pashankyGlasgow law student Paul Cruikshank sets out why he’s voting Labour today.

 

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I am voting Labour in this General Election. But I want to talk about why.

I’m voting Labour because I believe, fundamentally, that the Labour Party is a force for good. Every government of change in this country has been a Labour government; and every Labour government has fundamentally changed this country for the better.

In the 1920s, it was a Labour Government that created affordable local housing for people. In the 1940s, it was a Labour Government that created the Welfare State as we know it today, and created the NHS that brought us into he world and we now all rely on. In the 1960s, it was a Labour Government that decriminalised homosexuality in the UK, which was the first big step towards the equality this country now enjoys. In the 1990s, it was a Labour Government that introduced the National Minimum wage, that protects so many workers of all ages and kinds.

It will only be a Labour Government that will provide the change that this country once again desperately needs.

It is only a Labour Government that will ban exploitative 0-hours contracts across the UK, protecting the rights of working people across the UK. Working people, people who are relying on working income to feed their families and heat their homes, should be able to rely on regular work and decent income, without having to wait on a text to see if they should bother to go in that morning, and whether they’ll be paid at the end of the day. It is the only party that has constantly and consistently supported the Living Wage in public procurement and in private business.

It is only a Labour Government that has pledged to tax the richest and support the poorest. It has will re-introduce the 50p tax-rate, ending the Tories tax-cut for millionaires; and will lower taxes for the least well off in society. It will introduce a Mansion Tax on homes worth over £2million, and use that money to properly provide our public services which have been under-funded both north and south of the border. It will end once and for all the scandalous Bedroom Tax.

And it is only a Labour Government that has a real plan to help real people and stand up for the powerless against the powerful. It will take on the energy companies by freezing energy prices for 2 years and give the regulator to make sure prices are fair. It will stand up to Murdoch and his media empire, by creating proper regulation of the press to stop them hacking phones and going after the family of 17-year old girls who don’t support their point of view. It will tackle tax-avoidance and not turn a blind eye to it as has been done before, and end the archaic position of non-doms who escape their fair share of tax. No more!

This is a Labour Party that will stand up for people across the country and across our nations. And that means letting the nations standing up themselves. A stronger Scottish Parliament than the one it created in 1999, and one prepared for new responsibilities as it approaches its 20th birthday. An end to the House of Lords and a new elected Senate of the Nations and Regions to ensure that all regional voices are heard and shape the future of the country. And a conversation about how we continue in the future, with a real examination of how our country works.

I am voting Labour because I believe in Labour’s fundamental tenant: that by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we can achieve alone”. It is this that encapsulates the Labour Party in Scotland, Labour across the UK and the entire international Labour Movement of which I am proud to be a part. The SNP have claimed that they can keep Labour honest, and make us true to our word. As much as I appreciate their support of Labour’s policies (many of which they have voted against in the past – tax rises for the richest, rent-caps & the Living Wage condition in public procurement among others), there is, I think, too wide a gap between the two. Labour is a Democratic Socialist Party; the SNP is a Nationalist one. The first requires solidarity; the second demands separation.

I believe the Union (for all its faults) is a fundamentally good thing and Scotland benefits from it. Only be coming together and sharing what we have will we be able to help those who need it most. What illustrates this fr me is the Mansion Tax, a Labour Policy with SNP support. 95% of all the money it raises will come from the South-East of England and only 1/3 of 1% will be raised in Scotland – yet that money will benefit people all across the UK, with c.10% coming to Scotland. The same with a bankers’ bonus tax (affecting the richest in London). These policies only help the poorest in a UK context. If we cut Scotland off from this pooling and sharing of money, we do Scotland a disservice. Full Fiscal Autonomy, which Nicola Sturgeon has committed SNP MPs to supporting, would deprive Scotland of so much.

Not only would it mean a £7.6bn funding gap this year alone (rising to £10bn in the next 5 years) it would cut Scotland off from so much more. Money that could fund 1000 new nurses and 500 new GPs. Money that, would not only reverse the some 140,000 college places lost over the last 8 years, but actually help the poorest Scottish University students as well. Fee-Free tuition is great, but it alone does nothing and helps only the middle and upper class. Labour’s plan to increase bursaries for the poorest students by £1000, is what will help us get working class Scots into University – something that Fee-paying England is currently doing far better than us. Money that would let us provide £1,600 for every 18 and 19 year-old not in further or higher education, and not in training, to get ahead. And money that can guarantee a job for every single 18 to 14 year old that out of work for more than a year.

Labour offer pooled money for progressive, radical policies – I don’t want to walk away from that.

The Labour Party has not, is not and can never be ‘perfect’. It can never offer a socialist paradigm because it knows it can never implement it. It was, let us not forget, Atlee’s government, idealised by so many in Scotland, who introduced the UK’s first nuclear weapon – but I hope that, along with the rest of the world, it will be a Labour Government that gets rid of them, not just the UK, but the planet. But The Labour Party, in particular this Labour Party, and only the Labour Party, is offering a radical vision for so many people.

It is once again only the Labour party that can be the government for real, effective, lasting change for working people – based not on where they come from or what they’ve done, but what they need.

It is that government that I will be voting for.

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