Fight poverty not war

How about a War on Poverty…

Labour promised to fight child poverty, but it has failed. Today 610,000 children in London alone will grow up in poverty. And one in six children in London will grow up in workless households, surviving on the pittance of state benefits. This is the reality and it shows how little Labour has done for us in 13 years – it’s time we stood up and fought for what’s right: a decent living for all.

Labour designs benefits so that they subsidise the employers that exploit by paying low wages. Lots of us depend on working tax credits – and we should defend them if the Tories ever try to take them away – but they are designed so that employers can pay wages it’s not possible to live on. The minimum wage came in with much fanfare – and we should also defend it to the hilt from the Tories – but it’s set so low it has barely made it difference to millions of the lowest paid workers.

• £9 an hour minimum wage for all – abolish the lower youth rate
• Work or full pay
• No cuts to incapacity benefit
• Create three million jobs – for a massive programme of public works
• Raise pensions and restore their link to earnings – don’t let the bosses divide the young from the old
• Six weeks paid holiday as a minimum for all workers.

… Not a War for Oil and Profit

It’s not just at home we feel the effects of Labour’s capitalist policies. The same bankers who were bailed out at our expense bleed the Third World dry with their never-ending debt mountains, their speculation in foreign currencies, and their asset-stripping private equity deals that take over foreign companies.

The deal Labour struck with Britain’s bosses in 1997 wasn’t just about helping them out against the workers at home. Labour has championed the cause of the big multinationals, of so-called free trade and of the finance markets on the world stage too.

In the oil-rich region of the Middle East it waged brutal wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost was huge. Hundreds of thousands were killed and any more maimed in those countries. Thousands of British and American troops died needlessly, fighting wars that the British and American people don’t want.

The huge sums of money Britain alone spent on the conflict could have transformed the lives of the hundreds of millions around the world who live without clean water and shelter.

Far from fighting terrorism, it has made attacks in Britain more and more likely, by desperate people who are furious at Britain’s unprovoked attacks on two Muslim countries.

That’s why  Anticapitalists say:

• Get the troops out now! Immediate withdrawal of British forces from Afghanistan and Iraq
• End the British government’s support for Israel and its oppression of the Palestinians
• Solidarity with people resisting occupation of their country
• Soldiers should have the right to disobey immoral orders
• Stop the torture – open up the secret archives to expose it to all
• Our real enemies are at home – the bankers and the rich
• Not a penny, not a person for the defence of this system of poverty and war
• Cancel Third World debt – aid without strings, not war without end.