The Communist Party of Britain’s (CPB) candidates in Edinburgh’s two by-elections have called out political opinion in the city.
The party is standing candidates Richard Shillcock (Southside/Newington ward) and Peter Olech (Portobello/Craigmillar ward) in the September 3rd council by-elections.
The Communist candidates note Edinburgh’s reputation for liberal politics. Many voters—particularly young ones—across Labour, Greens and the SNP see themselves as voting for a much better, new kind of Scotland.
But Communists are presenting crucially different policies to what is on offer from the other parties.
Communists say particular policies of Edinburgh’s established parties might sound good in isolation but they are overshadowed by the liberal commitment to rejoining the EU and/or to Scottish “independence”.
The EU. Rejoining the EU means accepting the EU’s foundational principles of the free movement of capital, goods and services, and its restrictions on state funding of industry.
Communists say we need to trade extensively with Europe but we need to be able to control the movement of capital and we need to be able to direct state-led investment if working people are ever to own and control a rebuilt productive economy.
“Independence”. Similarly, we need to control our own currency. A separate Scotland, in or out of the EU, means losing our central bank. Greece’s debt crisis had its roots in adopting the euro and losing its central bank.
Communists say the Scottish people have the right to decide whether to secede from the UK, but that better prospects for working people lie in strengthening working class organisation across Britain to win deeper and deeper federal autonomy in which working people own and control the productive economy.
Housing. Few idealistic voters would say “just let the market sort out housing”. But that is exactly what is happening when other parties’ housing policy is for a mix of measures like “affordable housing” at the expense of council housing. Communists say only large-scale, permanent investment in council housing, owned and run by the local authority, can solve the housing problem.
Women’s rights. Communists say that we need to urgently implement the Supreme Court ruling on sex in the Equality Act 2010. Local government should fully uphold women’s rights and protections under the Act, including the right to single-sex services. The Scottish Government should enforce the Act.
Violence against women. Liberal activists have been arguing that prostitution is “sex work”, that it is a mutually consensual transaction, that it can be empowering and that it should be decriminalised and destigmatised.
Communists say prostitution is not work. A woman’s body is not a workplace. Prostitution is unique sexual exploitation, reflecting class and sex inequalities. We need to support women to exit prostitution, with zero tolerance towards the sexual exploitation of women by men.
Caring for each other. There is strong liberal support—in the Greens, LibDems and SNP—favouring assisted dying.
Communists stand with disabled activists in opposing assisted dying. It cannot be made safe. It will disproportionately endanger disabled people. Communists call for adequate funding for end-of-life care.
The local by-elections were triggered following the resignation of two local SNP councillors who were recently elected as MSPs to Holyrood.
The Communist Party urges voters across Southside/Newington and Portobello/Craigmillar to use their ballot papers to vote for the policies they believe in—ones that will defend and extend the rights and the quality of life of working people.