Open Letter to local Labour Party activists

from Willie Telfer, SSP Campsie Strathkelvin Organiser

Many groupings look to their elders for sage advice on the future. This should be the case in relation to local labour activists approaching the independence referendum next year.

Willie Telfer (left) "Labour Party activists would do well to listen to Canavan and Charlie Gray - stalwarts of long standing commitment to true 'Labour' values."

Look at the position of the once giants of the local Labour party, Dennis Canavan and Charlie Gray. Names from the local past when a labour party branch was an integral part of the life of every town and village in Strathkelvin, where the pursuit through representation of social justice provoked large numbers of ordinary folk to become active to ensure their election to Westminster and to the Strathclyde region.

With their experience and their long standing commitment to true Labour values surely the modern day Labour activist would be well advised to listen to them on independence. Denis is of course a national co-chair for a Yes vote and is proving a powerful advocate who is respected by all in Scottish politics, he links independence  with the opportunity to build a progressive society which could show the way for other progressive forces in UK . Gray would agree with that opportunity,though his recent declaration for independence is perhaps more targeted at the heart and soul of Scottish Labour and those activists that still carry the torch for socialism in an organization embarrassed by the very word.

The fact is that the Labour party in an independent Scotland would and should go back to being the mass party of the people,of the working class. It would be free of the shackles of chasing the minds of middle England, placating the Sun, the Mail and the Express, Old Scottish labour values for Scottish people, I believe they would see a regeneration of activism as they rediscover the cause.

The recent white paper on independence shows at present that amongst the larger parties the SNP have at least a decent idea of politics for a cause and in coalition with the SSP, the Greens and other forces on the left, the message of a fairer more just Scotland will gain the day.

I say the only place for a true socialist to be,no matter which party banner they fly, is in the yes camp. Don't take my word for it comrades, Canavan and Gray are calling you again to build a better country and to save the soul of the Scottish Labour party itself.

What are you doing on 21st September?

#indyref #yesscot

Independence:

SSP Campsie blogger, Neil Scott "Labour Commentators Are Wrong to Pull Independence Debate Ultra-Right" HERE via @huffingtonpost

A fair Scotland?

Cooperation, democracy, fairness, internationalism, choice. Scotland's future after the 2014 referendum HERE

The Independence Discussion - BBC report

featuring Co-convenor SSP Colin Fox

 Read Colin's blog on this and Bill Newman's in depth report HERE

Scottish Socialist Party Conference

- Saturday 20th April, 10am, Augustine United Church, Edinburgh.

Join the revolution!

One reason why I support Independence...

By Neil Scott, Campsie Branch.

How do I explain my want for an independent Scotland? Ok. Lets do that using one example. Excess.

It's clear I am a socialist, so surplus in my independent Scotland would be used to ensure those with little access to something they need, get it. Excess or surplus or profit would not bolster the bank accounts of those who have so much they will never use it.

In Scotland, over 2000 people MORE die in the four winter months than they do in the previous four and the following four. A lot of those deaths are because of hypothermia in the home. This is in a country in which we have an excess of oil and an excess of electricity produced. This surplus is not given to our pensioners and poor to ensure they live through these harsh Scottish months. Both are sold in London or through a majority of London based companies for the profit boosting of the top six power companies who make more than £30 billion a year to cushion billionaires from the harsh winters on their yachts in the Carribean or at the most local, their well heated second, third or forth homes they keep in Scotland for the Grouse shoot or a wee visit at Hogmanay.

£30 billion a year that is mostly generated in Scotland through our excess of power. And this figure does not factor in the oil drained from our shores to bolster those bank accounts of the millionaires and billionaires who can afford to invest in the oil companies. Money they will in all probability never spend, while the lives of the poor and old are sacrificed.

Fighting this greed and fighting to share out our plentiful resources to ensure people have better, longer and more productive lives has not happened with Scotland in the UK. The UK is not OK for Scotand's vulnerable.

Scotland has voted continuously and decisively for a more socially just system since the days of Thatcher and before. But what have we had? Our budgets and welfare controlled by the Tories, Liberal Democrats and New Labour- all who have deep relationships with the power and oil profiteers.

None of the above really want to ensure our pensioners and vulnerable are safe and warm. In fact all of the above support welfare cuts and bleeding more money from the most vulnerable of our people in order to boost profits and pay off bankers.

Can staying in the UK change this? The evidence of the past forty years is evidence itself.

Can an Independent Scotland change this? I believe so, as the people of Scotland have been proven to vote for fairness and increasingly so, from election to election.

East Dunbartonshire Schools closures/consultation

The Scottish Socialist Party in East Dunbartonshire welcomes the protests against school closures and the extremely flawed consultation process in East Dunbartonshire and offers it’s help in this important grassroots reaction to the policies of Westminster that are impacting negatively on our local community.

The reduced budget sent north by Danny Alexander, Jo Swinson, George Osborne, Clegg and Cameron et al, is now effecting the future of our children (in the face of increased and much higher amount of revenue sent south).  Policy in Scotland, of not just the Scottish Socialist Party, but the SNP and Greens, has been to reduce class sizes and increase the ratio of adults to children.  The reduction of budgets has meant that the Westminster and local councils are at times quoting spurious research that goes against all that the monied class believe, ie, that small classes make no difference.

Cameron and his pals, pay large amounts of their accrued millions for the education of their children in order to ensure their children’s time spent with the teacher is maximised. 

In private schools, class sizes are as low as 8. 

It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that the amount of time a teacher can spend on children’s personal education is vastly different from a child thrown into new of the huge superschools. State schooling is being reduced to “controlling behaviour” with overcrowding the norm as soon as the new “minimum standard” superschool is opened.  It is a disgrace that the Liberal Democrats and Tories are telling working class/middle class families that their child deserves to be almost chained to a desk in the cramped conditions 32 in a class with one adult overseeing, creates.  Huge, impersonalised schools go against the spirit of the New Curriculum for Excellence – a curriculum designed to help give a child a love of learning, a freedom to explore and child centred/led education.

The present East Dunbartonshire Council, a coalition between vicious, uncaring Tories and New Labourites who have damned us to the thievery of PFI/PPP (which is ensuring our council is paying a huge chunk of your hard earned taxes, on an annual increasing basis, to private profiteers) have been determined to make our parents and children pay ever since the Save Our Schools campaign – a cross constituency united campaign – won their case within a week just over two years ago.  We knew this would come back sometime mid-term in the Council’s life.

The Scottish Socialist Party realise that the demographics of communities change, but at the same time, if that demographic has changed in such a way that ensures class sizes are not more than twenty, then the local schools and children benefitting from this change should be seen as the model for the future.  Not herding children across the constituency to be lost in schools of thousands of their peers.  The Tories, New Labour, and the Liberal Democrats seem to think we should always drive to the bottom, and this has become clear on the English NHS, pensions, welfare and painfully in England, education.

Twenty in a class is plenty – more than plenty. 

Twenty in a class ensures an average of 75 minutes a week of a teacher’s time is spent with your child.  The present 32 in a class means 46 minutes on average (compare this with the private school average of 187 minutes a week – over three hours – are we really “all in this together?”).

Large class sizes are detrimental to our children – and school closures rather than reinvestment in some of the smaller country and urban community schools, ensure our children struggle and have an unhappy school life isolated from their community. Current practise in replacing smaller schools with super-schools impair implementation of the New Curriculum for Excellence, so disadvantaging our children. The marketisation of Education has disadvantaged many low and middle income families.

Research on lower Primary Years (P1-3) gives us much more to think of (while being told that because of our tax money being frittered on Bankers debts we must tighten our belts):

http://www.classsizeresearch.org.uk/results1.html (Department of Psychology and Human Development at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK.)

We were heartened to see the schools campaigners on the streets this weekend, the same weekend the YES Scotland campaign were campaigning for a fairer Scotland.  In an independent fairer Scotland, our children’s future would be placed above the profits of the PPP/PFI companies and budgets would be decided by people closer to where they impact. 

We urge all parents and those concerned with education to unite and fight the Tory/New Labour coalition in East Dunbartonshire Council as it places paying the increasing PPP/PFI bill above the future of our children.  Budgets should ensure maximised child/teacher time and space for children to learn.

To sum up - considerations for East Dunbartonshire Council and it’s current Education policy:

• The rising population in the country, and indeed the rising birthrate in East Dunbartonshire.

• The impact of closures on Class size. The need for larger classrooms, more “schooling space” – ie. indoors and outdoors and smaller class sizes.

• The impact on special needs pupils if forced out of building.

• The impact on mainstream children’s mental health after separation from their peers and established community.

• The financial cost of refurbishment/clustering/ sharing resources rather than closure/ building schools with larger populations.

• The community cost of closure.

• The impact on parents/children regarding childcare.

• The impact on implementation of the New Curriculum for Excellence.

• The impact on children’s journey to schools. Child safety – children should not have to walk/travel far to school. This also affects children’s health, and road safety as those who have cars will tend to drive them.

• The impact on education workers. The diabolical numbers of newly qualified teachers in East Dunbartonshire, and indeed across Scotland, without work. The numbers of other educational workers who will lose work due to closures.

• The impact on receiving schools ability to ensure “McCrone” can be properly operated.

• The impact of the flawed consultations and subsequent 22 closures in Glasgow has already been proven to be catastrophic.

Of course, the Scottish Socialist Party feel that the only way to bring power to communities in Scotland over their budgets that impact our schools, hospitals, pensions and welfare, is to vote YES in 2014.

On Alasdair Gray...

email conversation about Alasdair Gray's recent controversial article (more background in the excellent BELLA CALEDONIA article)

Bill... What is your take on the attack on A Gray' in the Scotland on Sunday article? I think (as a recent immigrant) his words were welcoming, thoughtful and are being twisted by Better Together at the moment.

Neil

reply by Bill Newman

I have no concerns whatsoever about Alasdair Gray's comments which seem to me to be factual.  As a sassenach I (and you) have settled in Scotland  and, as Gray says. we are as much part of Scotland as any other immigrant and, of course, immigrants in the past have included Vikings, Irish, Normans and so on.  Colonialists are different and are those who spend time in the colonies of an imperial power, make their money and return home; again, surely a literal description of the English who come to Scotland, take a senior position, pocket the proceeds of his/her activities and goes back to the Imperial power - England.  I wonder if he had the unlamented director of Creative Scotland in mind?  Gray will not be upset by the criticisms - he never is - and he is not a man to change his considered views, nor the way he expresses them.

He is dreadfully underestimated as a writer and artist, probably because he doesn't fit into any ism.  I think that Lanark is the finest novel by far to have been written in Scotland in the 20th century and his visual work merits much higher praise than it receives.  Of his recent work, why isn't his magnificent ceiling and surrounds in the top hall of Oran Mor better known and why is his more recent mural in the booking hall of Hillhead Subway Station not acknowledged as the witty and humane masterpiece which it certainly is.  He is, of course  a socialist, but  of an individual and iconoclastic bent.   A great man!!

Unionist "No" Campaign Hijacks Milngavie Lights switch on

Please Read the original Bearsden Milngavie Herald article HERE

Our reaction:

Shoppers and those in Milngavie to see the switching on of the Christmas lights were reminded last week by Jo Swinson why we are “Better Together.”  The Scottish Socialist Party don’t have any problem with Jo bringing the discussion to the streets of Milngavie.  In fact, Jo being the face of the Better Together campaign in the area goes someway to remind us what remaining in the political Union will bring us if we don’t achieve independence.

Jo is an enthusiastic member of the Tory/ Liberal Democrat coalition.  She voted for student fees in English Universities.  She voted for the privatisation of the English NHS.  Though, thank goodness, at the present time Swinson and her Westminster friends cannot give our health and education systems away to their friends.  But competition law may impose a dismantled NHS – one that most Doctors in England are convinced will lead to a system similar to that in the US, where regardless of pain or suffering, if you haven’t got the right insurance, you will have to suffer on.

The biggest reminder that Better Together enthusiast Jo brings to us of what a No vote in 2014 will bring for the people of Scotland is her and her party’s enthusiasm for austerity.  In fact, all of the parties involved in the Better Together campaign agree on this.  None of them are fighting the 25% slash in the Scottish budget this year – that means a 25% cut in the East Dunbartonshire education budget and a 25% cut in our NHS and a 25% in our social care budget. 

The three parties, Tory, Liberal Democrat and Scottish New Labour agree on introducing cuts that will throw those people in our society in the direst need into ever deepening poverty, the difference between the Better Together chums being the timescale.  Swinson’s coalition Government, under the financial guidance of the Scottish Liberal Democrat Danny Alexander and George Osborne have admitted last weekend that they ‘got their figures wrong’ and austerity will last even longer and be even deeper than first thought.  The more Swinson is on the streets of East Dunbartonshire reminding us what their campaign really means, the better.  The Sunday Herald last week highlighted the effects of her support for the misnamed “reform” of Social Welfare – the headline on the first page ran, “Sick and Disabled Forced to work Without Pay.”

On the other side of the discussion, the Yes Campaign is made up of parties and individuals with sometimes differing  visions of what an Independent Scotland can be, from Women for Independence, through the Radical Independence movement, Trade Unionists for Independence and groups across the political and cultural spectrum organising for a better Scotland.  But we are all agreed on fundamental things.  We agree that independence will see democracy coming closer to the people of Scotland.  We agree that the people of Scotland are blessed with talent, resources and creativity that will transform this Liberal Democrat/ Tory austerity blighted country into a country, not unlike her Nordic neighbours that are fairer, greener and more prosperous, and have done so with less spread of resources.  We are agreed that Scotland will speak her own voice and make her positive contribution to the world.  Jo and the Tory/Liberal Democrat/ New Labour coalition want us to continue with the union – a union that has created the fourth most unequal country in the developed world. A United Kingdom that has become two nations, one for the rich and one for the rest. The campaign against independence does not invite us into its Britain of wealth and privilege. It expects us to endure our Britain of austerity and exploitation.

Jo wants us to vote No to independence because they want us to vote Yes to inequality, Yes to poverty, Yes to corporate greed. They want us to know our place, not to get ideas above our station. They do not even offer to try to be better.

Next year, Jo’s vision of cuts, austerity and rumoured further bankers bailouts may mean that there will be no Christmas lights switch on for her to ‘hijack.’

My reasons why Scotland should be independent

Mark Callaghan, Lennoxtown.

 

Due to the slavish following of neo-liberal economy policies over the last 30 years by governments of all shades, the British economy is now over-dependent on one very precarious and inefficient sector. The powers that be seem unwilling to prevent this.  By its very nature free-market capitalism is a reactive rather than pro-active system, short term with no contingency for long or even mid-term planning, so we are doomed to be adrift and to be engulfed by any tsunamis that come our way if we stay part of the union. We will get steadily worse and worse off - even those at the top of the tree due to this seeming blindness to the fact that the system that they espouse is based on a premise which is disastrous on any reckoning.

In an independent Scotland we will have the foresight to introduce some sort of planning into the economy, so as to help us diversify the economic base that we have to cope with the waves of terror-filled scenarios dreamed up by those who are opposed to this idea.

 

Secondly, our historic system of society were very different, i.e the feudal system was a very top-down one whereas the clan system was much more communal in basis.

Why I am voting Yes

Workers for independence 

By Richie Venton, shop stewards convenor & SSP national workplace organiser


Low paid workers often ask me 'would we be any better off under independence'? That's the kind of issue we need to convince people on if we are to win a Yes vote.

The 'Bitter' Together's poster boy, Alistair Darling, has issued dire warnings that those of us supporting independence threaten our children with a very uncertain future. 

The vast army of workers struggling to survive on or around the pathetic £6.19 minimum wage are guaranteed the certainty of more of the same exploitation and in-work poverty under Westminster's dictatorship of the rich...which guarantees children a very certain future of cruel, crushing poverty.

And that's the case regardless of whether it's Tory, LibDem or Labour in charge.
Low pay is the single biggest cause of poverty. The SSP's fight for a national minimum wage calculated as two-thirds average male earnings - over £9 an hour in current figures - for all over 16, with equal pay for women, requires the powers that go with independence. 

Likewise if workers are to escape the most repressive workplace laws in western Europe - ushered in by Thatcher's Tories, retained by New Labour, made even worse by Cameron and Clegg's millionaire regime, and left unchallenged by Miliband's Labour - we need the independent powers to scrap them and set an international example of decent rights at work.

Tackling poverty pay, fuel poverty, job insecurity, public service cuts and the brutal assault on benefits all require powers for change that only independence offers - such as the powers to tax the rich and big business; take banks, big enterprises, energy and transport into democratic public ownership, and radically redistribute wealth. 

But merely swapping flags and emblems; switching from rule by the Bank of England to rule by the Bank of Scotland (or both!); swapping being exploited by tax-dodging, profiteering British bosses for their tartan-clad and multinational capitalist counterparts inspires nobody. 

That's why socialism and independence are inseparable. The goal of an independent socialist Scotland which the SSP has fought for since our formation 14years ago will attract workers to voting Yes - where the SNP leadership's "nothing will really change" message is a downright put-off. 

And a Yes vote will greatly speed up the prospects of socialism in Scotland. Workers need independence and socialism.

Why I support an independent Scotland

by 89 year old retired teacher, Ron Mackay

When asked why I wish for an independent Scotland I find it difficult to give a short answer – there are so many reasons. 

There's been a long tradition, going back beyond Burns favouring Scottish independence while maintaining an international outlook. 

“Man to man the world o'er should brothers be for aw' that.” 

Defending welfare programs and promoting genuine socialist policies would be much more possible for an independent Scottish Parliament. 

Some of the policies of the SNP I object to but the opposition to weapons of mass destruction and the call for full independence have my full support . I oppose war – all wars and see a nation free of all nuclear weapons as a progressive step in the struggle for peace in the world. 

The big powers all have major economic problems. We've had two world wars where the big powers sought to solve economic problems by resort to war. 

For the sake of the whole of humanity this situation must not be allowed to develop again. Scotland, a small nation dedicated to peace, could play it's part.

Watch:  A time lapse map of every nuclear blast since 1945.  A compelling yet horrific video... 

YES for a confident, fair, Independent Scotland!

Click HERE to sign the declaration

When is an e-consultation not an e-consultation?

...when Jo Swinson holds one on Independence!

From News Net Scotland - HERE

Scottish Independence - the Chelsea set accuse Scotland of "Munching through taxes like deep-fried Mars-bars..."

In reaction to this article in the "Kensington and Chelsea Today" newspaper, Dave Coull wrote the following response on Facebook. With his kind permission, I reproduce this below.

 "Some towns got big because they produced something. For instance, Bradford's textile mills, Stoke-on-Trent's potteries, Birmingham's engineering workshops, Sheffield's fine quality steel products, Glasgow's shipbuilding, and so on. Other towns got big because the king was there. London is a town that got big because the king was there.

By the beginning of modern times London was already big. The formation of the United Kingdom made it even bigger. Precisely BECAUSE it was the centre of government, it became the "centre" of the biggest free trade area in all of Europe, and the capital of the most highly centralised state in all of Europe. The growth of the British Empire made it also the centre of government of the biggest empire on Earth. Even after the Empire became the Commonwealth, London remained the centre of the Sterling area. The centre of the world empire remained a centre of world business out of sheer force of habit, because businessmen for the most part lack the imagination to do things differently.

London remained a centre of world banking, a centre for the offices of multi-national companies, and all of this happened because, to begin with, the king was there. So the government was there. So all the companies who wanted to get contracts from the government were there. This process is continuing to this very day. Many, many billions of pounds of OUR money is being spent on glorifying London still further for the Olympics.

Of course they will try to tell you it is for the benefit of all of us, but the truth is, the Olympics are for the benefit of London. I lived in London for twelve years, working as a bricklayer. That's a useful job, you might think. But what was I building? Sometimes it was office blocks for the millions of pen-pushing bureaucrats. Sometimes it was houses for the millions of pen-pushing bureaucrats. Sometimes it was houses for the people who provided services for the millions of pen-pushing bureaucrats.

Hardly anybody at all in London actually PRODUCES anything at all. They are all there because the government is there. This entire mega city is just one great big pile of bureaucracy. This idiot claims their taxes subsudize us. The truth is, everybody in London is subsidized by the taxes paid by the rest of the UK."

Dave Coull was born in 1941, and left school to start full time work at the age of 15. He worked at many different jobs, always for a weekly wage rather than a salary, and mostly in the building industry, as a bricklayer. Dave has been active in various campaigns but has always avoided joining any political party (unless you count anarchists as a party). While acting as a site steward for building workers in London, Dave was sacked, which led to a (successful) unofficial strike by his fellow workers for his reinstatement. Nowadays Dave has slowed down a bit and tends to feel it’s mostly up to younger folk to carry on the fight.

Scottish Independence – it’s up to the Working Class.

Huffington Post Blogpost by SSP Campsie member, Neil Scott HERE

Independence Convention

The Scottish Independence Convention is an umbrella organisation working to unite and encourage all who want independence for Scotland to meet on common ground and have their say in the growing debate on Scotland’s constitutional future.

Our platform draws together all the disparate groups, parties, organisations, politicians and individuals, in Scotland and beyond, who share this one basic, democratic objective.

Sign the petition here:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/let-scotland-decide.html