Scottish elections: Dundee needs fighting socialist polices

The Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is standing for election on May 6 on the Glasgow, West Scotland and Highlands and Islands regional lists, as well as Dundee City East, Dundee City West and Aberdeen Donside parliamentary constituencies. In the first in a series of articles, we look at the issues facing working-class communities in the areas we are standing in and the socialist policies we’re standing for. In this feature we focus on Dundee.

Wayne Scott, Scottish TUSC candidate, Dundee East

In recent years, Dundee has experienced a series of slash and burn budgets from the SNP council, including the closure of music centres, cuts to education staff numbers, introducing bin charges, amongst other measures.

£130 million has been stolen from Dundee by the Tories since 2010. Council leader John Alexander stated shortly before the pandemic that Dundee was set for yet another decade of austerity.

It is clear it will be the working class of Dundee – the people who have kept our essential services running throughout lockdown – who will be expected to foot the bill of the pandemic through further attacks on jobs and conditions before the end of the next parliament.

Currently, cuts are also looming in our universities. Bosses at Dundee Uni have announced mergers which will lead to slashing of 34 teaching posts. Students have started to organise alongside the UCU trade union to challenge management and demand education is properly funded and resourced.

Socialist Party Scotland have consistently argued over the last decade that there is an alternative to cuts. Councils should launch a serious struggle to demand a return of all money stolen from the city through austerity.

This was the approach of the Liverpool City council in the 1980s, under the leadership of Militant (now the Socialist Party). We refused to make any cuts and instead used the powers available to build homes, community centres and to protect public services.

If the SNP continue to wield the axe in the aftermath of the Scottish Parliament election, this can only play a role in undermining support for independence amongst the working class in Dundee and elsewhere. 

The Labour Party in Dundee have at no point over the last decade put forward a serious challenge to the SNP over the cuts and accept the argument that cuts must be made. In 2014, working-class Dundonians overwhelmingly voted Yes for an Independent Scotland.

We understood at the time that for working class people in Dundee and across Scotland, a YES victory meant much more than simply changing the flag from the Union Jack to a Saltire. For many, it was a chance to hit back at the neo-liberal agenda pushed by the political establishment since the 1980s.

The highest votes for YES were recorded in Dundee – dubbed “YES city” – and Glasgow, two cities that experienced the worst effects of de-industrialisation under Thatcherism.

drugs crisis

The legacy of this is reflected in the sacking of Dundee West MSP – “no show” Joe Fitzpatrick – from his position as health minister after a sharp rise in drug deaths across the city left Dundee with some of the highest drugs death rates in Europe. An absolute scandal brought on by decades of poverty and deprivation inflicted on the city by all the major parties.

The working class of Dundee need and deserves a political alternative to the parties of austerity and big business. We need a political force with a record of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with workers in struggle. We need a working class party that will fight for an independent socialist Scotland.

It is for this reason that Socialist Party Scotland members will stand across the city as part of the Scottish Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition in the Scottish parliament elections.

In Dundee West, Jim McFarlane will be standing. Jim is well known amongst council workers in Dundee because of the role he has played as a workers’ leader within Unison. He played an instrumental role in the successful struggle of home care workers against the imposition of split shifts. Jim has a proud record of standing as a socialist candidate in the constituency going back decades. 

In Dundee East, we will stand Wayne Scott, a young painter and decorator. Wayne is a former shop steward with the GMB, and has previously stood twice as a socialist candidate in the Coldside ward. He is an organiser with the Young Socialists–Young Workers’ Rights Campaign, and organised the Black Lives Matter demonstration in the City Square last year. 

Both candidates have pledged to only take the average wage of a skilled worker if elected. Dundee doesn’t need another decade of cuts, we need jobs, wage rises and public ownership. To achieve this, we need politicians with the backbone to fight for it.

We encourage workers and youth across the city to vote Scottish TUSC in May, to put socialist, fighters into Holyrood. If you agree with us on the need for a new mass party of the working class, join the Socialist Party and fight for socialist change.