Vote Socialist, Vote Donald MacLeod for Strathmartine, Dundee 

For a socialist fightback against cuts 

Socialist Party Dundee

There is an opportunity to send an anti-cuts message to the establishment parties on Dundee City Council on Thursday October 3rd by voting number one for Donald Macleod, a young Unison organised NHS worker standing for the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. 

For years, both the SNP and Labour have carried out cuts. The current SNP administration may lose control of the council but there is no enthusiasm for Labour’s alternative. 

There has been a backlash from voters angry at stingy Starmer’s cuts to the pensioners winter fuel allowance. Donald is the only candidate campaigning in the ward for full  reinstatement of the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance either by Westminster or by the SNP-led Scottish government. Donald also stands for the nationalisation of the energy sector to bring down bills.

Scottish TUSC activists this week in Dundee supported trade unionists gathering at the Scottish Unite  Policy Conference who protested at the cut to the winter fuel allowance but also demanded a wealth tax on the richest that would raise £25 billion. 

While Starmer is watering down Labour’s “new deal for workers”, only banning “exploitative” zero hour contracts and allowing “fire and rehire” if big companies are in financial trouble, £85 billion is paying out in dividends to corporate shareholders yearly. 

It’s absolutely clear workers and trade unionists need their own mass party, based on their own organisational strength which is the key idea raised by Scottish TUSC in elections. 

Donald is a member of Socialist Party Scotland which as part of STUSC calls not only for a wealth tax and the scrapping of all anti-trade union laws but also the nationalisation of big business and the banks that dominate our economy under democratic workers’ control and management as part of a socialist plan that meets all our needs. 

The SNP while criticising Starmer/Sarwar Labour cuts are implementing over £500 million of their own across the country. Under their watch the Account Commission publishes that Scotlands councils have a funding gap of £575 million expected to increase to £780 million by 2026. COSLA highlights that one in seven libraries have closed in ten years of council austerity. This is picture all too familiar to Strathmartine voters who have witnessed a decimation of services not just in their council but also health and social care and the NHS. 

Parties like the Scottish Greens and the Lib Dems also support the logic of capitalist cuts and are no alternative. 

Scottish TUSC and Donald are calling for Dundee council and the Scottish government to set no cuts/needs budgets utilising all financial mechanisms, including borrowing, reserves, recapitalisation of debt, cancellation of PFI/PPP to stop cuts and begin a mass campaign to demand back the billions stolen in austerity by Holyrood and Westminster. 

We demand a mass council homes building programme and the raising of the minimum wage to £15 an hour without exemptions. Wages and benefits should rise in line with inflation. 

Donald is being supported in his campaign by Jim McFarlane, a local Ardler resident and branch secretary of Dundee City Unison, the council workers’ trade union in a personal capacity. This week COSLA and the SNP government have tried to impose their paltry pay offer on council workers, Unison have rightly rejected this and are balloting 90,000 members for strike action, which Donald and Scottish TUSC fully support. 

As ever, after the election Scottish TUSC will continue fighting back in workplaces, communities and colleges. We will be preparing to contest forthcoming by elections in Glasgow.

Contact us to be involved. 07927342060