MANIFESTO for SOCIALISM!

Make no mistake: the issue at this and every election is -
do you stay with CAPITALISM? or go for SOCIALISM

After eight years of wars, with the widespread use of cluster-bombs and depleted uranium, the insane destruction of cities, towns and villages, and the ruthless slaughter of thousands of men, women and children in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq - are you going to use your vote to soil your hands with more working-class blood?

Blair says: "There is no greater liberty than to live free from terrorist attack". But he cannot guarantee safety from the terror which he and his US allies have helped create with their wars. His Labour government sell arms around the world, regardless of whose lives and "liberties" are threatened. Labour-run capitalism has meant Belmarsh prison, detaining people without trial or charge, for more than three years - and UK involvement in Guantanamo Bay with the torture of prisoners, also held without charge or trial.

What likelihood is there of world poverty being halved in 2015? Over 40% of all government aid is tied to trade in overpriced goods from 'donor' countries (ACTION AID , 28 February 2005). This is capitalism run by the Labour Party. The Tories have supported all of this. The Lib Dems too, while seeking to score moral points, support capitalism like the other parties. The Green Party, UKIP, Respect, etc, in seeking to retain capitalism, would retain its inevitable consequences - such as more wars. They are all guilty.

For as long as capitalism remains this is how the world will be since capitalism and war are inseparable.
The need to establish Socialism has never been greater.

Still more reforms?
Promising yet more reforms in education, the NHS, 'welfare' and pensions is an open admission of the failure of such policies. All the politicians have to offer is more misery: future working-class poverty is guaranteed, both in retirement and at work.

In the 'health' service, 67,000 operations were cancelled in 2004 - 10,000 more than five years ago. Dentists and nurses are recruited from overseas in desperation to meet urgent needs. The Royal College of Surgeons says there will be a 2,700 short-fall of surgeons by 2010. With 858,000 already on NHS waiting lists, a further 14,000 were added in December 2004.

UNICEF (March 2005) reports that 15.4% of UK children live in poverty. The National Minimum Wage is set to "rise" from £4.85 per hour to £5.05 in October, and to £5.35 in 2006. Blair says about 1.4 million people are affected. The 18-21 year olds' rate will rise from £4.10 to £4.25 per hour.

Blair claims this is a "powerful symbol of how Britain is changing for the good".

FACT - after eight years of his Labour government, "the top 1% of the population now receive more of the nation's income than at any time since the 1930s... The Office for National Statistics reports that this group of 600,000 people doubled its wealth to £797 billion in Labour's first six years. The share of national wealth taken by these super-rich has grown from 20% to 23%, while the share of the poorest 50% shrank from 10% in 1986 to 5% in 2002."
NEW STATESMAN, 7 March 2005

Socialists maintain that capitalism cannot be reformed to work humanely, without poverty and war. This is why Socialist Studies insists the issue is capitalism versus Socialism.

Socialism does not mean Labour Party stunts such as nationalisation or poverty reforms. It means the worldwide common ownership of the earth, its industries and resources, so that production can be carried on to meet human needs, instead of filling the gold-coffers of the richest 1% or so.

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Object and Declaration of Principles

Object

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

Declaration of Principles

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN HOLDS:

1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (ie land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.

3.That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.

4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.

5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.

6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.