SNP plans offer no respite from austerity
With the SNP set to win a majority of Scottish seats in the May general election, Nicola Sturgeon made a speech in London yesterday outlining the “anti-austerity” alternative that SNP MPs would demand at Westminster.
The speech, however, offered anything but an end to the savage cuts agenda. Despite the correct comments from Sturgeon that “austerity economics are morally unjustifiable and economically unsustainable”, she then proceeded to pledge that the SNP would support a mere 0.5% increase in total UK departmental public spending each year between 2016 and 2020.
This would equate to £180 billion more that the current Tory-led coalition has planned. George Osborne in his December 2014 pre budget statement indicated a desire to slash public spending to the lowest level since 1934, as a portion of GDP. 60% of the Tory public spending cuts are still to be made.
To place the SNP proposals in context, by 2018 the reduction in the Scottish government resource budget will have been almost 17% by then. Under the SNP’s “anti-austerity” alternative over 80% of the cuts will therefore remain in place. Cuts to local government spending in England are now over 25% compared to 2009-10. The SNP’s proposal would leave 90% of these cuts in place by 2020.
Indeed, the reality of the timid nature of the SNP’s proposals was underlined following the speech when under questioning Nicola Sturgeon said she was “”not wedded” to the £180bn figure, which she said was merely “illustrative”. The SNP leadership’s outlook was exposed further by her comment that “fiscal discipline is good for governments”.
Her deputy, Steward Hosie, has called for “a longer trajectory to fiscal consolidation”. In other words continued cuts, albeit at a slower pace and over a longer period of time.
As Socialist Party Scotland has consistently pointed out, the SNP’s pro-capitalist policies have led them into accepting the logic of austerity. Even it if is the diet version rather than the full fat brand being brutally carried out by the ConDem’s, and promised by a Miliband-led Labour government in-waiting.
As Douglas Fraser, the BBC Scotland’s economy editor, pointed out:
“Neither Nicola Sturgeon nor her deputy are saying austerity can be avoided. Instead, it’s being re-badged and re-profiled, or spread out longer.
“The defiant refusal to accept more austerity, which won power for Syriza in Greece last month, is not being offered here.”
And as Iain MacWhirter, the Herald columnist commented, “the SNP has been adept at talking left while acting conservative – at least in fiscal terms.”
The closer the election approaches, the more strenuous are the efforts being made by the SNP to prepare the ground for an agreement with the Labour leadership. One that would see, if not a formal coalition, then a “confidence and supply arrangement” involving SNP MPs voting with Labour on key issues, including the budgets.
In practice this would mean continued cuts and no respite from austerity. With the SNP Scottish government and SNP and Labour councils across Scotland carrying out Tory cuts, it’s clear that the SNP leadership do not offer a genuine anti-cuts alternative.
That’s why the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is standing in the election in May; to offer a real fighting and socialist alternative to all the parties of austerity. We’re demanding an end to all cuts and austerity, for No Cuts budgets to be set by councils and the Scottish Government, as well as the building of a mass campaign to win back the billions stolen from public services, welfare and wages since 2010.
Socialist policies are essential to end the austerity offensive. Democratic public ownership of the major sectors of the economy, taxing the rich and big business nationalisation of the banks, a living wage of £10 an hour; these policies can offer a route away from capitalist inspired cuts. Join with us today and let’s build that alternative.
