A Socialist Programme for Labour

Get the Tories out. A Labour government must adopt socialist policies that can really answer the needs and aspirations of working people.
For full employment. No redundancies. The right to a job or decent benefits abolish the JSA. An immediate introduction of a 32 hour week without loss of pay. No compulsory overtime. Reduction of the age of retirement to 55 with a decent full pension for all.
A national minimum wage of at least twothirds of the average wage. Support for £4.26 per hour as an immediate step toward this goal.
Repeal all the Tories antiunion legislation. Full rights for all workers from day one of their employment. For the right to strike and the right to union representation and collective bargaining. Stop casualisation. Part time work only for those who want it. End the zerohours contract scandal.
Restore and expand all health and safety safeguards under the control and direction of the trade unions. Reverse the Tories privatisation strategy. Renationalise all the privatised industries and utilities with minimum compensation according to need not on the market price of shares.
Reverse all the cuts in the health service. End the trusts and the internal market. Abolish private health care. A properly funded health service must be available to all. Nationalisation of the big drug companies that squeeze their profits out of the health of working people.
Return education to real democratic control through the local authorities. For a fully funded and resourced, fully comprehensive education system. Scrap Grant Maintained Schools. Abolish private education. End SATS. No to streaming or selection. No to voucher schemes. A guaranteed nursery pace for all 3 and 4 year olds.
For a properly funded extension of higher education. No to student loans for a decent living grant for all over 16. For the development of a programme of lifelong education, with properly paid leave for workers wanting to retrain, develop new skills, or enhance their existing qualifications. A guaranteed job, apprenticeship or place in further/higher education for all young people.
Solve Britain's chronic housing crisis! Labour should develop a programme of quality house building and renovation, with strict rent controls, that can rapidly tackle the problems of slum housing and homelessness. Nationalise the building companies!
Restore proper democratic local government. Restore local authority budgets to pre1979 levels in real terms. Scrap CCT.
For a programme of investment to create a cheap, nationally integrated, publically owned transport system. Renationalise the railways.
Outlaw all forms of discrimination. Equal pay for equal work. The development of quality childcare facilities available to all. Scrap all racist immigration and asylum controls. Abolish the Criminal Justice Act and other repressive legislation.
The environmental question is primarily a question about big business. It is big business that pollutes our air, water and land. It is big business that poisons our food. Labour must bring in stringent environmental controls and regulations under the supervision of the relevant workforces, consumers and representatives of effected communities. These measures, along with nationalisation of the land, the big petrochemical enterprises and the major food companies, can form the basis of a genuine socialist approach to the environment.
Big cuts in military spending and a planned transfer of resources to useful, peaceful purposes.
Abolish the Monarchy and the House of Lords. Establish parliaments in Scotland and Wales, with real powers to tackle their chronic social and economic problems.
For real internationalism. No to the bosses European Union. Yes to a socialist united states of Europe, as part of a world socialist federation.
Labour must immediately take over the "commanding heights of the economy." Nationalise the big monopolies, the banks and financial institutions that dominate our lives. Compensation to be paid only on the basis of need. All nationalised enterprises to be run under workers control and management and integrated through a democratic socialist plan of production.

From Socialist Appeal 47, Dec 1996