INDEPENDENCE WILL SPLIT WORKERS BUT NOT CAPITAL

INDEPENDENCE WILL SPLIT WORKERS BUT NOT CAPITAL

Based on a number of recent letters to the press, on the issue of Scotland's independence referendum, readers south of the border could be forgiven for thinking that independence for Scotland is a progressive, democratic demand.

In truth a successful YES vote will isolate the Scottish working class from 90% of its support, split a united British trad...e union and labour movement and so weaken the battle against British capital, arguably the strongest and most influential link in the global capitalist chain.

A victorious SNP, which supports the neo-liberal agenda, will write the constitution of a separate Scotland, wed the country to the European Union, which we should leave, be subservient to NATO, which we should also leave, be part of a currency, either Sterling or the Euro, over which it has no control and bow to the demands of Edinburgh financiers and foreign investors who will treat Scottish workers no differently from current Tory-supporting bosses.The SNP has form on this!!

In short, a bloody nightmare for people like us. Forget the emotion and folklore based on a medieval, romanticised version of Scottish history and anti-English sentiment. The SNP also has form on this!!

"Radical left" organisations in Scotland, and there are a few of them, who argue for a socialist Scotland and wistfully dream of defeating an SNP government in thrall to big business are seeking a short cut to socialism, having rightly been disappointed by successive Labour governments which failed to represent the real interests of their voting support. The Labour Party in Scotland has a lot to answer for!

The real issue in this "civil war" for that is how it feels up here, is about CLASS, working class interests and how best to progress those interests in a climate of vicious attacks by real evil, greedy bastards all over the world.

I would rather be in the camp of those working class activists who have actually confronted, battled with and defeated an angry boss than Salmond's small-minded mediocre group of time-wasters and splitters.

Vote NO!

 

The Real Benefits Culture

THE MORNING STAR THE ONLY ENGLISH LANGUAGE SOCIALIST DAILY IN THE WORLD

We live in an ill-divided world, and country, where the rich grow richer and as a result the poor become poorer. Those who produce the wealth, and those wealth producers made redundant, are daily mugged by financial and political elites who exude greed and evil, hardly break sweat and could not care less.

Our pretentious ”leaders” are intent on ”tackling the national debt” which is code for a naked attempt to reverse the historic fall in profits through a slash and burn privateering assault on our much admired and appreciated public services, despite the economic and political reality that such blood-letting is neither required nor acceptable in a civilised society.

We all accept that the debt has to be dealt with but why should the general public carry the can when they neither desired nor engineered the financial debacle.

Why is the neo-liberal onslaught so cruel and insensitive to millions of people here and abroad?

We are arguably in the midst of the greatest capitalist crisis on record, to which national elites have no answer, but are hell bent on ensuring that the socialist alternative will not be promoted let alone succeed.

To this end they weaken the trade unions, the organised bulwark in the defence and advance of decent standards, divide the working class along the most despicable of lines, between the skiver and the worker, the benefit scrounger and the hard working, hard done by wage slave.

Who are the real scroungers and benefit spongers?

We, the taxpayers, shell out £7 billion of subsidy, via working person tax credits, to rogue employers who pay miserly wages, £23 billion of housing benefit to “Rachmanite” private landlords, who charge extortionate rents, and £1.3 trillion in bank welfare bail-outs despite their drug-money laundering, insurance mis-selling, interest rate fixing and foreign exchange scamming.

All this on top of £120 billion worth of tax avoidance and evasion on an industrial scale by corporate Britain and “high net worth” individuals.

There are alternative solutions which our representatives and supposedly accountable media never mention.

According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics, total wealth in the UK amounts to an incredible £9.1 trillion!

The ONS also stated that the richest 10% of the population owns and controls 56% of this bonanza which equates to £5 trillion!

If this super rich strata of society had their wealth taxed at a very reasonable rate of 5%, leaving them with 95%, instead of the incredulous 0.5% which they actually pay, the exchequer would raise £250 billion every year, which is more than enough to draw down the debt and fund real, actual improvements to our public services.

But why stop at 5%, when the rest of us, caught in the iron grip of PAYE, forfeit 40% of our income, not to mention the rip-off of VAT at a historic high of 20%.

Is this what the billionaires tremble at and does this explain the deafening silence from the establishment on this issue?

For the first time in UK history the working poor now outnumber the workless poor, the younger generation will be worse off than their parents and half a million people rely on food banks.

Poverty is endemic in the UK and benefit claimants, both working and non-working, live in fear of the next benefit cut and together with those on or below the average wage live in fear of the next fuel bill, the next rent demand or the next mortgage payment.

This reality of life in “democratic” Britain today has left workers, students, the sick, the elderly and the disabled all feeling totally powerless and helpless.

Yet in the midst of this mass of seething misery, people are coming together, uniting and organising against these attacks, proving once again that it is those with the least who produce the most by way of mutual support, solidarity and community spirit.

Trade union, socialist and community activists the length and breadth of Britain, including Scotland, are discussing, organising and forming peoples’ assemblies to unite and mobilise all organisations opposing the ruling class “full spectrum” assault on wages, public services and civil and trade union rights.

These assemblies will carry an alternative manifesto into the general election campaign in each locality, based on policies which put people before profit, serve the interests of the millions instead of the millionaires and call time on the undemocratic, anti-working class, time-servers who pretend to represent the people.

Such a broad democratic alliance, with the organised working class at its heart and drawing around itself all those involved in struggle, has the potential to build a powerful force for change so much so that the recent  storms will be as nothing compared to the wrath of a risen people.