SSP National Trade Union Organiser Richie Venton writes in the National (06/01/2026) about the case for socialist change in the new year – expressing the urgent need for a Scottish People’s Budget in the run up to Holyrood budget day
ON TOP of the imperialist violence by Donald Trump in Venezuela, three new reports capture some fundamental reasons to be socialist in 2026.
The richest 500 individuals on Earth added $2.2 trillion to their personal wealth in 2025 – a mere eight billionaires account for a quarter of that increase. As Oxfam pointed out, just the additional wealth accumulated in a year by 500 people could have instead lifted 3.8 billion human beings out of poverty.
A separate report underlines the inequality created by 21st-century capitalism: less than 60,000 people control three times as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity, 3.8bn of the toiling masses.
Next time you hear a banker or business tycoon or tame politician claim “there’s no magic money tree” for higher wages, benefits, pensions, or investment in public services, think of those figures.
For much of last year, the Scottish Socialist Party agitated on the streets for a 5% wealth tax to begin a modest redistribution of the mountains of wealth hoarded by a handful of millionaires.
In Britain alone, that measure would raise £260bn in one year – enough to fund the Scottish Government’s entire budget, for everything, for more than four years. But that would require a government with the courage to confront the rich and powerful.
The third report was the survey of its membership by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union. This account of workers’ food insecurity gives a whole new meaning to the concept of feast and famine.
Some 61% said their wages don’t meet basic needs; one in five have had to use food banks; 45% said they couldn’t eat what they’d like at Christmas; three in 10 don’t have enough food for their families throughout the year.
Reading this grim report made my blood boil, and my determination to fight for socialism all the more powerful. Genuine socialists are not content to beg for crumbs from the rich man’s table; we want collective ownership and control of the bakery!
That’s why, as the SSP campaign to get socialist MSPs elected on the Holyrood regional lists in May, we will not only advocate a 5% wealth tax on all millionaires, but also for democratic public ownership of the industries, banks, landed estates, and privatised public services which are the sources of the obscene wealth of the world’s wealthiest, and profiteers here in Scotland.
We are well aware of the limitations imposed by devolution, which is why the SSP have always advocated an independent socialist Scotland. But the fundamental socialist change required to combat poverty, inequality, environmental catastrophe, and wars without end will not be achieved purely by parliamentarians. It requires a mass movement, people power – determined struggle by organised workers in the trade union movement, alongside communities.
Socialist MSPs, living on the wage of the working class they seek to represent, could play an invaluable role in such a mass movement.
If we already had SSP members in Holyrood, next week’s Scottish Budget would be an immediate opportunity to combat the famine facing millions amidst the feast enjoyed by millionaires with concrete socialist measures in a People’s Budget.
Instead of capitulating to the austerity imposed by Westminster, implementing cuts of at least £6bn since 2020, we need a budget with measures on housing, health, social care, education, fire and rescue services, local government services and workers’ wages which could genuinely create the “national movement of hope” which First Minister John Swinney has been waxing lyrical about.
Instead of meek compliance with spending limits dictated by Westminster Labour, we need defiance, a People’s Budget that puts money in the pockets, postcodes and public services of the working class – and a government that picks a fight with Westminster for the additional funding required.
By tackling material issues like housing, health, public services and incomes, a People’s Budget could also cut the feet from under the far-right, arch-Thatcherite, racist demagogues of Reform UK, who prey on the discontent, disgust and despair of people at the failure of mainstream parties to provide on these issues.
Let me illustrate some of the measures the SSP advocate for a Scottish People’s Budget.
Housing: build 100,000 eco-friendly council houses for affordable rents. There’s an officially declared Scottish housing emergency. It’s patently obvious, contrary to Reform UK’s claims, that the 6000 asylum seekers in Scotland are not to blame for 250,000 Scots languishing on social housing waiting lists. Nor are the 90 men in the Cladhan hotel to blame for 11,000 on Falkirk’s housing waiting list. Serialised failure to build decent numbers of high-quality council houses is the root cause.
Research for Shelter and the National Housing Federation in 2024 showed that building 90,000 social rented homes would support 140,000 jobs and add £51bn to the economy.
Within three years, the initial cost of this programme would be recovered through a reduction in housing benefit bills, increased employment and thus extra tax revenue, plus improved healthcare and well-being.
A People’s Budget should help fund local authorities and a public construction firm to build 100,000 council houses, to tackle slum housing, private landlord rent-racketeering, unemployment, and young people’s despair at the future.
Also, scrap the Council Tax and replace it with an income-based Scottish Service Tax to double tax funding for local jobs and services.
The SSP have fought for this since our formation in 1998. The SNP promised to abolish the Council Tax in 2007 but have done nothing since to implement that promise.
According to the latest available government figures, the SSP’s progressive Scottish Service Tax would charge 75% of people less, but double tax income to £5.3bn in a year – enough to fill the black hole in council resources and vastly expand housebuilding, free insulation and draught-proofing of existing homes, and also pay for free public transport on council-owned buses, as part of a public People’s Transport Service free at the point of use.
We would cancel all PFI contracts and outsourcing of public services, expelling these from health, education, social care, and childcare. More than £16bn of Scotland’s annual total £111bn public expenditure is outsourced to private profiteers, including multinationals. Up to £3bn a year is siphoned off in profits.
PFI repayments on our hospitals, schools, and other services will cost Scotland £1.25bn in 2025-26 – including £544 million to council taxpayers. Still, another £27bn in PFI fees remains to be paid in Scotland, with most NHS PFI contracts running up to 2045. And Labour plans to use this loan shark system – where up to £5 is repaid from the public purse to private companies for every £1 invested – in 200 new health centres.
A People’s Budget should cancel all PFI contracts, freeing up the money for jobs, health, social care, education, childcare and other local services.
Stop sacrificing beds, nurses, doctors, educators, sports and leisure facilities, and health-giving public parks – stop the annual public donation to the Fat Cats’ Protection League that is PFI.
And we would declare a £15-an-hour Scottish Living Wage for all 600,000 public sector workers and the 130,000 working in outsourced contract companies.
These measures, and others – which are all possible within the devolved powers of Holyrood – could transform people’s lives and prospects for the next generation. The only “losers” would be a few millionaires and shameless capitalist profiteers.
The facts and events staring us in the face this New Year cry out for a serious struggle in defence of people, not profit. I hope readers will join us in that struggle for People’s Budgets, socialist MSPs to champion it, and an independent socialist Scotland that harnesses the wealth of the nation for its people, not a few grotesquely rich profiteers.