IT'S OFFICIAL: LABOUR ARE THE REAL CONSERVATIVES!

“Labour are the real conservatives.” 

So says Sir Keir Starmer, making official what most of us already knew. 

The knight of the realm went on to elaborate: “Somebody has got to stand up for what makes this country great”, declaring his intention of making Labour “change its DNA”, in a project he described as “Clause 4 on steroids”. 

The latter refers to the infamous Tony Blair’s purge of socialist members and socialist aims from the Labour Party thirty years ago – scrapping the socialist Clause 4 Part 4, which pledged Labour “to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.” 

So Starmer’s ‘Clause 4 on steroids’ mission to make Labour ‘the real conservatives’ leaves little to the imagination. 

Beware of False Friends 

As growing hatred for Tory atrocities against working-class people obliterates over 1,000 of their council positions in England, and opinion polls speak of Scottish Labour winning seats off the SNP, working-class people desperate for change should beware of false Labour friends. 

There are some good and decent people in the ranks of Scottish Labour, trade unionists included. And the Scottish Socialist Party has a proven record of organising with them in common cause on picket lines, in building solidarity with strikers, in taking action against the profiteers, racists, fascists, and other human dross. But we have no illusions in Scottish Labour as a party of the working class. 

When Anas Sarwar made bogus claims about supporting workers’ rights, when he addressed the recent STUC Congress, he should have been called out for rank hypocrisy, given that for years he refused to even let USDAW recruit workers in his warehouse, let alone recognise the union for negotiations. Then he tried to disguise his track record by handing over his shares to his young children in a trust. It's no coincidence he did so after I and others in USDAW had called him out for his anti-trade union antics, when he was seeking the support of our union as deputy leader of Scottish Labour, with the unqualified support of USDAW’s dominant right-wing leadership. 

The truth is Scottish Labour have long since abandoned the working class and only make noises about supporting trade unionists in a cynical play to exploit workers’ votes, as the increasingly discredited SNP/Scottish Green government comes into collision with trade unionists. 

The hunger to dump the Tories is in danger of getting a New Tory PM

Starmer Abandons All Promises 

Under the centralised dictatorship of Keir Starmer, Labour has abandoned even the timid reforms they previously promised. As the giant energy companies rip billions of profits out of people in desperate fuel poverty, Starmer has abandoned Labour's previous policy of a public energy company - which in any case merely amounted to a state company competing with the existing profiteers, rather than the necessary full-blown public ownership of all forms of energy which the SSP advocates. 

Starmer’s Labour have likewise dropped the demand for nationalisation of Royal Mail and done a complete U-turn on abolition of student tuition fees down South, which had been a policy that mobilised tens of thousands of young people behind Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. 

Blair's landslide election in 1997 left Tory laws and inequality intact

Labour Denies Democratic Rights 

The ‘Starmtroopers’ - as Sir Keir’s disciples rather stupidly and distastefully decided to label themselves - are not even democrats, let alone socialists. 

They point blank refuse even the right to a referendum vote on Scottish independence, with the same devotion to (literally and politically) wrapping themselves in the blood-stained flag of British imperialism - the Union Jack - as the Tories. 

When the vicious anti-protest Public Order Bill of Rishi Sunak was rammed through parliament on the eve of the coronation and used to arrest peaceful protesters calling for a republic on the day of parading a parasite king around in a gold, bejewelled carriage costing millions to public funds, Labour's leadership refused to pledge that they would repeal this anti-democratic legislation. 

The pathetic excuse given by Labour's Foreign Affairs spokesperson, David Lammy was “It would take up too much parliamentary time. Labour can’t come into office picking through all the Conservative legislation and repealing it.” 

What contemptible scorn that shows towards people's civil rights. And what an alarming signpost towards what a Labour government will do with the most repressive anti-union laws in the western world. 

History of Betraying Workers 

When it comes to anti-trade union legislation, Labour seems to have cooled off even on its very specific, limited earlier pledge to scrap the Tories’ brutal Minimum Services Level Bill. This threatens workers with the sack if they refuse to go to work on strike days, despite their union having cleared all the high hurdles required to carry out a legal ballot for industrial action. 

However, these unforgivable stances by ‘modern’ Labour are no accident or aberration. They are merely the modern manifestation of a long, inglorious history of pro-capitalist Labour leaders siding with the employers’ class against workers - deploying the full force of the law, and more, going back decades. 

During recent ambulance workers’ strikes, Labour MP Stephen Kinnock publicly supported the Tories’ use of the army to break these frontline workers’ action in pursuit of decent pay. He's the son of the ermined Lord Neil Kinnock, who refused to support the year-long miners’ strike of 1984-5, despite representing a South Wales mining community, and then joined the chorus of denunciation of those heroic workers in the latter stages of their desperate fight for survival. 

Labour Kept Tory Anti-Union Laws 

Throughout the 13 years of Labour governments under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (1997-2010) they steadfastly refused to repeal the vicious battery of anti-worker, anti-union laws imposed by Thatcher’s Tories in the aftermath of the miners being defeated. The only real exception to that was that they lifted the ban on trade union membership at the GCHQ spy centre… but that was only conceded on condition of a strict no-strike clause. 

During the mid-1990s, when council workers in the Labour-led Glasgow City Council were driven to take strike action, Labour council leader Frank McAveetey threatened to jail the rank-and-file union leadership, courtesy of the Tory anti-union laws. 

Blair converted Labour into a nakedly, proudly capitalist party by scrapping the socialist aims encapsulated in Clause 4 part 4 - “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange” - by neutering the influence of trade unions over party decision-making, and by shutting down Labour Party democracy to prevent socialists within its ranks winning any influence, nationally or locally. 

He achieved his openly stated mission by converting Labour into the equivalent of the American Democrat Party; another capitalist institution, which certainly exploits and abuses workers’ votes, but doesn't even pretend to be a workers’ party, let alone a socialist one. 

1945 Labour government used troops against dockers 5 days after being elected  

Serialised Use of Strike-breaking Troops 

However, even so-called Old Labour, which preceded Blair’s New Tories, has a history stained by the use of anti-union laws and even the deployment of troops, to break the will of workers in struggle. 

A few random examples suffice to show that whilst up until about 30 years ago Labour could be defined as a mass workers’ party with a primarily pro-capitalist leadership, that meant they refused to challenge the capitalist class and frequently sided with the exploiters against the workers whose votes they relied upon. 

It was a Labour government which is 1977-8 deployed troops against striking firefighters, earning the derision of working-class people when the army's Green Goddesses often had to be push-started, such was their state of dereliction, as they feebly tried to respond to fires.

The 1964-70 Labour government of Harold Wilson drafted “In Place of Strife”, a package of anti-union laws lifted straight from the Tories’ playbook, which was only halted by the ferocious opposition of the organised trade union movement, driven from the bottom upwards. 

Labour government used troops against firefighters' strikes

Concession and Repression 

Even the frequently lauded post-war Attlee Labour government of 1945-51 has a chequered record. It's true that under the mass pressure of demands for radical change and the fear of revolution that swept Europe, they carried out the most radical reforms in the history of Labour in power - creating the NHS, welfare state, and building tens of thousands of council houses. 

Alongside that they nationalised a series of collapsing industries, such as coal mining, railways, gas, and electricity. 

But the same Labour government sent troops in against striking dockers five days after being elected – and again used 21,000 troops to break dockers’ strikes in the autumn of 1945. On 14 different occasions, between July 1945 and October 1951, the Labour government sent troops in against strikers, including dockers, gas workers, and lorry drivers at Smithfield meat market. 

Those examples could be greatly added to but suffice to show that any party which accepts the continued rule of the capitalist class, and refuses to mobilise workers for socialist change, will frequently side with the sworn enemy of working people and utilise the same anti-democratic, anti-worker, anti-trade union laws that the open enemies of the working class in the form of the Tories readily use. 

Indeed, that also applies to the SNP, who recently declared their intention to use the army to break a firefighters’ strike, after the sweeping majority vote for industrial action was announced by the FBU.

Whilst SNP threaten use of army to break firefighters' strike, SSP stand with workers

Build a Working-Class Socialist Party 

Workers need a genuine workers’ party. Socialists need to be organised in a socialist party. 

The Labour Party does not qualify for either definition. Their historic track record, their readiness to do deals with Tories, and their abandonment of even the mildest reform policies make them unfit for the loyalty and votes of the working class. 

Individual socialists in Scottish Labour are nothing short of political prisoners. They should be released and offered a home in the SSP, which genuinely stands up for the historic socialist aims of full trade union and civil rights; democratic public ownership with workers’ control; and a socialist democracy where the fabulous wealth of the nation is used in a Socialist Green New Deal that could reverse the capitalist onslaught on jobs, incomes, public services, and the health of the planet we live on. 

No trust in Starmer’s and Sarwar’s New Tories! 

Join the SSP and help build a genuine working-class socialist party!

https://membership.scottishsocialistparty.org/join_us/

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? 

TORY CLASS WAR ON WORKERS' RIGHTS

Anyone who doubts we are in the midst of a class war hasn't been awake recently!
The Tory party election manifesto for May's Westminster general election includes an open declaration of continued class war by the rich on the rest of us. That applies to most of their aims, but specifically new anti-trade union measures, a de facto ban on the right to strike for millions of workers, especially in the public sector.It comes as no surprise to trade unionists or socialists, but it highlights the need to struggle or face starvation.

The Tories want to legislate a 40 per cent threshold of all potential voters - NOT just those who ACTUALLY vote - in any union ballot for industrial action, before workers can take lawful action in self-defence from the government's escalating assault on their jobs, wages and conditions.


RIPPING UP OUR RIGHTS

The Tories have already ripped apart the few remaining rights we have at work.
Prior to the 2010 elections, the UK already boasted the most vicious, reactionary, anti-worker employment laws in the whole of Europe - after not just the 1980s Thatcher Dark Ages, but also the subsequent 13 years of Labour governments. Tony Blair shamelessly boasted of "the most restrictive employment laws in Europe", as his government unleashed a profit-crazed, totally deregulated banking and business regime on the population.

Then the present Westminster Coalition was foisted upon us in the rigged 2010 election outcome - rigged, because nobody was ever asked to vote for a Tory-LibDem coalition, and many were stupid enough to imagine voting LibDem was an anti-Tory vote!

Cameron and Clegg's Westminster boot-boys have trampled on the rights of workers in a systematic crusade to rob our wages, pensions, public services and jobs, so the rich can get obscenely richer.

PRICED OUT OF JUSTICE

Fees for taking cases of workplace mistreatment to Employment Tribunals have priced workers out of any pretense of justice. The Citizens Advice Bureaux report a fall in the number of new cases submitted since fees were introduced (in 2013) from an average 48,000 a quarter to 13,612 in the third quarter of 2014.
Cash is the chief barrier - and those workers not in a trade union are totally defenceless, as they'd have to fork out up to £1,200 just to get a Tribunal case heard.

In the CAB survey, 4 out of 10 workers with an issue they'd like taken to a Tribunal only had £46 a week left after paying their essential bills, meaning they'd have to save up for 6 months just to pay the fees for an Employment Tribunal - with no guarantee of success either, of course.

BLOCKING THE RIGHT TO STRIKE

Recently the Tories and LibDems introduced a rule that industrial action ballots require a turnout of over 50 per cent. That in the context of clamping down on the ability of unions to meet or function in workplaces. Most notoriously, the same government has abolished the facility for union membership fees to be collected from civil service workers' wages - in an attempt to smash the socialist-led PCS union - accompanied by removal of facilities for elected PCS reps to represent their members at work.

Now the Tories want to add the clause that unless over 40 per cent of all potential voters in such a ballot actually vote for it, any industrial action is illegal, and union funds could be seized.

They want this to apply to workers in the NHS, transport and fire services. Their excuse is that these services are 'essential' - something the same axe-wielding capitalist politicians deny in action as they slash jobs and public service provision in all these sectors.

LEGAL WEAPONS IN WAR ON WORKERS

Their aims are nakedly obvious. As the Tories gear up to force through the remaining £55billion in public sector cuts of the £90billion total that they've previously declared, they want to crush the resistance of workers in the frontline.

For instance, the Coalition has already shut down 39 fire stations since 2010, and shed 5,000 firefighters' jobs - so they want to neuter the ability of the Fire Brigades Union to fight back, as they are currently doing through strike action in several regions.

As they impose even more pay cuts on public sector workers who've had pay cuts for 6 or 7 years, the political arm of capitalism want to make collective action to win better pay legally impossible.

LEGALISED SCABBING

Alongside the 40 per cent threshold, the Tories plan to end the current restrictions on the use of agency workers as scabs during industrial action - so they can dragoon desperate people into undermining the conditions of fellow-workers, knowing full well that agency workers feel helpless and without rights in many cases.

And they want to 'review' minimum service levels during strikes, so as to prevent total shutdowns. Over the years I've often encountered situations in the likes of local government and the NHS where strikers' unions have had to agree levels of cover for emergencies during the strike that actually meant MORE staff on duty than on the average day before the strike, such are the appalling levels of under-staffing! Now the Tories want to turn the screw even tighter, as part of a package to effectively outlaw the right to strike for millions of workers.

MPs AND MORALITY!

The MPs who want to further shackle workers have absolutely no moral basis for their 50 per cent and 40 per cent thresholds on union votes. These chancers enjoy full rights and resources to put their case in the media and at meetings in a fashion workers' union representatives can't even dream of being allowed to do in their workplaces.

They spend £millions on election propaganda - on top of their free access to compliant, sycophantic media, owned by the same billionaires who use the mainstream media to smear and demonise trade unionists.

NO GOVERNMENT GOT 40%

But despite all these advantages, those MPs who have hamstrung workers' unions with their anti-union laws can't even get the kind of share of the vote they want to impose on the unions.

Since 1945, not a single one of the successive Westminster governments got over 50 per cent of the votes cast, let alone a majority of the entire electorate.

In fact, not one UK government since 1945 has gained the votes of over 40 per cent of the electorate - the threshold the Tories plan to impose on union ballots.

In the 2010 Westminster general election, 433 out of 650 MPs gained their bloated salaries despite getting less than 50 per cent of the votes cast.

Cameron's Tories only gained 36 per cent of the votes cast in 2010, in a 65 per cent turnout of voters - meaning these capitalist dictators only got 23.5 per cent of the electorate to vote for them! And that's across the UK, not Scotland, where they were overwhelmingly rejected.

Even if you distort reality by adding on the LibDems' share (a distortion, because not a single MP was elected as a Tory-LibDem candidate), the Coalition still only managed 38 per cent of the electorate.

SCOTLAND 1979

The 40 per cent con-trick is especially bitter-tasting in Scotland. In 1979, a clear majority of voters favoured a Scottish parliament, but were denied their wishes by the '40 per cent of the electorate' threshold that had been imposed on that year's referendum. Scots were denied a parliament for another 20 years.

NO TRUST IN LABOUR

Trade unionists and socialists must resist these escalated attacks on workplace rights by every available means. But relying on a Labour government is not one of those means.

It was Labour in government from 1997 to 2010 which retained Thatcher's brutal package of anti-union laws. It is today's Labour party that refuses to pledge repeal of these laws.

It is today's Labour party that pledges to cut public spending every single year they are in office until they have cleared the public deficit - making workers and communities pay for the debts created by Labour's £1.3trillion bailout of the bankers that the same Labour government had given free rein to 'get rich quick'.
In fighting these draconian additions to the worst anti-union laws in Europe, trade union leaders should give workers some confidence by declaring that where the issues demand it, the unions will simply defy the anti-union laws and take decisive action to defend workers. These are laws imposed by governments elected by minorities, ruling in the class interests of the 1% who own the bulk of the wealth created by the working class in the first place.

WORKERS' RIGHTS AND SOCIALISM

Working class people need to shape their own future, demanding full democratic rights at work, through their trade unions, community organisations, and by building a mass socialist party.

The SSP has consistently fought for workplace democracy, including the rights of free trade unions to function, and the right to take action by a majority vote after full debate.

As long as we are dominated by an economic system that seeks maximum profit for the few, workers will face attempts to castrate their unions and ban their rights to resistance. We need to combine the struggle for workplace rights with the broader battle for democratic ownership and control of the economy - for socialism.