Voice Forum 2: after the success of Euro Election: are the last one, the March 8th forum the Greens the left looks at ‘Yes Beyond Salmond’ choice for Europe? • see page 7 • see page 4 £1 • issue 432 • 14th - 27th February 2014 facebook.com/scottishsocialistvoice by Richie Venton THE SCOTTISH Socialist Party is joining thousands of ten - ants and workers hammered by the Bedroom Tax in celebrating its effective burial in Scotland. We warmly welcome the deci - sion by the Scottish Government to increase funding to the full £50million required to pay for every tenant’s Bedroom Tax, either through Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) or some similar mechanism, should the Westmin - ster government’s Department for BED TAX Work and Pensions carry out their threat of blocking the additional £15million top-up of DHP funds. This will lift a heavy rock from the shoulders of 85,000 Scottish Tenants and activists celebrate as the families directly hit, as they will Tories’ hated Bedroom Tax is swept aside no longer have to fork out an av - erage £14 a week, usually from a after months of protest and lobbying pitiful £71 a week benefit, with the VICTORPHY OTO: Simon Whittle dread of eviction haunting them. The numbers who had already ap - plied for DHP quadrupled since the Tory Tax was imposed, with 45,000 households getting it – a clear proof of the desperation peo - ple face from this punitive theft of benefits. Now the Scottish Gov - ernment will pay all affected ten - ants’ Bedroom Tax bills. Daily battling In all the day and daily battling by the SSP, No2BedroomTax campaign, and ordinary tenants organised in local anti-Bedroom Tax groups, two of the most fre - quently asked questions were: “Will this do any good?” and “Do you think we can ever get rid of it?” The short, proven answer to • continued on page 2 facebook.com/ScottishSocialistVoice @ssv_voice BEDROOM TAX • continued from page 1 both is a resounding Yes! Organ - ised ‘people power’ has pounded the politicians into action – even - tually. Everyone who signed a petition, attended a public meet - ing, joined a protest lobby or BUILD ON VICTORY march, and especially those who gave up much of their personal time to hold meetings, deliver leaflets, advise people – this self - less army of volunteers forced AGAINST HATED the politicians in Holyrood to sit up and listen. They should be proud of themselves. Protests PHOTO: Simon Whittle work – so don’t be defeatist! BEDROOM TAX! To their credit, the SNP never favoured the Bedroom Tax. But their initial response, a year ago, was to say nothing could be done about it this side of winning inde - pendence. In some Labour-run councils the SNP moved motions for no evictions, but initially did not do the same in SNP-led coun - cils, until the growing pressure of tenants and the likes of the SSP on the ground shifted them into a dec - laration by Alex Salmond at the SNP conference that no SNP coun - cil would evict. At Scottish Gov - ernment level the SNP never PRESSURE: tenants and the likes of the SSP pressed Westminster and Scottish governments to axe the tax agreed to ban evictions, limiting their position to ‘encouraging’ a severely disabled mother for ar - evict Bedroom Tax victims. In con - It is a totally welcome, almighty councils to find other solutions. rears, only halting the procedure trast to Labour, the SSP has not victory for those affected by it and after uproar from local anti-Bed - only consistently argued and pub - those who fought it. But the money Labour’s record room Tax campaigners. And in licly campaigned for the SNP gov - has to come from the block grant Labour’s overall record is South Ayrshire council, where ernment to cough up the issued to Scotland by Westminster frankly shameful, inexcusable. Labour is in coalition with the To - £50million to remove all the ef - under the current devolution set- They did nothing to denounce, re - ries, they issued letters threatening fects of the Bedroom Tax, but up. From a block grant slashed al - sist and mobilise against the Bed - not only eviction for Bedroom Tax we’ve also always argued this ready by at least £10billion over room Tax when it was passed as arrears but also the snatching of should not be at the expense of the past 4 years – with another law in Westminster – in fact it was children (by social services) from other services. We have persist - £4billion of cuts threatened by the previous Labour government the families unable to pay up! ently argued Holyrood should pay Westminster via dismantling of the that themselves introduced a di - It took the Labour leadership up up the £50million AND mount a so-called Barnett Formula should luted version of the same punish - until their September 2013 UK mass campaign demanding the we vote No to independence. ment towards private sector conference before they dropped money back off Westminster – So the straitjacket of devolution tenants, through the Local Hous - and reversed their talk of keeping mobilising tenants, trade unionists means the Scottish Government ing Allowance, whilst refusing to an amended Bedroom Tax if and the vast army of Scots who robbing ‘Peter to pay Paul’ – which cap the obscenely high private elected to government in 2015. hate a tax they are not even directly is why the SSP has always de - landlords’ rents. Labour council - And even their latter-day con - affected by. As we’ve put it, “Give manded the £50million to under - lors refused to pledge ‘no evic - version to calling for the Scottish us back our stolen billions”. write the Bedroom Tax bills facing tions’; they defeated the first ever Government to fund the £50million And that is the down side of the tenants who simply don’t have the motion lodged in any Scottish shortfall seems driven by tribal decision by the Scottish Govern - money to pay it, but also advocated council with that and other de - party politics, an attempt to embar - ment to fund all tenants’ Bedroom a mass campaign to win back that mands to mitigate the impact, rass the SNP, rather than a genuine Tax payments through DHP (or a funding off the thieves in West - moved by SSP councillor Jim commitment to standing up for ten - homelessness prevention fund if minster who have stolen not just Bollan in West Dunbartonshire. ants and workers – especially given Westminster blocks the £15million £50million, but billions of pounds In fact, in Labour-run North La - their track record on benefit cuts in breach of the cap they imposed on off Scottish services, jobs and narkshire council they tried to evict government, and their attempts to DHP payments). wages through their control of the 2 • Scottish Socialist Voice • issue 432 BEDROOM TAX PEOPLE POWER: this is a victory for 85,000 families victimised and impoverished by the universally despised Bedroom Tax PHOTO: Simon Whittle purse strings. Furthermore, that’s rather than the entirely bogus Tory-funded, Labour-fronted – that credit for this victory are serious, why the SSP has openly linked the claims made for the Bedroom Tax. wants to keep us imprisoned in the they should force Miliband and battle to bin the Bedroom Tax with Top-notch, environmentally- Westminster jailhouse that still his band to propose immediate the need for independence. sound and affordable public sector keeps alive this vicious Bedroom abolition – and turn up to vote this Free of the Westminster Old- housing has to be one of the many Tax south of the border. time! The decision by the Scottish Etonian millionaires’ government, central objectives of an independ - It is a tremendous boost to all Government puts the Lib Dem Scotland would never have intro - ent Scotland, one of the many con - those fighting for its abolition in partners in Tory crimes even more duced such an obnoxious tax. After crete, compelling reasons for England and Wales – a living behind the eight-ball, boosting the all, 91 per cent of Scotland’s MPs working class people to vote Yes in proof that fighting to advance the chances of getting the Bedroom – for all their other manifold short - September. interests of the Scottish people is Tax scrapped by the only place comings! – voted against it’s intro - This is a victory, and it’s impor - a help, not a hindrance, to the bet - currently holding that power – duction, but Westminster’s tant to recognise one, as they are terment of the English and Welsh Westminster. Those extraordinary unelected government imposed it. not two-a-penny! It’s a victory for working class. ‘ordinary people’ who won this 85,000 families victimised and im - victory should register the advan - People in need poverished by the Bedroom Tax; Return the billions tages of having a Scottish Gov - An independent Scotland for hundreds of social housing staff Those who won this victory ernment – by definition more opens the door to reshaping the hammered by cuts to their liveli - should celebrate, but also demand susceptible to the pressure and de - entire benefits and welfare sys - hoods; for the thousands who took back the £50million off Westmin - mands of the Scottish people than tem in a fashion that supports to the streets against the Tory Tax; ster, and indeed build up the cam - the remote, aloof Westminster – people in need – the sick, dis - for the army of volunteers who paign for the return of the billions and join the fray for full-blown abled, elderly, children or unem - formed into anti-Bedroom Tax of stolen money to save all jobs self-government.