SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY
WALES
MANIFESTO
The Socialist Labour Party
is a natural home for Socialists and for the millions
throughout Britain who today feel disenfranchised or
dispossessed, and whose lives are blighted by
helplessness, hopelessness and despair.
The birth of the Socialist
Labour Party produced howls of protest from across the
political spectrum including both our traditional class
enemies and those in the Labour Movement who claim to be
supporters of Socialism.
The protests came from anger
and frustration which was and is an inevitable reaction
of a defining moment in politics. There is nothing more
painful than the birth of a new idea and the Socialist
Labour Party has been no exception to this rule.
However, our principles and policies are firmly rooted
in the Socialist values of our forebears who fought to
build a better world. Our Party was founded by people
who fought consistently to save jobs, protect industries
and services from butchery, save communities threatened
with everything from unemployment to racism to toxic
waste and secure justice for all.
The policies of the
Socialist Labour Party are outlined in this Manifesto.
I urge all those who agree with our policies to join our
Party – and help build the only force capable of
bringing about a fundamental change in our society.
ARTHUR SCARGILL
Leader
MANIFESTO – CONTENTS
|
Foreword –
Arthur Scargill |
3-4 |
|
National
Health Service |
4-5 |
|
Pensions |
6-9 |
|
Education |
9-12 |
|
Housing |
12-13 |
|
Transport |
14-15 |
|
Energy |
15-17 |
|
Environment |
17-19 |
|
Employment |
19-22 |
|
Minimum Wage |
22-23 |
|
Anti-Trade
Union Laws |
23-24 |
|
Public
Ownership |
25-27 |
|
Taxation |
27-28 |
|
Military
Expenditure |
28-30 |
|
European Union |
30-32 |
|
Equality for
Women |
32-34 |
|
Racism |
34-35 |
|
Arts and Sport |
35-36 |
|
Disabilities
Discrimination |
37 |
|
Youth |
37-38 |
|
Children’s
Rights |
38-39 |
|
Justice for
All |
39-40 |
|
Constitution |
40 |
|
Welsh Assembly |
40-41 |
|
Peace and Prosperity |
42-44 |
|
Socialism |
44-45 |
FOREWORD BY ARTHUR SCARGILL
The Socialist Labour
Party sets out in this Manifesto our policies for
resolving the economic and social crisis facing Wales
and the people who live here. These policies are
essential if we are to deal with the immediate problems,
but we believe that in the longer term Socialist
measures are needed to tackle the root cause of the
crisis itself.We believe that unemployment, poverty,
homelessness, racism, sexism, ageism and all the social
evils surrounding us have been caused not just by years
of Tory and New Labour government misrule, but by
capitalism – a system that creates inequality and
injustice.No wonder in today’s society that many young
people cannot even imagine a secure or happy future, and
become easy prey to the drug and crime cultures which
stem from unemployment, the racist propaganda of the far
Right, and the greed of international racketeers.
Socialist Labour
supports people, young and old alike, who take direct
action against world poverty, nuclear weapons and civil
nuclear power, the arms trade, live animal exports,
opencast mining and the motorway madness which is
destroying our environment. We are committed not only to
winning seats and campaigning for Socialist policies in
Parliamentary and Municipal elections but to
extra-Parliamentary action which is taken because
politicians refuse to listen.
In Wales, New Labour,
the Tories, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru not only
support the capitalist system and the concept of the
‘free market’ but have implemented the economic
strategy, and continue to pursue these.
Neither New Labour,
the Tories, the Liberal Democrats or Plaid Cymru have
policies that can repair the damage of the past 30
years, which is why Socialist Labour is the only
political party that can offer an alternative which can
provide hope for everyone living in Wales, battered by
successive United Kingdom governments and the European
Unio
National Health Service
The Socialist Labour
Party is committed to a National Health Service
available to all at the time of need, on demand and free
of all charges – including prescriptions, dental care
and eye care. We are committed to NHS workers who
deserve wages and conditions that reflect the social
importance of their jobs.
The loss of hospital
beds and outright closure of hospitals must stop. Under
New Labour, NHS hospital waiting lists in real terms
have increased, while private health care has continued
to flourish on the back of NHS resources, as it did
under the Tories.
Our objectives involve
the abolition of all forms of private medicine and
health care; an end to all contracting-out services;
strengthening primary care, not at the expense of
secondary or specialist services but properly funded
care based on community, family and individual needs;
increased training and recruitment of all NHS staff; an
end to Hospital Trusts and GP fund-holding; re-opening
all “mothballed” hospital wards and re-establishing
district and cottage hospitals; restricting nurses’ and
doctors’ hours to the average working week without loss
of pay; and adequate provision of NHS nursing homes
free of charge for those who need them.
The Socialist Labour
Party is committed to taking into public ownership the
pharmaceutical industry, so that the provision of
essential drugs is not determined by profits to
shareholders but by the needs of all patients.
Our concern is not
only for communities but for the workplace, where many
workers become ill, disabled or lose their lives through
poor and dangerous conditions at work.
Socialist Labour
believes that a safe, clean workplace is not a luxury
but a basic right. The scandal of deaths in the
construction industry is one example of why we are
committed to improving the rights of workplace safety
representatives, with increased powers and staffing of
the Health and Safety Executive, and no notice for
workplace inspections.
We want to extend the
list of occupational diseases and to see a no-fault
compensation scheme established so that discrimination
is eradicated.
The cost of restoring
Wales’s battered NHS to the best health service in the
world requires an immediate massive investment. This
could easily be done by cutting the defence budget by
two-thirds, abandoning the planned Trident Nuclear
Programme and abolishing private health care.
Pensions
Restore the ‘Link’ Now
In 1978, the
government concluded an agreement with workers and
pensioners which guaranteed pensioners a decent pension
which would not lose its value. In exchange for workers
paying higher National Insurance contributions,
pensioners were guaranteed that they would receive an
annual increase in pensions equal to the average
increase in wages or the Retail Price Index, whichever
was the higher.
The Tory government of
1979-1997 blatantly betrayed pensioners and unilaterally
abolished the ‘link’ between the annual wage increase/RPI
– yet New Labour which came into office in 1997 has
compounded this betrayal by refusing to restore the
link, despite repeated promises to do so prior to the
election in 1997.
Today in Wales there
are millions of pensioners, many growing old in poverty,
unable to buy sufficient food or heat for their homes.
Pensioners today are worse off in real terms than they
were prior to 1997.
To add insult to
injury, the Government and local authorities ‘steal’ the
savings, assets and homes of pensioners who have to face
long-term hospitalisation or who go into care.
Our Party is committed
to stopping this outrage; to take someone’s home, their
savings and assets simply because they have to go into
care is theft, and tramples on the rights of people who
during their working lives have already paid for their
own health and welfare care.
We want to see a
properly funded contributory pension scheme based on
contributions of employers and employees, which will
guarantee all workers on retirement with a proper
index-linked retirement pension. Contributions to the
national fund would be transferable to occupational
pension funds (and vice-versa) with no loss of benefit.
The SLP opposes
private pensions – a move by New Labour, the Tories,
Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru designed to further
reduce government expenditure on pension provisions and
compel workers to pay into private pension schemes or
industry-based money-purchase pension schemes.
With private or
money-purchase pension schemes, an individual’s pensions
contributions are invested in shares, property and other
assets designed – so the architects of this scheme tell
us – to build up a fund which at the date of retirement
can be converted into a regular pension payment.
Occupational pensions
were traditionally based on the principle of a final
salary scheme. In other words, workers on retirement
would receive up to 66 per cent of their final salary
plus their state pension for the rest of their lives.
Even under the present
arrangements a final salary scheme it is infinitely
better than a private pension or money-purchase pension
scheme – which is based on shares and on investment
return over the lifetime of the pension scheme.
To add insult to
injury, a private pension or money-purchase scheme will
depend on what the annuity rates are at the time of
retirement. This is yet another scheme designed to
remove government’s responsibility for providing decent
pensions to men and women who during their lifetime have
paid enough by way of national insurance contributions
and tax to be entitled to a pension no less than the
best occupational pension currently in existence. It is
also a policy which puts billions of pounds into the
hands of private insurance companies.
Occupational pension
fund monies are deferred pay. No employer or government
should be able to take one penny out of an occupational
pension fund. Pension fund monies should be used for
one purpose and one purpose only – to pay pensions to
pensioners and beneficiaries.
The Socialist Labour
Party condemns the new Pensions Act as a cynical attempt
by the Government and employers to gain further control
over occupational pension funds. Our Party rejects all
the recommendations and proposals which have already
been thoroughly discredited.
The trustees of
occupational pension schemes should be those who are
members, either contributing members or beneficiaries
(retired members) of the schemes. Trustees should have
control over investments which cannot be left to the
incompetent (and, in some cases, corrupt) investment
policy decisions taken by the so-called
‘professionals’.
New Labour, the
Tories, Liberal Democrats and the Plaid Cymru all
support the Government and employers having control of
occupational pension funds – including investment policy
- and are committed to the introduction of private
pension and money-purchase schemes.
New Labour, the Tories,
Liberal Democrats and the Plaid Cymru all refuse to
restore the ‘link’ for Britain’s 12 million pensioners.
If the ‘contractual’ agreement concluded in 1978 was
restored, the pension of single pensioners would rise
from a basic £87.30 to £121.90, whilst the pension for a
couple would increase from a basic £139.60 to £195.30,
an increase of 40%. If this policy was implemented in
full it would do no more than restore the level of
pensions to the level paid in 1979.
Our Party is committed to
restoring the ‘link’, a policy which would cost £10
billion; a sum equal to a two pence tax increase for the
rich and a sum which could easily be met out of the
billions which would be saved if we withdrew – as we
should - from the European Union.
Education
We believe that all people
have a basic right to free, high-quality education from
infancy through to old age. We want free creche, play
group and nursery provision for all children, and
full-time school-based nursery provision from the age of
three.
Because of the stress caused
by serious under-funding and wider social problems,
teachers, including head teachers, are leaving their
jobs and our schools in droves.
School services and
facilities are still being privatised. The Government
continues to destroy the comprehensive school system – a
system which has been undermined for the past 25 years
by Government through public spending cuts and
ideological opposition.
School selection by
so-called ‘ability’ must end. The Socialist Labour
Party is committed to retaining comprehensive education,
and opposed to policies which provide a good education
for those who can pay, a second-rate education for those
who cannot - and a third-rate system for the vast
majority of children.
Our education system must be
funded according to need, which means radical changes in
the way resources are distributed. We are committed to
abolishing all private and faith schools and colleges.
The considerable resources they enjoy should be used for
the benefit of entire communities.
All privatised education
services and their assets must be public control.
Proper administration of nurseries, schools, colleges or
universities is utterly incompatible with privatisation
in any form, including competitive tendering.
The Socialist Labour Party
is committed to the full restoration of trade union
rights for all education workers, whose pay and
conditions must be determined through proper negotiating
structures.
We believe that class sizes
must be sharply reduced and more teachers employed, thus
ensuring educational standards for our children that
will benefit the nation as a whole.
We are also committed to
promoting full democratic participation by students as
well as teachers and governors in decision-making
structures. School communities should be more involved
in the appointment of head teachers, and accountability
should be shared by teachers, parents, students and
pupils.
In order to meet the needs
of all working class children, girls and boys, students
from ethnic minorities and students with disabilities,
the school curriculum must be relevant to them. We want
assessment methods that promote and encourage students’
further development, with learning methods based on
co-operation, not competition.
In higher education, student
grants must be restored and the student loan system –
which has kept so many young people from education –
must be abolished. The Socialist Labour Party believes
that grants in line with minimum wage levels should be
available for all full-time students.
Education should be
available to us all at whatever age. All adults should
have the right to planned study leave during their
working lives – and effective campaigning by the Labour
movement to reduce the working week can turn such an
opportunity into reality for millions.
There have been positive
moves in Scotland on education, particularly insofar as
student grants are concerned. However, even this type
of measure is only palliative.
What is needed in Wales is a
system which provides free education at colleges and
universities, the payment of all grants and an
undertaking to pay students an income equal to the
national minimum wage.
The cost of providing Wales
with an education system capable of meeting the needs of
children and young adults in the 21st Century requires
billions per year in education expenditure.
Housing
Affordable, adequate safe
housing is a fundamental human right. We say that
homelessness and housing unfit for habitation are
products of the capitalist system. In our towns and
cities, thousands of properties lie empty and unused –
from derelict homes and flats to office blocks which
have never been occupied.
Yet thousands of families
try to cope day after day with hostel accommodation,
while still more individuals are completely without
shelter of any sort.
The Socialist Labour Party
believes it is the responsibility of government to
provide and regulate housing on the basis of need. The
so-called ‘right to buy’ of council homes greatly
reduced social housing stock and contributed to
homelessness.
We want a full programme of
social housing, homes built and renovated, employing
building workers hired directly – using the capital
receipts at present still held by local authorities from
the sale of council housing. Such a programme would
provide not only homes but jobs for the multitude of
building workers currently unemployed.
We know it is possible with
the right policies to make available thousands of new or
rehabilitated homes every year for five years, a policy
which would eradicate homelessness in Wales for the
first time.
In the short term, we
propose measures that could immediately improve the
lives and welfare of many people; stop the mass transfer
of public housing stock to the private sector; reinstate
housing benefits so that everyone can afford adequate
housing; integrate housing association properties into
council stock, and promote co-operatives and the ‘right
to rent’ as opposed to pressure to buy.
We are committed to a ‘fair
rents’ system so that it again becomes unlawful for any
authority to charge above the levels set by the
Government’s rent officer. ALL tenants must not only
have security of tenure but be able to help determine
their environment, and legislation should ensure that
all authorities maintain high standards of upkeep and
repair.
The cost of providing
thousands of new or rehabilitated homes per year is
costly but could and should be paid for out of the
billions profits declared in 2005 by the major banks.
We could eradicate homelessness by simply using 75 per
cent of the annual profits of banks.
Transport
For social and economic
reasons, the Socialist Labour Party believes that all
transport systems and industries – on land, sea, rail,
inland waterways and air – should be in public and
municipal ownership, managed in a fully accountable way
and complementing, not competing with, each other. This
means that all transport (public or freight) and
transport networks (roads, rail, waterways) would
operate on behalf of the Welsh people, our communities,
our regions and the environment.
Even our class enemies agree
that the sell-off of Britain’s rail network has been an
unmitigated disaster. The Socialist Labour Party wants
to see the entire rail network taken back into public
ownership and control. At the same time we want to see
Wales’s bus services taken into or back into municipal
ownership.
An integrated
transport system requires massive public investment, not
private finance initiatives (PFI), nor a system of bonds
which involves big business. The raising of capital to
develop our rail, bus, tram and motorway networks should
be funded by Welsh and UK Government.
Experts now
acknowledge the detrimental effects of the car and heavy
duty lorries on our environment, our roads, our
villages, our countryside. Only Socialist policies for
an integrated public transport system can tackle the
problem.
Long distance road
haulage should be replaced by rail, sea and/or
waterway. Regenerating our railways, bus and tram
networks and our badly disused inland waterways – would
save us all from the hideous juggernaut lorries that do
so much environmental damage.
A Socialist policy
means not only taking all the railways, buses and trams
back into public ownership, but putting into place low
fares or free travel which encourages still greater use,
stimulating local economies while liberating people from
the ghettos created by high-cost transport.
This means creating or
restoring public transport networks to serve isolated
areas and communities. A sensible integrated transport
policy must also involve the introduction of
environmentally-friendly trams in all our cities and
town
Encouraging the safe
use of bicycles and the protection of pedestrians,
especially in our towns and cities, would further help
to reduce our dependence on cars.
Developing such a policy –
ensuring that all our rail, bus, airline and waterways
are in municipal and public ownership, with
accountability at all levels – will require billions
over the next 10 years, but would still leave Wales
trailing behind the French and Dutch systems.
Energy Policy
Wales has never had an
integrated energy policy. As a result, our economy has
never been able to plan energy supply and, more
important, plan the cost of such a policy.
The situation has
become worse during the past 30 years, particularly as a
result of the destruction of Wales’s deep mine coal
industry. Our indigenous energy resources are now so
badly abused that we have to rely increasingly on coal
imports, oil imports, opencast mining and gas for the
generation of electricity, despite the fact that we
warned that gas supplies would exhaust as a result of
using gas to generate electricity.
Economic commonsense
plays no part in Wales’s energy programme. Following
the destruction of the coal industry, international gas
and oil prices have rocketed and the price of oil and
gas on the world market is at an all-time high.
Without a sensible
integrated energy policy – based on indigenous clean
coal technology, Wales’s economy will face a major
crisis sooner rather than later.
The price for deadly
nuclear power is astronomic – at least 450% more
expensive than indigenous Welsh deep mined coal, 400%
more expensive than gas, and over 350% more expensive
than oil.
Commonsense would see
dangerous, unnecessary nuclear power phased out as it
has been in Denmark, Sweden, Germany and other
countries throughout the world.
Wales needs a long
term integrated energy policy based on a deep mine coal
industry which is publicly owned and controlled but at
the same time our country needs to develop all forms of
renewable energy such as wind, wave, tide, geothermal
and solar power.
An energy policy of
this kind would result in the employment of 50,000
people.
The Socialist Labour
Party would reduce Wales’s dependence on imported oil
and gas and would reopen at least 15 pits including
those closed in 1992/93. We would also develop 15 new
mines, many of them in areas which have suffered vicious
deprivation as a result of the pit closure programme.
The Socialist Labour
Party’s energy policy is not only cost effective but a
policy which would provide cheaper energy for the
consumer. Our proposals would actually reduce energy
costs, not increase them.
Such an integrated energy
policy would include the cost of new technology for
power stations and a move away from nuclear power to an
indigenous deep mine, clean coal-based, integrated
energy policy – a policy which would involve taking the
mining industry back into public ownership, the opening
or re-opening of 30 coal mines and developing renewable
energies.
Already Wales has announced
the re-opening or opening of six pits demonstrating that
the SLP’s policy for Welsh coalmining is correct.
Protecting the earth
The Socialist Labour Party’s
environmental policies are closely connected to those on
transport and energy. We believe that only Socialist
strategies can deal with pollution and toxic waste,
ensure animal welfare, protect food chains as well as
forests from destruction.
As a Party committed to
extra-Parliamentary struggle, we applaud direct actions
taken against motorway development, the live export of
cattle, opencast mining, nuclear power and nuclear
weapons bases. We are proud that Socialist Labour
members are involved in these campaigns, and believe
that their actions set an example for us all.
The commercial irradiation
of many types of food – without our knowledge, let alone
our consent – means that a number of foods now last
weeks rather than days, but at what cost? What effect
does irradiation have on the human body, and how long
before we all have to pay the price of the fast-food,
get-rich- quick system which now operates in Britain?
The development of
genetically modified crops is highly dangerous, and is
something against which our Party campaigns. Those who
try to ‘play God’ with our food, environment and the
earth itself threaten disaster for future generations;
they should be actively opposed in their manipulation of
our eco-systems.
We want to protect the
countryside and all creatures that live in it. We are
completely opposed to all blood sports, and condemn
those who advocate the killing of innocent animals and
birds in the name of sport. Oscar Wilde was right when
he described fox hunting as the ‘unspeakable in pursuit
of the uneatable’. We go further, and say that those
who advocate hunting and killing for pleasure are the
unacceptable pursuing for self gratification the
defenceless and the innocent.
The Socialist Labour Party
is committed to developing an environment in which
living things are safe. There was no point in holding
world summits in Rio and Kyoto which lay down targets
for reducing and eliminating pollution and then allowing
countries like the USA – the worst polluter in the world
- to blatantly breach international guidelines set `for
the elimination of pollution.
We can transform the
environment. We can eliminate acid rain by introducing
gas de-sulphurisation units into our power stations. We
can eliminate the ‘greenhouse effect’ if power stations
used fluidised bed combustion, together with a combined
heat and power system and carbon capture. This would not
only combat pollution but more than double the energy
efficiency of coal-fired power stations.
Our Party is committed to
dealing with toxic waste, which should not be burned in
incinerators. Pollution from chemical and other plants
must be declared illegal throughout Wales.
Employment
Full employment should be an
essential aim. The human and financial costs of
unemployment are devastating, as people in Wales know
too well. A study by the Rowntree Foundation revealed
the facts hidden behind the fabricated ‘statistics’.
The unemployment figure
trumpeted by the Government is a lie. The figure is
based only on those who are allowed to claim benefit.
Unemployment statistics do not include the thousands who
are in part-time work, or on short-term contracts trying
their best to cope with low pay, poor conditions and
total insecurity about the future.
Evidence of the real level
of unemployment can be seen by reference to the number
of households which have no wage earners. For example,
in 1980, 5 per cent of Wales’s households contained no
wage earners – a figure which had risen dramatically to
20 per cent
The present policies
actually create unemployment, deliberately butchering
industries and services, destroying not only individual
lives and families but devastating entire communities,
leading directly to the social misery and unrest around
us today.
At the same time, official
policies have backed employers who continue to pay
miserable, almost slave wages, and ruthlessly exploit
their employees.
The massive privatisation
programme has led to obscene salary increases, bonus
payments and ‘golden hand-shakes’ for top executives and
company directors – while anti-union laws have been
brought in to stop workers from effectively protecting
jobs, industries, pay and conditions.
Meanwhile, our
manufacturing industries have been butchered. Once
Wales had over 80 per cent of its economy based on
manufacturing, with vibrant coal, steel, heavy and light
engineering industries, farming and fishing, supporting
a strong economic structure.
Today, less than 20
per cent of our economy is based in manufacturing. We
have developed an inverted pyramid with a top-heavy
service and financial structure, supported on a fragile
20 per cent manufacturing base – an economic system
which is not sustainable.
Rebuilding and restoring our
economy can only be done by regenerating our deep mine
coal industry, re-developing our battered steel industry
and ending all coal and steel imports into Britain.
We have to rebuild – again,
from the perspective of social need - our engineering
industries and support our farming and fishing
industries.
Unemployment – even under
this unjust capitalist system – could be wiped out
virtually overnight. It requires just three basic
measures:
· A four-day
working week;
· A ban on all
non-essential overtime;
· Retirement on
a voluntary basis with full pay at age 55.
These steps would
create jobs for all who are able to work, but they must
be real jobs – whether full-time or part-time (for those
who cannot work full-time). They must be permanent jobs
(no more short-terms contracts) and they must be jobs
paying a decent wage.
The introduction of a
four-day working week, a ban on all non-essential
overtime and voluntary retirement on full pay at age 55
would actually save money. The vast majority of this
cost could be met out of the billions currently paid out
in unemployment and related benefits and by National
Insurance contributions which would flow from the
increased number of people in work.
Money lost through
unemployment – lost through lack of purchasing power and
income tax revenue - costs taxpayers billions a year.
Our employment policies would not only mean jobs for
unemployed workers but a better deal all round for
Wales’s taxpayers.
National Minimum Wage
One of the most terrible
indictments of this society is the ever-growing gulf
between poor and rich. Workers, particularly youngsters
and pensioners, are ruthlessly exploited in Wales’s
so-called service industries, and child labour is back
with a vengeance.
The gap between rich and
poor is widening not only in Wales but internationally.
The richest 20% of the world’s population receive each
year 86% of the world’s wealth - whilst the poorest 20%
of the world’s population exist on just 1 per cent of
the world’s annual wealth.
In Wales thousands live on
or below the poverty level, whilst thousands of
pensioners have seen their pension decrease in value by
over 40% since 1979 - a scandal of monumental
proportion. It is in fact theft on a massive scale.
Studies show that some of
our lowest paid workers have actually suffered pay cuts
over the past ten years, whilst Wales’s top company
directors received average incomes of millions per
year. By any standard, this is obscene.
The Socialist Labour Party
is totally committed to setting a proper statutory
national minimum wage as the first essential step in
putting things right. We call for the introduction of a
minimum wage of £10 per hour – a figure which would give
workers on a 35-hour week £350, or an annual wage of
£18,200.
Women workers, including
those who work part-time, must be guaranteed equal pay
(along with equal conditions and promotion
opportunities) and young workers must have the same pay
and conditions as other workers.
The
introduction of a national minimum wage of £10 per hour
could be easily met out of the massive profits of the
oil companies and bank profits. The tax revenue paid by
oil companies could be trebled without any trouble,
particularly if these oil companies are taken into
public ownership.
Repeal all anti-trade union
laws
The anti-trade union laws
retained and introduced by the New Labour government
relate directly to unemployment and low pay. The
Socialist Labour Party is committed to scrapping these
laws altogether. They have been a weapon used to
frighten workers and their unions, and are designed to
stop them taking action to protect jobs, decent wages
and good conditions – including pensions and sick pay.
We believe that trade
unions, controlled democratically by their members, are
vital for a free and just society. Welsh workers are
being denied the human rights set out in the United
Nations Charter and in International Labour Organisation
conventions. Trade union activity has become in many
cases a criminal offence. Workers are denied the right
to effectively defend themselves or other workers
without facing prosecution, and at the beginning of the
21st century we still have no right to strike in
Britain.
Trade unions which seek to
defend jobs, services or industries face massive
penalties, including the freezing of union funds
(sequestration) or even receivership – all designed to
stop unions from functioning effectively on behalf of
their members, or in support of members of other trade
unions.
Tragically, many unions are
failing to defend members against exploitation and
abuse. The Socialist Labour Party believes that trade
unions should refuse to co-operate with unjust laws.
Defiance by the trade union movement as a whole would
render government anti-trade union legislation totally
ineffective – as it did over a quarter of a century ago
in 1971 and again in 1984/85 during the great miners’
strike.
Had this type of defiance
been sustained and supported over the past 36 years, it
would not only have saved the jobs of millions, but
would have protected vital industries throughout Wales
from butchery. In place of these laws we demand a
programme of positive trade union rights, in line with
the United Nations charter and ILO conventions.
Public ownership and control
of industries and services
Our economy is in a mess
that cannot be fixed by cosmetics. The real problem
goes deeper than the terrible damage done by the Tories
between 1979 and 1997 and by New Labour between 1997 and
2007.
It is Capitalism that is
responsible for the destruction of our industries and
services, mass unemployment, homelessness and the tragic
social problems which follow. We can only begin to
solve these problems by attacking their root cause, and
that means the eradication of capitalism itself.
The privatising of key
industries and services, telecommunications, gas, water,
electricity, coal, railways and health and welfare care
has devastated our economy, which has been in poor shape
for over 25 years.
New Labour’s talk of a
‘share-owning’ or ‘stake-holding’ society is rubbish.
The entire basis on which our economy operates is not
only corrupt but fundamentally incapable of meeting the
needs of the Welsh people.
The fact is that nearly half
(48%) of privately-held wealth is in the hands of just
10% of the population. That contrasts sharply with the
8 per cent of wealth held by 50% of the population. The
myth of a share-owning democracy has long since been
exposed – a recent report revealed that 87.9 per cent of
company shares were owned by only 4% of the adult
population!
The sell-off of key
industries and services has been a major factor in
Wales’s economic decline. We see what privatisation has
done to our rail, steel, coal, electricity and gas
industries.
Privatisation means not only
lack of investment, it means low pay, poor conditions,
falling of safety standards, the destruction of jobs –
and all that, in turn, means higher unemployment and
further economic stagnation.
Energy, water, public
transport, telecommunications are all vital to any
society’s welfare. Like health care they are services
on which we all depend. They belong by rights to us all
and they must be returned to public ownership. This
time, however, they must be properly managed, so that
our industries and services are controlled BY the people
FOR the people.
The Socialist Labour Party
is firmly committed to taking all the industries and
services privatised in the past 26 years back into
public ownership. At the same time we want to see
Wales’s banks, which recorded billions in profits, the
major oil companies, insurance companies and other
industries and services all taken into public ownership.
With public control and
proper management operating for the common good, public
and municipal ownership can always out-perform private
enterprise.
Nearly 90 per cent of the
Welsh people support the policy of taking back the
entire rail system into public ownership and the taking
back into municipal ownership buses which, together with
rail, should be at the heart of an integrated transport
system. Experience has shown that privatisation results
in chaos and disaster. The solution is a commitment to
public and municipal ownership where industries and
services are owned and controlled by the people as a
whole.
Taxation
Since 1997, the Welsh
taxpayer has paid substantially more – not less – in
taxes. In fact, the average Welsh family is worse off
now than it was in 1997 and considerably worse off than
it was 28 years ago.
Taxes have actually risen
since New Labour was elected in 1997. Mortgage tax
relief for house buyers has been abolished and the tax
burden has been moved from direct income tax on to
indirect value added tax (VAT).
This iniquitous tax,
increased under New Labour, was introduced as part of
the price Britain has to pay for being a member of the
European Union.
A tax system cannot be fair
when a multi-millionaire or someone receiving in excess
of £500,000 per year pays exactly the same tax (VAT) for
goods or services as someone who is unemployed or a
pensioner struggling on less than £100 per week. The
Socialist Labour Party demands that new rates of income
tax should be introduced, thus ensuring that those who
earn most pay most. We would introduce the following
income tax bands –
1. income under
£15,000 no
tax payable
2. income between
£15,000 - £25,000 20 per cent tax
3. income between
£25,000 - £40,000 30 per cent tax
4. income between
£40,000 - £50,000 40 per cent tax
5. income between
£50,000 - £100,000 50 per cent tax
6. income between
£100,000 - £200,000 60 per cent tax
7. income over
£200,000 70
per cent tax
The Socialist Labour Party
is committed to the introduction of a completely new tax
system – one which would abolish the iniquitous VAT
altogether, and transfer tax liability from indirect to
direct taxation.
Our Party would increase
corporation and capital gains tax by 100%. These
measures together with a graduated income tax system
would wipe out the European Union’s VAT tax, as well as
ensuring that the ‘fat cats’ and all those on very high
incomes would have to pay income tax directly in
accordance with the income they receive: a fair policy
based on Socialist principles. This policy would
provide Wales’s taxpayers with a fair and sensible tax
system and would also pay - at least in part - for the
policies advocated in this Manifesto.
Military spending
Arms expenditure should be
cut by two-thirds and the nuclear missile programme
scrapped alongside every other aspect of nuclear power.
The Socialist Labour Party
is committed to turning “swords into ploughshares”. We
want to free the billions of pounds currently spent on
weapons of death and destruction into rebuilding our
National Health Service, education system, housing and
guaranteed pensions in line with the agreement concluded
in 1978.
Our Party condemned the
bombing of Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and the unlawful
invasion and occupation of Iraq which to date has cost
the lives of over three-quarters of a million people.
The Socialist Labour Party would bring all the troops
home from Iraq now.
We are an internationalist
party which believes that countries have a sovereign
right to determine their own destiny. They should not
be dictated to by countries which are militarily
stronger and who seek to impose their ideology on weaker
nations, particularly when they seek to gain control
over oil reserves such as those reserves in Iraq.
The unlawful invasion of
Iraq contrasts sharply with the abject failure of the
United Nations and the United States to deal with
Israel, who continue to occupy Palestinian land and
murder Palestinian men, women and children. Israel
should be outlawed as a pariah and the United Nations
should demand Israel’s immediate withdrawal from all
Palestinian occupied territories.
Our Party calls for an end
to the United States’ sanctions against Cuba – which has
been subjected to a blockade for over 40 years.
WALES
