MORE SKULDUGGERY

Chukka Umunna has just let the cat out of the bag - the right wing of the Labour Party intend to force further change by pushing for U.K. membership of the the EU single market and its customs union to be permanent after "brexit". So much for respecting the decision of the British people. These chancers and opportunists really do have a death wish, but they will be alright with their well paid post parliamentary sinecures while the rest of us struggle with the ensuing shit. FFS Wake Up!

FOR DEMOCRACY, SOVEREIGNITY and WORKING CLASS INTERESTS

The right wing "remoaners" in the Labour Party and Trade Union Congress leaderships are top-rate "remainiacs" who, in one fell swoop, have shattered the hopes of millions of working people crying out for a "Corbyn" Labour Government and an end to austerity. In one utterly idiotic manoeuvre they have damned the 2017 election manifesto to complete oblivion!
Any lingering link with the anti-democratic European Union is to stamp all over the 17.4 million voters who demanded that Britain leave the transnational corporations' stitch-up for the elimination of the trade union, democratic and human rights of 500 million people. The "leave" vote represented a body blow to international capital and set the scene for a continent wide mass exodus from the bosses cartel.
Unless the Trade Union and Labour movement mobilises to reverse this decision and secure respect for, and adherence to, the democratic will of the British people, the Labour Party can wave goodbye to any chance of winning the next general election, whenever it comes, as millions of working class voters desert the Party and stay at home come polling day. The political, economic and democratic price to pay will consume all the advances won by the left in recent years and leave the space and opportunity open for an assortment of racist, fascist and neonazi forces to take advantage of. You have been warned!

Britain's Achilles Heel - Our Uncompetitive Pound - Full Length Documentary

T



At last, some sense and optimism - a "weak" pound is good news for investment, manufacturing, wages and the working class - get with the "brexit/lexit" movement and build a society for all.

SNP - Insurgents or Same Old, Same Old

Introduction

There have been momentous political events taking place in Europe, as well as elsewhere, in recent years which have challenged the ruling capitalist hegemony and shaken the system to its roots. Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the SNP in Scotland and Corbyn's Labour Party in Britain are the most important and interesting. All of these movements represent a mass rejection of neoliberal economics and its associated inequality, austerity, job losses, unemployment, service cuts, increased taxes, low wages and unremitting poverty while the rich grow richer. The advances made by these movements were all at the expense of the traditional right-wing social democratic formations in each of their countries but, with the exception of Corbyn's Labour Party, they have all failed to maintain forward momentum in recent electoral campaigns having disappointed their support over the intervening period.

Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, the left has grown both in stature and in strength, so much so that the Party now boasts the largest membership of any European Party, totalling some 650,000 members. Despite the manoeuvres of the right-wing Parliamentary Party and the Party's right-wing apparatchiks, massive gains were recorded in the 2017 general election fought on an unapologetic, anti-austerity, left-wing manifesto to such an extent that Corbyn's Party is now a government in waiting. The gains in Scotland were more modest and support more muted.

SNP “Surge”

In the 2014 “independence" referendum many anti-austerity individuals and organisations campaigned and voted for “independence" and although they lost the vote the SNP gained a membership of 120,000 and the momentum generated by the campaign carried the SNP to a spectacular 2015 general election success, winning 56 seats out of a total of 59.

Communist Party members and the majority of left-wingers in the Labour Party and the Trade Unions, determined to fight capital at the location where it is organised, protect the potential for wealth redistribution throughout the British Isles and defend the unity of the British Trade Union and Labour Movement and voted to stay in the United Kingdom.

These same forces also promoted the left-wing case for leaving the European Union during the EU referendum in 2016. The SNP, a pro-EU Party, lost substantial swathes of support, mainly to the Tories but also to the Labour Party, in the 2017 general election finishing with 35 seats, having also lost votes and seats, with the exception of Glasgow, in the earlier 2017 Scottish Council Elections.

Dundee

In Dundee, where they had controlled the City Council for 9 years, the SNP was forced into a coalition with an independent who became the Lord Provost. During their tenure the SNP administration continued with the previous Labour administration’s new build plans, including two new schools and a waterfront development, which they claimed as their own, while closing centres for vulnerable adults and special education units, axing bus routes, privatising ground maintenance, ignoring local opinion during consultation exercises (at one meeting, an SNP councillor just got up and walked out), building next to no council houses, jettisoning 1300  local jobs, pretending to impose conditions on contractors over blacklisting and apprenticeships and relinquishing real control of the authority to the council officers.

Holyrood

The political reality at Holyrood, where the SNP has been in power since 2007, has been no better with posturing and sleight of hand being the order of the day. In that time, the nationalist administrations which, initially were “noted” for managerial efficiency are now “noted” for damage limitation exercises. They have been the most centralising governments since the Thatcher UK governments.

Police services and Fire and Rescue services have been removed from local government oversight and control and threats are being made to coral education services into 8 regional authorities, with no role whatsoever for the 32 local councils. National “hubcos”, on which contractors are represented, are used to award most public contracts. Quangos are the favourite management tool for nationalists with promises on anti-blacklisting and local job opportunities in the procurement of public contracts cynically broken.

When the Peoples’ Assembly Scotland met with Scottish Ministers to discuss the Peoples Manifesto, the delegation were informed that the Scottish Government was already implementing the Assembly’s proposals!! This seems to be the stock-in-trade response from nationalists at both local and national level - “we are already doing that.”

Scotland

In reality what they are doing, is passing on Tory cuts to Local Authorities. Between 2013 and 2017, the Scottish government budget was cut by 1.5% but the nationalists insisted on slashing Council budgets by 4.6%. “Scottish Futures Trust,” the SNP flagship instrument for investing in Scotland’s infrastructure, was initially ruled illegal by the EU Commission because it did not include enough private capital and a separate £10 bn investment deal with Chinese companies was still-born when one signatory withdrew amidst a public outcry.

A real opportunity to return rail services to public ownership was spurned by the SNP when they awarded the ScotRail franchise to “Abellio”, which is owned by the Dutch government! They also used EU law to allow privateers to bid for the island ferry services, with Serco winning the northern routes.

In the decade of SNP government, three Education secretaries have come and gone with Russell, Hyslop and Constance widely regarded as total failures and incumbent Swinney is desperately trying to pick up the pieces. Health secretary Robinson is failing to reach her own targets, Rural Affairs secretary Ewing is desperate to conceal his rabid support for fracking, Transport secretary Yousaf is the target of irate rail users, Police and Fire secretary Matheson oversees the complete shambles that is Police Scotland and the Housing minister hardly has a council house to his name. The First Minister, Sturgeon has obsessed so much about a second “independence” referendum that her government has not introduced a single piece of notable legislation for more than a year.

The SNP roll call of failure over the past 10 years includes:- 

Health  3,000 nurse vacancies, Hospitals & Wards shut, 6,000 beds gone, all category waiting target fails, U-turn on junior doctors hours, 30% student nurses cut, Glasgow shortest UK life expectancy.            

Education  4,000 less teachers, 1,000 less pupil support staff, class sizes up, 40% student teachers cut, record attainment falls in maths-reading-science at P4 P7 S2, £40 m cut student bursaries, student debt doubled, 150,000 college places cut, FE college mergers.       

Housing  50% stock sub-standard, 150,000 on council waiting lists, record homelessness. 

Transport  Bus/Rail fares hiked, bus routes axed.                                                                

Policing  67 counters closed, Glasgow-Aberdeen-Dundee crime hotspots.                       

Poverty  420,000 kids, an increase of 150,000 living in poverty, 400,00 earn less than living wage, 100,000 on zero hours.                                                                                            

Employment  150,000 public sector jobs lost, 65,000 North Sea jobs lost, 80% new jobs below living wage.                                                                                                                 

Agriculture  Farmers CAP payments delayed 2 years running.                                         

Inequality 430 individuals own half the land, 100 richest people worth £25 bn, 4 families control £6 bn - same as bottom 20% of population.                                                             

Finance  North Sea revenues - 2011/12 £10.9 bn, 2016/17 £312 m. An “independent” Scotland would find itself with a budget shortfall of more than £15 billion which represents 9.5% of its GDP and falls foul of the EU fiscal compact which dictates a shortfall of less than 0.5%. The difference would have to be made up by increasing taxes, or cutting services even further. Leaving the EU would provide greater room for manoeuvre.

Rise and Fall

The early leadership of the SNP were interned during WWll because of their openly fascist views and support of the German Nazi Party. Apart from 2 isolated by-election victories in 1967 and 1973, the SNP arrived at the general election of October 1974, winning 11 seats. Having helped the Tories bring down the Labour government in 1979, they lost 9 seats, hanging on in Dundee East and the Western Isles. The leader, Gordon Wilson MP (Dundee East) became the target of a leadership challenge from the 79 Group, led by Alex Salmond. The party then decided to stand in local elections and won the Hilltown ward in Dundee. During the Thatcher years angry Tory voters deserted their political home and turned, in numbers to the SNP. This was the period when the SNP began to win control of local authorities, beginning with Angus Council. Salmond became party leader and he and his supporters styled themselves as social democrats. The party developed slowly up to the 1997 election which resulted in victory for the Blair Labour Party but in subsequent elections, spurred on by disillusionment with Labour, the SNP developed rapidly at both local and national level. They purported to be an anti-Tory organisation but the Salmond leadership was beginning to target the Labour Party. Some of their activists made no secret of the fact that they wished to destroy and replace the Labour Party as the majority party in Scotland and disgusted Labour voters moved to the nationalists in even greater numbers. The campaign for a devolved assembly/parliament in Scotland took root and grew in opposition to the Tory governments. This mainly trade union and labour movement initiative was boycotted by the nationalists who pursued the purist “independence” line.

By the time of the formation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, the SNP was all for devolution, recognising it as a vehicle to deliver “independence”. This exploitation of the parliament together with anti-Tory rhetoric and a superficial social democratic veneer delivered spectacularly for the SNP up to, during and after the “independence” referendum. Following his failure to win the referendum, Salmond resigned and the leadership passed to Sturgeon. The SNP at base is a petty bourgeois nationalist organisation with no real substance, which aims to represent all Scots, including large employers, medium to small employers, the middle strata and employees. It attempts to be all things to all men/women and talks about Scotland without defining which Scotland it means.

SNP campaigners are renowned for changing their message and policy depending on whom they are speaking to. The social democratic posture further confuses some working people but the majority among the Scottish proletariat continue to support the Labour Party, even more so since Jeremy Corbyn became its leader.                                                                                                                       

Salmond is recognised as a competent bourgeois politician who, as the Chinese say, talks out of both sides of his mouth and his opportunism and suspect manoeuvring in smooching the likes of Trump, Murdoch and Soutar and his oleaginous, easy style hides a basically capitalist, pro-boss politician who ruthlessly pursues their interests. Salmond and his party pay lip-service to the working class movement and its interests, with the occasional nod in its direction. He has spent at least 38 years spinning the people of Scotland a tale about a magical heaven in an “independent” Scotland. His much vaunted “Scotland’s Future” which was delivered to every house during the “independence” referendum campaign was revealed to be a puffed-up, but empty vision of a country tied to the neoliberal European Union. He and his party are neoliberal advocates of low levels of corporation tax and have failed to deliver on their promise to abolish the council tax and replace it with a more egalitarian local income tax or land value tax. There is a nasty anti-English streak running through the SNP and its support, who would rather operate jointly with the people of other nations than with the English worker, despite England being Scotland’s biggest trading partner.                                                                                                                                                  

The SNP cohort in the Westminster Parliament act and talk left but their counter-parts in the Holyrood Parliament act and talk right. No-one can be all things to all men/women, a choice has to be made as to which opposing social and economic forces should be supported and policies developed which meet the needs of those forces. The SNP’s glaring weakness is its lack of any tangible, organic link with the organised trade union and labour movement.                                                                                                                                            

For far too long the SNP has mined the vein of grievance in Scotland with no material benefit to Scottish working people. Its focus is on identity, which can be extremely divisive, rather than on the more positive and unifying concept of class and that is why it can never be a social democratic organisation, why it will never truly represent the interests of the Scottish working class and why its star is now on the wane. To all intents and purposes the “independence” train has hit the buffers and run out of fuel and over time the Scottish people will desert the SNP, which having failed to deliver for them, will increasingly become irrelevant along with so-called “independence”.  

                                                                       

The chimera of “independence” is a fool’s paradise and once that garbage has been removed from the consciousness of the working class, real class consciousness can take its place and power the proletarian revolution, overthrow the bourgeois capitalist system and replace it with the industrial and economic democracy of socialism.

SNP - Insurgents or Same Old, Same Old

Introduction

There have been momentous political events taking place in Europe, as well as elsewhere, in recent years which have challenged the ruling capitalist hegemony and shaken the system to its roots. Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the SNP in Scotland and Corbyn's Labour Party in Britain are the most important and interesting. All of these movements represent a mass rejection of neoliberal economics and its associated inequality, austerity, job losses, unemployment, service cuts, increased taxes, low wages and unremitting poverty while the rich grow richer. The advances made by these movements were all at the expense of the traditional right-wing social democratic formations in each of their countries but, with the exception of Corbyn's Labour Party, they have all failed to maintain forward momentum in recent electoral campaigns having disappointed their support over the intervening period.

Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, the left has grown both in stature and in strength, so much so that the Party now boasts the largest membership of any European Party, totalling some 650,000 members. Despite the manoeuvres of the right-wing Parliamentary Party and the Party's right-wing apparatchiks, massive gains were recorded in the 2017 general election fought on an unapologetic, anti-austerity, left-wing manifesto to such an extent that Corbyn's Party is now a government in waiting. The gains in Scotland were more modest and support more muted.

SNP “Surge”

In the 2014 “independence" referendum many anti-austerity individuals and organisations campaigned and voted for “independence" and although they lost the vote the SNP gained a membership of 120,000 and the momentum generated by the campaign carried the SNP to a spectacular 2015 general election success, winning 56 seats out of a total of 59. Communist Party members and the majority of left-wingers in the Labour Party and the Trade Unions, determined to fight capital at the location where it is organised, protect the potential for wealth redistribution throughout the British Isles and defend the unity of the British Trade Union and Labour Movement and voted to stay in the United Kingdom. These same forces also promoted the left-wing case for leaving the European Union during the EU referendum in 2016. The SNP, a pro-EU Party, lost substantial swathes of support, mainly to the Tories but also to the Labour Party, in the 2017 general election finishing with 35 seats, having also lost votes and seats, with the exception of Glasgow, in the earlier 2017 Scottish Council Elections.

Dundee

In Dundee, where they had controlled the City Council for 9 years, the SNP was forced into a coalition with an independent who became the Lord Provost. During their tenure the SNP administration continued with the previous Labour administration’s new build plans, including two new schools and a waterfront development, which they claimed as their own, while closing centres for vulnerable adults and special education units, axing bus routes, privatising ground maintenance, ignoring local opinion during consultation exercises (at one meeting, an SNP councillor just got up and walked out), building next to no council houses, jettisoning 1300  local jobs, pretending to impose conditions on contractors over blacklisting and apprenticeships and relinquishing real control of the authority to the council officers.

Holyrood

The political reality at Holyrood, where the SNP has been in power since 2007, has been no better with posturing and sleight of hand being the order of the day. In that time, the nationalist administrations which, initially were “noted” for managerial efficiency are now “noted” for damage limitation exercises. They have been the most centralising governments since the Thatcher UK governments. Police services and Fire and Rescue services have been removed from local government oversight and control and threats are being made to coral education services into 8 regional authorities, with no role whatsoever for the 32 local councils. National “hubcos”, on which contractors are represented, are used to award most public contracts. Quangos are the favourite management tool for nationalists with promises on anti-blacklisting and local job opportunities in the procurement of public contracts cynically broken. When the Peoples’ Assembly Scotland met with Scottish Ministers to discuss the Peoples Manifesto, the delegation were informed that the Scottish Government was already implementing the Assembly’s proposals!! This seems to be the stock-in-trade response from nationalists at both local and national level - “we are already doing that.”

Scotland

In reality what they are doing, is passing on Tory cuts to Local Authorities. Between 2013 and 2017, the Scottish government budget was cut by 1.5% but the nationalists insisted on slashing Council budgets by 4.6%. “Scottish Futures,” the SNP flagship instrument for investing in Scotland’s infrastructure, was initially ruled illegal by the EU Commission because it did not include enough private capital and a separate £10 bn investment deal with Chinese companies was still-born when one signatory withdrew amidst a public outcry.

A real opportunity to return rail services to public ownership was spurned by the SNP when they awarded the ScotRail franchise to “Abellio”, which is owned by the Dutch government! They also used EU law to allow privateers to bid for the island ferry services, with Serco winning the northern routes.

In the decade of SNP government, three Education secretaries have come and gone with Russell, Hyslop and Constance widely regarded as total failures and incumbent Swinney is desperately trying to pick up the pieces. Health secretary Robinson is failing to reach her own targets, Transport secretary Yousaf is the target of irate rail users, Police and Fire secretary Matheson oversees the complete shambles that is Police Scotland and the Housing minister hardly has a council house to his name. The First Minister, Sturgeon has obsessed so much about a second “independence” referendum that her government has not introduced a single piece of notable legislation for more than a year.

The SNP roll call of failure over the past 10 years includes:-  

Health  3,000 nurse vacancies, Hospitals & Wards shut, 6,000 beds gone, all category waiting target fails, U-turn on junior doctors hours, 30% student nurses cut, Glasgow shortest UK life expectancy.            

Education  4,000 less teachers, 1,000 less pupil support staff, class sizes up, 40% student teachers cut, record attainment falls in maths-reading-science at P4 P7 S2, £40 m cut student bursaries, student debt doubled, 150,000 college places cut, FE college mergers.       

Housing  50% stock sub-standard, 150,000 on council waiting lists, record homelessness. 

Transport  Bus/Rail fares hiked, bus routes axed.                                                                 

Policing  67 counters closed, Glasgow-Aberdeen-Dundee crime hotspots.                       

Poverty  420,000 kids up 150,000, 400,00 earn less than living wage, 100,000 on zero hours.

Employment  150,000 public sector jobs lost, 65,000 North Sea jobs lost, 80% new jobs below living wage.                                                                                                                 

Agriculture  Farmers CAP payments delayed 2 years running.                                         

Inequality 430 individuals own half the land, 100 richest people worth £25 bn, 4 families control £6 bn - same as bottom 20% of population.                                                             

Finance  North Sea revenues - 2011/12 £10.9 bn, 2016/17 £312 m. An “independent” Scotland would find itself with a budget shortfall of more than £15 billion which represents 9.5% of its GDP and falls foul of the EU fiscal compact which dictates a shortfall of less than 0.5%. The difference would have to be made up by increasing taxes, or cutting services even further. Leaving the EU would provide greater room for manoeuvre.

Rise and Fall

The early leadership of the SNP were interned during WWll because of their openly fascist views and support of the German Nazi Party. Apart from 2 isolated by-election victories in 1967 and 1973, the SNP arrived at the general election of October 1974, winning 11 seats. Having helped the Tories bring down the Labour government in 1979, they lost 9 seats, hanging on in Dundee East and the Western Isles. The leader, Gordon Wilson MP (Dundee East) became the target of a leadership challenge from the 79 Group, led by Alex Salmond. The party then decided to stand in local elections and won the Hilltown ward in Dundee. During the Thatcher years angry Tory voters deserted their political home and turned, in numbers to the SNP. This was the period when the SNP began to win control of local authorities, beginning with Angus Council. Salmond became party leader and he and his supporters styled themselves as social democrats. The party developed slowly up to the 1997 election which resulted in victory for the Blair Labour Party but in subsequent elections, spurred on by disillusionment with Labour, the SNP developed rapidly at both local and national level. They purported to be an anti-Tory organisation but the Salmond leadership was beginning to target the Labour Party. Some of their activists made no secret of the fact that they wished to destroy and replace the Labour Party as the majority party in Scotland and disgusted Labour voters moved to the nationalists in even greater numbers. The campaign for a devolved assembly/parliament in Scotland took root and grew in opposition to the Tory governments. This mainly trade union and labour movement initiative was boycotted by the nationalists who pursued the purist “independence” line. By the time of the formation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, the SNP was all for devolution, recognising it as a vehicle to deliver “independence”. This exploitation of the parliament together with anti-Tory rhetoric and a superficial social democratic veneer delivered spectacularly for the SNP up to, during and after the “independence” referendum. Following his failure to win the referendum, Salmond resigned and the leadership passed to Sturgeon. The SNP at base is a petty bourgeois nationalist organisation with no real substance, which aims to represent all Scots, including large employers, medium to small employers, the middle strata and employees. It attempts to be all things to all men/women and talks about Scotland without defining which Scotland it means. SNP campaigners are renowned for changing their message and policy depending on whom they are speaking to. The social democratic posture further confuses some working people but the majority among the Scottish proletariat continue to support the Labour Party, even more so since Jeremy Corbyn became its leader.                                                                                                         

Salmond is recognised as a competent bourgeois politician who, as the Chinese say, talks out of both sides of his mouth and his opportunism and suspect manoeuvring in smooching the likes of Trump, Murdoch and Soutar and his oleaginous, easy style hides a basically capitalist, pro-boss politician who ruthlessly pursues their interests. Salmond and his party pay lip-service to the working class movement and its interests, with the occasional nod in its direction. He has spent at least 38 years spinning the people of Scotland a tale about a magical heaven in an “independent” Scotland. His much vaunted “Scotland’s Future” which was delivered to every house during the “independence” referendum campaign was revealed to be a puffed-up, but empty vision of a country tied to the neoliberal European Union. There is a nasty anti-English streak running through the SNP and its support, who would rather operate jointly with the people of other nations than with the English worker, despite England being Scotland’s biggest trading partner.                                                          The SNP cohort in the Westminster Parliament act and talk left but their counter-parts in the Holyrood Parliament act and talk right. No-one can be all things to all men/women, a choice has to be made as to which opposing social and economic forces should be supported and policies developed which meet the needs of those forces. The SNP’s glaring weakness is its lack of any tangible, organic link with the organised trade union and labour movement.                                                                      For far too long the SNP has mined the vein of grievance in Scotland with no material benefit to Scottish working people. Its focus is on identity, which can be extremely divisive, rather than on the more positive and unifying concept of class and that is why it can never be a social democratic organisation, why it will never truly represent the interests of the Scottish working class and why its star is now on the wane. To all intents and purposes the “independence” train has hit the buffers and run out of fuel and over time the Scottish people will desert the SNP, which having failed to deliver for them, will increasingly become irrelevant along with so-called “independence”.

HOME RULE / RADICAL FEDERALISM / PROGRESSIVE FEDERALISM

HOME RULE / RADICAL FEDERALISM / PROGRESSIVE FEDERALISM

During the past week, Anas Sarwar MSP regaled the Fabian Society with a "bliarite" assessment of the political situation in Scotland. He argued that when the Tory Party does well in Scotland, the Labour Party in Scotland also does well as it is recognised as the most effective anti-Tory force in the country.
This superficial analysis would dictate that for Labour to do really well, the Tories must also do really well!

At the same time, due to the Corbyn/McDonnell left leadership of the Labour Party and the associated deluge of public support, left "independence" supporters are pleading with the Labour Party in Scotland to embrace the demand for "independence" so that they may vote Labour with a clear conscience!! They want to resolve their individual dilemma by making demands on the whole British Trade Union and Labour Movement. Their inner crisis is of their own making and any support they may wish to give our movement will be on the basis of the policies of that movement!

Those socialist policies will throw the "bliarite" Fabians to one side and reduce the differences on the people of Scotland's future to one of such insignificance that the Nationalists will be thrown to the other side. To that end, the following resolution is being promoted during our movement's congress/conference season.

The Trade Union and Labour Movement Broad Left in Scotland, and the rest of the UK, recognises the existential threat to a united British Trade Union and Labour Movement emanating from the class collaborationist demands for an “independent” Scotland and Wales and resolves to raise the profile of our traditional policy of “Home Rule”, described in some progressive circles as “Radical/Progressive Federalism”.
Local democracy is also being emasculated by a centralising SNP administration in Holyrood and the neoliberal transfer of power and resources to directly elected mayors and local “cabinet” government in England.
Abolition of the House of Lords and its possible replacement with a directly elected upper chamber should also be part of this debate.
The federal concept is predicated on government powers being delivered at the most appropriate level and as close to the people as possible.

FOR EXAMPLE:-
Powers to be retained at the UK level would include National Defence, Foreign Affairs, International Treaties and macro-economic policy such as Wealth Redistribution, Monetary and Fiscal Policy levers, Interest Rates, Currency, UK Industrial Strategy, appropriate Revenue raising and some Social Security Benefits.
Powers over Health and Social Care, Education, Housing, Transport, Communications, Public Ownership, Industrial Investment, Agriculture, Fisheries, Land Use, Local Authorities, some Social Security Benefits and appropriate Revenue raising to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, (North Ireland Assembly powers should be treated separately) and Regional Assemblies, to be identified democratically, in England.
Remaining powers and services, such as Council housing, hospitals, schools, local bus transport, police and fire and rescue should be vested in democratic and accountable local authorities.
These proposals, without detriment to powers already devolved to Scotland and Wales, but which may be amended by mutual agreement, to be the subject of discussion, debate and recommendation in, and by, a representative UK Constitutional Convention. The role and place of a representative English Parliament should also be part of the aforementioned discussion and debate.
We agree that the above, or similar, proposals are best placed to lance the boil of petty nationalism, satisfy the popular demand for extended democracy and resolve to actively campaign throughout the UK to bring them to fruition.

General Election 2017 – Half-Time Report

Last week’s general election killed off ephemeral identity politics and brought back the reality of class politics. The Yes/No and Leave/Remain referenda results were emphatically upheld and calls to deny the public their expressed will were resoundingly squashed. The return to avowedly class positions squeezed the Nationalists and Liberals into political insignificance.

The fundamental battle-ground between labour and capital is within the Labour Party, between its left and right wings, with the Tories cheering from the side-lines, while the Nationalists and Liberals huff and puff outside the stadium.

Evidence of the demise of the nationalist-bourgeois shibboleth was personified by the usually hubristic, but this time, lachrymose, crestfallen Salmond mounting the results platform. Evidence of the demise of the liberal-bourgeois EU love-affair was personified by various “luminaries” of the commentariat bewailing the UK loss of single market/custom union inclusion.

The “leading” turn-coats inside the Parliamentary Labour Party initially expressed surprise at, and support for, Corbyn’s leadership skills and political acumen, only to recant some hours later and cast further aspersion on a man with a rod of steel for a back-bone and whose boots they could not lick!

Tory gains from both UKIP and the SNP signify the return of “natural” Tories to their political home, while Labour gains from both UKIP and the SNP signify the return of socialists to the party of organised labour. Labour gains from the SNP would have been much greater had the Scottish leadership whole-heartedly endorsed Corbyn’s radical movement, thus overcoming the residual small SNP majorities in many central-belt constituencies. Further Labour gains could have been won in the rest of Britain if full-time HQ apparatchiks had used Party funds to support left candidates as well as their favoured right-wingers!

Media attention has turned to the parliamentary effect of both May’s dismal leadership skills and the desultory contents of the Tory manifesto, with such attention restricted to “soft/hard” Brexit and the timing of yet another election. Such infantile rambling about Brexit is simply a desperate attempt to sow confusion and overturn the decision of 17 million voters. This manoeuvring will fail, we are leaving the EU and all that it entails. This, for the working class, means no single market, no customs union and no subjection to European Court of Justice anti-trade union/ working class judgements. Although the timing of the next election is more problematic, it will not be in 5 years, it will not be in 5 days, it will not be in 5 weeks, but in 5 months is a distinct possibility.

The new, but very much weakened Tory government - with DUP support, will rise not as a phoenix from the flames, but rather as a blue-bottle from a steaming turd! Parliamentary and media apologists for the new government are calling for stability and an end to uncertainty, which is code for no change and shoring up the status quo! The ruling class will attempt to resuscitate, and sustain, a May/Tory Government for as long as possible, using the excuse of Brexit negotiations for that purpose.

Five months is sufficient time for Corbyn’s insurgent movement, and resurgent Labour Party, to hold a full parliamentary candidates selection/reselection process, to hold at least one annual conference to re-instate clause four, to change eligibility criteria for the election of leader/deputy leader, to remove intransigent, obstructive full time apparatchiks and to admit/re-admit expelled/suspended members.

It is also plenty of time to allow for the defeat/amendment of the Queen’s Speech, events which will produce further strains in the Tory Government (Committee of the Ruling Class), Tory Government defeat, Royal invitation, to Corbyn, to form a minority Labour Government, defeat (and fall) of the Labour Government by anti-working class Parliamentary forces and the declaration of another General Election - the start of Second-Half.

The ruling class will procrastinate, prevaricate and frustrate any, and all attempts by the Left to gain power in this country. That is why we cannot afford any let up in the struggle to seize, and secure, working class power. The movement against austerity, launched by the Peoples’ Assembly, supported by Corbyn and others on the left, taken up by the Corbyn-led Labour Party and which demands are reflected in the current Labour Party manifesto, must continue with renewed vigour to win lasting support.

The recent general Election campaign has proved beyond doubt that Labour can win from the left. We, on the left, always had confidence that was the case, but this time around we have exposed and defeated the traitorous and timorous elements within our ranks and by expelling this Tory fifth column, we can seize and secure working class power.

FROM A GOOD 2016 TO A REVOLUTIONARY 2017 AND BEYOND

At its 2016 biennial Congress last November, the Communist Party of Britain defined the current political situation as one where the ruling class was manoeuvring to drive, during the next period in the developing crisis of British capitalism, a make or break attempt to shore up its rule. The Congress recognised that the next big battle between the contending classes of Capital and Labour would result in the outright victory of one and the total defeat of the other and resolved to ensure that the working class movement was victorious.

The ten years since the onset of the great financial crash (remember the “experts" calling it a “credit crunch”) and the desperate measures by International Capital to bail out the banks, and other financial institutions, by looting national treasuries and forcing years of austerity, misery and poverty upon the mass of peoples across the globe; have witnessed a magnificent movement of peoples against these attacks in countries as diverse as Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, France, Belgium and Britain.

The anti-austerity movement here in the UK, led by the widely supported Peoples Assembly Against Austerity, resulted in the election and re-election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, the total disarray of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which is playing the role of Capital's fifth column within the working class movement, and the body blow delivered to British, European and International Capital by the British working class vote to leave the European Union, which was never an instrument of “international solidarity" but in reality a tool for the unhindered flight of capital and jobs and the unregulated movement of cheap labour whenever and wherever Capital demands.

The reason the British Government, instead of immediately triggering Article 50, is procrastinating on beginning the withdrawal process is that the ruling elites, both UK and EU, need to re-assess their strategy for trans-national corporate domination in the midst of an EU and Eurozone melt down and looming defeat for global, anti-democratic trade deals such as TTIP, TPP, CETA and TISA.

The allied vote by American workers in the recent presidential election, defeating the establishment candidate Hillary Clinton, a leading pro-war hawk and neo-liberal exponent, and the humiliating defeat of US imperialism in Syria are further examples of the global nature of the resistance to Capital’s attempts to resolve its crises at the expense of the workers of the world.

The apoplectic howls of anguish spluttering from the chocking throats of the “liberal bourgeoisie" who have been totally thrown by these events is an indicator of their anti-working class bias and basic anti-democratic credentials. Tory europhiles, Liberal Democrats, right-wing Labourites and Greens are joined by the SNP which continually denies the decision of the Scottish people to remain in the UK, and the result of the all-UK  European referendum, in a desperate but forlorn attempt to resurrect native capital, reverse more than three hundred years of economic development, split the united British Trade Union and Labour Movement along national lines and end forever the redistribution of wealth across the nations and regions of Britain; hence the Congress decision to totally oppose calls for a second Scottish “independence" referendum.

Bourgeois forces and their political and media mouth-pieces continually snigger at, denigrate, name call and abuse the real creators of wealth and the ultimate founders of a decent, inclusive society which treasures respect, peace, mutual support through the provision of quality publicly owned and delivered housing, transport, health and education services and amenities, and secures democratic and popular ownership of wealth, factories, utilities and banks and financial institutions, that is working class control of the means of production, distribution and exchange.

Since the introduction of neo-liberal policies in 1976, when the Labour Chancellor Dennis Healey bent before the International Monetary Fund diktat to cut public spending, the later Thatcher Tory Governments from 1979 tightened the neo-liberal screw with the removal of controls on the export of capital, removal of controls on the import of manufactured goods, further cuts in public spending, privatisation of public assets, outsourcing of public services and draconian anti-trade union legislation (euphemistically called “employment" laws) and the even later Blair and Brown Labour Governments timidly followed a so-called “third way”, continued to serve the interests of domestic and international Capital and refused to repeal the vicious Tory anti-union laws, followed by the austerity addicted Cameron/Osborne Governments; the share of generated annual wealth going to wages fell from 65% of Gross Domestic Product in 1976 to 50.5% in 2015 with the balance going to profits. Additionally £375 billion of quantitative easing by the Bank of England have been hoovered up into bank deposits and asset purchases by the super-rich. No wonder profits have soared, wages have fallen and wealth inequality has grown to historic levels of obscenity while workers have suffered the longest wage squeeze since 1856!

The growing level of unconscionable greed and wealth inequality across the world and within nations has even moved Pope Francis, leader of the biggest organisation on earth with two billion members, to declare that “the Communists are now the real Christians.”

In a society of food-banks, clothing banks, fuel poverty, debt poverty, zero hour contracts, mass under and unemployment, where more than half of those subsisting below the official poverty level are actually working and 26 million are only £100 away from financial ruin while British businesses hoard bank balances worth £754 billion and also claim £93 billion in subsidies each year, corporations and the super-rich squirrel £2.1 trillion away in overseas tax-havens and banks have walked off with £1.35 trillion of the people’s money; such a society is over-ripe for change.

The Congress agreed that such change should be driven by the organised Trade Union and Labour Movement at the head of a broad anti-austerity alliance, uniting wide sections of the population in pursuit of an alternative political, social and economic strategy, based on reversal of the cuts to services and benefits, investment in infrastructure renewal, manufacturing industry and renewable energy; all sustained by an increase in purchasing power and improvements in living standards.

The advent of the “internet of things" and the introduction of new waves of technological advance has led some forecasters to warn of the loss of up to 40% of existing jobs in the next 10 to 15 years, even outstripping the 8 million high-skill, high-wage jobs lost in previous waves of technological change. Technical and clerical workers are about to feel the same chilling effects of capitalist innovation as felt by their industrial and manufacturing colleagues over recent years. The necessity for job-share and fewer working hours as reflected in the 6 hour day, the 4 day week, 12 weeks annual holiday and retirement at 55 and 50 years is now of pressing concern.

Given that the failed neo-liberal economic policy has cost the average worker a loss in wages, at current prices, of £160 per week since 1976, £40 of which has occurred since the crash of 2007 and a decade of wage freezes and derisory 1% increases; millions of workers, both organised and unorganised are desperately crying out for a realistic, rewarding hike in their wage rates. An initial rise of £2 per hour would seem appropriate to be followed by similar increases each and every year.

The Congress agreed that the Trade Union and Labour Movement campaign for a new political, social and economic settlement should adopt cutting edge demands for shorter working hours and higher wages in all work-places across both the private and public sectors, an initiative since repeated in decisions of the Party’s Political Committee and statements by its General Secretary.

If pursued seriously, this strategy would lead to a re-invigorated Trade Union and Labour Movement with renewed credibility and thousands of new members and supporters attracted by such a determined effort to improve living standards and life chances. EffectIve industrial action, supported by wide sections of the public, has the strength and force to steam-roller any resistance from employers, Government and the law into the ground and win social and economic justice for our people, our youth, our elderly and each and every community, town and city throughout our country.

Let's get cracking on with it and submit our demands as soon as possible!

TOGETHER WE CAN

MAKE 2017, THE CENTENARY OF THE GREAT OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION, BRITAIN'S 1917!