DEMAND SCOTTISH £10 MINIMUM WAGE: demand the powers to transform our lives

                                                                    

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", was the memorable satirical line in George Orwell's Animal Farm.
Well the pigs with the biggest snouts in the trough here and now in capitalist Britain would agree. As millions of people work to remain poor, we have a new obscenity on parade: the UK's best-paid boss, Simon Peckham of Melrose engineering investment company, last year 'earned' £31million! 

That means he grabbed 2,238 times as much as the annual wage of a worker on the so-called Living Wage of £7.65 an hour. Put another way, whereas it would take a worker a whole year on £7.65 an hour to earn £13,923, this chief executive only has to spend 49 minutes to get that much.
The mind boggles! And your blood should be boiling, your resolve to fight poverty pay hardened by such examples of the worst levels of inequality ever recorded.

A YEAR'S LIVING WAGE IN 49 MINUTES!
The directors of the top 100 companies in the UK only need spend one single day at work to earn a year's Living Wage; their incomes average £3.195m.
Most companies studiously conceal the facts about the incomes of their top dogs compared to those of the workers they hire to produce their profits. And no wonder! Just one example in retail tells the story they don't want told.
NEXT shops CEO Lord Wolfson last year grabbed a modest £4.6m for himself, which is 459 times as much as the average annual wage of workers in NEXT. They are paid a miserly £6.70 an hour - if they're 'adults'!
And 3 out of every 10 jobs in NEXT are 12 hours a week or less - one of the common causes of crucifying poverty in retail, where profit-crazed employers want workers at their beck and call, with very few guaranteed hours a week, but a reserve army of labour to work additional hours at busier times, without the overheads of holiday and sick pay for longer contracts. And of course many big companies go the whole hog and rely on Zero Hours Contracts, the ultimate in casualised, low-paid labour.

RECOVERY? WHAT RECOVERY?
We are told daily about the economic recovery. "What recovery?" is the universal reply of the army of workers who slave away without the reward of a share of the booming national wealth.
A clutch of charities published figures in March 2014 showing that a devastating 870,000 people in Scotland live below the poverty line. And although it was ancient news for some of us, their Report's most damning indictment of capitalist employers and capitalist politicians was the revelation that over half of those in poverty - 436,000 of us - are in jobs, working to stay poor!
80,000 kids in Scotland in 2014 suffer the hunger, disappointments, and stunted ambitions of growing up in poverty despite having one or more parent in work.
A more recent report confirmed that the root cause of this national scandal is the blindingly obvious: low hourly rates of pay.
372,000 workers in Scotland - 18 per cent of the national workforce - earn below the £7.65 Living Wage, which has been calculated as the bare minimum required for access to a decent life.
93 per cent of these workers are in the private sector: by far the biggest proportions are in retail and hospitality.

TORY CLASS WAR
Throughout the Referendum campaign we in the SSP warned of the horrendous consequences of remaining under the heel of Westminster Tory dictatorship for the working class majority population. We warned a No vote would usher in assaults on pay, benefits and public services on a scale unprecedented. 

But even we underestimated just how swiftly this revenge attack would be unleashed. Within a week of the No vote being achieved by a cocktail of lies, scaremongering and false promises for 'far more powers for Scotland', the Tories launched full-scale class war on workers and working class communities.
The obnoxious George Osborne declared war on benefits - including child benefits, working tax credits, income support and other in-work benefits - robbing an average of £480 a year off a million Scots, ten million across Britain. He further announced plans to rob people under 21 of Housing Benefit, and of all Job Seekers Allowance after six months unemployed.
In shameless contrast the same Cameron-Osborne Tory dictatorship slashed taxes on the rich, awarding the well-off at least £1,900 a year in tax reductions, and even more outrageously announced what Osborne boasts is "the largest reduction in the burden of Corporation Tax in our nation's history." 

CASH PILES STASHED AWAY
Corporation Tax is to slump to 20 per cent next year, the lowest in the G20 richest capitalist nations. That will mean £8billion less in big business taxes in 2016; £8bn less for vital services, job creation or - god forbid! - a decent minimum wage.
And it's not as if the big companies that hire the majority of workers - often on pitiful pay - are in need of a handout. Just the FTSE 100 companies alone have already stashed away a monstrous £53.3billion in what is politely termed 'cash piles'; wealth they refuse to invest in jobs, or modernization of their business, or improved wages. That's close to twice the annual budget of the entire Scottish government, salted away in the vaults of a mere 100 companies, waiting to be added to when they have to pay even less in Corporation Tax next year.

THE HUMAN TOLL
Reams of statistics fail to convey the human misery and insecurity caused by this ocean of poverty pay and rocketing inequality.
People in work are amongst those who have to swallow their pride and traipse to Foodbanks for a handout in this rich, food-exporting nation. People are literally starving whilst those at the top of the pile of wealth gorge themselves shamelessly, grabbing a year's Living Wage in a day, or in 49 minutes in the case of Simon Peckham.
We face another winter where many elderly people will suffer a cruel, avoidable death through hypothermia because they can't afford to eat and heat their homes. Because their pensions are the worst in Europe compared to average wages, whereas the chief executives of the supermarkets and the Big Six energy companies rake in utterly immoral levels of profit and personal perks.

POWERS TO TRANSFORM OUR LIVES
Others have reported the crime of poverty amidst plenty: the point however is to challenge it, fight to banish the root causes, fight fire with fire in the face of the Tories' class warfare.
For most of this year, the SSP campaigned on the streets of the west of Scotland with the slogan "Vote YES for a decent living minimum wage", arguing that independence would open the door to organise and demand such a central anti-poverty measure. We didn't get independence - yet! So now we need to link the battle to banish rock-bottom wages with the debate over what powers are to be granted to the Scottish parliament.
The Smith Commission on this issue speaks of "financial powers". The trade union movement, including the STUC, should join the SSP in demanding that Holyrood must have the powers to set the level of guaranteed minimum wage in Scotland; that's a key financial issue!

LIVING MINIMUM WAGE OF £10
There's a lot of confusion around terms like Minimum Wage and Living Wage. 

The National Minimum Wage is legally enforceable by government legislation - and the vigilance of the trade union movement, to outlaw wage-dodging cowboy employers. But it is set at a pathetic level: £6.50 an hour for over-21s, and the slave-wage £2.71 for Modern Apprentices. It is a recipe for poverty - and brazen profiteering by employers, who are more than happy to let taxpayers subsidise their low pay through Working Tax Credit.
As a reminder of the class-divided society we need to change, if the national minimum wage had kept pace with company chief executives' pay rises since it was introduced in 1999, it would now not be a miserly £6.50, but £18.89 an hour!

CAPITALISTS DON'T VOLUNTEER LIVING WAGES!

The Living Wage is the product of research and laudable campaigning by the Living Wage Foundation, Poverty Alliance and others. It is calculated as the bare minimum required for a basic standard of decent life, currently set at £7.65 an hour.
But it has two fundamental flaws: it is still far too low to match the mounting cost of living, and it is entirely voluntary, relying on the whims and fancies of employers. Employers are under no obligation to pay it; they can volunteer to do so and win 'Living Wage Accreditation' from the SNP government-funded Poverty Alliance/Living Wage campaign. But to highlight the problem, a mere 23 companies in Scotland have signed up so far!

What is needed is a legally enforced national minimum wage, set at a level to guarantee a decent life. A decent, living minimum wage. Which is why since 1998 the SSP has fought for such a minimum to be set at two-thirds male median earnings - about £10 an hour in today's figures. And that £10 an hour was agreed as the national minimum wage demanded by the recent TUC congress in Liverpool - unanimously!

POWERS TO TRANSFORM OUR LIVES
The recent STUC march to 'challenge poverty' needs to be urgently built upon with a systematic campaign in workplaces and on the streets demanding the powers to implement a £10 Scottish minimum wage - for all at 16, with abolition of the lower youth rates, and equal pay for women. Further rallies, demos, pickets of low-paying companies and support for workers who strike for better pay needs to accompany the demands on the Smith Commission.

And alongside that central demand we need a drive for other powers and policies to tackle poverty in 21st century Scotland. Powers to transform our lives. The power to implement a living level of state pension in Scotland, linked to a £10 minimum wage. Full powers over welfare and benefits to reverse the savage assault on the sick, disabled and unemployed by the millionaires' Westminster bootboys. 

SCRAP ANTI-UNION LAWS

And a critical issue is repeal of the battery of anti-trade union laws implemented by Thatcher, retained by 13 years of Labour governments, and made even worse by the current Coalition. Handcuffing workers and their unions was a central strategy in the fundamental redistribution of wealth and power to the rich and big business by successive Tory and Labour regimes. As recent academic reports confirm, inequality in Britain was at its lowest, its least obscene, in the years when 58 per cent of workers were in trade unions and 82 per cent of wages were covered by collective bargaining. Now, by 2012, only 26 per cent are in unions, and a mere 23 per cent of wages are determined by collective bargaining, by the combined efforts of workers banded together through their unions. And the gap between the highest and lowest incomes is the greatest it's ever been since records began.

DON'T PLEAD - ORGANISE!
The link between poverty and the most repressive anti-union laws in the whole of Europe is glaringly obvious. And the position needs to be reversed, if we are serious about banishing the poverty and inequality that scars the face of Scotland.
Likewise, the leaders of the 630,000-member trade unions in Scotland need to face up to a simple truth: begging and cajoling employers for a decent wage doesn't work! There's no excuse for poverty pay, or poverty pensions, or skinflint benefits. There's oceans of wealth surrounding us - but it's in the hands of 'the 1%'.
So those who fought for independence, plus those who didn't, should demand the power to tax the richest minority and big business by Holyrood, to fund decent pay, benefits, pensions and public services.

TAKE SIDES!
The Tories have launched ruthless class war on the rest of us in defense of the rich. That's in their political DNA, so no surprise there.
Labour has joined them at the hip in pursuit of profit for the millionaires and poverty for the millions. It's time the trade union leaders woke up to that reality too, and stopped funding a party that declared their own war on workers with plans for cuts of £27billion by 2017.
And those who have rushed off to join the SNP should pause and ponder some fundamentals: you can't appease the profit-hunger of the multinational corporations - including with pledges of even far lower levels of Corporation Tax than the Tories' 20 per cent - and at the same time hope to banish the crushing poverty of nearly a million Scots. When the rich and their political puppets unleash class warfare, you can't stand in the middle, or take both sides.
The SSP has no hesitation in taking sides with workers, their families, people on benefits and pensions, the millions in open conflict with those in charge of the massive wealth created by nature and generations of working people. Join us in a crusade against poverty and inequality, here and now, as part of the struggle towards an independent socialist Scotland.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES! NOT ANOTHER WASTED GENERATION!

Those who fought for Scottish independence - the tireless campaigners, the newly politicized mass army of Yes activists, and indeed the Yes voters - have every right to feel gutted at the result. "Gutted" is the word I've had most commonly used by workmates, in text messages and conversations with campaigners on the streest, in the days immediately after the 55% vote against self-rule. "Angry" is another common adjective: anger at the lies and scare stories deployed for over two years to preserve the profits and prestige of the British ruling class and their hired politicians.
But it's important to stand back a pace, ponder the reasons behind the vote, look at what we actually achieved, put it in historical perspective, and above all look at what prospects Scottish independence and socialism face.

FROM 7,229 to 1.6 MILLION!
Back in the 1951 Westminster general election an enormous 81% of Scots voted. But that time round they voted the same direction as the rest of the UK, electing the Tories despite Labour having introduced the NHS and welfare state in the previous term of office. Those advocating Scottish  independence won a grand total of 7,299 votes in the whole of Scotland!
This weekend marks the 16th birthday of the SSP. At the meeting to found this new socialist party to challenge the big business agenda of not only the usual suspects but also Labour and the SNP leadership, we adopted policies on decent wages, reversal of privatisation, extension of public ownehership, equality, against war and Trident, etc - but crowned by the demand for an independent socialist Scotland. Back then this was still very much a minority viewpoint in society.

Fast forward to the Referendum result: not only did the percentage voting for independence far surpass the polls of two years ago, hovering round 25% or so, to reach a magnificent 45% for YES, but more impressive still is the fact 1.6 million voted for democratic self-determination, self-government, a Scottish government with full powers to shape Scotland's future. 

More than the entire poulation on my native N Ireland. An incredible result, considering the mountain of lies, filth and scaremongering these men and women had to climb to see a vision of a better future.
Post-Referendum analyses are a cottage industry, keeping some people in well paid jobs! And the detailed statistics are disputed between various polling organisations and psephologists. But some patterns of the Yes/No vote are indisputable, and confirm the fundamental factors behind the outcome, thereby also setting the context for what we now face and what we should do about it.

CLASS KEY FACTOR
Most fundamental of all truths: class was the key determining factor in the vote. Big working class centre like Glasgow, Dundee, West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire all voted Yes majorities. Inverclyde almost did too, and North Ayrshire wasn't far off. 
This point is underlined in red by the central paradox: with the partial exception of Dundee, those areas voting Yes are Labour strongholds, whilst big SNP-voting areas voted NO. 

It's an incredible fact that all eight Glasgow constituencies, every one of them with Labour MPs, voted by clear margins for independence. One estimate put it at 37% of Labour voters nationally voting Yes.
Working class conurbations decided they'd had enough of Tory dictatorship via Westminster, enough of their brutal assaults on workers' lives and livelihoods, and voted for a better society. This was not a nationalist movement, but a movement for independence, with progressive social and economic aims at its heart. Something the Labour leadership either never understood, or chose to set their faces against in their devotion to the UK, its imperial pretensions, its capitalist system, and the personal stake the tops of Labour have in its continuation. 

They lack any ideological vision of a different kind of society, having abandoned all pretence of socialism a couple of decades ago, and therefore got into bed with the Tories to defend the capitalist status quo. Labour was the chief obstacle to a Yes vote, but they will also be the chief losers from the No vote!
All those who queued up to register to vote did not do so to keep things as they are! They voted alongside other working class (and many middle class) people to radically improve their lives, for a more equal, less poverty-stricken Scotland.

In stark contrast, the better-heeled middle classes of rural Scotland, Edinburgh, and the leafier suburbs turned out in their multitudes to vote against such change, with over 90% turnouts in many such districts. That included many SNP voters in the likes of the rural North. Many of them swallowed the fear-mongering about loss of security under independence, fearing for their relative personal security. Some are small c- conservatives, resistant to radical change. An exception to this pattern is the Glasgow west end middle classes, more radicalized, aspiring to a fairer society, many of them active in the Yes movement, including the likes of National Collective or even Business for Scotland.

AGE DIFFERENTIAL
Another feature of the voting patterns is age. Whilst exit polls argue over the detailed figures, everyone agrees that younger people voted overwhelmingly Yes, those over 65 overwhelmingly NO. One survey put it at 72% Yes among the youngest voters and 71% No for over-65s. 

It's widely accepted that there was actually a Yes majority among all voters under 55! A remarkable harbinger of the future. 

In the passing I have to condemn scurrilous comments I've seen and heard about "coffin dodgers". It's totally unacceptable to insult older citizens for voting No in their droves, including in the record-breaking numbers of Postal Votes. We need to understand why. At its heart, many pensioners, working class ones in particular, voted No in fear and dread of losing their pensions. With 30% of Scots still having no access to the Internet and therefore social media, they were subjected to a ruthless terror campaign of lies about their pensions being at risk. The fact the Coalition government's own DWP department issued statements as far back as January 2013 saying pensions would be safe and secure under independence - subsequently confirmed by the Coalition's Pensions Minister in May 2014 - didn't stop the Better Together lie machine pounding some of society's most vulnerable with hair-raising threats to the contrary. 

SCARE TACTICS PAID OFF
And the scare tactics were central to winning the No majority, not only amongst pensioners, but also sections of younger workers (as well as the points already made regarding the middle class). Better Together director Blair McDougall has blurted out what we all knew at a Labour party fringe meeting. Scare tactics were necessary to winning, he confessed. 

And one post-Referendum survey, by Brian Ashcroft, identifies three overwhelming reasons why No voters voted No: 47% out of fear and insecurity, 27% due to strong attachment to the UK, and 25% because of the last minute 'Vow' by Labour, Tories and LibDems of 'extra powers' for a devolved Holyrood parliament.
Workers in Defence-related industries were subjected to a Niagra of lies about mass loss of jobs in the event of independence. Workers in all manner of jobs, such as finance, banks, engineering, even sections of the civil service, we subjected to tales of Armageddon by their own chief executives. Or to be more accurate, that was the impression given to them after the mainstream media bosses had turned vague hints of relocating their legal HQs into headlines about the potential slaughter of jobs, something few if any of the bosses had actually threatened.

CAPITALIST TERRORISM
To win 1.6 million votes for independence in the face of ruthless opposition from all the forces of the old, reactionary, corrupt capitalist society is an incredible achievement, and a powerful platform to continue the struggle from. 

Bankers were in cahoots with BBC bosses; supermarket chief executives willingly took orders from Cameron to spread panic; international capitalist politicians like Barack Obama added their tuppence worth; and every single arm of the mainstream print and broadcast media - with the honorable exception of the Sunday Herald in the latter months of the campaign - were enlisted to protect a terrified British ruling class from the loss of Scotland, and all that would signify in loss of profits, natural resources, a parking lot for Trident nuclear weapons and imperialist prestige. 

No wonder Cameron went from panic to smug gloating and childish gossip about the Queen "purring down the phone" when he told her the result. No wonder the FTSE stock market share prices rose after the No vote. Class interests were at the heart of this Referendum.

LABOUR CHIEF OBSTACLE

But as we've written over the past year or more, Labour was the chief obstacle to the Scottish working class majority winning the democratic right to elect our own future governments. Who in the Scottish working class would listen to Cameron and his endangered political species after all? Or to Clegg's Mini Me Tory collaborators? 

The ruling class of the UK desperately needed Labour leaders to exploit their residual roots in the working class to defend the rich from a movement that threatened to go far beyond changing flags or government headquarters to demanding a change to the entire economic amd social system. And the Labour leaders obliged, betraying the working class they have exploited for votes and political office for a century.

One central aspect of this betrayal was the last ditch intervention of Gordon Brown for 'substantial extra powers' provided we voted No. This came on the back of months of pleas to vote No in 2014, vote Labour in 2015, and proceed to a land of milk, honey and 'justice with Labour'.
This then became the infamous VOW, plastered over the front page of the mass readership Daily Record, with Cameon, Clegg and Miliband vowing far more powers for Holyrood provided the Scottish people answered their cooing 'Please don't go' message.
And that ploy played a substantial part in swinging it for NO. The aforementioned Ashcroft survey of No voters identified 'extra powers' as the main persuader for 25% of No voters: that's a massive half a million voters!

THE 'VOW' OF MORE POWERS
But what of the Vow? That is a major short term issue in deliberations on what we need to do in the wake of the Referendum.
The actual pledges from Brown and then all three unionist parties - the Vow - were a mixture of very vague and downright deceitful. 

It promised the permanent existence of the Scottish parliament - which of course Westminster still has the power to defend or disband! 

It promised to defend the Barnett Formula whereby Scotland gets funded above-average per head of population - from taxes the Scots conduct net exports of to Whitehall by £billions every one of the past 35 years! But five days after the No vote the London Times carried a front page announcement of plans to slash the Barnett Formula!

The Vow refers to additional income tax raising powers, control of some welfare (Housing Benefit is most frequently named) and the ability to defend the Scottish NHS from privatisation.

How do they propose to give control of Housing Benefits (HB) to Holyrood if Westminster still has control over rolling out its discredited Universal Credit (UC) which plans to include HB as one element of UC payments? As we wrote many times during the campaign, power over HB was only raised because of the mass revolt over the Bedroom Tax, as a sop from Labour which their partners in unionism and capitalism have now also adopted.

A CUNNING PLOY

The NHS aspect of the Vow was a blatant attempt to neuter the massive impact of the case for voting Yes to defend the NHS from the consequences of cuts and privatisation of the NHS in England. But what is still missing - as far as anyone can tell what is actually, concretely included!-  in these last-minute promises is control over the fundamental purse strings - for instance Corporation Tax on very big businesses. 

Without the ability to raise adeqaute funds for the public purse in Scotland, a Scottish government could soon face the Hobsons Choice of either resorting to some form of privatisation/private investment to shore up the NHS, or use whatever powers over Income Tax granted to then levy higher taxes on the working class and lower middle class. 

In that respect I think the whole scheme behind the Vow is not only a late concession to mass pressure from a panicky ruling class - and in particular their Labour lieutenants - but also a cunning trap. To ensnare Scottish governments into passing on cuts and austerity dictated by Westminster, a devolved government taking the blame for measures they don't have the economic levers to fully combat. A cunning plan, as Baldrick might say!

NO VOTERS' REGRETS - ALREADY!

And within an hour of the Referendum result, Cameron announced a master stroke in his efforts to appease the Tory backwoodsmen, UKIP and the baying mobs of middle class Middle England against any concessions to further Scottish devolution: linking it to English Votes for English Laws (EVEL!). 

In fact this is a powerful democratic argument for Scottish independence! 

But Cameron's ploy forced his Labour bedfellows to get up in arms - in cynical attempts at self preservation. To avoid Labour losing even more working class Scottish voters if their promises are exposed as utterly hollow and false; and to avoid the scenario that even if Labour won in the 2015 Westminster elections (with the help of Scottish votes) they could end up totally undermined and defeated by a Tory majority on English issues. Claim and counterclaim on 'the Vow' has followed, causing hordes of people who voted No to say "I think I did the wrong thing". 

THE POWERS TO TRANSFORM OUR LIVES

So what should we do about it?

There is no doubt the 45% Yes voters are joined by hordes of No voters in expecting and demanding the untrustworthy Westminster politicians carry out their Vow of extra powers for Holyrood. A period of consultation is supposed to happen. As part of helping to sustain the mighty coalition of forces that made up Yes Scotland, RIC, Women for Indy, Trade Unionsists for Indy and numerous other formations, I think we should actively demand something that goes beyond the vague half-promises of the unionist parties - whilst taking account of the fact we've just lost a vote for full independence. 

For example, demand and campaign in the streets, workplaces, colleges, and cyberspace for 'The Powers to Transform our Lives'. Powers including the ability to implement a £10 national minimum wage, as agreed unanimously at the recent TUC conference. Powers to reverse all attacks on welfare and benefits - not just the Bedroom Tax. The powers to tax the very rich and big business precisely to defend our NHS and other services. Amd the power to take the energy companies into public ownership, to combat fuel poverty and pollution. 

Powers that fall short of independence, but would avoid the trap being set by Westminster for Holyrood to implement and take the blame for cuts dictated by Westminster and the class they represent.

PUNISH LABOUR

Labour deserves to be punished for their central role in denying the Scottish people democracy. 

In the trade unions we should help stem the tide of resignations from trade union membership in disgust at union leaders who told members to vote NO, and used members' fees to help finance Better Together and/or United with Labour - without any proper prior debate and vote amongst the members at branch meetings and conferences of Scottish members. 

Instead of leaving the union, leaving yourself defenceless at work and leaving even more control in the hands of undemocratic national officials, we should organise mass withdrawal from payment of members' fees to Labour in those unions affiliated to Labour. Demanding instead that the unions make the break from Labour and help build a mass, working class socialist party.

A YES ALLIANCE FOR 2015

In the 2015 Westminster elections, I personally would support the idea of a Yes Alliance, a pro-independence slate of candidates (whatever the exact name), embracing the three parties that were in Yes Scotland - SNP, SSP and Greens - and others who were part of that coalition. 

I would not endorse the SNP by saying we should all punish Labour by voting SNP - that would be a hostage to fortune, given the track record of the SNP implementing cuts in councils they control, not to mention their policies on cutting big business taxation, or membership of NATO, etc. and the likelihood they will now implement austerity cuts imposed by Westminster cuts in the block grant, stockpiled and deferred rather that defied and defeated by the SNP government.

But just as the SSP played a totally constructive but independent role as the socialist wing of Yes Scotland - uniting in the fight for independence, but retaining the right to put across our own distinctive socialist case for it - so too a continuation of that successful alliance into next May's general election would be one important strand to sustaining the crusade for outright independence, as well as hammering Labour for their treacherous role. And such a multi party alliance could reach voters that the SNP on its own would never win over, given the tribalism of SNP-Labour loyalties.

MAKE 2016 THE ELECTIONS FOR INDY

An even greater prize in the staging posts we can envisage for continuing the struggle for independence and socialism is the 2016 Scottish parliament elections. And they are a mere 18 months away!

All those tens of thousands who fought for a Yes vote could fix their sights on winning an absolute majority of pro-independence MSPs in 2016. 

The SSP, for its part, is not about to disappear! Alongside others we want to make 2016 an independence election, a mandate for self-government. Those, including several SNP leaders, who speak of independence being off the agenda for another generation, or in some cases a lifetime (70 years!), are lowering our expectations unnecessarily. Referenda are but one means of winning independence. The democratic election of a majority of MSPs who favour independence in 2016 - SNP, SSP, Greens, Independents - would surely be equally a mandate for Scottish independence?

That is a quite short term opportunity that can't be spurned by talk of "waiting another generation" in the wake of 18 September 2014. 

MASS POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT

And none of these suggestions are thrown out onto a vacuum. We've commented many a time that the Referendum campaign has been an exercise in mass political education, at an incredible pace, to an incredible level of understanding amongst tens of thousands, in the public meeting halls and workplaces of Scotland. 

An unprecedented number of people are signing up to the three parties that fought for a Yes vote. 

But even on that the mainstream media just can't bring itself round to telling the full story, the truth. They systematically exclude mention of the 2,200 (at time of writing, over a mere five days!) who have applied to join the SSP. The capitalist politicians, and even the faint hearts and wiseacres who wrote the obituaries of the SSP in recent years, have a lot of explaining to do! This is an unprecedented growth rate for any socialist party anywhere in the UK, let alone amongst the smaller nation of Scotland. And these people are politically savvy, whatever age they each are, finding their natural home in the one and only party to have consistently campaigned for an independent socialist Scotland since our birth 16 years ago.

BE PROUD - AND ORGANISED

We should all be immensely proud of the 1.6 million who conquered mountainous obstacles to vote Yes, and also wide open to the hordes of No voters already bitterly regretting having listened to the lie machine. We should be proud and confident of the tens of thousands who will keep up the fight to win self rule - not in 70 years or even 'a generation', but in the foreseeable future. And we should celebrate and embrace the thousands who have said 'The time has come to be an organised socialist, I'm joining the SSP!"

The struggle continues - and our day will come!

A VERY EARLY SHIFT FOR YES/TAK ON D-DAY!

This truly is a day destined for the history books, decision day on Scottish self-rule, potentially the first day of an entirely new chapter in history, with all its repercussions for the might and swagger of British imperialism, and its boost to the demands for independence for the likes of the Catalans - who are staging a vigil in hope of a Yes vote in Scotland!
In some ways it's also like most other days. Up in the pitch black of night to start work at 5am. 
But today, making sure I switch my Yes badge to my clean uniform, and double-checking I've got the bundle of Yes leaflets - one in Polish for Tak, the other with the apt message: 'One opportunity - to end Tory rule forever'. 
The first batch of fellow workers I encounter show all the traits that have been noticeable for a while: the sparkle, enthusiasm, talkativeness and straightforward happiness of spirit of those we've convinced to vote YES over recent months, and in contrast (with a couple of rare exceptions) the quiet, subdued, even sullen silence of those sticking to NO.
It will never stop me standing up for their rights and conditions as their union convener, but the NO voters generally display a lack of confidence in demanding improvements in their lives; the Yes voters seem empowered with vastly raised expectations.

While doing my job, people walk past, stopping to chat or comment on my badge. Many of them go away with a leaflet, a reminder of a core reason for YES. As a group of three pass me I shout 'Yes, Yes, Yes?'. All three reply YES in unison, one adding: "It's not even a question any more". 

Another jokes "You can't be wearing that Yes badge alongside your union badge!" He is referring to Usdaw's affiliation to Better Together, without prior debate among the members and branches. "But I knew you had the bottle to make your own mind up." We then discuss what happened with the Usdaw decision and what members can do about it.

NO WARNS OF ANOTHER UKRAINE!!
A recent recruit to the union describes how he was NO until a few weeks ago, but one of several experiences that changed his mind was a telephone canvass from the NO campaign, somebody up from England.
"I declined to say which way I was voting, repeatedly, and then this guy told me to consider what was happening in Ukraine and our fight against the Nazis. I couldn't believe it. I asked him if he was saying a YES vote would lead to invasions and civil war like Ukraine and Russia, and his reply was 'Stranger things have happened'. That was the end of the call for me!"

A slight majority of the Polish workers I spoke to were going to vote NO. After a five minute chat one of them said she would definitely now think again "because I've never heard the information you've given me before". 
In previous conversations I'd picked up a rumour, so on asking some Polish workers straight out this morning, they confirmed they'd been told that a YES vote would mean they would have to leave Scotland. A dirty lie, systematically spread by at least some of the NO campaign, brutally playing on the fears of migrant workers who have settled in Scotland for a better life. As well as Scotland planning to welcome MORE migrant workers, the only real threat to them staying in the country is a NO vote, a subsequent Tory or Tory-UKIP government at Westminster next May, and then their In/Out Referendum on taking Britain out of the EU.

BUILDING THE UNION
Two more new recruits to the union this morning.
One woman who spotted my Yes badge and showed how she had a slightly more discreetly displayed one on her uniform!
A man who started in our place recently, who it turned out had been leafleting for Yes at a polling station before his shift. When I introduced myself he said: "Oh, you're the one I've read about debating in the union?". Which he must have read on www.newsnetscotland.com, a report of our branch members' meeting where, after a brilliant, vigorous debate, members voted 87.5% YES, with ZERO for NO. A debate that has caused a huge buzz at work over the past week, including among people unable to attend who have had reports from members at it, winning round big numbers of NOs and doubters to YES. In the past two days at least 3 of the Undecided voters at our debate have confirmed to me they are now firmly voting YES.

DON'T RESIGN - DEMAND UNION DEMOCRACY
But while we recruit to Usdaw and gain improvements at work for an increasingly strong membership, our UK and Scottish union leadership are driving people out of the union. Several members today again spoke to me about "That letter". The one posted to every one of USDAW's 46,000 Scottish members, from UK general secretary John Hannett, asking us to vote NO - even if we Don't Know! The letter was a rehash of the email all members got from him last week.
It's created fury, and massive threats of resignation, because members were never given the chance of branch debates or a ballot of members before Usdaw decided which side to support.

So while campaigning for workplace improvements, I am also fighting to stop union membership bleeding away.
The fury of members is entirely justified. But resigning from the union - something happening across numerous workplaces on a big scale - would be a terrible blunder, a disastrous mistake in the extreme. It would leave workers defenceless in times of need with their employers. And it would weaken the fight for greater union membership democracy, if critics of the current USDAW leaders' undemocratic methods on the Referendum just walk away from the union.
They should instead stay and demand democracy. And they can opt out of paying money to the Labour party whilst staying in the union. Numerous members in our workplace have asked for the forms to do that. Just home, and a supply of Usdaw Political Fund Exemption Notice forms has arrived in the post.

Off to vote, to apply a pencil to paper as a contribution to the quiet revolution of working class people we are witnessing; then onto the streets for the rest of the day to help shore up the YES vote, so all workers can shape Scotland in our best interests.
Vote YES, vote TAK, and seize the reins of power for the working class majority!

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.

 

 

TIDE IS TURNING: workers most to gain from independence

Huge swathes of working class people in Scotland, including many who cling onto their Labour voting habits despite years of bitter disappointment, are shifting over in favour of independence. And by Christ the working class needs self-government if we are to avoid some of the worst assaults and setbacks in modern history!

For two years, the working class has been fed a daily diet of fear, lies and blood curdling tales of the Apocalypse in the event of Scotland doing what umpteen nations at the Commonwealth Games did long ago - elect its own government to decide its own future.
The mass media bombardment and incitement of uncertainty has been relentless.

Fear incited  

No wonder some people fear public services would lack the funding in a smaller country - despite the fact the UK has some of the worst services, fourth lowest pensions and worst child poverty in Europe. And despite the fact Scotland is a net exporter of taxes to Westminster, to the tune of £4.4billon in 2011/12 alone.

No wonder many older workers fear for their pensions - despite the fact they are being dismantled and devalued by successive Westminster governments, and despite Coalition Minister of State for Pensions, Steve Webb, admitting in May that pensions would be safe and secure under independence.
No wonder the wee old woman in Greenock today told our SSP stall "We'll have no yards if we vote Yes" - despite the fact the former shipbuilding centre of the world has been reduced to a fragile shell, slashed from 35,000 jobs in Scotland in 1979 to 5,000 today, with constant job insecurity for those shipyard workers who have survived wave after wave of redundancies under Westminster rule.

So with the thickening fog of lies and scaremongering, it is all the more remarkable and significant that big chunks of workers have seen the truth and swung over to voting Yes - including stalwarts of the labour and trade union movement.

UCS veterans for Yes

No set of workers in Scotland know more about the value of workers' unity, solidarity and internationalism than those who lived and fought through the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders battle of 1971-2. In the face of wholesale shipyard closures, the work-in staged by these men and women electrified the whole working class, built a monumental movement, which straddled national borders and continents, and forced the Tory government of the day to retreat and save the majority of jobs.
So when seven prominent veterans of the UCS struggle - shop stewards and union conveners during that historic class confrontation - publish an open letter in favour of a Yes vote, appealing to today's shipyard workers to do likewise, it is a moment of profound significance.
It blows to smithereens the Labour leadership's arguments that voting Yes would endanger workers' unity, or that it's a vote for 'separation' or 'narrow nationalism'.

Labour monolith in meltdown

The British and Scottish Labour party leaderships thought they could impose a No vote on Labour voters and the trade unions, with the help of the dirty lie that voting Yes makes you a Salmondista, a fan of permanent SNP rule, and an enemy of workers in England, Wales and Ireland. 

But their monolith is cracked, falling apart, with a big swing to Yes within the Labour party itself, which is in turn a sure sign of the even bigger pro-independence trend growing inside the trade unions, which Labour heavily relies on for cash and votes at elections.

As Ed Miliband visited Scotland recently to tell us all again the "value of pooling resources in something bigger, the UK", two contrasting Labour figures on Merseyside came out in favour of Scottish independence. Principled left-winger, former Labour MP Les Huckfield, was one who spoiled Miliband's unionist party. The other was right-wing reptile and anti-socialist witch-hunter-in-chief Peter Kilfoyle, former Labour  government Minister. Each in his own very different way is a clear reflection of the growing mood for self-determination for Scotland amongst Labour voters.

UNISON leaders for Yes 

Far more significant entirely was the recent declaration for Yes by a large group of senior workplace and branch leaders in UNISON Scotland. Despite being pounded by fake radical general secretary Dave Prentis with offers of UK union funds to back Better Together, UNISON in Scotland has remained formally neutral, campaigning for 'A Fairer Scotland'. The Scottish UNISON leadership are astute enough to know siding with the Tory-funded unionist camp would wreak havoc in their ranks and provoke mass resignations.
And now many prominent UNISON activists, including Scottish Deputy Convener Stephen Smellie, have openly called for a Yes vote as the best route to 'a fairer Scotland'.

As Stephen, a Labour party member, explained,
"In an independent Scotland the trade unions will be far more influential than is possible at a UK level. Having spent years campaigning for a better, more just and fairer Scotland, I don't believe all those people and organisations who have worked for fairness will let the politicians get on with it. In alliance with communities and progressive forces, trade unionists will be able to ensure that decisions taken by government will be more often in favour of working people, of sustainability, of peace, of justice."

A recent TNS Poll found 28 per cent of Labour voters are intending to vote Yes, up from an average of 21 per cent over the previous three months.

Least to lose, most to gain 

As we have persistently argued for years, it is precisely the working class who have least to lose by ending Westminster dictatorship for and by the rich, and most to gain from self-rule, where the working class majority can organize and insist upon a radical redistribution of wealth to banish poverty pay, breadline benefits, and reliance on foodbanks in this food-exporting country.

The central lie peddled to cow working class people into voting No is that we face a choice between the status quo or endless uncertainties under independence. The Status Quo is not on offer. Only One Direction is - backwards, at a frightening speed!

The Tories have still to implement at least 70 per cent of their planned cuts to public sector jobs, services, wages and benefits.

They boast that the economy is 'back on course' by GDP growing by 0.2 per cent above the pre-2008 banking crisis level. What they prefer to hide is that while profits and the wealth of the billionaires and millionaires is booming, pay increases only average 0.3 per cent compared to 1.9 per cent official inflation (itself an absurd under-estimate of daily price rises for life's essentials). And GDP per head of population is still 5 per cent below its 2008 level and will take at least another 3 years to catch up. The alleged recovery has been built on the backs of millions suffering low pay and Zero Hours Contracts. Workers are far worse off now than we were six long years ago.

Strike ban - Labour silent 

When a million public sector workers across the UK took strike action on July 10th to demand a share of the alleged recovery in the form of pay rises, the Westminster Coalition responded with repeat threats of even more vicious anti-union laws, designed to effectively ban strike action - the first step towards dictatorship by any other name.

And where were the denunciations of this by the (union-funded) Labour party? Their deafening silence spoke volumes about their intentions if (a very big if!) they get elected in Westminster in 2015.
The same week, Miliband spewed out economically illiterate garbage about Labour "transforming the economy without any increase in public spending", in a tortured attempt to win back some working class voters whilst keeping sweet the middle class swing-voters of so-called Middle England. 

And the following week, closer to home, the Labour city council in Glasgow went to court to get a ban on peaceful protests called by council workers' unions outside the City Chambers during workers' lunch breaks or outwith their shifts - after the same 'people's party' had refused bonus payments for anti-social hours worked by staff to make a success of the Commonwealth Games. That's a taste of the 'justice with Labour' we keep being promised as a reward for voting No in September!

No means hell for workers 

Workers face a hellhouse if a No vote is cast. The slaughter of incomes through Universal Credit. Attacks on young people's housing benefits. Enforced daily visits to JobCentres on pain of escalating sanctions that drive people into destitution. Attacks on pensioners' rights. Savage cuts to jobs and wages in the public sector, including revenge attacks on Scotland's block grant from Westminster. A drive to spread student tuition fees north of the border. Dismantling of the NHS through the knock-on effect of Westminster NHS cuts on a devolved Scottish NHS via the Barnett Formula. Increased use of Zero Hours Contracts to brutally maximize profits. The destruction of a vast expanse of Scotland by fracking, which the Tories have now authorised for about a third of our land mass. And the squandering of at least £1billion a year of Scottish taxpayers' money on Trident weapons of mass destruction, instead of potentially transforming childcare, education and elderly care.

Yes opens door to socialism  

A No vote is what should induce massive fear and insecurity, not self-government. To spell out this is not negative campaigning, it's telling the truth - before it's too late.
In contrast, a Yes vote would guarantee several things to the working class majority. Escape from dictatorship by the Tories. The chance to escape the looming assaults on our incomes, rights and conditions. The chance to shape Scotland's future, by sustaining the energy, creativity and determination displayed by tens of thousands of people who've participated in Yes campaign events, and by fighting in turn for a socialist majority in the 2016 elections.

Those older generations who were reared on the socialist aspirations of Labour and trade union pioneers have the chance to see those ideals pursued in an independent Scotland, where their voice can count. Young people raised to their feet by the Referendum campaign have the chance to help build a genuinely democratic, inclusive, socialist Scotland that acts as an international beacon.
And the SSP will remain as steadfast in fighting for not just independence but also socialism after the Referendum as we have for the past 16 years. Join the growing forces that reject the dictatorship of capital, the dictatorship of the Tories, the dictatorship of Westminster. Our day will come!