SCOTTISH SOCIALIST PARTY CALLS ON RUTHERGLEN & HAMILTON WEST RESIDENTS TO SIGN THE RECALL PETITION AND THEN VOTE FOR A SOCIALIST MP ON AN AVERAGE WORKER’S WAGE
The Scottish Socialist Party is appealing to people in Rutherglen, Cambuslang, Blantyre, and west Hamilton to sign the Recall Petition for a Westminster by-election, in order to win the opportunity to elect a socialist MP who will live on the average Scottish worker’s wage – not the grossly inflated salaries enjoyed by MPs from all the other political parties.
Local resident and lifelong socialist and trade unionist, Bill Bonnar, has been selected by the local SSP to stand as a socialist MP on a worker’s wage, in the event of 10% of local people signing the parliamentary recall petition.
BILL BONNAR said:
“Like all SSP candidates, it is a matter of principle for me that an MP should live on the same wages and conditions as the majority of the population, not salaries of nearly £90,000 – plus expenses – that put them on a different planet compared with millions suffering the worst cost-of-living crisis in at least two generations. Such salaries lead to remoteness and corruption for far too many MPs.
“Local people have the opportunity to ditch the Tories, but they should have no trust in Labour or the SNP either. Both have let us down. Both have abandoned previous promises.
“Labour has abandoned virtually every previous policy of any value to the lives of ordinary people. They no longer support public ownership of Royal Mail, or energy, or public transport. They no longer support the abolition of student tuition fees in England. They shamelessly support greater privatisation of our NHS – the one remaining reform of the post-1945 Labour government.
“Labour refuse to support workers in struggle, with Sir Keir Starmer sacking Labour MPs who dared to show solidarity with strikers. They are not the party for working-class people, and it’s time for local people to recognise the party of Sir Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar are the New Tories – the friends of the rich, the bankers, and big business, not workers and their families.
“The SSP, in contrast, takes the side of workers fighting for inflation-proofed pay increases, an end to safety cuts and station closures on our railways, and privatisation of our public services.
“Labour and SNP MPs live on incomes and lifestyles that millions of people couldn’t even dream of, whereas it’s part of the SSP’s constitution that our public representatives will take no more than the average skilled worker’s wage, to keep in touch with reality – and remain uncorrupted by money.”
The SSP’s Campaign Manager, Richie Venton, is himself a trade union convener who was victimised and sacked from his job when he fought for full average wages for all sick workers during COVID, not £95-a-week Statutory Sick Pay, which he describes as “a recipe for disaster and death, as sick workers can’t afford to be off to recover; as profiteering employers put bosses’ wealth ahead of workers’ health.”
He is calling on trade unionists’ and workers’ families to “seize the opportunity to elect an honest, fighting socialist, Bill Bonnar, by signing the recall petition and joining the SSP’s campaign for a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all aged 16 upwards; inflation-proofed pay rises for all workers; public ownership and free travel on buses, trains, subways and ferries for all age-groups, to combat poverty and pollution; democratic public ownership, not privatised profiteering; and for defiance of all Tory, SNP/Scottish Green Party, and Labour cuts at all levels of government – whether in South Lanarkshire council, Holyrood, or Westminster.
“Workers need a genuine voice, and the SSP has proven itself to be firmly on the side of the working class during the past year’s battles between workers’ pay and bosses’ profit – and indeed for the previous 25 years.”
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For further information, interviews with Bill Bonnar, etc, contact SSP Campaign Manager, Richie Venton, on 07828 27093 or richieventon@hotmail.com