Ahead of polling day on Thursday 5 October, the Scottish Socialist Party is calling for voters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West to back socialist change and elect a socialist MP on a worker’s wage.
SSP candidate Bill Bonnar said:
“The last four months of campaigning has proven one thing above all. Working class people in Rutherglen, Cambuslang, Blantyre, and Hamilton can’t go on with things as they are. Inflation is tearing the guts out of people’s living standards and that inflation is driven primarily by the obscene profiteering by billionaire and millionaire big businesses. The Tories try to crush workers resistance to this theft of wages and Labour says if elected they’ll carry on where the Tories have left off.
“Poverty pay and zero hours contracts both need to be eliminated, but Labour has refused to support a £15 minimum wage and retreated on abolition of all zero hours contracts.
“The state pension is already the worst of any country in Europe, but now the Tory government want to scrap the limited protection of the triple lock, and again Labour refuses to guarantee it’s restoration.
“Pollution and global warming mean the death of thousands of people across the planet from fires and floods, and yet the Tory government have abandoned any pretence of tackling the climate crisis, issuing over 100 new licences to plunder and pollute in the North Sea, which Labour have said they will not reverse.
“It’s time for change; socialist change, and that’s what the Scottish Socialist Party has fought for throughout our 25 years of existence.
“No other party has presented a socialist alternative based on the interests of people and our planet, rather than the profits of the few, which the SSP has in this area since 1998.
“The SSP has been the socialist opposition in 12 separate parliamentary and council elections in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, since 1999. I’ve been the SSP candidate in this area five previous times in parliamentary elections. We continue to be the party of workers, trade unionists, young people and genuine socialism.
“The SSP stands for a massive transfer of wealth from the rich to the rest of us, through measures like a £15 minimum wage; a state pension to match the best in Europe; a massive hike in benefits, including universal child benefits and £320-a-week Statutory Sick Pay, so people can live without resort to food banks; a wealth tax on the rich; democratic public ownership of major industries, energy, transport, construction and banking, to tackle fuel poverty, introduce free public transport for all, and build 100,000 eco-friendly council houses for rent.
“The SSP stands for the reversal of the galloping privatisation of our health service whereby taxpayers have to pay back £8 for every £1 borrowed from the moneylenders to build nearby Wishaw hospital. In contrast, both Labour and the SNP continue with these privatisation schemes of our hospitals and Labour have openly declared they want more of it.
“As a socialist MP who will remain in touch with ordinary people by living on no more than the average worker’s wage, I will carry on the SSP’s tradition of standing up for the working class against poverty, inequality, and pollution.
“It’s time for change – socialist change – and there’s only the SSP offering that radical departure from the crises facing working-class people of all generations under the various parties of the rich and capitalism.”
For more information or to interview Bill Bonnar contact SSP Campaign Manager Richie Venton on richieventon@hotmail.com or 07828278093
