SEP : Aims and perspectives

1997 Election Manifesto

Manifesto of the Socialist Equality Party
A strategy for a workers government!

The Socialist Equality Party calls on all workers, youth, unemployed and students to support its candidates in the General Election.

Never before has the unanimity of all the major parties on social policy been so open -- the destruction of the interests of the working people in defence of profits. The elections do not offer any prospect of change. Whichever government comes into office it will rule on behalf of big business and the banks.

The campaign of the Socialist Equality Party is based on mobilising opposition to the corporate onslaught on jobs, living standards and social programmes and provide the working class with a political alternative to the three parties of big business. This includes the Labour Party, which is now no different from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

No other party represents the working class. Today, the New Labour Party is controlled by millionaires. For all Blair's hypocritical invocations of "decency" and "family values", the Labour Party shares responsibility with the Tories for the social crisis blighting the lives of millions of working people. Their refusal to defend even the most minimal interests of the working class has enabled the dismantling of social gains and condemns workers, especially the youth, to economic insecurity and low pay.

In contrast the Socialist Equality Party uncompromisingly defends the interests of the overwhelming majority of people: the workers, men and women, whose productive labour creates the wealth of society. The SEP is the only party that is willing to tell the truth about the reality that confronts millions of people whose only source of income is their weekly wage: that the capitalist system, while depending on labour, strives to maximise profits by sweating ever greater value out of fewer and fewer workers, for lower and lower wages.

Our party upholds fundamental socialist principles: the needs of the working class must take precedence over the capitalists' drive for profits. Wherever and whenever the interests of the working people conflict with those of the multinational banks, the globalised corporate monopolies and the international stock exchanges and bond markets, it is the profit system that must yield. The vast productive potential of modern technology should be used for humane and intelligent social purpose -- to rid Britain and the world of poverty, injustice and war -- not to guarantee the ever greater and more disgusting accumulation of wealth by a small percentage of the population.

The SEP will mobilise the working class to end the political rule of the financial oligarchy and place into power a democratic government of the workers, for the workers and, above all, by the workers.

The candidates of the SEP

The Socialist Equality Party is standing four candidates in major working class areas throughout Britain to mobilise working people around a political programme that represents their interests. The big business parties exude pessimism and despair. They are parties of cynicism and lies that appeal to fear, prejudice and selfish individualism.

Our party appeals to the humanitarian ideals and egalitarian traditions of the working class: the principle of solidarity with all workers in struggle, the readiness to fight for the common good, the confidence in a better future and determination to make it a reality.

Our candidates are -- Julie Hyland for Barnsley East, Tania Kent for Tottenham, London, Stuart Nolan for Garston, Liverpool and Steve Johnstone for Maryhill, Glasgow.

Why the Socialist Equality Party must be built

Millions of working people recognise that Labour's evolution into an open party of big business means their interests are not represented in the political system as it exists. This has facilitated the ravaging of workers living standards to boost the insatiable profit drive of the bankers and bosses. Over the past 20 years, big business and its political representatives have carried out a vast redistribution of wealth from working people to the rich. Millions have lost decent paying jobs. Unemployment, poverty, hunger and homelessness have reached epidemic proportions.

The working class must urgently turn to the building of its own political party. None of their real concerns -- for decent living standards, job security, guaranteed medical care, a bright future for their children in a world without wars and violence -- are being addressed by any of the major parties.

All around us we see a terrible spectacle of decay and desperation. Thousands of children go hungry in Britain and social squalor exists all over the world. Everything is justified by the politicians, the corporate executives and the media with hypocritical claims that nothing can be done because "there is no money." One fact explodes this lie: the richest 358 people on earth, all billionaires, have a net worth equal to the combined income of the poorest 45% of the world's population -- 2.3 billion people!

Britain is one of the most unequal of all the advanced industrialised countries. While it has always had a class structure based on privilege and wealth, the chasm that has opened up between the super-rich and the general population during the last two decades is far greater than at any time this century. Today the richest 500 people are worth a combined £70bn -- more than three times Britain's gold and currency reserves. Whilst 10% of the population own half of all marketable wealth, the bottom 50% own just 8%.

There are two Britains -- the Britain of fantastic wealth for a tiny parasitic elite and the Britain of the large majority of people, for whom the struggle to pay the rent or mortgage, finance the car, maintain the health and education of their children and care for their parents is becoming ever more difficult. Every week thousands more are made redundant; the youth and the unemployed are channelled into poverty-wage, part-time and temporary jobs; hundreds of thousands more are pushed below the poverty line. Daily life for millions of people has become a nightmare. The ranks of the homeless and destitute grow at the same time as the City of London bankers and Stock Exchange speculators celebrate record profits and booming share values.

The past years of union-busting, layoffs, wage cutting and attacks on social services have only set the stage for the present assault on the working class. Big business intends to destroy all that remains of the welfare state safety net, grant itself huge tax windfalls and eliminate all government regulations that impede its drive for profits.

In the run up to the General Election, the political establishment and the media are telling working people they must choose between various political parties who are bankrolled by big business and do its bidding. These include the billionaire Sir James Goldsmith's right wing Referendum Party. With one voice Major, Blair and Ashdown demand further welfare cuts on which millions depend.

The Socialist Equality Party rejects the claim of all these parties that what's good for big business is good for the people of Britain and the world. Our party will fight for the socialist principle that the economy should be organised democratically to serve the needs of the working class, not to satisfy the rapacious hunger of the bankers, corporate bosses and Stock Exchange speculators for profit.

The press and media are dominated by politicians and business figures who have access to millions of pounds. Candidates who are themselves extremely rich or who base themselves on the profit interests of British capitalism cannot represent the working class. They have no answer to the real questions that face working people -- how to secure jobs, living standards, housing, health care and education.

The impact of globalisation

The SEP is the only party that places the responsibility for this situation where it really belongs -- on the capitalist system. The decline in workers' living standards is the product of basic contradictions in the profit system. Over the last two decades the irreconcilable conflict between this system and the needs of the masses of people has been intensified by far reaching economic changes. The world economy is dominated by huge transnational corporations which organise production on a global scale. They employ the revolutionary developments in computer-based technology and telecommunications to operate across national boundaries and produce directly for the world market.

The global integration of production and the advances in technology could facilitate a dramatic increase in the living standards of the world's people. Yet under capitalism these developments are turned into new weapons to maximise company profits at the expense of the working class. Corporations exploit a global pool of labour and demand wage cuts and the destruction of social reforms dating back to the beginning of the century. They shift production from continent to continent, scouring the globe for the cheapest labour. In the centres of world capitalism -- the US, Europe and Japan -- as well as the former colonial countries -- India, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina -- the transnational giants tell workers: "If you won't produce for less, we'll shut down your factory and find workers who will".