SSP campaigners at the STUC lobby of the Scottish Parliament
The battle's just begun !
by Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser 17-11-10
The SNP government’s announcement of £1.3bn cuts on 17 November is the start, not the finish, of the budget-making process.
As they face a tartan blizzard of assaults on their pay, public services and an estimated loss of 75,000 public sector jobs, Scottish trade unionists and communities need to unite around demands for no cuts, plan a campaign of determined action, and present the Scottish government with a ferocious campaign of resistance before the budget is finalised in February.
John Swinney’s declaration of the SNP’s intent to pass on Westminster’s cuts like spineless, obedient servants of the Cuts Coalition presents Scotland’s 32 councils with a stark choice too: defy or destroy! Defy the package of butchery from Westminster and Holyrood, by setting No-Cuts budgets – or destroy the workforces and communities who put these councillors in power.
The next few weeks present the trade union movement, community groups, student organisations and anti-cuts alliances with a severe challenge: defy or be destroyed.
Keep pounding them!
From now ‘til February, horse-trading between the parties in Holyrood will seek to shape the details of the Scottish budget. But the SNP’s precarious position as a minority government lends all opponents of cuts an added opportunity and leverage to pound and pressurise them with demands to stand up to Westminster, to stand up for the Scottish people, and put their fine phrases about being “champions for Scotland” into living practice – by launching a mass campaign to win back the £1.3bn plundered by Westminster to bail out the bankers and billionaires.
The SNP government talks of “having to live within our means”. But rather than bow and scrape in obedience to Cameron and Clegg, they have a simple “means” of avoiding all cuts: introduce an emergency Bill to scrap the Council Tax and replace it with the income-based Scottish Service Tax that would tax the rich and raise an extra £1.6bn next year – meantime setting a No-Cuts budget in February.
If the SSP had a team of MSPs we would move these twin measures in the parliament, present a No-Cuts budget and re-present our Service Tax Bill, leading the charge in building a massive ‘extra-parliamentary’ revolt in the communities and workplaces.
Socialist councillors
If we had swathes of SSP councillors, they would imitate the actions of SSP councillor Jim Bollan in West Dunbartonshire, propose No-Cuts budgets and join forces with council workers and communities in a people’s rebellion.
Left to their own devices, precious few of the army of Labour and SNP councillors have the bottle or vision, the political principles, to stand up and defy all cuts and help lead a campaign to “give us back our stolen £millions”.
Labour councillors and MSPs hunt the cameras for photo-opportunities in attacking the SNP’s tartan butchery – but then sharpen their knives in local councils with the zeal of Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber.
SNP councillors seem just as keen to cut. In West Dunbartonshire, for instance, they plan to announce £8-10m cuts in mid-December - including slashing welfare rights officers at the very time when benefits cuts and rising unemployment make them all the more desperately essential - and then “consult” communities and trade unions over the Xmas season! Such shameless charlatans must not get away with this monstrous sham.
Bonfires beneath backsides
The unions, community groups and anti-cuts alliances – and any councillors with the vision and spine to argue against all cuts – need to roast these councillors’ backsides with bonfires of resistance. This should start with mass lobbies of the next round of council meetings, calling for No-Cuts defiance budgets, with the threat of serious preparations for coordinated strike action across the public sector in early 2011.A one-day public sector strike of 600,000 public sector workers would be no mean force for resistance to the cuts, alongside the looming elections in May, which could concentrate the minds of Labour and SNP politicians wonderfully!
Defy and defeat all cuts
Far from being over with Swinney’s £1.3bn cuts announcement, the battle has barely begun. Provided the unions and community organizations with the potential power to resist act swiftly, decisively, and spell out the clear message that there is no need nor excuse for any cuts – that the money is there, in the bankers’ and billionaires’ profit accounts – workers and their communities can defy and defeat this slaughter.
The SSP will continue to combine with fellow- trade unionists, communities and students in determined action – whilst also spelling out that the ultimate ‘better way’ is a socialist Scotland, independent of the Westminster butchers, not just a semi-government ruled by the SNP’s tartan axe-wielders.