News Updates

Greek firestorm – tools for the wealthy

by Kleanthis Antoniou

It’s always awful discussing natural destruction, where dozens of lives have been lost in the most horrific ways.

The strong winds, high temperatures, and the site itself, a summer resort for capital citizens – usually of average to low income. In July, the resorts are full of working class people who made time for a quick trip to the coast, an hour away from Athens. (Those with higher incomes tend to visit and build on more prestigious areas.)

But there is a dangerous undercurrent. Of the habits of the Greek owner-class using arson to get round land and planning laws.

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Independence must be about Transformation not “Transition”

Analyzing the SNP’s Sustainable Growth Commission Report for the Scottish Left Review, SSP national spokesman Colin Fox writes:

Reading the SNP’s long awaited Sustainable Growth Commission Report reminded me why I left the Labour Party. It reads like an extract from Tony Blairs playbook. Readers of a certain age will recall how the ‘Old Fettesian’ warmonger demanded Labour abandon its core values and become ‘New Labour’ to win over ‘Middle England’.

In attempting to placate ‘Middle Scotland’ former SNP MSP Andrew Wilson has adopted a similar approach. His report is full of Blairite calls for ‘more flexible labour markets’, ‘greater tax incentives for business’ and ‘further inward investment opportunities’ for capital. Such neo-liberal orthodoxy may be expected from a former RBS economist,

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May Limps on after Day of Resignations

Amid claims of a ‘Remain coup’ in diluting Brexit plans, SSP national spokesman Colin Fox said:

“Prime Minister Theresa May has survived another debilitating day ‘in the Brexit trenches’ after ‘Leave’ Ministers David Davis and Boris Johnston dramatically resigned from her cabinet over what they saw as further dilution of Britain’s negotiating position with the EU.

As the Brexit conflict continues to ravage her Cabinet, her Party and her political Union it looks increasingly likely, as the Scottish Socialist Party has forecast from the outset, that Britain’s formal departure from the EU next March will result in little difference from present arrangements with the EU.

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Ethical Investments: Scrap PFI and its pensions investments

by Colin Fox

When Arthur Scargill took over as the President of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1980 he was astonished to find the union’s pension fund invested in the apartheid gold mines of South Africa. The Pension Fund Trustees defended their investment on the grounds it produced the highest rates of return to be found anywhere.

This story in The Guardian about how the Strathclyde Pension Fund and others have profited from PFI shows that they too have blood on their hands.

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Scottish Review of 1984-5 Miners’ Strike Policing: a huge breakthrough

by Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser

The announcement by the Scottish government of an independent review of policing in Scotland during the year-long 1984/5 miners’ strike is immensely welcome to all who wish to stand up for the working class.

It’s a long overdue breakthrough for the victimised miners, their families, communities and political allies.

It’s testimony to the value of sustained campaigning, even when at first we don’t succeed!

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Open Letter to the Yes Movement

The Scottish Socialist Party is a significant part of the Yes movement and has been for twenty years now.

That is because we advocate an independent socialist Scotland, a modern democratic republic, and we campaign for that prospect in those constituencies others cannot reach.

We worked as hard as anyone to win a Yes majority in 2014 and continue to do so.

To win that elusive majority however it is vital Scotland’s voters are shown the benefits independence represents rather than offered another version of the UK state governed from Edinburgh.

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Colin Fox: Left won’t back ‘right-wing indy economic prospectus’

by Colin Fox

Andrew Wilson’s Sustainable Growth Commission report reminded me why I left the Labour Party and founded the Scottish Socialist Party – because it’s straight out of Tony Blair’s playbook.

Don’t believe me? Blair advocated “flexible working practices” as a cover for undermining the employment rights of working people in the 1990s. Wilson’s advocacy now, as part of “a competitive location for international investment”, is classic Blairite code for cutting corporate taxes, ignoring the nefarious affairs of Russian oligarchs and delivering turbo-charged austerity for the masses. All this while keeping the hated Council Tax and other regressive levies like VAT and fuel duty, where the burden falls heaviest on those least able to pay.

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Growth Commission Report Sidelines Working Class Scotland

by Ken Ferguson

The so-called Growth Commission report is a dismal document which confirms the reality that the SNP is firmly wedded to neoliberal, pro market economics which are failing on a daily basis both here and across the world.

Throughout the document this point is reinforced – none more so when they talk of “fiscal responsibility”; code for keeping the city of London and the markets happy.

What this means in reality for Scotland’s working class – who make up the majority of society – is that the squeeze on spending, services, jobs and wages will continue for at least a decade while the financial elites decide that we are well behaved enough to borrow their money.

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