Scottish Communists

1. FOR WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES

Who creates society's wealth?
Who produces the good and delivers the essential services?
Working people - who with their families make up four-fifths of the population.

Yet the other one-fifth (company executives, big shareholders and land owners) own FOUR-FIFTHS of Britain's wealth.

Executive directors' pay rose by 37 per cent last year, ten times more than the average pay rise. Most of Britain's biggest 700 companies pay little or no tax on their profits.

Meanwhile, millions of workers and their families struggle on low pay, pensions or benefits as personal debt goes through the roof.

Workers need trade unions to win better pay and conditions - but our unions are shackled by the most repressive labour laws in Europe.

Toady's and tomorrow's pensioners face poverty, while the chief executives of Britain's top 100 companies stash £1 million each in their pension posts every year.

Thats why Britain's Communists say:

Tax the rich and big business, control energy prices, restore the link between the state pension and earnings immediately, repeal the anti-union laws, fight for higher pay and benefits, build more council and sheltered housing.

2. FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOLIDARITY

Divide and rule - it's the oldest trick in the ruling class book.

That's why the big business press, New Labour and the Tories always try anmd divide working people - white against black, old against young, straight against gay, and everyone against asylum seekers and social benefit claimants.

But the real divide is between those who produce the wealth and those who enjoy four-fifths of it.

Between working people and those who have the power to sack them and shift their jobs and capital elsewhere.

Thats why Britain's Communists say:

Working people unite against all forms of inequality and discrimination; enforce fair pay for women, black and young workers; repeal racist asylum and immigration laws.

3. FOR PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND PLANNING

Capitalism is a systembased on private profit, market forces and monopoly domination. It will always generate exploitation, inequality, insecurity and crisis.

We have to challenge some of its worse excesses now, even if we cannot yet replace it with a fundamentally better system.

That is why past Labour governments created the NHS and Welfare State, and extended public ownership into vital areas of the economy.

Yet New Labour is privatising what is left of our public services, handling billions of pounds to the private sector in the process.

Poweful monopolies in energy, banking, pharmaceuticals, armaments and transport are making super-profits at our expense.

Meanwhile, jobs and capital flood out of Britain as our manufacturing base disintegrates.

Thats why Britain's Communists say:

We need a Left Wing Programme to halt privatisation, limit the export of jobs and capital, defend manufacturing and services, and extend democratic public ownership and planning into key sectors of the economy.

4. FOR PEACE AND THE PLANET

An endless round of wards, famines and floods driving millions of people from their homes to seek survival elsewhere - is this the "New World Order" we were promised after the tragic collapse of the Soviet Union?

Bush and New Labour have started a new arms drive against China and Russia with "Star Wars" and a replacement for the Trident nuclear weapoins system.

Big corporations make a fortune out of war and plundering our planet's scarce resources, putting their super-profits before ecological security and the environment.

Meanwhile, millions of people still die each year from starvation, "enthnic cleansing", curable diseases, natural disasters and lack of sanitation which could be counteracted.

Thats why Britain's Communists say:

Stop the wars for big business in the Middle East, Asia and Africa; close down US military bases in Britain; spend the £74 billion for replacing Trident on renewable energy and public transport instead; cancel all Third World debt a develop real aid-and-trade programmes.

5. FOR DEMOCRAY AND SOVEREIGNTY

New Labour has launched a major attack on civil liberties as a result of its bogus "war on terror" to help extend US power across the world.

ID cards will further extend the ability of the police state to monitor, harass and detain protestors of every kind.

The dirve to a military, imperialist United States of Europe will futher threaten peace. Elected parliaments and governments in Britain, Scotland and Wales will be locked into big business policies of privatisation, laboiur exploitation and cuts in public services, enshrined in a European Union constitution (or "Reform Treaty").

The power of the state apparatus in Britain and the EU is being used as never before to promote the interests of the big business capitalist monopolies at the expense of people everywhere.

Thats why Britain's Communists say:

Restore our democratic rights and civil liberties eroded under Thatcher, Major and Blair and scrap plans for ID cards; no EU Reform Treaty or constitution without a binding referendum; restore resources to local government, return powers from the EU to Westminister and strengthen the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.