrustworthy bunch DID grant a few extra powers in the wake of a No vote, under threat of a growing clamour for self-rule; what would these powers amount to? In essence, the power to choose which public services in Scotland are slashed, which privatized, which jobs cut, which set of workers to suffer a pay freeze, as Westmister still holds the purse strings and cuts Scotland's pocket money.

 

 

LIE: Scotland's NHS is safe under Westminster
Take the case of the NHS. Devolution up to now has shielded the Scottish health service from the worst excesses of its demolition in England. But the wrecking ball is swinging faster every day down south. 

The last Labour government doubled the amount of NHS privatisation in its last four years in office. 

The Tories' 2012 Health and Social Care Act has literally abolished government responsibity for health provision!  It transferred £80billion of NHS assets from public health bodies to 'Clinical Commissioning Groups' who then advertise services for privateers to take over. Right now £5.8billion of England's NHS is being advertised to the private sector, on top of the £10bn sold off last year.
As night follows day, a No vote would mean the privatisations and cutbacks in England's NHS spreading the same cancer to Scotland's devolved NHS. Why? The Scottish budget from Westminster is calculated as a percentage of government spending in England. Right now England's £100bn NHS budget triggers £10.2bn payment to Scotland through the Barnett Formula. That's £10.2bn compared to a total Scottish NHS budget of £12bn, and a total Scottish government budget of £30bn. 

 

A No vote is bad for your health

These cold figures merely back up the horrendous prospects of cutbacks and NHS privatsiations, here in Scotland, that a No vote would lead to. And that hellish future is made more sure after the deal struck between the US and EU countries, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, whereby US corporations can sue any government or health authority that blocks their takeover of the NHS (and other services) through privatisation!
A Yes vote would give Scotland not only power over NHS decisions, but over the funding and budgets that underpin those decisions. And the SSP will be at the forefront of a battle to build and invest in a modern, publicly owned NHS - including integration of pharmaceutical supplies to a public NHS - funded by taxation of big business and the stinking rich minority who today can afford the private health care unavailable to the rest of us.

 

LIE: independence threatens shipyard and defence workers' jobs

Another Labour lie is that independence equals job insecurity, particularly for shipyard and defence industry workers. Just glance at how secure these workers are under Westminster rule! After 111 years in business, Port Glasgow's Ferguson shipyard has been shut. The last remaining commercial yard on the Clyde has shed it's 77 workers - under the glorious advantages of the UK! 

One of the reasons is the chronic dependency of Britain's remaining shipyards on warships, aircraft carriers (with no aircrafts affordable!) and the entire war machine, rather than a well planned commercial and socially useful plan of production in areas like new ferries to replace Scotland's aging fleet, or the potential Klondike of research, development and construction of marine engineering equipment for the offshore energy industry. 

 

Jobs not bombs 

A Yes vote would give us the powers to implement - and the SSP would have the political will to demand - public ownership of the shipyards, to secure and expand jobs, diversifying these workers' skills into such socially useful, peaceful production. 

Likewise with those dependent on Trident weapons of mass destruction for an income: leaving aside the £100bn cost of Trident replacement, just the upkeep of the current monster will cost Scotland £1bn for the next decade, which independent research (by the Holyrood search unit) has shown could instead pay for 2,700 teachers, or 3,300 nurses, or 125 new primary schools, or 40 secondaries, or 40 community hospitals! And Trident only accounts for 520 jobs anyway, which could easily be protected doing other work.

 

TRUTH: vote Yes or suffer the consequences 

The choices are stark. The horrible insecurities and cataclysmic assaults on the working class that a No vote would usher in. Or the unique opportunity for radical and socialist change that a Yes vote would empower the working class with. 

Life never offers guarantees. But provided working people - including those engaged in political campaigning for the first time in their lives through the Yes campaign - get and stay organised to battle for decent jobs, a living minimum wage, increased pensions and benefits, expansion of the NHS and other public services, and demand the public ownership and taxation of the rich to fund these, then Scotland can become a beacon, a model of equality that workers in other countries will aspire to imitate.

That's the real choices - not the serialized lies of Labour and their Tory allies. 

And the SSP will continue to build for an independent socialist Scotland where these dreams become reality.

 

 

VOTE YES TO REVERSE ROYAL MAIL PRIVATISATION

Don't be fooled by the Labour weathervanes...

As the New Labour weathervanes whizzed round 180 degrees at the Brighton beaches last week, trying to face the same way as majority public opinion, announcing popular promises that fly in the face of their earlier track record, some people might have fallen for their trick: vote to stay in the UK in 2014, vote for 'Red' Ed and a Westminster Labour government in 2015, and live happily ever after.

Not any more!

Enemy within!

One in three Scottish households, shuddering in fuel poverty, will cheer the threat of a 20-month price freeze, reject the blackmailing of the Big Six profiteers with their threats of an investment strike, power cuts and general mayhem - and ask where the mainstream media screams about "holding the country to ransom" and "the enemy within" have disappeared, since they trot out such diatribes every time miners or other workers dare to defend their communities from destruction. 

And those of us in the broad-based Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) will still ask why Labour doesn't just declare for democratic public ownership of this blackmailing, profit-crazed cartel of energy giants - because you can't control what you don't own!

Labour's belated abolitionists

Scottish working people will mightily cheer the pledge to scrap the bedroom tax. But we will still ask why Labour did nothing to expose and resist it's introduction at Westminster a year ago; failed to pledge its abolition when it was imposed 6 months ago; why for months Labour councils refused to even ban evictions and indeed issued eviction notices in North Lanarkshire; and only eventually got round to announcing their new policy of abolition long after the SSP, SNP, Greens and even the LibDem conference had all done so.

Political weathervanes rely on people having short memories. They can't be trusted. Labour announced this in large measure to con people into 'waiting for a Labour government' at Westminster to banish the bedroom tax - to vote NO in 2014 and leave the entire welfare system in the tender hands of Westminster, just forgetting that successive Labour and Tory governments have hammered the poorest and cut public sector jobs through their savage cuts.

Gyrations on Royal Mail privatization

But for anyone teetering on the brink of voting against Scottish self-government, surely Labour's gyrations on public ownership of Royal Mail is a loud, rude awakening?
Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) - founded 15 months ago - has consistently stated (including in our Statement of Aims) that we are not out for independence just to swap flags and emblems, but to give the Scottish working class majority their first EVER real chance to elect a government with the powers AND the political will to stand up for the working class, through measures such as "reversal of all privatization and outsourcing".

Tory theft for private profit

The Tories are rushing through privatization of Royal Mail, threatening the universal service, six-day delivery, rural services, and the jobs, conditions and pensions of postal workers. There is no excuse for this, as Royal Mail makes hundreds of millions in profit, (£403m last year), which could be invested in genuine modernization.

So TUFI - which includes our affiliate, 4,000-member Scotland no 2 branch of the Communication Workers Union - welcomed the announcement of Alex Salmond that a post-independence government would bring Royal Mail back into public ownership. 

That makes at least the SNP, Scottish Socialist Party and Greens on the side of public ownership and of the CWU union, whose members rejected privatization by 96%!

Deterrent to criminal profiteering

Imagine the joy of most working people when the UK Labour conference in Brighton added its voice to the call for renationalisation of Royal Mail, assuming the Tories and LibDems ram it through regardless?
Of course some of us who've been around a while, with good memories, didn't forget that it was the Westminster Labour government of Blair, Brown and Mandelson that first tried to privatize Royal Mail, only retreating in the face of strike action by the CWU, and general public outcry.

Nevertheless, the UK conference of Labour adding its voice to the declaration of future renationalisation was a powerful warning to the profit-hungry vultures hovering to pick apart the body of the universal service, devouring the profitable bits, tossing aside the likes of rural services. A deterrent to criminal profiteering at public expense.

Labour spits on its own conference

Well, it would be, if decisions at Labour conferences meant anything! 

Before the trade union delegates who moved the motions for taking back Royal Mail (and the railways) into public ownership had returned to their seats, 'senior figures' in Labour's leadership were briefing the media that a future Labour manifesto for 2015 would NOT include these policies. Just like numerous similar conference decisions had been ignored by the Labour leadership in the past.

And now we have it out in the open. Labour's Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna‏ has spelt out unequivocally that Labour will NOT reverse privatization of Royal Mail.

Chuka Umuna: Labour will NOT reverse privatization on Royal Mail

Solidarity with strikers

TUFI is committed to building solidarity with workers taking action against attacks by the UK government - in this instance, 120,000 postal workers, across Scotland, England, Wales and N Ireland.

Our solidarity knows no national boundaries. 

Can the same be claimed by the poisonous cocktail of Tories, LibDems and Labour in Better Together? Or even Gordon Brown's 'United with Labour' wing of Better Together? Are they out denouncing privatization of Royal Mail, pledging solidarity with strikers, promising to take the service back in 2015?
No, the only sure route to saving this (and other) services from being plundered by the profiteers is to combine international solidarity with fellow trade unionists alongside campaigning for Scottish independence as a means to an end: to win the powers and a government of the left with the willpower to save our public services, through their return to public ownership where they've been privatized.

Legal strangulation of workplace rights

And we haven't even mentioned the fact Labour conference never even committed to repeal of the vicious anti-union laws, being added to day and daily at the current Tory conference. 

The Tories are using their Blue Jamboree in Manchester to announce plans to treble the membership threshold required to seek union recognition; abolish the 'deduction from wages' system of collecting union membership subs in order to hamper the unions' functioning; scrap facilities for elected union shop stewards and reps to represent members; charge 'market rates' for union accommodation for meetings; in addition to the insurmountable hurdles of fees for Employment Tribunals recently added to the most oppressive anti-union laws in Europe.

These laws - ushered in by Thatcher, retained by 13 years of Labour governments, added to already by Cameron, Clegg and Cable - are designed to prevent unity and solidarity in workers' self-defense, and in action to save public services. But a Westminster Labour government after 2015 is set to keep them.

Workers: join TUFI

It is time more trade unionists and trade union branches followed the road of the 4,000-strong CWU Scotland no2 branch, by joining TUFI, fighting for a workers' vision of what we want in an independent Scotland, helping to liberate working people from the suffocating stranglehold of Westminster regimes (whether Tory, LibDem, New Labour, UKIP, or any combination thereof).
A Scotland with a Charter of Workers' Rights as part of a written constitution, matching at least the best of any in Europe. A Scotland that protects and expands public services and taxes the obscenely rich and big business to help fund them. A Scotland for the millions, not the millionaires.

Don't be conned by the Labour weathervanes; they don't even listen to their own party members!

By Richie Venton, Trade Unionists for Independence (TUFI) steering group