vote YES in #indyref... FOR A DECENT LIVING WAGE

"A human catastrophe" is how its authors described the findings of a new study of poverty in Scotland by a clutch of anti-poverty projects. A devastating 870,000 Scottish people officially live below the breadline. 

They simply can't afford a decent life. For many they can't meet the mounting food bills, or the rocketing cost of heating, let alone eat AND heat their homes without worrying.

Destitution
As Jim Sillars said at the recent SSP public meeting in Ayr, "I grew up during the second world war. There was rationing, but nobody starved. Now people are destitute. Some who oppose independence claim to be proud Scots, I am not. How can anyone be proud when kids are in poverty?"
The fact that not far short of a million Scots live in such dire straits in the world's eighth-richest country is a searing condemnation of successive governments and the system of capitalism they subscribe to.
Skinflint benefits and the ruthless cuts to them by Westminster are one major source of poverty. Pitiful pensions - one of the lowest in Europe - is another. 

The working poor
But whilst it's old news for many of us, the most appalling indictment of the current system is the fact 436,000 of those in poverty are actually in jobs. The working poor now make up the biggest single group - 52 per cent of all those in poverty - whose standard of living don't match even the most miserly standards set by the government.
A new report shows 80,000 children in Scotland living in poverty despite at least one of their parents working. An absolute majority of the kids below the breadline - 52 per cent of them - have one or more parent working, and in two parent families that proportion rises to 72 per cent. Work is no longer a route out of poverty, as previous generations have been told it is.
A lethal cocktail of rock bottom hourly pay, widespread underemployment and part time jobs, not to mention zero hours contracts, add up to an ocean of poverty in Scotland's workplaces.

Workers' children are being robbed of their potential so the capitalist employers and bankers can engorge themselves. Bailouts for rich bankers, food banks for the poorest. Booming profits for the few, poverty pay for the many. Who said class was dead?

Praying for payday!
When I was a child my mother and father would occasionally advise 'don't wish your life away, son', as I yearned for some future date, like reaching my teens or 18. Now, more than a few moons later, I share the fate of far too many in work: praying for pay day for at least two weeks, 'wishing your life away'. What kind of society is that?!

SSP pioneers
Back in the mid-1990s the forerunner to the SSP - the Scottish Socialist Alliance - organised the one and only demo in Scotland demanding a national minimum wage. Fifteen years ago a Labour government introduced it. But from the outset it was shot through with more loopholes than the worst dodgy insurance policies of the oiliest salesman - and the hourly level set was pathetic from day one. On top of that, young workers were doubly exploited with lower minimum wages - age wage discrimination.
In recent times it's mostly got even worse. Because the national minimum wage - even the 'adult' rate that is - has failed to even keep up with official (totally understated) inflation, every worker on it has lost a total of £675 in the past five years. 

Current minimum wage legalizes poverty pay
Today, over one in five workers earn below the officially recognized 'living wage'. The current £6.31 an hour for workers aged 21 and upwards is set to pole-vault to an Olympian £6.50 in October!
The press hype about this "inflation-busting 3 per cent rise" doesn't impress the hundreds of thousands marooned in a sea of poverty. Even less cause for celebration is the 2 per cent 'rise' for younger workers, and the current £2.68 slave labour rate for Modern Apprentices being inched up to a jaw-dropping £2.73!
A decent living wage for all at 16, scrapping the lower youth rates, and with equal pay for women, must be a central plank of any anti-poverty strategy.
It is morally justified. It is easily affordable in one of the richest nations on the globe. It is even more eminently affordable if we scrapped Trident and fighter jets - putting wages before war.

And it makes perfect economic sense, because amongst other reasons, working people spend their extra earnings and thereby boost the economy and boost job creation for other workers - unlike the one per cent of obscenely rich on incomes over £150,000, who can afford to hoard their wealth, or squander it on luxury items that do nothing to boost employment.

£9 an hour at 16
And what would a decent level of guaranteed minimum be? Certainly not the insulting £6.50 graciously promised by the Westminster Coalition of millionaires for October. Not even the recently-uprated £7.65 Living Wage. 

Welcome though that would be as an immediate step, it is still far below what workers need to live, and more to the point it is entirely voluntary, dependent on the whims and fancies of the employers. If, for instance, its updating from £7.45 to £7.65 displeases any of the employers who have voluntarily signed up as accredited Living Wage employers, they are at full liberty to withdraw, with absolutely no legal consequences.

Two-thirds male median earnings

A good start for a decent living wage would be the demand popular in most trade unions 30 years ago; two-thirds male median earnings as the statutory national minimum. In today's figures that would mean over £9 an hour for every worker and trainee over 16. Not a princely sum, but a decent wage. It's not even asking for two-thirds the AVERAGE male wage, which would be much higher, given the obscene growth of astronomical levels of income for a small minority at the top. Maybe it should!
The fact it is calculated on the median male wage in this country - the middle wage of all the wages paid - not only makes it very modest, but also helps to close the gender gap, and guarantees its automatic uprating, to reduce the growing scissors opening up between the lowest and highest incomes in society. 

A real live chance to win a living wage
That's what the Scottish Socialist Party has argued for since our 1998 founding conference. But 15 years later, not only is it even more urgent that we wage a war on poverty pay, but we also have a unique historic opportunity to stride in that direction. A vote for self-government, a Yes vote in September, would vastly speed up the chances of getting such a decent income guaranteed.
Let us be clear, it will still take a fight to achieve it, even with independence. But it is far more a realistic prospect than if we remain imprisoned by Westminster capitalist rule, where three factions of Thatcherism compete over who is most devoted to boosting the profits of big business at the expense of workers' wages, and where Miliband's Labour is busy dismantling the influence of the trade unions in their party - hardly a harbinger of socialist measures from any potential Labour government at Westminster!

Beyond the SNP White Paper
The SNP White Paper is what it says - the vision of one party, the SNP. Other visions of Scotland's future are being fought for, including that of the SSP. But the White Paper does pledge a Fair Pay Commission, with trade union involvement. The SNP promise the minimum wage will rise "at least by the level of inflation". A modest step forward, but far too modest, and certainly not a route out of poverty - if the starting rate is the current minimum wage.
However, by establishing a forum on pay, this rams open the door to the unions and socialists to organise and vigorously demand a decent living statutory minimum wage for all at 16 - £9 an hour in today's figures, uprated accordingly whenever an independent Scotland tackles this issue. 

Vote YES to decent pay
That's why the SSP is campaigning to convince people to 'vote YES for a decent living wage for all at 16'. 

Kick the door open to this path by voting YES, but also by organising before and beyond the referendum to shape the future, to demand eradication of the criminal poverty blighting workers, their families, their children. 

With 630,000 members, the Scottish trade union movement has the potential power to achieve this goal, by championing a decent living wage and linking it with support for Scottish self-government, getting shut of the purveyors of poverty pay, decades of successive Westminster governments.

Seize the time! Banish the human catastrophe of poverty pay!

Kilwinning meeting tomorrow

I will be speaking at a Yes Scotland meeting tomorrow (Thursday) in Kilwinning... #indyref

BOB CROW OBITUARY: the tragic departure of a class fighter

Bob Crow; Class Fighter.

by Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser 

 It was with terrible shock and sadness that I heard of the death of RMT general secretary Bob Crow this morning. This is a devastating blow first and foremost to his wife, children, family and friends, but also to the entire working class. And it's a tragically premature loss too, with Bob dying of a heart attack aged only 52.

Bob was born in north east London, the son of a London docker. In his youth he joined the railways, and as a young lad took up a grievance at work through his trade union (then the NUR) and rapidly gained notice as a capable speaker and organiser. 

He went on to eventually be elected the general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport workers union (RMT) in 2002.

Bob was above all a passionate, tireless champion of working class people, their rights and conditions. I often witnessed - on picket lines and meetings I shared with him - the devotion he instilled from the ranks of the RMT. It was like a massive family.

He was demonized by the mainstream media - regardless of any begrudging hymns of praise they might now publish on his tragically premature departure from the class struggle that he dedicated his life to. 
But he won tremendous loyalty from RMT members, and indeed massive admiration from workers across the trade union movement. Many were wont to say "If only our union had someone like him leading us we'd be a damn sight better off."

Under his watch, the RMT membership rocketed from 53,000 to 81,000 in 12 years. For every vitriolic editorial in the London Evening Standard, Daily Mail or even the BBC, Bob's no-nonsense style of tackling the employers to enhance the wages, job security, safety and conditions of his union members inspired confidence in workers and built the strength of the union.

Enemies of trade unionism and socialism tried to denigrate Bob as "a dinosaur". But this big, burly, blunt-talking Londoner was no fool, and a man of great warmth and wit. When Jeremy Paxman issued the 'dinosaur' insult on Newsnight recently, Bob immediately quipped back "Well, they were around for quite a long time!"

Bob was a Young Communist, but whilst he was no longer in any political party for many recent years of his life, he vigorously denounced the betrayal of working class people by Tony Blair and New Labour, and called on other trade unions to stop propping up Labour and to establish a genuine working class party instead.

He successfully led the argument within the union for the RMT to affiliate to the Scottish Socialist Party, for which his union was expelled by Labour. I am proud to have worked alongside this giant of the trade union movement, and to have presented him with his SSP honorary membership card when he spoke at an SSP trade union conference I organised about ten years ago.

You didn't have to agree with every single aspect of Bob's vision of socialism to warmly like and admire him. He was in some ways 'a rough diamond', but give me that any day compared to the smooth-talking fakes that infest too many of the top echelons of the trade union movement. 
Bob's continued working class roots - in stark contrast to many union leaders who rise to the top and abandon the class they allegedly represent - were perfectly captured in his football loyalties. Not for him the glory-hunting of becoming, say, a Chelsea fan. He remained a fanatical fan of the entirely unglamorous Millwall FC - whose unofficial motto is allegedly 'nobody likes us and we don't care'. The difference, of course, being that hundreds of thousands of workers in struggle liked Bob Crow. 

Bob was passionate and sincere in his beliefs. He was like a blunt instrument wielded in defence of the working class. He had a healthy antagonism towards big employers, the establishment, and politicians who defend the continuation of the class-ridden capitalist system. He never shed his class struggle socialist outlook on life - and RMT members are the better off for having such a leader in their midst.

Two of his very recent actions sum up the man's principles. He fought in defence of the safety and security of London Underground workers in the teeth of vitriolic attacks by London Tory Mayor Boris Johnson and whole swathes of the media. And he won rapturous applause from RMT members at branch meetings in Ayr, Aberdeen and elsewhere in his passionate appeal for members to vote for Scottish independence. In fact he was due to speak at a public meeting in Motherwell soon on the issue.

He will be sorely missed as the battles against poverty, inequality, injustice - and the capitalist system he detested - rage on. 

Rest in peace, Bob; we will miss your dedication to the working class, but rest assured the struggle continues.

My 11 minutes on why you should vote YES to #indyref

This was videoed in front of a packed hall in Ayr.

 

Jim Sillars, Colin Fox and Liz Swan speaking in Ayr


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More videos of the night HERE

SSP Yes meeting packs them in in Ayr...

This is a text I sent to comrades last night after a superb public meeting in Ayr...

"Incredible SSP public meeting in Ayr. Big town hall packed tight. I made it 215-220 after 3 headcounts. All ages. Solidly working class.

Tremendous level of discussion from audience: currency, oil, banks, Trident, childcare, benefits system, war, ...and above all socialism hotly debated after tremendous speeches by Liz Swan, Colin Fox, Jim Sillars.

What would Johann Lamont make of it since Scottish working class are not genetically programmed for political decisions?!?

As one woman said "we've heard great arguments for Indy tonight that we never hear in the media." Which is why large numbers responded to my appeal to join the SSP and shape our futures.

The SSP is on the march!"

Richie Venton

THE TIDE IS TURNING IN THE TRADE UNION RANKS

 

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



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



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









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



 GENERAL GEORGE! 



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

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



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









 HIGH STAKES 



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



 THREE THATCHERITE FACTIONS 



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



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



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






 WORKERS' REPLY 



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






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



 TRADE UNION NEUTRALITY? 



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



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



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

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

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



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



 ANSWER THE LIE MACHINE 



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



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



 INDEPENDENCE: THE ROAD TO IMPLEMENTING TRADE UNION AIMS 



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



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

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

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

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



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



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

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



 VOTING YES DOES NOT MAKE YOU A NATIONALIST 



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



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

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



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



 A VOTE FOR DEMOCRACY: A MEANS TO DESIRABLE ENDS 



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



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



 A TIDE IN THE AFFAIRS OF HUMANITY  



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

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



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



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




LEAD ON TO FORTUNE! 



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



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

BUILD ON THE VICTORY AGAINST THE HATED BEDROOM TAX!

The Scottish Socialist Party is joining thousands of tenants and workers hammered by the Bedroom Tax in celebrating it's effective burial in Scotland.

We warmly welcome the decision by the Scottish government to increase funding to the full £50m required to pay for every tenant's bedroom tax, either through Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) or some similar mechanism, should the Westminster government's Department for Work and Pensions carry out their threat of blocking the additional £15m top-up of DHP funds.
This will lift a heavy rock from the shoulders of 85,000 Scottish families directly hit, as they will no longer have to fork out an average £14 a week, usually from a pitiful £71 a week benefit, with the dread of eviction haunting them.

SSP: TIRELESS BEDROOM TAX FIGHTERS

For the past 15 months the SSP has been at the heart and head of the anti-bedroom tax movement, alongside tenants in the No2BedroomTax campaign, trade unionists hit by cuts to wages and jobs passed on by local Housing Association chiefs, and thousands of ordinary people desperate to bin this abomination of a tax on the poorest.
We've conducted countless street stalls every week all over Scotland; held numerous SSP public meetings; spoken alongside others in No2BedroomTax campaign meetings; helped build networks of local people to prevent any threat of evictions; helped build the mighty No2BedroomTax demos last March and later outside the LibDem UK Conference in Glasgow.

SCRAP IT NOW!

Since late 2012 we consistently argued on the streets for its immediate abolition - at a time when most people at first didn't know what we were talking about! - as a vicious and totally unjustified attack on the poorest, which caused family upheaval, hunger, poverty and stress in dread of evictions, and even drove several people to suicide. The Tory-LibDem Coalition MPs who imposed this have blood on their hands!

Whilst fighting for its abolition, the SSP were the first to also broadcast a package of immediate steps that should be taken by those in power at council, local housing association and Scottish parliament levels - to mitigate the impact, whilst calling on the Labour and SNP politicians to join and build a mass rebellion of working class people for its immediate abolition.
We organized demonstrations and lobbies of councils and housing associations demanding 'No Evictions' and for reclassification of rooms so as to remove people from bedroom tax liability.
Our persistence and repeated street protests led to North Ayrshire being the first council in Scotland to pledge both these steps, at least partially, to mitigate the impact.
We lobbied and convinced some local housing associations to adopt the same policies.
We fought alongside others for the Scottish government to ban all evictions nationally, thereby also protecting local housing association tenants.

FUND THE £50m SHORTFALL

Since Christmas 2012 the SSP simultaneously argued and campaigned - later in tandem with NO2BedroomTax campaigners - for the Scottish government to fund the shortfall, the estimated £50m this year, to remove all fear of evictions or excuses for cuts to jobs, pay and services by cash-starved social landlords.
And it was the SSP, through the online petition I launched on behalf of the party, accompanied by thousands of petitions collected at SSP street stalls, that helped put Ed Miliband and his Labour MPs at Westminster on the spot, demanding they move an immediate emergency Motion to abolish the Bedroom Tax. 

To their eternal shame, when they were pressurized into doing this by the growing rebellion of working class people against the Tax, 47 Labour MPs (ten of them from Scottish seats) didn't bother turning up to vote for Labour's own Motion for its abolition. Presumably because these Labour Bedroom Tax deserters regard the issue as far too trivial ("wee things" as Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont might phrase it!) to bother attending parliament to vote on!

PEOPLE IN PROTEST CAN WIN!

In all the day and daily battling by the SSP, No2BedroomTax campaign, and ordinary tenants organised in local anti-bedroom tax groups, two of the most frequently asked questions were: "Will this do any good?" and "Do you think we can ever get rid of it?".
The short, proven answer to both is a resounding Yes!
Organized 'people power' has pounded the politicians into action - eventually.
Everyone who signed a petition, attended a public meeting, joined a protest lobby or march, and especially those who gave up much of their personal time to hold meetings, deliver leaflets, advise people - this selfless army of volunteers forced the politicians in Holyrood to sit up and listen. They should be proud of themselves.
Protests work - so don't be defeatist!

SNP

To their credit the SNP never favored the bedroom tax. But their initial response, a year ago, was to say nothing could be done about it this side of winning independence. 

In some Labour-run councils the SNP moved motions for no evictions, but initially did not do the same in SNP-led councils, until the growing pressure of tenants and the likes of the SSP on the ground shifted them into a declaration by Alex Salmond at the SNP conference that no SNP council would evict.
At Scottish government level the SNP never agreed to ban evictions, limiting their position to 'encouraging' councils to find other solutions.


LABOUR'S SHAME 

Labour's overall record is frankly shameful, inexcusable. They did nothing to denounce, resist and mobilize against the Bedroom Tax when it was passed as law in Westminster - in fact it was the previous Labour government that themselves introduced a diluted version of the same punishment towards private sector tenants, through the Local Housing Allowance, whilst refusing to cap the obscenely high private landlords' rents.
Labour councillors refused to pledge 'no evictions'; they defeated the first ever motion lodged in any Scottish council with that and other demands to mitigate the impact, moved by SSP councillor Jim Bollan in West Dunbartonshire. 

In fact, in Labour-run North Lanarkshire council they tried to evict a severely disabled mother for arrears, only halting the procedure after uproar from local anti-bedroom tax campaigners. 

And in South Ayrshire council, where Labour is in coalition with the Tories, they issued letters threatening not only eviction for bedroom tax arrears but also the snatching of children (by social services) from the families unable to pay up!

LABOUR'S BELATED CONVERSION

It took the Labour leadership up until their September 2013 UK conference before they dropped and reversed their talk of keeping an amended Bedroom Tax if elected to government in 2015.
And even their latter-day conversion to calling for the Scottish government to fund the £50m shortfall seems driven by tribal party politics, an attempt to embarrass the SNP, rather than a genuine commitment to standing up for tenants and workers - especially given their track record on benefit cuts in government, and their attempts to evict bedroom tax victims.

GIVE US BACK OUR STOLEN BILLIONS!

In contrast to Labour, the SSP has not only consistently argued and publicly campaigned for the SNP government to cough up the £50m to remove all the effects of the bedroom tax, but we've also always argued this should not be at the expense of other services. We have persistently argued Holyrood should pay up the £50m AND mount a mass campaign demanding the money back off Westminster -  mobilising tenants, trade unionists and the vast army of Scots who hate a tax they are not even directly affected by. As we've put it, "Give us back our stolen billions".

DEVOLUTION STRAITJACKET

And that is the down side of the decision by the Scottish government to fund all tenants' bedroom tax payments through DHP (or a homelessness prevention fund if Westminster blocks the £15m breach of the cap they imposed on DHP payments).
It is a totally welcome, almighty victory for those affected by it and those who fought it. But the money has to come from the block grant issued to Scotland by Westminster under the current devolution set-up. From a block grant slashed already by at least £10billion over the past 4 years - with another £4billion of cuts threatened by Westminster via dismantling of the so-called Barnett Formula should we vote No to independence in September.
So the straitjacket of devolution means the Scottish government robbing 'Peter to pay Paul' - which is why the SSP has always demanded the £50m to underwrite the bedroom tax bills facing tenants who simply don't have the money to pay it, but also advocated a mass campaign to win back that funding off the thieves in Westminster who have stolen not just £50m, but £billions off Scottish services, jobs and wages through their control of the purse strings. 

THE CASE FOR INDEPENDENCE

Furthermore, that's why the SSP has openly linked the battle to bin the bedroom tax with the need for independence. Free of the Westminster Old-Etonian millionaires' government, Scotland would never have introduced such an obnoxious tax. After all, 91 per cent of Scotland's MPs - for all their other manifold shortcomings! - voted against it's introduction, but Westminster's unelected majority imposed it.

An independent Scotland opens the door to reshaping the entire benefits and welfare system in a fashion that supports people in need - the sick, disabled, elderly, children or unemployed - with a decent living income and comprehensive support services - funded by taxation of the rich and big business.
It would allow the Scottish working class majority the opportunity to elect a government of the genuine left that could initiate a programme of house-building and renovation, creating jobs and apprenticeships as well as tackling the real causes of housing crises, rather than the entirely bogus claims made for the bedroom tax. 

Top-notch, environmentally-sound and affordable public sector housing has to be one of the many central objectives of an independent Scotland, one of the many concrete, compelling reasons for working class people to vote Yes in September.

CELEBRATE THIS VICTORY!

This is a victory, and it's important to recognize one, as they are not two-a-penny! 

It's a victory for 85,000 families victimized and impoverished by the bedroom tax; for hundreds of social housing staff hammered by cuts to their livelihoods; for the thousands who took to the streets against the Tory Tax; for the army of volunteers who formed into anti-bedroom tax groups and the No2BedroomTax campaign; for the SSP, as the one party that most persistently fought its impact with a package of immediate and long term solutions which we popularized on the streets and in meeting halls throughout 2013.

This is a serious blow to the Westminster government, it's twin Tory parties, and consequently the entire Better Together cabal - Tory-funded, Labour-fronted - that wants to keep us imprisoned in the Westminster jailhouse that still keeps alive this vicious bedroom tax south of the border. 

It is a tremendous boost to all those fighting for its abolition in England and Wales - a living proof that fighting to advance the interests of the Scottish people is a help, not a hindrance, to the betterment of the English and Welsh working class.

DEMAND OUTRIGHT ABOLITION - SAVE SCOTLAND'S £50m

Those who won this victory should celebrate, but also demand back the £50m off Westminster, and indeed build up the campaign for the return of the billions of stolen money to save all jobs and public services. 

The simplest and most immediate way to win back the £50m allocated to Bedroom Tax bills by the Scottish government - and to use that money for other, worthwhile services - is to build on this victory and demand the immediate abolition of the Bedroom Tax at Westminster. 

If the same Labour party currently making false claims of credit for this victory are serious, they should force Miliband and his band to propose immediate abolition - and turn up to vote this time! The decision by the Scottish government puts the LibDem partners in Tory crimes even more behind the eight-ball, boosting the chances of getting the bedroom tax scrapped by the only place currently holding that power - Westminster.

VOTE YES TO EVICT THE TORIES - PERMANENTLY!

Those extraordinary 'ordinary people' who won this victory should register the advantages of having a Scottish government - by definition more susceptible to the pressure and demands of the Scottish people than the remote, aloof Westminster - and join the fray for full-blown self-government.
No more bedroom taxes, no more mass poverty and cuts to services, no more rule by the millionaires in mansions!

Join the SSP in fighting for an independent socialist Scotland that permanently evicts the Tories, not tenants; defends the millions, not the millionaires; the people, not profit.