Mobilise, resist, defy the Tories: turn votes into resistance in communities, workplaces, campuses, Holyrood and Westminster PHOTO: Craig Maclean • see pages 2 ,3,4,5,6&7 £1 • issue 458 • 15th – 28th May 2015 scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com Tories win, City banker boasts: ‘Lobster Thermidor is back on the menu! Buy shares in lap dancing bars!’ NO MANDAT E.. NO TORY CHypocUrisy aTs CaSmero! n calls Tories ‘the real party for working people’ 40% of eligible voters 24% of eligible voters would be needed to elected a tiny majority strike under Tory plans Tory government ScottishSocialistVoice.wordpress.com /ScottishSocialistVoice @ssv_voice SANDRA WEBSTER THE FIRST CUTS WERE NOPHTOTO : CTraig MHaclean E DEEPEST by Sandra Webster, SSP member of a family even if national co-spokesperson multiple members have a dis - ability. Let’s be fair to the Tories WHILE ALL other parties though—they will deliver what promised at least to slow down they have promised, and more. the rate of austerity, and while the These ideological cuts will be SSP’s manifesto was a people’s watched over proudly by Iain one, at the heart of the Tories Duncan Smith and newly-ap - election pledge was to make at pointed Priti Patel who is on least £12billion cuts to benefits. record of supporting the death Softened up by a media on - penalty. We may miss Esther slaught which portrays the poor McVey who lost her Merseyside as scroungers, this pledge is seat. Many find hope that the popular with many who voted new SNP MPs with their anti- Tory—we all need a scapegoat. austerity promises will be able to The first full Tory cabinet in 18 protect us in Scotland from the years met for the first time this worst excesses of Tory policy. week, with Cameron announcing After all, disability benefits they were the party of the work - have been devolved to Holy - ers—rhetoric not that far re - rood by the Smith Commission. moved from the Labour Party But as the first Tory cabinet pledging their support for hard meets, top priority will be given working families. Away from the to the further dismantling of the headlines though, the DWP re - FIGHT! take action and support those affected by the savage Tory cuts welfare state and ensuring “ben - port that, with a benefit system efit units”—as Iain Duncan already pared to the bone, further always suffer. Within hours of abilities into work. We know that Smith has referred to families in cuts are going to impact on those the election result, the DWP an - benefit sanctions will continue, receipt of benefits—are most who may have voted Tory. Of nounced the closure of a scheme with more and more people hav - impacted on. When powers are course, the most vulnerable will that supported people with dis - ing to rely on food banks. devolved, PIP and Universal Iain Duncan Smith has hinted Credit will be rolled out leaving at a form of food stamps where the Scottish Government with those not in work will be given what may prove to be an impos - a pre-paid card to buy food. Uni - sible task in setting things right. versal Credit will continue to be rolled out. Already in Edinburgh, Tory misrule it arrives in Glasgow in June. Another five years of Tory DLA will be replaced by Per - misrule awaits us, and all the sonal Independence Payment finest speeches against austerity with different criteria which will offer no protection. This is a makes it more difficult to get the rallying call to begin to offer sup - financial support the long term port and hope. Be armed with the sick and disabled rely on to lead information. People need to fight an ordinary life. These cuts will benefit sanctions and be success - not make up the £12billion ful in claiming benefits. promised and it is those in work Remember, austerity affects who will be most affected. not only those out of work or in Further cuts to tax credits are low paid work but in all of the to be expected. An end to enti - public sector. The cuts will im - tlement to statutory maternity pact on teachers, nurses, council pay has been leaked in the workers and civil servants. press, as has further limitations We need to plan how to take to child benefit. Carers Al - action and support those affected. lowance, a universal benefit, Only then can we hope to defeat may only be payable to those in the disgraceful Tory rhetoric. The receipt of Universal Credit, and first cuts were not the deepest but PIP may only be payable to one this time they will truly bite us all. 2 • scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com • issue 458 EDITORIAL by Ken Ferguson The reality is that, as argued by forces including the Scot - FIRST OF all, there is no tish Socialist Party, many trade doubt that the election result in Mass action unions and a range of cam - Scotland is quite simply his - paigners, the austerity pro - toric, sweeping away a Labour gramme far from a necessary dominance which lasted for evil is in fact a cover for a fun - over half a century. central to defeat damental and final marketisa - From pretend left leader Jim tion of the UK and massive Murphy to puffed up foreign af - destruction of the remaining fairs shadow Douglas Alexan - Tory brutality PHOTO: Craig Maclean welfare state. der Labour place persons The huge vote given to the were crushed by the SNP jug - SNP is both an endorsement gernaut and as the dust settled of anti-austerity and a man - a humbled Labour were left date for resistance to it both in with one MP as were their for - Westminster and Holyrood mer Better Together partners and equally importantly in in the Tories and Lib Dems. workplaces, communities and Without doubt, Labour paid within Scottish society at large. a heavy price for their part in Building such a resistance the two year ‘Project Fear’ No must now be a key task for the campaign which, though it period ahead. won, enduringly linked them Already there are signs from as partners to the widely de - the trade unions that the real - tested Tories and totally dis - ity that the Tory manifesto credited Lib Dems. But it is plans even worse anti-union also clear that much deeper laws will produce a response forces are also at work. with figures such as UNITE’s The cowing of Labour dur - Len McLuskey and the ing the Thatcher years turned STUC’s Graeme Smith posing into a decisive break with so - FIGHT! take action and support those affected by the savage Tory cuts the need to break such laws. cialist policies by Blair and ul - For the socialist left which timately ending in the morass by Westminster transformed chose the wrong side with the played such a key role in the of war, the bankers’ bale out the national question into a key wrong arguments and, on 7 referendum campaign to give it and unashamed pro-business demand with both a demo - May, paid the price. At the a left and progressive content priorities is not of itself unique. cratic and class content. heart of the unprecedented working together to fashion a This basic truth was dramat - SNP victory was their stance coherent anti-austerity cam - Placating bosses ically confirmed in the two year as an anti-austerity party which paign which both keeps the Confronted with a confident indyref campaign which saw contrasted sharply—Jim Mur - momentum against Tory brutal - aggressive global capitalism, the debate moved, through phy rhetoric notwithstanding— ity which 7 May represented like Labour, social democrats mass action from simply a with the pro-austerity policies and build a movement express - across Europe moved to the constitutional argument to one of all three unionist parties. ing it must be a central task. right in a vain bid to placate the which spotlighted a competing As the Voice has pointed out bosses and in the process at - vision of Scotland’s future an - before the SNP claim to owner - Opposition tacked their own supporters chored in the politics of an es - ship of the progressive ground And, as the full horror of the with anti-union laws and spend - sentially red/green Scotland of Scottish politics is challenged Tory assault bites, opposition ing cuts. However while this no and informed by a range of by a range of realities from will be unlikely to be confined doubt eroded Labour support ideas including feminism, anti- council cuts through rail and either to Westminster and there can be no question that, militarism and a rejection of ferry privatisation and policies of Holyrood or simply to the bru - in Scotland, the merging of the consumerist greed. cuts which have led to attacks tal cuts signalled by Cameron break with working class poli - Labour was on the winning on workers wages and condi - but seems sure to see growing cies and the rise of the national side last September but in the tions. However there can be no pressure for a fresh independ - question proved decisive in the process aligned itself with aus - question that in spotlighting ence referendum. defeat of 7 May. terity, nuclear weapons and an boldly a rejection of austerity to In the light of the spectacular The experience of the brutal - essentially Westminster elite mass audiences in TV debates defeats in Scotland for the ity of the Thatcher years which contempt for Scottish democ - and in a high profile campaign unionist parties—and £12billion saw mass unemployment, racy trumpeted by the same the SNP have decisively raised of savage cuts to be inflicted by large scale industrial closures media that is now busily run - the question not just of the wis - a government with one Scottish and the Poll Tax imposed on a ning a quasi-racist anti-Scot - dom of austerity but the fact that MP—the demand for a second Scotland which rejected them tish campaign.