The Scottish Socialist Party will launch its manifesto with a promise to create an independent Scotland free from “cuts, warmongering, privatisation, grotesque inequalities or monarchs”.
In a speech before the manifesto launch in Glasgow, the party’s national spokesman, Colin Fox, said: “The SSP’s message in this election is unequivocal – no cuts, not now, not ever.
“Our proposal to replace the hated council tax with a graduated income tax would bring in an extra £1.5 billion to the Holyrood treasury. There would therefore be no need for any cuts in services in Scotland. Just think of it – no council tax in Scotland either. We don’t have tuition fees, prescription charges, bridge tolls, charges for elderly care. We do things differently here. And we need to go further, much further.”
He added: “We see Scotland as independent, a republic where we are not bombing Libya, not occupying Afghanistan, not threatening the world with nuclear annihilation, not privatising vital public services, not cow-towing to un-elected heads of state, not answerable to anyone but ourselves.”{jcomments on}