06.04.1995

Vote Communist on May 4!

Workers have no faith in either Labour or the Tories. But you can use your vote positively

THIS MONTH the Labour Party and Tories will be reeling off long lists of vacuous promises for the local elections.

Major’s pathetic bid for some credibility in his relaunch speech last weekend was forced on the Tories, not by their own incompetence, but by Labour’s move to the right.

It has stolen anything that was left of the Tories’ clothes. The only competition is over who can cut taxes for the rich and attack working class rights the most.

Blair’s ‘new look Labour’, like Major’s relaunched Tories, offers nothing to workers, let alone anything ‘new’. Like them, the Labour Party is committed body and soul to the bosses and their system.

Yet, despite the much hyped economic revival, we know that in the long term things are not going to get any better for capitalism.

So Labour in power will fare no better than the Tories. What both parties are making blatantly clear is that the working class will have to pay for the bosses’ economic crisis.

Labour promises not to repeal the anti-trade union laws or the Criminal Justice Act. It promises, in fact, more state power against us in its own ‘get tough on crime’ campaign. It promises to continue the cuts in the health service and attacks on unemployment benefit with its very own ‘new look’ slave labour ‘training’ scheme.

We should not let them get away with it. We should not vote for a party which has time and time again been voted into power by the working class only to attack us when safely in Westminster.

Over the last two months the press in Scotland has been full of stories of the “apathy factor” in the elections and only a 40% turnout was expected. This is hardly surprising since none of the main parties have anything to offer workers. The campaigns of these parties have consisted of telephone canvassing and carefully worded press releases.

The Communist Party’s campaign was very different. Every voter received Weekly Workers, manifestos and election addresses. Where we were standing virtually every door was knocked on. The Party has been campaigning every day on the streets against cuts and closures.

People we spoke to recognised the need for real change and many now see the capitalist system itself as the problem. But without their own party which fights for the interests of the working class, most people do not have the confidence to actually make a stand themselves to change the system.

That is why our manifesto is not a list of promises but a programme for action. Only by reforging our own party can the working class start to build a society fit for all to live in.

Don’t waste your vote on May 4. Don’t vote for parties which offer nothing to the working class. Vote communist and join us in the fightback.