Campbell McGregor (Kelvin West SSP)
The Scottish Socialist Party (SP) Is preparing to ene
the Scottish region in the European elections on a radical platform that sets social justice, democracy, accountability against the power of Eurobusiness.
Heading the SSP list of seven candidates is executive member Felicity Garvie. She was selected by an eliminating ballot of all SSP members after hustings around the country, with the remaining places allocated by a system which ensured gender and regional balance.
All the SSP candidates for Europe are committed, like those who are Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) to receiving the average wage of a Scottish skilled worker (an estimated £24,000 a year) and will donate the surplus to the SSP. Aiming for one, two... many MEPs: - SSP Youth get involved
The choice of Felicity Garvie for no | place on the SSP list, reflects the party's record of giving women a high profile in its leadership and among its public representatives. Felicity has recently worked with the Party's MSP and founder-member Tommy Sheridan.
She speaks German, French and some Italian and aims to build links between workers', socialist and progressive organisations and struggles across Europe as she has been helping to do in Scotland.
Says Felicity Garvie: "The Scottish Socialist Party is launching our distinctive European election campaign not only in opposition to the xenophobic, Union Jack waving Tories but also in opposition to New Labour, the SNP and Liberal Democrats who prostitute themselves before the bankers of Frankfurt. They support a big business Europe; we support a people's Europe." SSP Manifesto for Europe TEND he Scottish Socialist Party
be fighting the European elections on a manifesto adopted at its conference in March. This manifesto corers a wide range of issues, but the key points include:
• against the Euro, for an independent socialist Scotland with full control over its own currency, interest rates, and money supply
• opposition to the Growth and Stability pact
• close down the European Central Bank
• impose a Tobin Tax on international financial transactions
• a Scotland-wide referendum on the draft European constitution
•a No vote in any Scottish or UK referendum on this constitution.
• the right of member states to veto common foreign policy
• against a European defence force
• abolition of NATO
• the EU Commission reduced to an administrative back-up
•all MEPs and officials to publicly declare any links they have with private businesses
• all decisions and voting records within EU institutions to be made publicly available
• work with Via Campesina (an international movement of peasants, small producers, agricultural workers, and indigenous communities) to challenge the power of agri-business in Europe
• replace the Common Agricultural Policy with a scheme that shifts the balance of farming subsidies in favour of subsistence farmers, crofters, and organic farmers
• oppose the failed Common Fisheries Policy
• end industrial fishing in the North Sea
• a continent-wide minimum wage of 7.50 an hour
• a minimum state pension of €200 a week
• a 30 hour basic working week
• end the Schengen agreement: fight for an open Europe in which refugees fleeing persecution and destitution would be made wel come
page 7 of the scan
As Poland joins the European Union... st resistance May 2004 7
Solid strikes have failed so far to budge the management from their miserable pay offer: meanwhile Gordon Brown's threat to axe 40,000 jobs looms in the