Election 2015: meet the International Women’s Day: SSP candidates who we look at the daily struggles are fighting for workers of women across the globe • see pages 8, 9 & 10 • see page 12 £1 • issue 453 • 27th February – 12th March 2015 scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com SIR MALCOLM RIFKIND JACK STRAW LOW PAID WORKER £1,619/hour £5,000/day £6.50/hour AUSTERITY HYPOCRITES ALL Rifkind: ‘unrealistic’ Low paid workers forI MNPs toI liTve ‘sTimpOly GErecTeivHe 20Ep ‘Rboost’ on £60,000 a year’ to minimum wage ScottishSocialistVoice.wordpress.com /ScottishSocialistVoice @ssv_voice EDITORIAL by Ken Ferguson ONCE AGAIN the harsh spotlight of publicity has lit up the two faced money grasping hypocrisy behind Westminster’s pro-austerity politicians. Two of the supposed Mother of Parliament’s “honourable gentlemen”— both ex-foreign secretaries Tory Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Labour’s Jack Straw—were caught offering their services for hire to what they thought was a Chinese firm but turned out to be a journalistic sting. Rifkind, a failed Edinburgh MP moved to upmarket Chelsea, explained that it was “quite unrealistic” for MPs to live “simply on £60,000 a year”. Research by the Daily Telegraph and Channel 4 WESTMINSTER GRANDEES’ GREED revealed that the going rate for Sir Malcolm’s services was £1,619 an hour. sEuppXortPer oOf waSr anEd S AUplaSyerTs inE theR deIfeTnceY of i t, HYpoPliticOs whCich Rcan IhaSrneY ss This from a man who was mayhem and a key figure in the Labour Party, is about to them to meet the needs of Secretary of State in the long running New Labour pay the price for their Better people and planet. Thatcher’s government drive to destroy their party as Together partnership with the That’s why in May the SSP enforcing the Poll Tax, who one representing working still toxic Tories come May. is contesting seats in has loyally backed sackings, people to one guarding the Of course all of this makes Glasgow, Edinburgh and cuts and the demonising of interests of the super rich, exciting copy for the opinion Paisley to put the concrete so called scroungers while oligarchs and speculators. formers, pollsters and political alternatives that need to form peddling the lie that “we are Both men spotlight the rotten scribes but we need to part of that new politics all in it together”. “don’t do as I do, do as I say” remember that both of the before the voters. culture underpinning super likely election winers in May Demands such as a £10 Britain’s spooks rich rule in today’s Britain. favour a continuation at an minimum legally enforced As chairman of the We have of course been increased tempo of the wage, banning of zero hours Commons intelligence here before in the world of regime of cuts, sackings and contracts, ban on fracking, committee which oversees duck houses, John Lewis lists privatisation. equal pay for women and Britain’s spooks, he might have and, ultimately, prison cells. crucially MPs and MSPs paid been considered to be exactly However important as the Mass movement a workers wage are at the the type of well-connected exposure of individual wrong Whatever the outcome then heart of the SSP work both in figure well worth buying by doing is the real issue is the —minority/majority/coalition— the election and in influence-seeking capitalists. existence, in Westminster, of a mass movement of action workplaces and communities. Straw’s pay rate seems, a cosy club insulated from to defend the majority from The forces mobilised and compared with his Tory reality by a voting system the greed of the powerful the hopes raised by the opposite number, almost which all bit excludes all but a minority will be essential if broad Yes movement for a modest at an economical narrow band of opinion real change is to be won. more equal, just and £5,000-a-day. friendly to the gilded world of Here in Scotland of course sustainable Scotland remain He already earns a cool wealth and privilege. the Westminster poll is a very much alive and most £60k a year (about the same That club was shaken by curtain raiser for next year’s continue to inform both the as his MPs’ salary) from a the mass movement sparked Holyrood elections and it is work of the wider left and commodity firm and boasted by last year’s referendum and essential that maximum progressive movement and to the undercover reporters of the rejection of the dismal pressure be kept up for the those tens of thousands how he operated “under the drumbeat of austerity and widest possible powers to be seeking real change putting radar” to get clients needs met. war that resulted. It seems delivered to Edinburgh and people and planet before His background is as a likely that one of the key that they be matched by a profit and greed. 2 • scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com • issue 453 COLIN FOX Countering UKIP’s myths with fact by Colin Fox, SSP forced many thousands of Scots national co-spokesperson families to emigrate in the 19th century and Thatcher’s ‘indus - THE SCOTTISH Socialist trial clearances’ of the 1980s Party’s new booklet on ‘UKIP, forced thousands more to follow Europe and Immigration’ offers suit. Whilst many have left oth - a timely warning to socialists ers have arrived here in search of everywhere about the potency of a better life. unchecked right wing ideas. My grandpa Mackin—him - It examines the rise in support self the son of Irish immi - for UKIP in order to equip SSP grants—reflecting a widespread supporters with the arguments sympathy for immigrants would needed to counter them. often say to me ‘The poor souls. Dismissed by David Cameron It must be bad where they were as a party of ‘fruitcakes, loonies if they have come to Mother - and closet racists’ in 2012 UKIP well for a better life!’ now has 40,000 members and The SSP welcomes migrant hundreds of elected representa - workers for they make this coun - tives. The ‘secret of their success’ try economically, socially and cul - has been to blame the decline in turally richer by coming here. living standards on immigrants FACT: it wasn’t immigrants, it was bankers, They made a brave decision to and claimants thus concealing the spivs and speculators who caused the leave their homeland to try and real culprits in the City of London. financial crash, and we insist they pay for improve their lives often at great their misdeeds PHOTO: Craig Maclean Many mistakenly describe personal sacrifice. UKIP as ‘fascists’. They are not. socialist federation of demo - tax credits and 7 per cent less Yet in return they often face Fascism evokes the primacy of cratic European nations. likely to live in social housing.’ employers who exploit them and the state, argues for protectionism Working class people are being It made nonsense of UKIP’s hostile politicians who seek to and intervention by the state in all fed an illusion by UKIP [and oth - claim that workers moved to scapegoat them for society’s ills. aspects of society. That is anath - ers] that leaving the EU will make Britain for our ‘generous welfare ema to the unfettered ‘free market things better. It will not. Leaving benefits’. They came here for Blame the bankers capitalism’ of Nigel Farage. the EU puts the British working work. Half of UK businesses now The Scottish Socialist Party is class at the mercy of those right- employ migrant workers [British determined to stop UKIP and oth - Xenophobic wingers behind Farage who will Chamber of Commerce Nov ers from victimising working He is a right-wing conservative, feel emboldened by their success. 2014]. They tend to be younger, class people whether they are im - a xenophobic ‘Little Englander’ There can be few other issues more qualified and desperate. migrants or not. After all it wasn’t who wants Britain to leave the EU as incendiary as immigration in But of course UKIP has noth - Romanians who caused the worst because he sees it evolving into a Britain today and UKIP exploits ing to say about employers who recession in 80 years or Bulgari - centralist ‘European Super state’ fears that surround it. This pam - exploit migrant and indigenous ans who bankrupted the economy. he calls ‘the EUSSR’. phlet provides a wealth of infor - labour.Yet such behaviour is It wasn’t immigrants who embez - The need to completely reform mation to undermine UKIP’s widespread. One case reported on zled £100 billion by avoiding their the European Union was again myths. A report for example pub - BBC Radio Four’s Today pro - tax obligations since 2008. emphasised this week when the lished in November 2014 by Uni - gramme [19/12/14] exposed em - It wasn’t immigrants who in - new Greek Government tried to versity College London revealed ployers in Wisbech in troduced the bedroom tax or sold renegotiate its crippling debts. ‘Immigrants contributed far more Cambridgeshire caught paying off the Royal Mail. It wasn’t im - The talks showed how the EU is to the UK Treasury than they took Lithuanian migrant workers a migrants who forced one million ultimately run in the interests of out since 2004, in the case of EU £1/week to pick leeks which were households in Scotland into fuel its bankers. Immigrants £5billion more. And then supplied to all the country’s poverty. It wasn’t immigrants If it is ever to be run in the in - when fixed costs such as defence leading supermarkets. caught red handed stealing hun - terests of the peoples of Europe, are taken out of the equation the If there is one country that dreds of millions of pounds in all 500million of us, then a dem - figure reaches £10.5billion.’ should know about emigration the LIBOR scandal or insider ocratic, socially just pan-Euro - Professor Christian Dust - and immigration it is surely trading on currencies.