SNP plan huge cuts to public services
“I pressed the chief secretary to the Treasury for access to early financial information to allow the Scottish government to make the best possible preparations for the cuts that are being imposed on us” John Swinney SNP Finance secretary
The SNP government in Scotland have abandoned any pretence that they will fight the brutal cuts being demanded by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition . Rather than prepare a plan to defy the savagery from the ConDem government, the SNP have instead chosen to set-up an “independent budget review” group of “three wise men” to draw up a menu of cuts for the government to choose from.
But there is nothing independent about this group. The SNPs very own “Geddes committee” (a big business dominated committee set up in 1922 by the then Liberal government to justify savage attacks on public spending) was hand-picked by the SNP to deliver one, and only one, outcome – a justification for savage cuts. According to the committee’s “super axe” Crawford Beveridge, the former head of Scottish Enterprise and Executive Vice President of computer giant Sun Microsystems, the only way out is by cutting up to 60,000 jobs in Scottish public services by 2014. That’s the equivalent of everyone in a city the size of Perth or Inverness losing their jobs.
A two year wage freeze for all public sector workers followed by years of pay restraint, the return of tuition fees for students, the backdoor privatisation of Scottish water, an end to universal benefits like eye tests and free travel for pensioners and huge cuts of between 12% and 20% in local government and NHS spending are also proposed. All in all the Scottish budget is expected to be cut by £1.7 billion in real terms in 2011/12 and by a colossal £4.3 billion by 2014/15. And this is on top off the rise in VAT to 20%, the freezing of child benefits, attacks on pensions, the jobs slaughter in civil service departments and other brutal cuts in benefits already announced by Cameron and Clegg at a UK level.
This is a declaration of war against the poor, public sector workers, the elderly and all those who rely on essential public services. And the SNP, who have chosen which side they are on, will pay a price for their capitulation at the Scottish elections in May 2011.
“There is no alternative” is the lie we are being asked to swallow by every one of the main political parties. But there is an alternative. A mass campaign of opposition to the cuts, led by the trade unions and working class communities across Scotland and Britain can stop these cuts.
Build a mass demo on October 23rd
The first step in this fight back is to make the demonstration called by the STUC on October 23rd a huge display of opposition to the cuts. A mass mobilisation of tens of thousands is more than possible if it is built for properly. The STUC and the affiliated trade unions should be producing hundreds of thousands of leaflets to advertise the march. A mass leafleting campaign should take place in all of Scotland’s major towns and cities. Every trade union member in both the public and private sector should be written to and asked to attend along with their families, friends and local communities. Workplace meetings should be organised to build support for the demo and transport booked and advertised to ensure that October 23rd is the biggest demonstration seen in Scotland for years.
But that is only the start. United and coordinated strike action across the public sector – a one day public sector strike – needs to be organised as early as practicable in 2011. Socialist Party Scotland members in unions like Unison and the PCS will be arguing for united trade union action against the cuts, ensuring that the different unions coordinate their action for the same day, not only in Scotland but also across the UK.
Alongside this action we need to build local alliances of anti-cuts campaigns involving the trade unions and local community campaigns and organisations. The Defend Glasgow Services campaign initiated by Glasgow Unison was set up in January 2010 at a public meeting and is a good model of how to unite public sector unions as well as community groups who will be affected by the cuts. A Scottish wide conference of anti-cuts campaigns also needs to be organised to establish a Scottish federation that could play a leading role in building mass opposition to the cuts in the months ahead.
Organised action can deliver victories
The potential to build a mass campaign that could stop the ConDem coalition of cuts is very real. This is not a strong government and it could be blown apart by the determined action of the working class. In the 1980’s the so-called “iron lady”, Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was supposed to be invincible. She had beaten the miners in the year long 84/85 strike – in reality only because of the refusal by the trade union leaders to organise effective action in solidarity with the NUM. But Thatcher was defeated twice, both as a result of mass campaigns, when confronted by the working class of Liverpool in 1983 and the mighty anti poll tax struggle of 1988-91 that led to her resignation and removal from power.
The lessons of these victories are vitally important for today. In the 1980’s Liverpool City Council – a socialist council within which Militant (the predeccessor of the Socialist Party in England, ,Wales and Scotland) played a leading role – refused to make the cuts demanded by the Tories. The Liverpool 47 councillors led a mass movement, alongside the council workers and working class communities which included mass demonstrations and a general strike of the city’s workers. They won an historic victory in 1983 and the Tories were forced to concede the money needed to build homes, schools and improve public services.
The anti-poll tax movement was organised mass opposition that, at its height, saw tens of millions refusing to pay the poll tax. Again Miliant played a decisive role in helping to establish the strategy, tactics and organisational framework that allowed the anger against the tax to be built into a huge movement that swept the poll tax into the dustbin of history.
Today it is also correct to demand that councils, and the Scottish government, take the Liverpool road and refuse to make the cuts. This would involve setting needs budgets that protects, at the very least, the current levels of jobs and services. In the case of Scotland that would mean building a mass campaign to demand that the ConDem government hand over the £1.7 billion which is planned to be axed from the budget for 2011/12. This is loose change when you compare it to the hundreds of billions used to bail out the bankers and the capitalist system in 2008 and 2009. In reality it is barely one year’s expenditure for the planned Trident missile replacement system.
Most of the establishment politicians of both the SNP and Labour will refuse to make the courageous stand taken by the Liverpool 47. None of them have any alternative to the diet of cuts demanded by capitalism. That’s why while building a mass movement we need also to build a political alternative to the parties who are making the cuts. So we can replace them with socialist representatives who will stand shoulder-to shoulder with the communities that they represent.
The Socialist Party participated in the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (STUSC) that stood 10 candidates in the recent general election. STUSC involved trade unions including the CWU, RMT and the FBU in Scotland as well as socialist organisations like Solidarity. We support building on that experience and preparing a stronger socialist and anti-cuts coalition for the Scottish parliament elections in 2011. The RMT organised conference to discuss a left challenge for the Scottish elections on October 2nd will be an important step.
