Monday 15 December 2014

SSP calls on trade unionists to break from Jim Murphy's Labour

THE Scottish Socialist Party is stepping up its appeal to trade unions and their members to break from the increasingly discredited and anti-working class Labour party.

Instead we ask trade union members to help the SSP build a mass working class socialist party, in the wake of Jim Murphy's election as Scottish Labour leader.

SSP national workplace and trade union organiser, Richie Venton, today said: "The election of the boastfully Blairite Jim Murphy as Scottish Labour leader is the latest in a series of landmarks in the degeneration of the party - that was founded by trade unionists 120 years ago - into another pro-capitalist, anti-working class party.

"The fact that not only most Labour MPs and MSPs voted for Murphy, but that about 70% of individual party members also did, marks the death of illusions in reclaiming Labour for the trade union movement or socialism.

"Murphy openly supported Tony Blair's retention of Thatcher's package of vicious anti-trade union laws, and of dragging working class kids off to the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan in pursuit of oil and empire.

"He didn't even bother to turn up to vote for abolition of the Bedroom Tax, but made sure he voted for welfare caps on the poorest of the poor.

"He openly and gleefully campaigned against Scottish self-government alongside Tories, and subsequently had Tories helping him campaign to win the Labour leadership contest.

"Those who clung on to the hope of changing Labour from within, including trade union leaders, need to heed this rude awakening: the left candidates that most Scottish trade unions backed were made most unwelcome by the vast majority of Labour members in the leadership vote.

"Labour has long since ceased to be a home for socialists, but a haven for careerists who put the profiteering of big business before people.

"I have always fought for the release of political prisoners - which is what workers and socialists in the modern Labour party have become!

"They should break from a party that has hammered the trade unions and working class people during 13 years of recent Labour governments, and come home to the one party in Scotland that has consistently built solidarity with workers in struggle; fights for repeal of all anti-union laws; is campaigning for a £10 minimum wage for all at 16; and upholds the genuine socialist principles of pioneers like Keir Hardie, John Maclean and the Red Clydesiders - the SSP. That's what growing numbers of trade unionists have done in recent months."

For more info or comment contact:
Richie Venton, SSP national workplace and trade union organiser

07828278093
richieventon@hotmail.com

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