Workers can end the cost of living crisis

For centuries Britain has been at the top of the economic table, reaping the benefits of an empire that spanned the globe.

But the working class has long been content with crumbs dropped from the top of that table – now, even those crumbs are hard to find.

Year after year, social, economic, and political life for the British working-class gets worse and worse.

Things are getting so bad that many workers in this country who are living in the most deplorable of conditions would rather commit a crime so they would be sent to prison. At least there, they think, they’ll get 3 free hot meals a day, shelter, and safety.

This is a better life than a lot of workers receive as ‘free’ citizens. Even the life expectancy in Britain has decreased in recent years. People are literally dying earlier because of the poor living and working conditions of modern-day Britain.

Has the ruling class in this country hit their peak? Are they fit to lead us anymore? Is it time for a new kind of leadership in this country, a working-class leadership that will bring this country forward to a new society, a new era?

One of the biggest economic issues in Britain right now is inflation. What causes inflation? Printing money can be a factor, like we saw in the Weimar Republic in 1920s Germany, when hyperinflation was so bad people resorted burning money to keep themselves warm, because the currency was worthless.

Another cause of inflation and the cost of living crisis British workers are struggling through is our government bailing out the private sector and the most corrupt in this country.

From airlines, private housing associations, to the most private members of the Royal Family – 100s of millions of tax payer money contributes to the bailing out of people and entities that are completely divorced from the working class.

The working class never get to see any of that money back. This causes a further polarisation of class in Britain, as the rich get richer off the backs of the workers, and the working class are continually oppressed, pushed down and depressed by the ruling class.

Another big cause of the cost of living crisis, as well as inflation, is the fact that the cost of everything goes up while wages stay the same. Meaning even though workers are essentially being paid the same on paper, but in practice, their wages are worth less.

This is one of the very reasons the RMT voted overwhelmingly in support of taking strike action. Railway staff have had no wage rise in 5 years, meanwhile since then, inflation at CPI has gone up to about 14%. Even if the RMT win and the government offers a pay rise of 7%, it will still be a pay cut compared to the value of worker’s wages 5 years ago.

Inflation like this has monumental consequences on British society; socially, economically, and politically speaking. Such material conditions causes widespread discontent amongst the people. As anger and frustration builds, violence and crime has the potential to blow up.

Further, such material conditions also perpetuates the same parasitic capitalist cycle of polarising the classes in Britain – making the rich richer and poor poorer. This strengthens the dictatorship of Capital in this country while weaking the power of the working class.

This increasing class antagonism is fuelling the inevitable class war which will bring workers to power in the future!

Another major consequence of these material conditions is the austerity measures the British people have had to endure for the last 20 years of conservative rule.

Slashing funding to our vital public services, such as the NHS, our education system, and doctors surgeries, will, inevitably, have detrimental consequences of the intellect and health of our nation’s people.

Physical and mental health will deteriorate, and independent, critical thinking will soon cease. If this sounds rather Orwellian, that’s because it is. This is the path this country is going down. A dystopian, corporate, police state ruled by an omnipotent capitalist class. However, this miserable and depressing future can still be reverted.

So how do we, as workers, and as socialists, battle this future. How do we combat the current material conditions of this country?

Firstly, we should nationalise all industry. All major economic centres should be nationalised under public ownership. We can’t trust foreign companies and transnational conglomerates to have the best interests of the British working class at their heart.

The only people who can best serve our class and our people are those who share the same class interests as us. This means that all British industry should be owned and organised under the leadership of the working class. Another thing we could be doing is organising a movement which would put pressure on the government to help decrease or at least subsidise the cost of fuel.

Everyday, thousands of people in Britain slip into fuel poverty simply because they can no longer afford the petrol to run their cars. This is unacceptable and the government have a duty to step in and help the people. If they can do it for banks, corporations, and the royal family, why not us, the people? Fuel protests have erupted all of Britain in the last week and we should absolutely be supporting this movement.

It is clear that the problems raised here are problems that are inherent within capitalism. These are symptoms of a capitalist disease and the antidote is working class socialism.

For all who understand this to be true, the actions required are clear. For all class conscious workers, we know what needs to be done. We need a democratic state where workers run the economy and organise society for the good of the people.

Things will only get worse so long this parasitic, monopolistic capitalist class stays clinging to the reigns of political power. We need working class socialism, and our time is now.

What’s going on at Ferguson?

There has been an organised smear campaign against the workers in the Ferguson shipyard.

Events have been blown out of proportion. Media reports ignore the role of management and insult workers when they say ‘the best have left’ and the company ‘can’t find skilled workers’.

Scottish workers need Ferguson. We need meaningful work in a productive sector. We are proud of our industrial heritage and we want to see an industrial economy in our country.

We have great opportunities to rebuild industry on our island nation. That industry must have ships and steel at its heart.

The nationalisation of Ferguson offered an opportunity for long-term thinking and investment – but of course, the opposite has happened.

So we ask the workers of Ferguson – what’s really going on? We want to put pressure on the government to invest in training and productivity, fix management problems, and save our shipyards!

Please help us answer these questions:

1. The FOI request and mass reporting seem like a setup. Are Ferguson workers being hung out to dry? Is there really a drugs and alcohol problem on the site?

2. What is the role of management in the problems at Ferguson? What is really causing the delays?

3. Is there purposeful mismanagement to pave the way to insider deals and privatisation? This has happened in other nationalised firms with assets ripe for stripping. (Ferguson sits on prime waterfront property)

4. Why is there such a lack of investment?

5. Is it true that many talented people have left? Why? Where did they go?

6. They’ve been talking about the shortage of skilled workers for 7 years. Why weren’t new workers trained and developed?

7. Why no long-term ferry contracts for Scottish builders when we need to rebuild our entire fleet?

8. What’s the point of nationalising Ferguson if they’re just going to run it into the ground?

Our party leader, George Galloway, has access to a huge following on his weekly talk show “Mother of all Talk Shows” (MOATS), as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

He is ready and willing to give airtime to rank-and-file workers’ reps who can accurately de­scribe what the real situation is in Ferguson.

Anyone who knows the score – rank and file leaders, shop stewards, long-time experienced workers – should get in touch with us at the Workers Party.

We will publicise the Ferguson workers’ side of the story through our media channels.

Please email us at scotland@workerspartybritain.org or call Glasgow secretary Ian on 07921 727797 to speak to us.

All correspondence will be held in strictest confidence unless explicitly agreed otherwise.

Who we are:

The Workers Party of Britain is a political party built to fight for the interests of working people in Britain. We are committed to rebuilding industry in our country and providing a much higher quality of life for Scottish workers.

We ask the industrial workers at Ferguson to join us. Help us create a national workers’ industrial plan. Fight for a future of industrial growth and prosperity!

Muirhouse: ‘This is just the beginning’

Watch the full meeting here.

On 27 November 2021 Workers Party deputy leader Joti Brar fought Storm Arwen to visit Muirhouse and speak at a meeting hosted in the Millennium Centre by the local Edinburgh branch.

Joti spoke of the need to rebuild a sense of class – in particular to rebuild class unity in the face of the division being sown by the mainstream parties and the mainstream media.

She also praised the strong representation of women at the meeting. As the backbone of our communities, without the participation of working class women, there can be no revolutionary movement.

Joti emphasised that we are seeking to find, recruit and train the very best representatives of our communities to lead the struggle against poverty, against cuts, and against the ongoing destruction of our communities.

Attendees shared their experiences in struggling to find housing, in struggling against housing neglect by the council, and in organising local school cleaners rank and file in opposition to their bosses as well as to their own union.

Edinburgh branch member Tam, our host, concluded the meeting. His rousing speech explained that the Workers Party programme is the only way to advance the interests of workers in Scotland and Britain, and that this meeting marks the beginning of great struggles and great successes that lie ahead.

Public meeting in Edinburgh Saturday 27 November

Concerned about working conditions?
Lack of secure work?
Lack of affordable housing?
Failing services?
A future for our kids?
Workers Party deputy leader
JOTI BRAR will be speaking at
MUIRHOUSE MILLENNIUM CENTRE
on Saturday 27 November
on all of these issues and more.
The Workers Party are seeking change in
Muirhouse and Drylaw.
Joti has been a tireless
fighter for the causes of
working people for decades.
We want to hear from you –
come along and have your say!
SATURDAY 27th NOVEMBER
MUIRHOUSE MILLENNIUM CENTRE
2pm ONWARDS

Support Ferguson Marine!

We demand that the Scottish government support Scottish heavy marine industry, and ensure that the twenty-one boats that the current ferry plan proposes to buy are built in Scottish shipyards.

We are an island nation with a rich industrial history, a skilled workforce, and world-leading science and technology capabilities. We have been building boats on the Clyde since the 15th century. We have a history of steelworks stretching back 200 years.

The insanity of getting foreign companies to build our boats is mind-boggling. Any rational government would be building boats here on this island using British steel made using British clean coke.

The Workers Party believes in achieving economic security through industrial development, not through paper-pushing, financial chicanery, offshoring production, and extracting profits from poorly paid workers abroad.

We believe in a government of action that implements a national strategic plan of industrial development, both via direct control in state-owned firms and by investment and guidance for surrounding private firms.

Scotland is planning to replace 21 of the ferries in its fleet in the next 10 years. That is enough work to sustain Ferguson and to create growth, development, and technological progress. The Workers Party wants the skills and technology developed by building these boats to be in Scotland.

We believe in the nationalisation of key sectors of the economy. We don’t see nationalisation as a temporary bailout after which we can sell it off to our mates for a quick buck. A nationalised Ferguson should be the core of a national heavy marine industry strategy and be a part of a larger heavy industry plan.

It is ironic that our government pushes for climate-friendly development and is even hosting a global climate conference, COP26, while a firm like Ferguson, which can develop green technologies like hydrogen-powered propulsion and contribute to a heavy marine ecosystem that could build offshore windmills in Britain, is allowed to flounder through lack of investment.

Free-market production has failed Scotland. Our steelworks are shut, our coal mines are flooded. The Clyde is a shadow of its former self. Much of our heavy industry has been crippled or dismantled.

If you believe that Scotland should be developing its industries according to a rational plan with state investment, guidance, and control of the largest firms, then please support the Workers Party’s call to create a campaign to pressure the government to have these boats built in Scotland.

We call interested workers to contact us to discuss what can be done to safeguard Ferguson.

See our Party Programme to understand our priorities and contact us to get involved.

Nationalism does not benefit Scottish workers

In 2014 Scottish workers revolted against the British economic system. ‘Austerity’ and ‘inequality’ were the words on everyone’s lips during the months leading up to the referendum.

But this revolt against the British economic system was channeled into opposition to the British constitution and the union. The desire for working class power was channeled into support for Scottish independence.

Scottish nationalism, however, like sexual politics and religious politics, is simply another form of identity politics which prioritises national identity over working class unity.

The Workers Party is totally opposed to dividing the working class along any lines, be they sexual, racial, religious or national.

We oppose independence because the constitutional debate is a racket which benefits nationalist and unionist politicians alike.

The SNP can get away with practising austerity for over a decade by appealing to the seemingly imminent but ever-elusive prize of independence. Likewise, Labour and the Conservatives can avoid presenting an alternative economic programme to the SNP by obsessing about the threat of another independence referendum.

And so the constitutional game goes on and on, while Scottish workers are reduced to penury by an economic system which puts profit before people. That is the same economic system which will prevail in an independent Scotland.

Constitutional tinkering is a distraction from overturning Britain’s economic system. Reversing austerity, a job guarantee and reindustrialisation trump a change of flag.

Class over clan!

Scotland’s drug death shame

1,339 people in Scotland died from drug-related deaths in 2020. That number is higher than the yearly deaths from Aids in Niger, higher than the yearly deaths in the Philippines’ drug war, and higher than the yearly deaths due to Saudi airstrikes in Yemen.

The number of drug deaths in Scotland in 2020 was equivalent to five Lockerbie bombings, or twenty-four 7/7 bombings.

Another failure of the SNP

The number of drug related deaths in Scotland has doubled over the past decade of SNP government.

Over that same period, the SNP have cut the Scottish government budget to alcohol and drug partnerships by more than 50% (from £114 million to £53 million). The halving of the drugs budget has undeniably been a factor in the doubling of the drug deaths. 

Despite British government austerity measures, the Scottish government’s discretionary budget – the money available for Holyrood to spend – is less than 1% lower than it was in 2010.

Therefore, the SNP’s cuts to drug services were freely made. They were cuts which the SNP did not have to make, but which they made anyway.

Astonishingly, there are no statistics for how many people access methadone in Scotland. The fact that this has not been calculated makes it impossible to plan and implement any effective strategy to combat the problem.

The Scottish government clearly has no interest in the crisis. It does not even care to find out how bad the problem is.

After all, who cares? They were junkies. They were someone else’s son or daughter or brother or sister. They were working class. They only mattered to other working class people. The crimes that fund their addiction happen in ghettos far away. 

The government doesn’t care because the drug deaths crisis is a working class issue. If the crisis was in middle class areas like the swankier parts of Leith or in Morningside, drug deaths would be the government’s first priority.

Another failure of capitalism

But even if the SNP’s drug policy was the best in the world, it would not end the crisis of addiction. 18% of the entire Scottish population are prescribed opioid painkillers. The vast majority of those prescribed live in the most deprived areas. 

What this shows is that Scottish society is shot through with traumatic psychological stress, the overwhelming cause of which is money, or the lack of it.

So many of us are trying to self-medicate – to relieve this chronic mental pain via drugs. 

Some of the most common drugs linked to Scotland’s drug deaths are adulterated and crude forms of benzodiazepine – (or Valium, legally prescribed for anxiety and sleeplessness).

Why? Because those who use illegal drugs are simply trying to reproduce the pain relief which legal drugs induce. 

No single drugs policy therefore, will cure Scotland’s drug problem. Only a war on poverty will win the war on drugs.

Why Scotland?

So why is it that our drug crisis has eclipsed that of anywhere else in Europe?

Thatcher’s attack on industry in Britain – the closure of the mines, the terminal decline of production on Clydeside, the privatisation of our public transport and public services – continues to be felt across the north of England, but nowhere has it been felt so deeply and acutely as in Scotland.

No alternative was provided to the working class of Scotland to replace the job prospects, job security, home security, and life security that was taken away from them.

On this most basic and fundamental of issues – the prospect of jobs for our young workers – the SNP have stood complacent in Thatcher’s shadow.

The Workers Party holds the SNP government and the capitalist system responsible for Scotland’s obscene drug-deaths crisis. A war on poverty to end this crisis is nothing other than the class war, and must be a war we are prepared to win. 

We are asking you to fight with us – to fight for an economy that serves our needs rather than the interests of a few gluttonous and avaricious CEOs and cartel kings, the very people who have profited from Scotland’s drug epidemic.

Fight the new wave of Covid evictions!

In the wake of a third wave of Covid infections, we are now set to see a tidal wave of evictions. Thousands of Scottish families face homelessness, and record numbers are already in temporary accommodation.

Despite the emergency ban on evictions – which ended in June – the Sunday Mail discovered that landlords in Scotland had served almost 7000 legal notices between June 2020 and March this year. That means several hundred were being served every month, mostly for rent arrears.

Even when physical evictions are prevented from taking place, the suffering and stress that comes from being served notice causes harm to our families and communities.

In the face of an ongoing public health emergency, and long-term economic crisis, this is nothing short of a disaster. We have borne the brunt of the Covid pandemic – many of us have lost loved ones, many have lost work – and now, through no fault of our own, many of us will lose our homes as well.

Even without the upheaval of Covid, insecurity has become a simple fact of life for most renters. Due to a lack of public housing, too many tenants are trapped in the private rented sector, where rents are rising through the roof (in Scotland, a third of all tenants in private housing live in poverty after paying their rent) and leases are highly insecure.

Too many landlords – both private landlords and the council – have no interest in making necessary improvements. Flats, houses, entire tower blocks have been left to rot with damp, leaks, and neglect.

Demands for change fall on deaf ears. Government after government in Scotland have repeatedly sided with the landlords – and that should come as no surprise.

While landlords are only 5% of the UK population (only one in twenty of us are letting property), that figure rises to 17% among Westminster MPs, and to a shocking 24% in Holyrood. According to Living Rent, almost a quarter of our MSPs – including several senior figures in the SNP – are landlords.

When the government will not listen to our voices, we must take initiative ourselves. There are nearly a million of us, and only a handful of them. Living Rent – a tenants’ union – are active on the ground fighting together to win lower rents and more secure tenancies. Likewise, Shelter Scotland provide advice for people struggling with housing or homelessness.

But the responsibility for fighting homelessness and struggling for tenants’ rights should not fall on the unions and charities alone. We need a strong political voice to shake our MSPs out of their comfortable slumber – the Labour Party are incapable of doing this, and the SNP are unwilling to do it.

The Workers Party support the call for more – and better – social housing. Scotland needs a reversal of privatisation in the rental market, and improved standards of both private and social housing.

We need rent controls that are actually able to tackle the skyrocketing rent in the private sector across Scotland – the toothless legislation that the government has implemented so far has (of course) been worse than useless.

Get involved with the Workers Party – help us get this message across. Fight the new wave of Covid evictions!

Extend free bus travel – bring back public ownership!

The Scottish bus network was one of the many victims of Tory privatisation in the 1980s.

That was when the Conservative government in Westminster took it out of public ownership and sold it off – supposedly on the free market, but really into the hands of a few big corporations who have put profit before passengers ever since.

Now, after more than thirty years of this experiment in profiteering, what’s the verdict?

The latest report – Public Transport, Private Profiti – condemns our privatised bus network as not fit for purpose – expensive, unreliable, and dysfunctional.

Fares are too expensive and services are unreliable, blocking access to the people who rely on public transport the most.

Free bus travel needs to be extended to all those receiving Universal Credit and other low-income benefits, and all young people under 25. They are the ones most in need of our public transport, and the ones least able to pay higher and higher fares.

But this alone will not be enough – what’s the point of free bus travel when the network itself is a shambles? Only bringing our public transport back into public ownership will enable us to put people first, and have a system that serves their needs.

Privatisation – a failed experiment

Within the report, passengers describe “a broken system, with disappearing routes, lower frequency, poor reliability, falling ridership, limited coverage, inefficient competition, inadequate information, and no real integration.”

The report also explains how “deregulation has led to a deeply fragmented service, with multiple operators competing in the same areas and sometimes on the same routes, timetables that do not line up between operators or modes of transportation, and endless ticketing options that add needless complication.”

These are not trivial issues – they prevent people getting to their job on time. They prevent job-seekers finding employment. They prevent people getting to the hospital when they need to.

The privatisation of our bus network has had a disastrous impact on our lives, and no one is being held to account for this. In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, why has our bus system come to resemble that of a war-torn nation?

Partnerships don’t work

So-called public-private partnerships – like the Bus Partnership Fund being promoted by the Scottish government – are throwing good money after bad. They siphon off public funds – over £300m a year in the case of Scotland – to prop up parasitic transport corporations while doing nothing to deal with the real problems.

Those problems have been created by privatisation itself – why keep on pumping public money into these ailing networks instead of taking them back into public ownership? It’s a false economy and one that simply lets them continue running our bus services into the ground.

What we need is proper regulation – and that means full public ownership.

We don’t need to look very far to see what regulated public transport can achieve – south of the border, Transport for London controls fares, routes, frequency, and minimum standards, and has invested in thousands of green vehicles. The transport body delivers a high quality, integrated, and easy to use network.

The privileges of the London system must not be kept to London alone. We have the right to the same provision of services – and public control over our services – that they do.

We need a properly integrated, easily accessible, cheap and reliable public transport system that serves working people instead of profit-making corporate suits – for our own daily lives, of course, but also to deal properly with the climate crisis.

The 2019 Transport Act of Scotland allows local transport authorities to provide bus services – so the means exist for local authorities to take back control of our bus transport. They just haven’t even bothered trying.

Who’s to blame?

Public transport in Scotland was broken up and sold to the highest bidder under Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1988.

Deindustrialisation – the destruction of Britain’s domestic industries like the mine closures – as well as privatisation and cuts to public services, the selling off of council homes – all of these were deliberate choices that have left us with the chaos we see today.

The consequences of those decisions have been disastrous – not just the destruction of our public transport, but the ongoing social neglect that has led to Scotland suffering the worst drug death rate in Europe.

But we can’t just blame the Tories and be done with it. All of our establishment parties – from the toothless ‘Labour’ opposition to the governing SNP – have played a role in this social calamity.

Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP continue to preside over a society that does not work for the workers, for the most vulnerable, for the most in need. They would rather guarantee our kids the right to a sex-change than deal with anything that actually matters!

How many more young men and women need to die senseless deaths from poverty and drugs? How many thousands of working families will be evicted before the SNP take responsibility for their neglect?

The SNP’s tug-of-war with the Tories benefits no-one but themselves. Scotland needs a real opposition voice, a voice for the entire diverse Scottish working class, that will hold them to account and force genuine change.

What can be done?

Incompetence, lies and greed for power and money have poisoned politics for so many of us. ‘Our’ politicians – whether in Westminster or Holyrood – so rarely speak for us, and will tell us anything for the sake of our vote. Their promises mean nothing.

It’s no wonder why so few of us vote. Why so few of us know or care about politics. It’s a game for them, not for us.

The Workers Party represent a new and radical voice for working people in Scotland and across Britain. We will be fighting in local communities on the issues that matter so much to us, and have been ignored so long by those in charge.

We need you to get involved – so talk with our representatives on the street or on your doorstep and share your own opinions with us.

Contact us by email if you’d like more information. Attend one of our meetings in the local area. Follow us and support us on social media.

More importantly, though, we want you to join with us, as a full or affiliate member, and consider standing for us, as a working class voice in the next election!

iPublic Transport, Private Profit, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, July 2021

Fight for a living wage!

Over the course of the Covid pandemic, workers have been reminded once again that the country can’t run without them. Across Scotland, across Britain, and around the world, they’re demanding higher wages to end the scourge of in-work poverty.

In Scotland, fast food workers have been fighting since 2019 for a wage they can survive on. NHS workers have been organising throughout the pandemic for their own 15% pay rise. GMB Scotland organised demos of frontline and key workers in Glasgow City Council, demanding an extra £2 an hour.

The Workers Party supports the struggle for a £15-per-hour minimum wage, unions that will fight for the rank and file, and a new working-class politics that will take our demands to the centres of power.

Decent pay, a fighting union, and an independent voice in politics – are these too much to ask?

Care industry workers fighting for £15

Social care workers have been put under incredible strain during the Covid crisis, putting their lives on the line in tough conditions to keep care residents safe. They’ve been demanding £15 an hour for over a year now, and for good reason.

Over three-quarters of social care workers in Scotland have considered leaving their care sector because they are undervalued. Nearly four-fifths of care home staff surveyed reported under-staffing in their workplace. And over four-fifths believe their industry in Scotland is not properly funded.

The trade union GMB Scotland’s organiser Rhea Wolfson said in August last year:

“The industry and politicians already understood pre-Covid the chronic exploitation of what is a predominantly women workforce; mired in low pay, precarious conditions, under resourced, overworked and a broken model of funding.

“The prospect of leaving this exhausted and traumatised workforce on wages up to £5 an hour less than the UK average (nearly £15 an hour) just isn’t credible – what employer or politician is going to tell them they are worth less than average after all they are doing?”

Fast food workers out on strike

Care workers aren’t the only ones. Long before the pandemic hit our shores, workers in McDonald’s – here in the UK and around the world – were striking for a living wage. Paid less than £10 an hour, with no set hours, many fast food workers in Britain’s big cities are struggling to make their rent.

And what a surprise – they’ve been calling for £15 an hour too. Lewis Baker, McDonald’s employee, told Press Association:

“If we got £15 an hour, it would have a massive impact – I would be able to afford to pay my rent, to pay my bills, go on holiday and have some kind of work-life balance.”

Our care workers deserve it. Our fast food workers deserve it. Every British worker deserves fifteen quid an hour and the pockets of the CEOs and their corporations are deep enough to find it.

We’ve all seen the money wasted during this pandemic – on the disastrous test and trace system, on fraudulent PPE contracts. Money that wasn’t poured down the drain, but into the pockets of those in charge and their cronies.

The ‘magic money tree’ quite clearly exists – it’s just a trick they keep to themselves.

The disgraceful impact of poverty wages

Vast swathes of our working class are now living below the breadline. Over 50% of children living in poverty are living in a household where at least one parent works. Around 20% of working households depend on income-based state benefit.

Low wages and in-work poverty causes developmental issues with children making it difficult for them to fit into the modern workforce.

They lead to lower productivity – workers who live with too much stress and too little money and time to deal with life’s issues struggle to do good work.

They lead to employers gaining profits not from increasing the productivity of their business but instead by driving down wages further still.

These statistics only tell us what workers already know – so many in our communities are working families living in poverty, at the point of food insecurity.

It’s not rocket science

Our so-called leaders will find anything to bicker about that isn’t workers’ wages. Where is our voice in Holyrood? In Westminster?

It is clear now that no matter which of the mainstream parties is in power, and no matter if there is a pandemic or not, nothing is set to change. Not with the SNP, not with Labour, not with the Tories.

But our demands are also clear. They are reasonable, practical, and achievable. We don’t want food banks, we don’t want charity, we don’t want to live on benefits. All we want is decent employment and a living wage.

The Workers Party support these demands – for every worker in Scotland, for every worker in Britain. We will stand with workers in all of their struggles for a wage that will – at the very least least! – keep their stomachs full and the landlord off their backs.

On top of this, too many of us are not unionised, or are members of unions that won’t backs us. In these circumstances, the working class needs an independent voice – outside the establishment parties – that will genuinely fight its corner.

Speak to our representatives on the streets, or find our contact details at the bottom of this paper. Get involved with the Workers Party and let your voice be heard.

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