About the Scottish Socialist Party
We are the Scottish Socialists, and we fight in hope
by Roz Paterson
"Work as if you lived in the early days of a better
nation" - Alasdair
Gray
We
cut against the grain of the political consensus, refusing to accept that
'in the real world', millions must live in poverty for a few to live in unimaginable
wealth, that weapons of mass destruction must be moored in the Clyde to keep
us safe from weapons of mass destruction, that wars mean peace, and a diminishing
democracy delivers us greater security.
We believe we can make a better nation, where every state school child eats
a nutritious, free lunch every day of the working week, where pensioners receive
a decent income with access to well-funded, free public services, where families
are housed in warm, secure homes near green spaces and schools and shops,
where refugees are welcomed and given the right to work and make a new life
here, to the benefit of us all, where war is an ugly memory, energy is sustainable
and publicly-owned and a nationalised train, bus and ferry service links every
community in Scotland, from the heart of Glasgow to the shores of the Outer
Hebrides.
But we seek to be more than just an independent, socialist republic, free
from the rusting chains of the British empire and Tony Blair's corrupt war
machine. We seek to reach out to others in struggle, from the Palestinians
in Gaza to the trade unionists in Colombia, the political prisoners of Burma
to the benighted indigenous peoples of Australia.
We fight in hope, and we work hard.
In 2003, we returned six MSPs to Holyrood; the biggest parliamentary breakthrough
of any far left party in Europe in a generation. We use that parliamentary
representation to highlight grassroots campaigns, for free school meals, the
scrapping of prescription charges, opposition to the illegal invasion of Iraq,
the plight of low-income households, of children growing up in a world of
consumerism and dense traffic and commodified education, of asylum-seekers
locked up in former prisons, of all who are left out in the cold by the market
system that puts a price on everything, yet values nothing.
We fight in hope, for people everywhere.
Our MSPs take only the workers' wage, donating the rest to the party; we have
no career politicians in our ranks.
Our focus is always at street-level, our aim being to build a mass movement
to promote and develop the ideas of socialism. To put the idea of real equality,
real social justice, back on the agenda. To make this a better world for the
upcoming generation.
Join us in the only war worth fighting - against poverty and greed, and for
humanity and peace. People, not profit.
Don't sit back - fight back. Join the SSP today!
To keep up to date with our campaigns check
out the website of the Scottish Socialist Voice, the weekly paper of the
SSP.
Read our election manifesto's here