Women – still fighting for equality
Despite the progress of the last decade, women still suffer systematic prejudice and discrimination in Labour’s Britain. Women often get paid less for the same jobs in the workplace and still do the bulk of the household work. Women are paid on average 16 per cent less than men for full-time work and 35 per cent less for part-time. Today more and more households need the income from two wage-earners just to keep above the poverty line. Single mums surviving on the pittance of state benefits suffer terrible stigma – and with childcare being so expensive they don’t get the chance to look for work, even if there were enough jobs to go round. The justice system is still biased in favour of men that commit terrible acts of rape, with remarkably few men accused of sexual assault being convicted – only 6 per cent of reported cases end with conviction. No wonder lots of people still blame women – the victim – for rape, rather than blaming the men. Successive governments threaten to make it harder for women to end unwanted pregnancies too. All these things make life harder for women.
- Equal pay for work of equal value – level up women’s wages to meet the average for men
- Free abortion on demand – in confidence
- Free, 24 hour, community run child care facilities
- Refuges for victims of domestic violence
- Quick and easy divorce on the request of one partner for those trapped in loveless or abusive marriages
- Quality jobs for single mums, without losing housing benefits
- Universal support for low-income families regardless of whether there are two parents, one parents, married or single – no to Cameron’s “marriage allowance”.
Don’t let the rich divide us: black and white– unite!
The capitalists know that, if millions of working class people wake up and unite, we have the power to end their control of society and its wealth. So they work hard to divide us among ourselves. Day in, day out, right wing newspapers like the Sun, the Star, the Mail and the Express spew out hate against migrants, refugees and Muslims. They want to turn us against one another: white against black, British against migrant, Christian against Muslim, settled people against refugees. That’s why the three main parties all attack migrants whose only crime was to try to better themselves and improve the lot of their family by starting a new life here in Britain. The families of millions of us living in Britain today did exactly the same thing a generation or two ago. Yet today Black and Asian minorities still suffer racism and persecution just because of the colour of their skin. But instead of the open racism of 40 years ago, today a new “acceptable” form of racism can be seen in attacks on migrants and refugees. Calls for “British jobs, for British workers” only divide the working class and makes us compete with each other on national grounds rather than uniting for jobs for all. Black and Asian people in Britain have a proud history of standing up to racism and oppression. We need to continue to make a stand, to defend the rights of new migrants to Britain, facing the same racist attacks today. That’s why Anticapitalists say:
- Don’t let the racists divide us
- Don’t be turned against migrants
- Citizenship rights for all
- Equal pay for workers – black, white, Asian, migrant
- Let asylum seekers work
- Sack racist police
- Scrap the immigration controls that fuel racism
- Mass direct action to shut down the BNP and violent racist groups.
Pensions we can live a full and decent retirement on
Two and a half million pensioners in Britain are living below the official poverty line. Help the Aged says between 20,000 and 50,000 die each winter in under-heated homes. Sixty per cent of pensioner households depend on a bewildering array of state benefits for over half their income. These need to be brought together and increased into a universal as of right pension entitlement. The retirement age should not be levelled up but levelled down – at first, to 60. People above this age should not be forced to stop work if they don’t want to – but retirement should be available to all to enjoy and afford in old age.
- For pensions tied to the average male earnings
- Defend final salary pension schemes
- For free social services and community care to enable the elderly to stay in their own homes or the alternative of high quality sheltered accommodation
- Automatic and total payment of utility bills - gas, electricity, telephone and internet connection
- Free use of public transport and a door-to-door taxi service
- For totally free medical care, including opticians and dental services
- Free entrance to cultural, educational and keep fit services
- Democratic control of all facilities by pensioners’ representatives and the service providers’ trade unions.
Youth are the future
If Labour loses this election, their legacy to young people will be a disgrace: one million young people on the dole queue and the cost of higher education spiralling thanks to tuition fees, with the average debt of graduates now an eye-watering £21,000. In our communities young people are increasingly criminalised or branded “anti-social” just for hanging out in the way that was seen as totally normal just a generation ago. We have to stop the government turning old against young, with the stop and search policing and ASBO legislation. Rising knife crime is not about some inevitable evil of our youth – it’s about the breakdown in community, about desperation and a lack of solidarity, caused by poverty and inequality. Young people are the future of our society. Anticapitalists work to turn their anger against the capitalist system, towards the fight to improve our communities and society through mass direct action for the things we urgently need – only in that way will we stop more and more turning to drugs, knives and crime.
- Quality, free education for all. Living grants for all students from age 16 and free tuition for higher education
- Decent jobs for all - full union rights and workplace recognition on demand
- Quality training with a living wage for all apprenticeships
- Votes at 16
- Youth centres that offer: sports, recreation, drama, dance, art, music, computing and language courses
- Legalise file sharing – free access to video, music and knowledge
- End police stop and search! Youth must be able to live in their local (and any) area without fear of repressive police brutality.
Fight homophobia
Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transsexual (LGBT) people face a thousand obstacles, from discrimination at work and victimisation at school, through to bullying at home and violence on the street. The atmosphere of hatred against sexual minorities frequently spills over into brutal attacks – like the recent murders of Ian Baynham and Michael Causer. One in five LGBT people in the UK have been attacked in the last three years. Recent reforms have made discrimination against lesbians and gays illegal. But from the pulpit to the classroom, hatred is still being whipped up against people who do not conform to the “norm”. Tory shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling recently advocated the idea of allowing B&B owners to turn away lesbian and gay couples. If this is made legal, then bigots across the country will be given free rein. The deep roots of the oppression of lesbians and gays lie in the capitalist system, which wants us to live in standard family units. Anticapitalists, on the other hand, stand for the complete liberation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people.
- Fight all discrimination – no jobs should be barred to lesbians or gays, not in the military, the clergy or anywhere else
- Equal rights to marry, have children, adopt
- No discrimination on grounds of lifestyle
- Organise self-defence against homophobic “queer-bashing” attacks.