Tories

Hammond’s pre-Brexit Budget Fails 8.5 million Workers

SSP is proud to announce its new websiteCommenting on Philip Hammond’s budget SSP spokesman Colin Fox said;

“This is a pre-Brexit giveaway budget designed to put pressure on dissident MP’s Remainers and Brexiteers alike on the spot ahead of a likely Westminster vote in December.”

“Chancellor Philip Hammond promises to find £20bn more for the NHS over the next 5 years, £2bn more for mental health services, £420m for potholes and tax cuts for millions but only if Parliament votes for Theresa May’s Brexit deal negotiated with the EU next month. Otherwise all bets are off.

His increase in the minimum wage from £7.83 to £8.21/hour still leaves 8.5 million people on poverty pay. The Government has already conceded that workers need to earn £10 an hour to pay their own rent,

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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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Rebuff to May makes a Second Election likely

Commenting on the general election SSP joint National Spokesperson Colin Fox said:

“The over-riding fact in this General election is that Prime Minister Theresa May’s bid for an increased mandate has failed and her credibility is now in tatters.”

“The gains made by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour shows that despite years of denunciation socialist ideas such as public ownership, workers rights and a publicly-owned NHS are highly popular and this must be welcomed.”

“Given the parliamentary arithmetic a second general election must now be a strong prospect.”

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The Conservatives and the EU referendum

by Sophia Lycouris

It is difficult to discuss arguments about the Remain or Leave perspectives following a step-by-step logical progression. This is because each position is approached in a completely different way.

The Left Leave position is effectively a critique of the European Union’s neoliberal character, but has very little concrete proposals about what the future of the UK working class might be after Brexit. Some have suggested that, following a Brexit, the current UK government might collapse and Jeremy Corbyn might win and save the country. Others seem to hope that a Brexit could somehow give strength to the working class to resist more effectively against the Tory-led British neoliberalism.

On the other hand,

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LAY SIEGE TO SCOTTISH TORIES IN DEFIANCE DEMOS, ON DAY OF TORY QUEEN’S SPEECH

The SSP is staging a coordinated series of protests outside Tory party headquarters and Tory MSP’s offices across Scotland this Wednesday, 27th May, as the new Tory government announces its Queens Speech that day.

SSP national trade union organizer, RICHIE VENTON, who is coordinating the protests, told us:

“The Tories have absolutely no mandate to announce their butchery of benefits, slaughter of services, and wipe-out of workers’ rights with an effective ban on the right to organise unions or strike.

“Across the UK, 63% of people voted against them. In Scotland, only a minuscule 10% of registered voters actually voted Tory.

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General Election 2015: The Westminster Establishment Money Fight

“Over the course of the 2015 General Election the four Westminster parties are set to spend tens of millions of pounds telling us there is no alternative to the brutal austerity we currently face. We’re here to say that there is an alternative. For a party that will put people before profit, vote Scottish Socialist Party”

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The masks are well and truly off

The doublespeak of the Tory-led coalition started before the general election. “We will protect the most vulnerable” stated David Cameron. Usually these words were accompanied by pictures of his son Ivan. I shall not bring this wee boy into it, but for all of us parents of children with disabilities, we know that we have become more compassionate towards others. I am surely not alone in hoping that Cameron understood our daily struggles. Unfortunately, we were lied to. Cameron and his Department of Work and Pensions generals: Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey seem content to dismantle the welfare state – and all the supports the most vulnerable depend on.

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Independence From The Tories

by Richie Venton

With 630,000 members, the Scottish trade union movement makes up a huge slice of the population, both when it comes to fighting attacks on our lives and conditions right now, and in shaping Scotland’s future.

So it’s encouraging that the recent STUC conference in Perth agreed a whole raft of progressive policies which, if implemented, would offer stiff resistance to the plunder of our communities by Westminster, and help shape a fairer, less unequal and more secure future for the next generation.

But this also raises the issue of where the unions stand on the Referendum – an issue which the same conference smothered in fudge.

One of the central battles facing workers and their communities is the mind-boggling savagery of cuts to jobs,

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