100 days to go: Step up the fight for independence and socialism

“Austerity is just another word for an unremitting class war carried out by the elite and the bankers against the 99% in our society. Today, five people in the UK have more wealth than the poorest thirteen million. Wages are falling and the numbers using food banks are rocketing. That’s the backdrop against which the Scottish independence referendum on September 18 is taking place.”

Speaking at a huge public meeting in Dundee in April, Socialist Party member John McInally – who is also a leader of the PCS trade union – summed up the reasons why hundreds of thousands of working class people are planning to vote Yes in the referendum.

Support for independence has been increasing recently as many of the “victims of austerity” seek an escape route from the unending cuts being carried out by the Con-Dem coalition.

With Labour leaders like Ed Miliband promising to carry on where the Tories left off, it’s no wonder that support for a Yes vote is rising.

“Project Fear” – the Labour/Tory/Lib Dem lash-up is conducting an unprecedented campaign of blackmail underpinned by a future of capitalist savagery.

But the majority of the over one million people who currently say they will vote Yes in September are doing so to find an end to low pay, zero-hour contracts, falling incomes and savage welfare cuts.

Alex Salmond and the SNP won’t deliver that. They want to change the flag, but not the economic system of profiteering capitalism that is seeking to drive working class people into the dust. Only fighting socialist policies can turn the tide against austerity.

Over 10,000 people have now attended public meetings in every corner of Scotland as part of the Hope Over Fear tour to hear Tommy Sheridan.  Socialist Party Scotland is playing a key role in this campaign. The left wing and socialist case for independence, for an end to austerity and widespread public ownership of the economy, is gaining huge support.

Socialist Party Scotland is campaigning for a Yes vote in September. But we’re also fighting to build a mass movement to end the cuts, for public ownership of the banks, the oil and gas industry, the energy companies and the major sectors of the economy.

The powers of independence should be used to deliver a living wage for all, an end to zero hour contracts and a decent welfare state. To do this we need the trade unions to help set-up a new mass workers party that can fight to become a majority in the Scottish parliament.

Building a mass movement against the cuts and for an independent socialist Scotland is the only escape route from savage austerity, which will continue after September whatever the result of the referendum. Vote Yes on September 18 – But join the struggle for socialism today.

For details of upcoming public meetings on the socialist case for independence see https://www.facebook.com/socialistcampaignforindependence