Scottish Socialist Party General Election 2005
Scottish Socialist Party national convenor will this week focus attention on the SSP's support in rural areas as the election campaign moves into its final week. Colin will be highlighting the fact that the SSP's election manifesto contains a detailed section on SSP policy over rural issues entitled `For a new rural revolution'. On Monday night Colin will speak at an election rally in Lochgilphead with Argyll and Bute SSP candidate Deirdre Henderson and on Tuesday night he'll be in Galashiels alongside SSP candidate for Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk, Graeme McIver.
Colin said today; "The traditional, rosy-cheeked image of country life is in sharp contrast to the reality. "Farm and rural workers are amongst the lowest paid sectors in the Scottish workforce. "The Borders and Galloway are the low pay capitals of Scotland. "Rural communities are being run down: local shops driven out of business by giant, predatory retailers; village schools shut down because PPP investors see no profit margin in small-scale construction and maintenance; health services centralised and deregulated by remote NHS bureaucrats; and private bus services abandoning the quieter routes where money cannot be made. "All of this leaves the rural population increasingly stranded, and increasingly alienated from urban dominated politics. "The SSP offers solutions to this rural crisis and our active membership in areas as far apart as the Western Isles and the Borders illustrates the growing influence of socialism in the Scottish countryside."
SSP manifesto rural policies
The SSP stands for:
* Full trade union rights and protection for farm workers.
* Stiff penalties and substantial compensation pay-outs for employers who sack agricultural workers because of the new minimum wage.
* Subsidies, where justified by an independent audit, to support employers upon the introduction of the new minimum wage.
* Public and community ownership of Scotland's vast landed estates and corporately-controlled farms.
* An elected accountable body to safeguard wilderness, natural habitats and other landscape of special interest.
* A construction programme of at least 10,000 affordable new rural homes for rent or part purchase by 2008.
* An end to the right-to-buy policy to preserve remaining rural council housing. * Reinstatement of the full Borders rail link.
* A Road Equivalent Tariff scheme to aid Scotland's island communities, with a special Shetland weighting to compensate for the vast distance between Shetland and mainland Scotland
* Immediate withdrawal from the Common Fisheries Policy with a 25 mile offshore limit, within which only Scottish fishermen can fish.
* Local management of fishing policy, based on the Faroes model, where fishermen, representatives of the local community and environmental scientists work together to fashion a fishing industry that sustains both people and marine life.
