Issued April 8, 1997
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. Top of page
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. Top of page
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".
Top of page
The basic principles
of the Socialist Equality Party
The Socialist Equality Party has nothing in common with the cynical vote
grabbing of the big business parties. Our party advances a programme that
proceeds from certain fundamental social and historical principles and goals:
1. For the international unity of the working class
British workers are part of an international class of working people. In
every part of the world workers face the same problems and the same enemy.
In their struggles, British workers must seek the support of their class
brothers and sisters overseas and themselves give unstinting support to other
workers internationally.
The Socialist Equality Party rejects all forms of nationalism and separatism.
Under conditions of globalised production, British workers must unite with
their fellow workers all over the world and develop an international strategy
to defend jobs, wages and living standards. The working class must take up
the fight for the United Socialist States of Europe, in opposition to either
a capitalist trade bloc -- the Single European Market -- or Little Englander
nationalism. By overcoming the continent's division into a multitude of
antagonistic nation states, decent living standards could be guaranteed for
all and the threat of another war averted.
The Socialist Equality Party rejects the programme of Scottish and Welsh
nationalism. Separatism does not express the interests of workers struggling
to make ends meet, but of a privileged layer of the middle class who want
to make their own financial deals with the international money markets and
transnational corporations. Against the narrow and divisive policies of
nationalism and regionalism, the SEP holds up the banner of class unity.
The SEP is for an end to the centuries long oppression of Ireland by British
imperialism. The liberation of Ireland can only be secured as a by-product
of a socialist offensive, unifying British and Irish workers, Catholic and
Protestant, on both sides of the border, against the common class enemy and
not through the failed strategy of bourgeois nationalism championed by the
IRA.
The SEP opposes all those who seek to whip up antagonisms between white,
black, Asian and other nationalities or ethnic groups. The capitalist media
and big business politicians focus on differences of skin colour, religion,
language and "ethnicity" as part of an age-old strategy of divide and rule.
Their goal is to foment hatred and have working people fighting one another
over access to decent jobs, education, housing and health care, rather than
uniting on the basis of their common social interests.
"Positive discrimination", "affirmative action" and other measures advocated
by the middle class radicals and black nationalists pit worker against worker
and play into the hands of the corporate elite. By calling for preferential
treatment in the allocation of jobs and other resources based on race, these
prescriptions accept the framework of the capitalist system and shift the
burden of its depredations from one section of the population to another.
They are based on the ruling class lie that the resources do not exist to
provide for the needs of all the people.
A decent and secure job, a comfortable retirement, quality education, and
all other essential social needs should be guaranteed to every man, woman
and child as a basic right. The material resources to realise these modest
demands exist in abundance. The enormous potential of modern technology and
globally integrated production should be used to vastly raise the living
standards and cultural level of people in Britain and all over the world.
Yet this potential is squandered by a system which subordinates the needs
of the masses to the ever greater and more disgusting accumulation of personal
wealth by a privileged few.
The answer to all forms of discrimination is the struggle for social equality.
Everything that is necessary for a productive, secure and comfortable life
must be made available to everyone, regardless of race, national origin or
religion.
2. For social equality
Every progressive movement in history has raised the demand for social equality
and the Socialist Equality Party stands on the shoulders of the great liberating
struggles of the past. But equality means more than one man one vote. If
a tiny segment of the population has the power to shut down factories and
throw millions out of work, legal equality and democracy are a sham. In reality
the capitalist class monopolises not only the economy, but political power
as well.
The media and the politicians are carrying out a concerted assault on the
concept of social equality. They elevate the right of the individual, by
which they mean the capitalists, above all social concerns. On this basis
they demand the destruction of social welfare programmes and the gutting
of the National Health Service and the comprehensive school system on which
the working class depends.
The interests of the working class are diametrically opposed to this ideology
of selfish individualism. In a complex mass society, all problems are of
a social character and require a social solution. The various reactionary
theories that are promoted by the media -- from social Darwinist calls for
the "survival of the fittest" to semi-religious moralising about inherently
"evil" individuals -- are worthless in the face of the massive problems that
confront society. Everything from the provision of adequate food and shelter
to the maintenance of the environment requires the collective effort and
social solidarity of masses of people, in opposition to the claims of individual
greed.
Dozens of studies have documented the immense and growing concentration of
wealth in Britain:
* The income of the poorest 10th decreased by almost 20% between 1979 and
1993 while the richest 10th increased its share by 61%.
* The income of the richest fifth is 10 times higher than the poorest fifth,
whose income is 32% lower than their equivalents in the US and 44% lower
than those in Holland.
* Eleven million people lack three or more basic necessities, according to
the Child Poverty Action Group.
Contrary to the propaganda of the ruling class, social equality does not
mean lowering the living standards to the lowest common denominator. The
colossal advances in science and technology provide the material foundations
for dramatically raising the living standards and cultural level of the whole
of society. To achieve this, science and technology must be placed at the
service of the people, not the selfish accumulation of private profit. The
whole of economic life must be reorganised to meet the needs of the vast
majority -- the working people. It is labour that produces the wealth, but
the working class in Britain and all over the world is victimised by a system
which rewards only the rich.
It is not a lack of resources, but the existing forms of economic organisation
that block the attainment of social equality. Under capitalism, all economic
decisions are taken to reward those who own the forces of production. The
rights of the owners of big business are elevated above all social concerns.
In the name of the "market", factory closures, budget cuts and every other
outrage against working people are justified.
Two decades of ferocious rationalisation, wage cutting and redundancies have
produced record profits for big business and growing misery for the working
class. It has put paid to the claim that a worker can be secure in his job
if the company is making a profit. Today corporations record soaring profits
through a ruthless purge of their employees, the replacement of full-time
with part-time work, forced overtime, speed-up and a relentless assault on
wages and benefits.
At the same time the livelihoods of workers are being tied directly to the
gyrations of the stock market, as the state's responsibilities for pensions,
health and other benefits are abandoned, forcing workers to gamble on their
future well-being by investing in private insurance plans. The Maxwell Mirror
Group pension scandal showed that millions of working people will face
devastating losses as a result of the machinations of the major shareholders
and speculators who dominate the stock market.
This system is condemned by the statements of its own defenders, who declare
that jobs, decent education, health care, housing and pensions are incompatible
with the demands of the capitalist market. Then so much for the capitalist
market! If this system cannot provide the basic needs of the great majority
-- and it cannot -- then it has failed and must be replaced by a new and
higher social order.
3. For a workers' government -- based on social
ownership and democratic control of the economy by working people
The SEP strives for the formation of a genuinely democratic workers' government
-- resting on the active and militant support of a politically aware and
vigilant working class -- that will undertake the radical economic measures
necessary to secure the social needs of the people. Such a government would
subordinate the capitalist market to the interests of society as a whole.
A workers' government would place the banks, utilities and major industries
under democratically accountable public ownership. This would enable the
planned development of economic activity. It would make the satisfaction
of social needs, rather than the accumulation of personal wealth, the driving
principle of economic development. This has nothing in common with the state
nationalisations of the post-war period, where industry was run by a bureaucracy
in the interests of big business.
Socialist planning does not require the expropriation of small and medium-sized
businesses. The real enemy of small business is not the socialist working
class movement, but big capital, as is seen today by booming profits for
big business on the one hand and a record toll of personal and small business
bankruptcies on the other. A workers' government would establish a productive
and mutually beneficial relationship between the publicly-run centres of
the economy and small business.
4. For the political independence
of the working class
The working class must establish its own political party in order to fight
for policies that serve its interests. It is impossible for the working class
to take a step forward as long as it remains trapped within the present
parliamentary set-up and the fraudulent alternatives offered by the ruling
class.
The working class encompasses the vast majority of society. Much is made
in the media about the supposed decline in the size of the industrial work-force.
But aside from the fact that millions of workers still labour in heavy industry,
the emergence of the new "service" industries in recent decades has augmented,
not reduced, the total size of the working class. If anything, it is far
larger today than it was in the 1920s and 1930s, when workers were engaged
in great social struggles of a revolutionary character. Indeed, the last
two decades have witnessed a broad proletarianisation of society.
Vast sections of what was previously classified as the middle class -- middle
managers, computer programmers and other skilled professionals -- have made
the bitter discovery that they too are nothing more than the hired hands
of big business. The composition of the working class has changed, but its
historical role as the revolutionary force in society has not. The working
class is not only the most powerful social force. Its objective interests
place it in irreconcilable conflict with the capitalist system and pose the
necessity for the reorganisation of society along socialist, egalitarian
and truly democratic lines.
The Socialist Equality Party is not a substitute for the working class. It
is an instrument to be built and used by the working class to achieve its
historic aims. The SEP has been formed to mobilise the working class to end
the political rule of big business and place into power a democratic government
of the working class. Top of page
The working class and the Labour Party
Workers must begin to draw the balance sheet of their long and bitter experiences
with the Labour Party. For almost 100 years the working class has looked
to this party, and any government it has formed, to represent and defend
its interests. These hopes have now been destroyed. Labour's right wing evolution
does not represent the failure of socialism, but arises from its historic
rejection of a genuine socialist perspective.
The working class built the Labour Party in the early years of the 20th century
in the course of unparalleled class battles. Built and financed by the trade
unions, it represented the first step by the British working class towards
its own independent political party.
The Labour Party from the start was a reformist and not a socialist party.
It preached the policies of class compromise, claiming that the working class
could achieve its interests within the confines of the profit system and
its nation state. The famous Clause IV of its constitution was drafted in
1918, following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and appeared under the heading
"Against Revolution". The Labour Party has always acted to ensure the survival
of the profit system, especially at times of its greatest crises: in World
War One, the Great Depression and World War Two, right through to the militant
class battles of the 1970s.
Labour's only association with any social gains were the reforms in health,
education and welfare instituted after 1945. This coincided, however, with
a particular stage in world capitalism -- specifically the international
financial and monetary mechanisms put in place after the war to regulate
the contradictions of capitalism.
These post-war arrangements have been shattered by the far-reaching economic
changes over the last two decades. In every country the ruling class has
abandoned the policies of class compromise and turned to open class war.
They have deliberately driven up unemployment in order to undermine the militant
resistance of workers to speed-ups, wage cuts and the erosion of social
programmes. Government backed strike busting began with the smashing of the
steel workers strike in 1980.
The response of the old workers' organisations has been to abandon their
reformist programme and collaborate with the Tories and the employers. In
adopting a programme based on slashing taxes for the rich, cutting social
programmes and attacking democratic rights, the Labour Party is making it
clear that it will step up these assaults under any administration it forms.
It is not enough to simply electorally reject the Labour Party. Nor can the
growing anger and discontent of millions be channelled into an attempt to
build "new" organisations modelled on the "old" Labour Party and based on
the trade unions. This is the programme put forward by Arthur Scargill's
Socialist Labour Party and the Socialist Party and Socialist Alliances formed
by Militant Labour. By attempting to rekindle illusions in the programme
of national reformism, these organisations act to divide the working class
once again along national lines and subordinate it to the trade union
bureaucracy.
Rather, definite political conclusions must be drawn. The objective social
and economic interests of the working class must find a truly independent
expression through the building of a new party based on the very programme
Labour long ago rejected and sought to undermine -- socialist internationalism.
Top of page
The fight for genuine socialism
Socialism starts from the needs of the working people, not the capitalist
elite. That is why the capitalist class has waged a relentless campaign of
distortion and lies to defame it.
Those workers disgusted by the Labour Party's betrayals and seeking a road
to genuine socialism were constantly told, "There is no alternative. Look
at Russia". This equation of Marxist socialism with the Stalinist system
in the Soviet Union is the greatest lie of the 20th century. In reality,
Stalin betrayed the socialist revolution carried out by the Russian working
class. The bureaucracy he headed arose in the aftermath of the revolution
and usurped political power from the Soviet workers. It killed the leaders
of the revolution and carried out a bloody purge of the genuine socialists.
Nowhere was socialism and Marxism subjected to such repression as in the
USSR. An entire generation of socialist workers and intellectuals, including
leading figures in science, culture and the arts, were summarily executed
or exiled to the labour camps. Four million people were subjected to direct
repression, including 800-900,000 who were shot.
History shows that there was a socialist alternative to Stalinism. The greatest
leader of the working class opposition to Stalinism was Leon Trotsky, who
was exiled by the Soviet regime and murdered by an agent of Stalin in 1940.
In 1938, Trotsky established a new international socialist party of the working
class, the Fourth International. The Socialist Equality Party is the British
section of the International Committee of the Fourth International -- the
present day political representatives of this historic movement -- and is
grounded in its revolutionary programme and traditions.
The claim that the history and fate of the British working class is bound
up with Labour politicians securing certain reforms through parliamentary
manoeuvres is a lie. All the major gains and reforms won by the British working
class over 200 years have only been achieved through uncompromising class
struggle against the profit system. In no other country have class divisions
been so sharply defined over such a long drawn out historical period; stretching
from the Chartist movement between 1836-48, the struggle to build the "new
unions" in the 1880s, the strike movement after the First World War that
eventually led to the 1926 General Strike, right up to the mass strike waves
of the 1960s and '70s.
Every advance won by the working class required a fierce battle against the
bosses and the government and enormous courage and sacrifice on the part
of the workers. The greatest leaders of the working class were socialists.
Class fighters such as Julian Harney, Ernest Jones, Eleanor Marx, Harry Quelch,
James Connolly, John Maclean and Gerry Healy articulated the socialist
aspirations of the British workers. Without the struggle of socialists in
the Britain, there would have been no eight-hour day, child labour laws,
or other basic conquests of the working class.
In a country where class divisions are so open and in which the working class
has always formed the overwhelming majority, the ruling class has responded
to the threat of a genuine socialist movement in one of two ways. Either
it has tried the most vicious "red-baiting" -- from the Zinoviev letter in
the 1920s to the witch-hunting of the Trotskyist Socialist Labour League
in the 1960s and 1970s. Or it has dressed up the policies of reformism and
class collaboration as "socialist" and promoted its advocates as "workers'
representatives".
The working class must rescue its real socialist heritage from the fraudulent
presentation of the ruling class. The Socialist Equality Party will lead
this fight, organising and educating the working class for a sustained political
struggle against the capitalist system. Top of
page
The basic demands the
Socialist Equality Party fights for
The goal of the Socialist Equality Party is the establishment of a socialist
society. The struggle for this goal is inseparably linked to the realisation
of demands which address the urgent and immediate needs of the working class.
These include:
Full employment and job security
Every working person must be guaranteed a well paid and secure job and an
annual income sufficient to raise a family in comfort. The ruling class use
unemployment as a double-edged sword. By slashing jobs, companies increase
the amount of production they can sweat out of the remaining work force,
thereby boosting their profits. At the same time they use the mounting insecurity
of the unemployed to undermine the living standards of the working class
as a whole.
To guarantee every worker a well paid secure job, a multi-billion pound programme
of public works must be launched to rebuild the blighted inner cities. The
working week must be reduced to 30 hours, with no loss in pay, to create
new jobs and increase workers' leisure time.
Improved living standards
To ensure that no worker lives in poverty a minimum wage must be set at £8
an hour. Automatic cost-of-living increases must be instituted for every
worker's wage, as well as social security, pensions and other benefits. All
"work for dole" and cheap labour schemes must be abolished.
Laid off workers should be provided with their regular wages until they are
re-employed. All benefit claimants, including school-leavers, must be granted
benefits until they obtain a decent job. Evictions, foreclosures and cut-offs
of heat, electricity, water and telephones for the unemployed must be outlawed.
Decent housing for all
The housing crisis is one of the sharpest expressions of the anarchy of the
capitalist system. There are 800,000 vacant homes in Britain and 400,000
unemployed building workers. The profit system has prohibited moving the
homeless into vacant homes. National and local governments have stopped the
building of new council homes and waiting lists in many areas are over 10
years. The vast majority of housing in Britain is now owner occupied, but
workers are unable to finance their mortgages due to high interest rates
and face repossession and homelessness. To solve the housing crisis the SEP
proposes an emergency programme of low-rent housing construction. Immediate
shelter must be provided for the homeless and all those in need. Rent charges
must no be more than 15% of earnings. Cheap, low interest loans must be provided
for homeowners and repossessions banned.
Health care for all
The "marketisation" of the National Health Service has brought the health
system to the brink of collapse. Labour has pledged it will continue the
internal market in the health service. The destruction of the NHS must be
reversed and resources expanded so that it can provide free and full health
care for all. All private medical treatment should be abolished and the drugs
companies taken into social ownership. Thousands of new nurses and doctors
must be trained.
High quality education
The right of youth to a decent education is being decimated through school
closures and budget cuts. Teachers and pupils are faced with ever larger
classes in dilapidated and under-funded schools. Then teachers and parents
are blamed for poor standards of education. The introduction of the "market"
in education has resulted in a two-tier system. Labour will continue selection
in schools and support privatisation.
The SEP upholds the right of all, regardless of income, to free, high quality
education. We call for a massive injection of funds into all levels of education,
not only to abolish illiteracy and innumeracy but to raise the cultural level
of the entire population. Billions must be allocated to upgrade nurseries,
schools, colleges and universities and equip them with the most advanced
tools of learning. All special education programmes must be re-instituted
and thousands more teachers hired and trained. Student fees and loans schemes
must be abolished and higher education made available free of charge.
Comprehensive child care
Nursery school provision in Britain is amongst the worst in Europe. Two out
of three working parents are forced to rely on family and neighbours to look
after their children whilst at work, unable to afford private nursery facilities.
The Tories have introduced nursery "voucher" schemes which are means tested
and offer minimal places. Labour is proposing nursery schemes based on the
Australian model, JET (Jobs, Education and Training) aimed at forcing single
parents off benefits and into cheap labour schemes with the sop of minimal
nursery assistance. The SEP will establish a state-run system of child care
centres to meet the needs of working class families.
Care for senior citizens
The astonishing advances in medical technology have significantly increased
life expectancy. This has not been matched by advances in social programmes
required for this expanding and vulnerable section of the population.
Increasingly pensioners are forced to rely on their own meagre resources
to sustain themselves in old age. This tragic situation must be addressed.
Elderly people must be guaranteed the financial and social support they require
to live their lives in dignity. We advocate the provision of a universal
state pension at average weekly earnings. We propose to give families providing
care for ageing parents generous subsidies and a full range of social support
services.
Defend the disabled
The ranks of the disabled have swelled over the last two decades. Much of
this increase is related to unsafe working conditions, pollution levels and
cuts in medical services. The new Incapacity Benefit introduced by the Tories
forces 250,000 disabled people to go to work, whilst 90,000 have been struck
off Disability Benefit since the introduction of the Job Seekers Allowance.
Resources and amenities necessary for the disabled to lead an active and
fulfilling life must be guaranteed.
For a safe environment and rational planning
Nowhere is the anarchy of capitalist production more evident than in the
chaos which characterises urban and environmental planning. Basic infrastructure
such as roads, the transport system and water supplies, are strained to breaking
point. These problems have been compounded by privatisation.
At every point of the planning process, from the drawing board to the
parliamentary committees, decisions about factories, services and public
facilities are dominated by one question -- who will profit from their siting,
construction and use. Private corporations and agri-business are able to
operate with scant regard for the local population or the environment.
Proper planning can only be carried out with the direct input of all those
affected. The allocation of resources for high quality public transport,
including air, rail and bus services and the established of stringent
environmental standards would rapidly alleviate congestion and pollution.
In opposition to the "Greens", who regard the destruction of the environment
as a result of technological developments in and of themselves, the SEP advocates
the utilisation of all the developments in technology to enable a safe
environment and healthy food. The BSE crisis has exposed how the profit system
subordinates the health concerns of ordinary people to the financial interests
of the banks and major corporations. That is why the SEP has organised a
workers inquiry into the BSE crisis to expose the truth.
Defend all immigrants and refugees
The one issue which unites every capitalist party, from the Tories, Labour
and Liberals to the fascist groups, is the call for restrictive immigration.
Britain has some of the most repressive anti-immigration measures in the
world. Police raids on factories and homes, and legislation encouraging
employers, social security staff and even doctors to act as immigration officials
have created a climate of fear and encouraged racial discrimination. Thousands
of refugees are held in concentration camp-style detention centres and prisons,
denied the most basic legal and democratic rights. Asylum seekers have been
denied access to welfare benefits, housing, health and education provision.
The ruling class is mounting one attack after another on the basic rights
of immigrants. It whips up national chauvinism, racism and hatred of immigrants
in order to pit British workers against those overseas and divide workers
within Britain. This brutal attack on the rights of immigrants sets the stage
for an intensified assault on the democratic rights of everyone.
It is not immigrant workers who are responsible for the lack of jobs and
basic services, but the profit system. The SEP demands the abolition of all
immigration controls. We stand firmly in defence of the right of all workers
to live, work, and study in whatever country they choose with full citizenship
rights. We call for the immediate release of all refugees in detention centres.
Funds must be provided to expand the availability of English language programmes
and translation and interpreter services. Racial discrimination in employment,
housing and education must be ended.
Defend democratic rights
The more the ruling class impoverishes the working class, the more it resorts
to law and order demagogy and strengthens the repressive forces of the state.
No expense is being spared to bolster the police, build new prisons and police
stations and invest in technology for surveillance and repression. The prison
population is rapidly overflowing.
Over the past decade, the right to strike, conduct a picket and to take
industrial action in support of other workers have been severely restricted,
with penalties of huge fines and prison sentences. Police officers have been
armed with CS gas and long style batons to use against growing social unrest.
The right to silence has ended and police have the powers to bug phones and
secretly film people at will. Children as young as 10 years old can be charged
for criminal offences .
The SEP calls for the defence of freedom of speech and all the democratic
rights of the working class. All political prisoners must be released.
Anti-strike legislation must be abolished. Discrimination based on gender
or sexual preference must be outlawed. Women must be guaranteed the unrestricted
right to abortion.
Against militarism and war
The globalisation of production has intensified the struggle between the
major capitalist countries for control of markets and profits. Every national
ruling class, including the British, seeks to expand its access to raw materials
and cheap labour at the expense of its rivals. As in 1914 and 1939, the frantic
competition among the imperialist powers leads inexorably to war.
Since the coming to power of the Tories in 1979, British forces have conducted
a war with Argentina over the Malvinas Islands, backed the US-led war against
Iraq in the Middle East, the UN's carve-up of the former Yugoslavia, stepped-up
its own operations in north of Ireland and been in the forefront of organising
the rapid reaction force. Today, virtually without warning, British workers
can discover that their sons and daughters are being sent to fight in some
new corner of the globe.
The interests of the working class are, in essence, international. It is
impossible to have social equality and justice in Britain while oppression
and exploitation prevail overseas. British workers cannot successfully fight
big business "at home" if they turn a blind eye to what the British government
does in the interests of the transnational corporations in other parts of
the world. The savage blows inflicted by the British military on workers
internationally are, in the final analysis, aimed against the working class
in this country. Moreover, the billions of pounds that are spent to fuel
the military machine and covert operations represent a substantial portion
of the social wealth produced by the working class. Rather than being used
to tackle urgent social problems, these resources are squandered on tanks,
aircraft carriers, missiles and other expensive instruments of death and
destruction.
The Socialist Equality Party advances the following demands directed against
militarism and war: The standing army, MI5 and MI6 must be dismantled. All
British troops must be withdrawn and bases maintained by British imperialism
overseas must be closed. War industries must be converted to useful production,
with no loss in jobs, wages or benefits to the workers. A socialist foreign
policy must be implemented, based on fraternal relations with the workers
and oppressed peoples of the world. Top of
page
How will this programme be achieved?
We predict in advance that every one of these demands will be greeted by
a chorus of opposition from the ruling class, the big business media and
the capitalist politicians who will respond: "There is no money". No other
response should be expected. No amount of constitutional reforms can alter
the conditions of the working class whilst profit dominates. The programme
we advance is inconceivable within the framework of the present economic
order. It challenges the profit system at its very foundation.
Whether or not it will be realised will be decided in the course of struggle.
The working class must develop its own independent political movement, mobilised
around the fight for these demands.
The resources already exist to implement every one of these measures -- but
they are concentrated in private hands. The Socialist Equality Party makes
no bones about the fact that this programme will require deep and unprecedented
inroads into the huge reserves of private wealth and the vast resources
controlled by the banks and major corporations. Those unable to operate in
an environment which protects the basic needs of the working class should
be taken out of private hands and run as public enterprises under workers'
control.
As a first step towards a more equitable use of resources, the SEP advocates
a progressive tax system which would lower taxes on working class and middle
class families while raising those on the wealthy. All personal incomes over
£80,000 should be taxed 100%, whilst those under £12,000 should
be tax free.
By placing the most important levers of the economy -- the banks, transnational
corporations, mass transport, the utilities, telecommunications -- under
public ownership and the democratic control of the working class, a workers'
government would be laying the foundations for a rationally planned economy,
geared to human need. Top of page
Build the SEP
The success of the SEP depends on the determination and self-sacrifice of
workers who will fight to build it. We call on all workers to examine critically
their own political preconceptions. It is time to put aside ideological
prejudices that have left workers unable to defend themselves against the
onslaught of the corporations and the government. It is necessary for workers
to seriously consider and adopt the revolutionary socialist alternative to
the capitalist system.
We will use the coming General Election campaign to explain the need for
building the Socialist Equality Party, expanding its base of support and
enlarging its membership. We urge all workers, young people, students and
unemployed workers looking for an answer to the social crisis and the political
dead-end of the three-party system to actively support our election campaign.
Our campaign seeks not only votes. Above all it is aimed at winning workers
and young people to join our movement and carry out the necessary struggle
to build the Socialist Equality Party as the mass party of the working class.
Top of page
Our Candidates
Julie Hyland -- will contest Barnsley East and Mexborough. She is
the Assistant National Secretary of the SEP. Hyland is 32 and has a son aged
nine. She has been active in the socialist movement all her adult life. She
joined the Fourth International, the world wide socialist party of the working
class, at the age of 16 and is the former National Secretary of the Young
Socialists. Hyland was a commissioner for the Workers Inquiry into the death
of Joy Gardner. She has been politically active in the Barnsley area for
over a decade and led a number of campaigns in defence of working people.
These included opposing police raids in Grimethorpe and exposing the social
conditions that led to the death of Anthony Cheetham while picking coal.
Hyland contested the Barnsley East seat in the December 12 by-election as
the first candidate of the SEP since its founding in November 1996.
Tania Kent -- will contest Tottenham, London. She is a Central Committee
member of the SEP and the London area secretary. She was formerly the National
Secretary of the Young Socialists in Australia. Kent is 32 and married. She
has led campaigns throughout London against hospital and school closures,
to defend immigrant workers against police and state repression and international
campaigns to defend Tamil and Kurdish workers who are the victims of racist
civil wars. As the Secretary of the Workers Inquiry into the death of Joy
Gardner she worked extensively in the Tottenham area. She participated in
a national tour with Joy's mother, Myrna Simpson, to educate workers on the
findings of the inquiry and to develop an independent class perspective in
defence of immigrants against the nationalism of the Labour Party and trade
unions.
Stuart Nolan -- will contest Garston, Liverpool where hundreds of
Ford workers face redundancy and thousands of council workers face the sack.
He is 29 years old and has worked as a conductor for British Rail for seven
years. He is known amongst workers for his fight for socialist policies in
opposition to the Rail Maritime and Transport union's collaboration with
management. He has led many campaigns to expose the exploitation of young
workers and has been at the forefront of struggles against homelessness,
poverty and job losses. He has participated in the campaigns of the SEP in
Liverpool, most notably in the Mersey docks lockout, where the Transport
and General Workers Union has isolated the workers and opposed the adoption
of a political perspective to defeat the attacks of the Mersey Docks and
Harbour Company.
Steve Johnstone -- will contest Maryhill, Glasgow. He has been in
the Trotskyist movement for six years and works as a driver for Stagecoach
buses. He is 35 and married. Johnstone has led a consistent struggle in
opposition to privatisation and the destruction of health and safety conditions
on the buses. He was victimised and threatened with expulsion by the TGWU
in 1996 for his exposure of their collaboration with management in destroying
conditions. He mobilised a successful campaign against this. He was active
in the anti-Poll Tax movement and in defence of the rights of the unemployed
before joining the SEP. |
