A Manifesto for Peace and Socialism
In1972 a Scottish Assembly convened by the trade union movement called for a parliament in Scotland, ‘a workers’ parliament’. The Scottish Parliament today has only limited power over industrial and economic strategy following the Tory Internal Market Act, which returned limited policy-making powers from Brussels after Brexit.
To meet our current challenges, Scotland’s people need a real parliament, not one subordinate to corporate lobbyists in Holyrood, Westminster (or Brussels). That is why Communists call for working class unity, as we did in 1972, to secure genuine progressive federal government across Scotland, England and Wales for socialist transformation based on the democratic power of working people. Our slogan remains Peace and Socialism.
The programme that follows sets out our detailed programme and demands.
Ending the cost of living emergency
Working-class living standards have plummeted in the past 15 years, with real wages falling and public services collapsing. The failure of successive governments to impose basic price caps to curb the monopoly profits means the price of energy and food have risen by over 20% since 2020. Energy bills have more than doubled since 2016. Eating and heating are simply unaffordable for many of our people right now.
Scotland’s key industries and services should be run for the interests of the people, not as profit-making enterprises for the wealthy.
The Scottish Parliament should be doing more on these issues.
A Communist MSP will fight for:
- Full public ownership of energy and transport.
- Supermarkets to cap prices of staple foods.
- State-support for small farmers and sustainable food security.
Affordable, good quality homes for all
Housing costs far outstrip inflation. Scottish governent housing policy protects profits of developers and landlords instead of providing decent, affordable homes for the many. Increase in short-term lets and absentee landlords have led to increases in homelessness and rough sleeping. Yet, during COVID, we saw it was possible to end the scourge of rough sleeping.
Property developers control the supply of new homes to maximise profits making housing far from affordable. Poor quality developments spring up without amenities or infrastructure. Since 2015, 1.5 million homes have been granted planning permission that have not been built, giving the lie to the claim it is the planning system and building regulations that are preventing house-building.
Tenants in the private rented sector are at a disadvantage when dealing with landlords
The SNP Scottish Government accepts there is a housing emergency but does little about it. We need more money and more action.
A Communist MSP will fight for:
- Rent caps to protect working-class families from landlords exploiting the housing crisis.
- A mass council house building program, including housing for supported accommodation.
- Compulsory purchase powers to buy up empty properties and land for council housing.
- Improved building standards and regulatory enforcement.
- Abolishing homelessness – make a secure, affordable decent home a human right.
- Increased rights for and engagement with tenants’ unions fighting for refurbishment, instead of demolition.
- Legal aid for housing.
- Removal of tax benefits for international corporate residential landlords.
Health and social care
Our NHS is falling apart with thousands on waiting lists leading to a two-tier system, and those who can afford to pay using private healthcare and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) locking the NHS into expensive and inefficient private contracts.
For many, trying to get registered at a local NHS dentist is almost impossible.
Our social care system is broken with most care providers now private firms. Profit should have no place in social care, which should be available to all who need it, free at the point of use,. Social care must be adequately funded by the Scottish Government and care delivery services returned to local Councils.
A Communist MSP will fight for:
- Increased NHS funding.
- Investment in NHS dental services and a guarantee of an NHS dentist for all.
- End Private Finance Initiatives in the NHS, reinvest the savings.
- Bringing social care back in house through insourcing by local authorities.
Education
Funded early learning and childcare should be extended for all children. Affordable, universal nursery and childcare provision enables women to return to work.
Primary and Secondary education remains underfunded, understaffed and demoralised.
We need proper apprenticeships leading to real jobs, not cheap labour schemes that exploit young people.
University funding is broken with the Scottish universities student funding precept at 2009/2010 levels. This results in over-admission and financial dependency on overseas student fees.
A Communist MSP will fight for:
- Improved and expanded nursery and childcare provision
- Properly funded schools, with fair pay and conditions for education workers.
- Apprenticeships and training to address key skill shortages, with union negotiated wages for apprenticeships.
- Extension of student maintenance grants to all students and writing off student debt.
Good jobs and a sustainable economy
Too many workers are in part-time, short-term or precarious employment, with no guarantee of secure work. This is the chaos of the market when bosses make short term decisions at our expense. The Scottish Government has announced 11,000 job cuts in public services.
At the same time, we face climate catastrophe. Scotland should be at the forefront of developing ‘green industries and jobs’ with our engineering and energy expertise. But this requires proper State support.
A Communist MSP will fight for:
- A planned economy that guarantees jobs, retraining and investment in new industries and infrastructure our country needs.
- State-support strategies for regional economic development.
- Workers voices heard through meaningful negotiation between trade unions and employers at a national level.
- The Scottish Parliament to improve employment law.
- Massive investment in renewable green energy technology, production and storage including tidal, wind and solar power.
- The extension of energy-saving and generating measures to new residential and commercial building projects.
- Retrofitting of suitable council homes to create public sector jobs for local authority Direct Labour Organisations.
Defending and promoting opportunities for women and girls
The lives of girls and women in Scotland and their rights are under attack. We believe women’s rights and protections under the Equality Act 2010 including the right to single sex services should be fully upheld and enforced by the Scottish Government. The widening gap between rich and poor is worsening sex inequality. Women are experiencing rising poverty, and growing pressure as they shoulder the burden of cuts and underfunding, and an epidemic of male violence. Communists call for women’s ‘social wage’ to be rebuilt by investing in public services that support women and lifting wages and increasing women’s bargaining power .
A Communist MSP will fight for:
- Immediate implementation of the Supreme Court ruling on sex in the Equality Act.
- Investment in childcare and social care – a system of care services from cradle to grave, free at the point of use, publicly funded and delivered.
- Maternity care and women’s health – properly resourced high-quality maternity and health visiting services and investment in women’s reproductive health services for menstrual disorders, endometriosis and menopause.
- Violence against women –strengthening of domestic abuse and sexual assault services for women and children with secure long term investment in prevention.
- A law to criminalise the buying of sex and support women to exit prostitution – zero tolerance towards the sexual exploitation of women by men.
Migration and anti-racism
Communists are proud to campaign against far-right racism and cruel anti-migrant policies. Reform UK and its far-right splinters blame destruction of community services, lack of affordable housing and unemployment on migrants. We know the reasons for poor public services are political decisions of successive governments opting for austerity instead of taxing the rich and public spending on war instead of hospitals, schools, homes and public services.
A Communist MSP will fight for:
- Opposition to imperialist wars which destroy countries and create refugees.
- Safe, legal routes and processing centres for asylum seekers as the only way to stop exploitation of people fleeing war and repression by trafficking gangs.
- Additional investment in housing for all. No housing asylum seekers in hotels or detention centres but integrated into communities with the right to work.
- Initiatives to build strong communities, combatting far-right lies, and building working-class unity and strength.
Peace
Scotland’s people demand welfare, not warfare. Starmer continues to play enabler-in-chief to President Trump’s piratical foreign policy as NATO members cut public services to fund a world at war.
Holyrood must stand against this war fever. Yet, the Scottish Government is complicit in US/NATO aggression. The First Minister’s failure to call-out Trump’s attack on Venezuela is a disgrace. Scotland continues to host nuclear weapons at Faslane and Coulport. We should be planning to convert arms industries to activities that benefit society.
The US-funded and enabled slaughter in Palestine means we must ensure that public funds are never invested in companies complicit in the Israel/US offensive in Gaza.
A Communist MSP will fight:
- To remove nuclear weapons from Coulport and Faslane, while protecting jobs with transition to socially useful industry.
- To convert arms industries to socially useful production.
- For peace in Palestine, divestment from companies complicit in the Gaza genocide .
Ending Scotland’s democratic, political and institutional crisis
Support and respect for political parties and politicians, widely regarded as self-serving, incompetent, ineffectual, dishonest and corrupt, has fallen to an all-time low, . Many working class voters abstain from voting because they see no party represents them.
Centralisation of power has hollowed-out local authorities. Trade union collective bargaining and organisation has been systematically undermined, excluding workers from decisions that affect them.
This isn’t a meaningful democracy. A Communist MSP will fight for:
- A duty for all public sector bodies to fully engage people in decision making.
- The Scottish Parliament to have revenue-raising powers to control economic development through public ownership, investment and procurement.
- Undoing SNP centralisation – devolving more decisions and funds to local levels.
- Promoting workplace democracy through making trade union collective bargaining mandatory for employers receiving public funds.
Make the rich pay
Faced with a crisis in public financing, rather than raise a wealth tax on the super-rich and big business monopoly profits, the Westminster government has cut social, welfare and capital investment programmes; defunded local government; frozen working people’s tax allowances and increased regressive consumer taxes.
The Scottish Government has not used its tax raising powers, favouring more austerity and higher taxation of workers on low and middle incomes.
A Communist MSP will fight for:
- A Scottish Parliament to use its full tax raising powers.
- A progressive tax system, where the rich pay more.
- Introduction of a wealth tax for those with assets of more than £10 million.
- Replacing Council Tax with a reformed property tax.
Together, through collective struggle and democratic action, we can win real power for the people of Scotland!
Vote Communist. Fight for your community. Change everything.