Scottish Parliament Elections: Lothian (1999)

Party News from the April 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Their Scotland or Our World?

That’s the issue in this election, says THE SOCIALIST PARTY

On 6 May, you will have your occasional ration of democracy with the opportunity to vote for the Scottish Parliament.

It’s all very well having a vote—but are you normally given any real choice? Let’s face it, if it wasn’t for the politician’s head on the front of the election leaflet, could you tell which party was which?

It’s tempting—in the absence of any real alternative—to get drawn into the phoney war that is political debate today. Whether Labour or Tory, SNP or Lib Dem, they all spout the same promises. But it all amounts to the same thing—they offer no alternative to the present way of running society.

Do you really think who wins an election makes any difference to how you live?

And do politicians (whether left-wing, nationalist or right-wing) actually have much real power anyway? OK, they get to open supermarkets and factories, but it’s capitalism and the market system which closes them down.

Reality Check

Do any of the political parties address any of the real issues:

• Why is there world hunger in a world of food surpluses?
• Why are there unemployed nurses, alongside closed-down hospitals and waiting lists?
• Why are there homeless people in the streets and empty houses with “for sale” signs?
• Why do some people get stressed working long hours while others get stressed from the boredom of unemployment?

So what’s the alternative?

This time you will have a real choice. We in THE SOCIALIST PARTY are standing at this election to put forward an alternative to capitalism and the madness of the market—a society of common ownership and democratic control. We call it socialism.

But real socialism, not the elite-run dictatorships that collapsed a few years ago in Russia and East Europe. And not the various schemes for state control put forward by the old Labour Party. For us socialism means something better than that.

We’re talking about a world community without any frontiers. About wealth being produced to meet people’s needs and not for sale on a market or for profit. About everyone having access to what they require to satisfy their needs, without the rationing system that is money. A society where people freely contribute their skills and experience to produce what is needed, without the compulsion of a wage or salary.

So what now?

If you don’t like present-day society . . . if you are fed up with the way you are forced to live . . . if you think the root cause of most social problems is the market system, then your ideas echo closely with ours.

If you want to vote for our list we’re delighted. But we don’t really want votes based on a misreading of what we are about. We are not promising to deliver socialism to you. We are not putting ourselves forward as leaders. This new society can only be achieved if you join together to strive for it. If you want it, then it is something you have to bring about yourselves.

If you agree with this, you can show it by voting for THE SOCIALIST PARTY list.

OUR CANDIDATES ARE are: Matt Culbert, Kevin Ferguson, Brian Gardner, Andy Malone, Jim Moir, Theresa Ross, Sandy Wilson.