Nationalisation and small businesses - what do socialists say?

In the aftermath of the July general election, Tunde, a supporter of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – the electoral coalition that the Socialist Party is part of – wrote to us about our programme for nationalisation. They asked:

1. On areas concerning childcare, social and health services, would small private providers be nationalised or only the largest providers?

2. How would compensation on proven need be assessed and would that be monetary-based?

Socialist Party National Committee member Martin Powell-Davies responds.

https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/132092/30-10-2024/nationalisation-compensation-and-small-businesses-what-do-socialists-say/

With society organised as it is, a capitalist system based on competition for profits, the living standards of workers and small traders alike are constantly under attack. Workers’ wages fail to keep up with prices – leaving less in their pockets to spend in local businesses. Instead of taking wealth from the super-rich, pro-capitalist governments increase the tax burden on the rest of us, and banks rake in interest payments from loans and mortgages.

To end this systematic robbery, the Socialist Party says: nationalise the 150 or so major companies and banks that dominate the British economy and run them under working-class control and management, as part of a democratically agreed socialist plan.

With these key drivers of the economy taken into public ownership, a workers’ democracy could then plan not only what needs to be produced, but also the public services that need to be provided. That’s bound to include free, high-quality, childcare, social and health services – areas where urgent action is needed to address the state of complete crisis.

Some of these services still remain in the public sector, run through the NHS or local councils. A socialist government would make sure that the wealth secured through nationalisation of the economy was used to finally reverse decades of damaging cuts and expand these vital services to meet needs, managed under the democratic control of staff, their unions, and service users.

However, thanks to privatisation and ‘competitive tendering’, too many of these services have been privatised, often to sharks relying on low pay and poor employment practices. Other big businesses – not least the pharmaceutical giants – have never been made part of the NHS, as they always should have been. All the major providers in these sectors should be placed under public ownership, putting an end to their profiteering and exploitation of their workforce.

But where does that leave, say, a family-run pharmacy or a self-employed childminder? Socialists have always made clear that small private providers shouldn’t fear that they will be treated as if they were profiteering fat cats. They can play their role in a socialist plan to meet people’s needs, without fear that they are going to be forcibly nationalised. Instead, small providers would benefit from government control of prices and the provision of cheap credit. State subsidies, particularly to make sure that their workers receive trade union rates of pay, decent working conditions and training, could also be provided where genuinely needed. Grants could be paid, for example to improve premises, so they could offer a higher quality of service.

But, in return, small providers must be prepared to ‘open their books’ to local workers’ committees who could then fully discuss with them their financial situation and agree what cheap loan or subsidy might be appropriate – or not, depending on the circumstances.

Some providers may conclude that the best way forward would be to voluntarily transfer their services into the public sector. After all, wouldn’t it make more sense, to continue with these examples, for pharmacists and childcare workers to become state employees, with guaranteed pay and conditions, instead of having the insecurity of running their own small businesses?

That kind of democratic decision-making would also be how questions about compensation would be resolved. When it comes to the fat cats, like the major shareholders of the banks and monopolies, and privatised rail, water and energy firms, the answer would be clear. While workers struggle, the FTSE100 companies are paying out around £80 billion in shareholder dividends every year! These profiteers have already made a killing at our expense, why should we pay them even a penny more when we take their firms into public ownership?!

But what about smaller businesses and shareholders, or workers whose pension contributions might be invested in one of the 150 top firms? The Socialist Party agrees that compensation should be paid – but only where there is a proven need, assessed democratically by workers’ committees with full access to the relevant books and accounts. Any individual who felt they would be in hardship when a firm is nationalised – compulsorily or voluntarily – must also have the right to fully present their case for individual compensation too.

In some cases, compensation based on need might indeed be a monetary sum. Where the concern is about pension funds, then compensation could perhaps be the guarantee of a full state pension – not at the existing poverty levels but enough to enjoy a decent retirement. Where the concern is about the potential loss of a home, there could be a guarantee of a high-quality state-rented home, as part of the wider plan that a socialist government will need to launch to address the housing crisis.

Ultimately, the exact details of what programme a workers’ democracy carries out is determined in the course of struggle and is the product of democratic debate and discussion. To meet the needs of all in society while protecting the environment means developing a socialist planned economy. That can only be achieved by taking the commanding heights of the economy into democratic public ownership.

16 October 1918 – an anniversary for socialist educators to discuss for today

“School reform after the October Revolution serves as an act of struggle of the masses for knowledge, for education. It’s not just about making school universally accessible, since the way it was organised by the previous regime was not suitable for the working masses; the issue is about its radical reconstruction in the spirit of a truly popular school”

Anatoly Lunacharsky, ‘People's Commissar for Education’, Russia, 16 October 1918

Socialist change would at last allow wealth and resources to be democratically planned and managed - and such a democratic plan would allow a full debate on what our education system should look like – and for it to be put into practice!

This was exactly the debate that took place amongst socialists, educators and the wider working-class after the Russian Revolution of October 1917 had achieved socialist change. The results of a year’s discussions were finally summed up in the “Decree on the Unified Labour School” that was issued on 16 October 1918. 

All schools were brought into the same unified system, providing free, secular, co-educational education up to the age of 17. They were to be self-governed through a school council made up of all school staff, and, although in smaller proportions, representatives of the local community, older school students and the education department. “The division of teachers into categories” was abolished, so all were paid on the same salary scale.

The Decree stated that all schools “must be under the regular supervision of doctors” and provide “hot breakfasts free of charge”. They should operate as what we might now call ‘community hubs’ hosting clubs, performances, meetings and so on.

A broad curriculum was to be based on ‘polytechnical’ principles, centred on active learning and with regular work experience as an integral part. The agreed curriculum “should be very flexible in its application to local conditions” and school work should be “creative and cheerful” with homework and formal exams abolished. 

In practice, first under the pressures of civil war, and then the reversal of workers’ democracy under Stalinism, much of this program was never fully implemented. Discussions in a socialist Britain might not arrive at exactly the same conclusions, but these debates from revolutionary Russia give a glimpse of how a socialist education policy could be decided upon and applied.

Another England: How to Reclaim Our National Story - A Review

After a summer when the far-right have managed to mobilise alienated youth and workers across many towns and cities in England, a book that sets out with the intention to “reclaim ‘Englishness’ from the Right” could be worth a read.

That’s what Caroline Lucas, who recently stood down as the Green Party’s first MP, has tried to do in her book, Another England – How to Reclaim Our National Story.

Published by Hutchinson Heinemann, 2024, £22.

Sadly, however, her rambling discussion, largely based on English literature, doesn’t offer much to the urgent debate about how best to undercut the far-right by offering a working-class, socialist, alternative.

That’s not to say that the book isn’t without some interesting reflections. She acknowledges that Remain supporters like herself in the 2016 EU referendum underestimated the deep anger and alienation across working-class communities, particularly, but not solely, in England, and rightly blames successive governments for whipping up “fear and anger about immigration”.

Lucas correctly explains that “too often immigration is used as a lightning rod for the real causes of tensions over a lack of housing, transport or health care, the decline of public services… poorly paid and insecure jobs, all of which are the fault – even the deliberate policy – of coalition and Conservative governments”.

She also discusses how the idea of ‘Englishness’ has been “consciously shaped by the country’s elite into a narrative that shapes their ends”. For example, she traces how, in the earliest ballads about Robin Hood, the ‘Merry Men’ were simply outlaws, “outwitting priests and nobles”. That’s because, when first told, it was a tale of peasant resentment at the then feudal ruling-classes.

This was the age of King Richard – ‘the Lionheart’ – sometimes seen as a hero by far-right English nationalists. However, as the book explains, Richard I was a speaker of French and Occitan who mainly saw his English lands as a means to raise money to fight his wars and ‘crusades’: “Richard ruled over England but there was little sense that he shared an English identity with his subjects”.

Lucas explains how, in the nineteenth century, at a time when the new ruling-class wanted to foster the concept of a united ‘England’, Robin Hood was reinterpreted by Walter Scott as being of noble birth, as a loyal servant to the King against the evil Sheriff of Nottingham. However, the book fails to clearly spell out how this development of distinct nation states was the product of capitalism, of an economy that required a national market and the breaking down of localised customs duties and tariffs.

English capitalism of course developed into a wider British capitalism, and then an imperialist Empire that amassed even more wealth through its domination of global markets. The British capitalists’ global domination has long since been lost, but, as Lucas correctly points out, right populists like Boris Johnson still appeal to supposed past ‘glories’ and ‘British values’ to try and justify their greed and warmongering.

Lucas argues that ‘progressives’ need to put forward a different narrative of what it means to be English – like “the Diggers, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the suffragettes, the Battle of Cable Street”. She adds that “we can take heart from Robin Hood”, in the way that the story still resonates because of its “idea of redistribution, of society making sure that everyone has what they need, that someone will step forward to protect the weak and face down the bullies”.

Lucas quotes from some of the English writers that have protested at the uneven distribution of both land and wealth imposed under capitalist rule, not least Gerrard Winstanley, the leader of the Diggers: “For what you call the Law is but a club of the rich over the lowest of men, sanctifying the conquest of the earth by a few and making their theft the way of things”.

But, while not clearly spelt out, Lucas’ model of ‘redistribution’ seems to be a utopian vision of winning some kind of fairer capitalism. She explores the anger at Victorian poverty expressed by writers like Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens and links them to the later development of the welfare state implemented by the Labour government of 1945 and beyond.

However, neither the pressure that came from the trade union movement, nor the fear of the capitalists at losing their power unless they gave concessions to the working-class, are mentioned. And this lack of a class analysis goes to the heart of the weakness in Lucas’ book and her politics generally.

She sees Britain’s “low-wage, low-productivity” economy as arising from a loss of a “focus on the importance of dignity and a living wage to working people”. No, it arises from decaying British capitalism no longer being able to generate sufficient profit through reinvesting in industry and manufacturing, and instead seeking to drive down wages and dismantle all the gains made by the working-class during the post-war boom.

Similarly, she discusses the threat of climate catastrophe, but sees the lack of urgent global action more as a question of government complacency rather than from the inability of capitalism to plan and invest on a global scale.

Lucas proposes a number of constitutional reforms – introducing proportional representation, an elected senate rather than the House of Lords, a formal written constitution, and the creation of an English parliament to sit alongside the devolved powers given to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

But the only way that any of these reforms could help challenge class inequality would be if a genuine mass workers’ party was able to use them as a platform to cut across both the main capitalist parties and the populist far-right.

More fundamentally, the answers Caroline Lucas seeks can only be found by replacing decaying capitalism with a socialist society freed from the barriers of nation state and private profit.

***

This book review was published in the October edition of 'Socialism Today', the monthly magazine of the Socialist Party (England and Wales) under the title, "How not to combat right-wing populism"

TUSC - building a team ready for the struggles to come in Chorley and beyond

"Well Martin, what a strange election. We are all so proud of you standing up for us workers, and whilst [Lindsay Hoyle] got back in you showed there is a significant voice which is represented by you. I wish you all the best and if nothing else we stood side by side to do the right thing". 
Joe, Earlsway Residents Association.

This message - sent from just one of the many new points of support that we have made right across the constituency - sums up the roots that TUSC have put down in the last few weeks of campaigning. These are the roots that we will now build on in the struggles to come under the new Starmer-led Labour government.

After the last evening knocking on doors of voters in the streets of Chorley East, and a long night waiting for the vote to be counted at Chorley Town Hall, there were still smiles on our faces! Yes, we know that our 632 votes was a modest return for all of the hard work that we had put in. However, we are satisfied that we could not have done more to get our message across. No other party had been out at meetings, in the speaker-van, on the town centre stalls, on the doorsteps and on the council estates like we had. Our real reward was the TUSC team that we have built and grown over the campaign, a team that will be sticking together to campaign on all of the issues that we know the workers of Chorley feel so angry about - not least the cost-of-living crisis, the state of our crumbling NHS and public services, and the lack of genuinely affordable housing.

Finishing the last knocking up in Chorley East

Labour elected - but with under 10 million votes

In many ways it has been a 'strange' election. It's ended up with a supposed Labour 'landslide', yet one based on just a 34% share of the overall votes. In absolute numbers, Labour received just 9.6 million votes, lower than the 10.2 million Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour got in 2019, and far below the 12.8 million he got in 2017. Yes, the hated Tories were annihilated, but Keir Starmer is already regarded by many working-class people with suspicion, as just another career politician who has little to say for 'the likes of us'.

Because we've been out on the doorsteps and the streets of Chorley, we've had hundreds of conversations that have brought home to us that suspicion of Starmer. For some, particularly from the Muslim community, Starmer's support for the Israeli onslaught in Gaza has resulted in more than just suspicion, it's meant real anger. That anger helped mobilise the tremendous votes for Jeremy Corbyn and the four anti-war independent MPs elected on July 4th, but it was not such a significant factor across the whole of Chorley.

In Chorley, it was usually our wider programme - for action of homes and health, for a £15 an hour minimum wage, for a future for young people and a society run in the interests of the workers, not the wealthy - that was nearly always well received on the stalls and doorsteps. However, while we could convince a minority to show their anger against inequality by voting for TUSC, we could tell that most working-class voters were so disconnected or angry with establishment politics and politicians that they just weren't going to vote at all. And that was shown nationally - with an overall turnout of under 60% being one of the lowest ever recorded in any General Election.

The programme on our election leaflet delivered by Royal Mail

Many Chorley workers felt forgotten and disenfranchised

In Chorley, the turnout was even lower - at just 47%. The general disconnection with establishment politics was added to by real confusion as to whether you were allowed to vote against the Speaker at all! At the start of the campaign, we were having to constantly explain that, just because the main parties had done a deal not to stand against Lindsay Hoyle, that didn't mean that other parties couldn't - and that they still had a right to go out and vote. That message seemed to have got through after a few weeks in the town centre but, out on the estates, that confusion remained to the last. On the afternoon on Election Day, I was having to exchange messages with a voter, who had received our leaflet on the Collingwood Estate, to help him explain to his neighbours that, yes, they were allowed to vote in Chorley!

Many Chorley voters felt that they were effectively being disenfranchised. Being in the Speaker's constituency meant that they were left without the choice of parties available in other constituencies. Instead, they were being asked to endorse the return of a Speaker who could not speak up or vote for then in Parliament because of his supposedly 'impartial' position. In response, over 2,000 voters opted for the single-issue 'Democracy for Chorley' candidate and nearly 1,200 spoilt their votes, instead using a 'creative' (you'll have to use your imagination!) choice of drawings and slogans on their ballot papers to illustrate what a 'stitch-up' they thought it was for Chorley voters.

There's no denying that Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who has built up his base of support over many years, retained a substantial majority - with over 25,000 votes cast. In a strange way, in an election where voters wanted to show their anger at the main parties, Hoyle may have actually benefited from being seen as being more of an 'independent', not standing under any party label but just as the local candidate. However, for others, Hoyle was definitely seen as being just another establishment politician, making himself a nice career, happy to be seen glad-handing people around town, but delivering nothing for Chorley voters in reality.

As a warning for the future, it was also clear from the discussions we had, and from the spoilt papers, that there was a section of Chorley workers that would have voted for 'Reform' if they had been on the ballot paper. Some chose to vote for the right-wing 'English Constitution Party' instead. Unless a strong working-class trade union and socialist alternative is built, there is a real danger of right-populist, racist forces stepping into the vacuum as anger with the incoming Labour government grows - just like we are seeing in France and elsewhere.

Why Starmer's Labour will continue with Tory attacks - read more here

But our team of canvassers were ready to take on these arguments when they arose. More often than not they stemmed from a justified feeling that working-class people had been forgotten about by the 'politicians', and genuine anger about the state of housing and the NHS. However, they were then mistakenly falling for the simple arguments that it was refugees who were therefore to blame for that crisis, instead of the profiteers and privatisers who have been slashing public services for so long. And, of course, these arguments are being made by politicians like Farage who, in reality, serve the interests of that same wealthy establishment, certainly not the working-class.

For example, one group of lads on an estate in Clayton Brook were abusing our team and shouting 'Reform' at us. But we didn't back away, we went over to discuss. Explaining that we were a trade union-backed party got at least one of the lads to talk about how he was in a union at work and listen intently to what we were saying. Another angry truck driver in Chorley East was so abusive at me to start with that my fellow canvasser was worried that I was going to get punched. However, I held my ground, explained our position, and the fact that I was standing on a workers' wage, not the £171,000 that the Speaker gets paid. In the end, he was one of several voters who may have switched from wanting to vote 'Reform' to voting TUSC instead.

A mass workers' voice is urgently needed

If an election was decided by the amount of work put in by the parties on the ground, then TUSC would definitely have had a much stronger showing in Chorley than we achieved! However, of course, despite all our work, unless you have a team of mass canvassers like Jeremy Corbyn was able to assemble in Islington, you are still really just scratching the surface of a whole constituency. Our own stalls, door-knocking and leafletting could only touch a fraction of the overall electorate. One A5 leaflet delivered through the Royal Mail - and then not always received - will have only been read by a minority. 

Some did read our material, and were so pleased to read it, that they responded by getting in touch, putting up a poster in their window and becoming part of our new base in Chorley. Some already knew about TUSC through our stand in the local elections in May. But many looking for a vote to the left of Labour will have looked for parties with a bigger national profile - and so voted 'Green' instead. 

In Chorley, as in other towns and cities, many of the local Greens are 'Corbynites' who are looking, like us, to build an alternative to Labour. However, the Greens are not a workers’ party, with no democratic rights for trade unions within it. When actually elected to lead councils, they have failed to mobilise workers to demand the funding needed from central government but, instead, have implemented cuts.  They also stood, for example, against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North. However, if the four new Green MPs would now be willing to act as part of a bloc of workers' MPs alongside Corbyn and the anti-war independents, then the Greens could help play a positive role in the fight for a mass party of the working class - or, at the very least to start with, help bring together a united workers' list with a strong national profile.

Read more here: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/party-media/

I and my party, the Socialist Party, have been campaigning for a new mass workers' party ever since Tony Blair first started to decisively turn Labour into just another pro-capitalist party, shorn from its previous trade union and working-class mass base. That's why, alongside building the Socialist Party, I and others have devoted so much of our energy into also building TUSC, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. 

We have always only seen TUSC as one step towards building a new trade union based mass party, armed with a socialist programme. That is the party that is going to be even more urgently needed as mass opposition starts to develop against a Starmer government driven to attack the working-class by the 'logic' of capitalism, a logic that will be so slavishly followed by Starmer, Reeves and the rest of the new Labour Cabinet.

In Chorley we will continue to do both* - to build that wider TUSC team as part of a wider campaign to build a new mass workers' voice to challenge the main capitalist parties, while also building the Socialist Party, bringing together the most determined trade unionists, youth and community campaigners to learn the lessons of the past - in order to win the battles of the future.

Martin Powell-Davies, 6th July 2024.

* We're meeting up to review and discuss what we do next at the St. Joseph's Club, Harpers Lane, Chorley on Tuesday 9th July at 7pm - before the football for anyone who wants to watch it there afterwards - so you're welcome to come and join us there!

A Workers' MP for Chorley - opposing switching 'PIP' to vouchers

I fully support the demand to oppose switching PIP to 'vouchers' which would further strip people with disabilities of their autonomy in a totally discriminatory manner and risks those 'vouchers' being refused from those presently paid in cash.

As I am aware from people I know well, PIP is already increasingly becoming harder to receive and the level of benefits fulls short of what is actually required to meet the rising cost of living.

Photo: Paul Mattson

TUSC stands for the replacement of Universal Credit and the punitive benefit system with living benefits for all who need them, and calls for a massive expansion of public services to meet need.

The TUSC Manifesto has a section setting out these policies:

STOP THE ATTACKS ON DISABLED PEOPLE

● Promote inclusive policies to enable disabled people to participate in, and have equal access to, education, employment, housing, transport and welfare provision.

● Support measures to ensure disabled people receive a level of income according to needs. Equal pay for equal work.

● Take action against employers and service providers for failing to make reasonable adjustments to address disability needs.

● For a supportive benefits system, free of discrimination.

There are many active disability campaigners within TUSC and the Socialist Party, the constituent part of the TUSC Coalition to which I also belong. They write at greater length about the struggle to defend disability rights in these articles:

As one of these articles says "After over a decade of Tory attacks on disabled people, there will be huge expectations that things must start to improve once they’re out of the door. But Starmer’s Labour is promising to stick to Tory spending plans, and fails to oppose the Tories’ rhetoric against disabled people".

That's why I am standing for TUSC to provide a voice that will speak up against the continuation of austerity policies and attacks on working class people - not least those with disabilities.

Martin Powell-Davies 

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition Candidate for Chorley

A Workers' MP for Chorley - supporting the 'Veterans Pledge'

A number of Chorley voters have got in touch with me asking for to confirm my support for the "Veterans Pledge" and the three key demands it sets out - to keep the Office for Veterans' Affairs, commission an independent review of the medical discharge process, and remove unfair barriers to receiving benefits and compensation. 

I am certainly happy to support all of these demands, as is the National Chair of TUSC, Dave Nellist.

It's always struck me that too high a  proportion of homeless single men that I have spoken too, right across the country, turn out to be veterans. Just as the 'Veterans Pledge' suggests, it's clear that too many veterans' housing and health needs are not being met.

As the pledge website also suggests - even though it may be a subject some veterans may find hard to admit to - mental health issues are indeed often missed.

I was born myself to a mother old enough to have served on the radar stations on the south coast during WW2, knowing what got through would fall on her family in London. Even though not in a combat role, the stress nevertheless took its toll. 

My uncles who fought in North Africa, Italy and Greece in WW2 rarely talked about what they went through, although Lt. Powell-Davies' photos on the Imperial War Museum website still give a graphic account of the kind of experiences that inevitably still weigh heavily on veterans in later years.

Martin Powell-Davies 

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition Candidate for Chorley 

Answering Questions from Chorley School Students

As a teacher myself, I have been impressed by the efforts to increase engagement with the General Election by staff and students at one of Chorley's secondary schools - Parklands High. 

Alfie, the Year 8 editor of their pupil run school newspaper is planning to issue a special edition for the General Election, writing to all Chorley candidates to ask nine questions that they think pupils would like answered. 

So, if you are a Parklands High pupil or parent, look out for the edition that has everyone's answers but here are mine:

My page in the 'The Big Parklands Paper'

1.    Why are you standing to be the MP for Chorley?
I am standing to give voters in Chorley a real choice, a chance to elect an MP who will speak up in their interests - for homes, health and public services - instead of the constituency having to just return a ‘Speaker’ who has no vote in Parliament.

To clarify my point - screenshots taken from the "TheyWorkForYou" website

2.    Why should people vote for you as MP?
As a trade unionist, socialist and community campaigner, I have spent all my life organising – and winning – to improve the lives, pay and conditions of the workers and communities that I represent. I’m not standing for my personal gain but to use my experience and passion to win change for Chorley. I would do so as a “Workers’ MP on a Worker’s Wage”, remaining on a teachers’ salary, not the £91,000 paid to an MP, and certainly not the £171,000 paid to the Speaker!

Figures taken from BBC News sources for April 2024 salaries

3.    As an MP, what policies would you introduce to help school children?
As a science teacher for over 30 years, I have seen class sizes shoot up, special needs support slashed, staff driven out by unrelenting workload and schools turned into ‘exam factories’ rather than places where every student can thrive. I would speak out for the policies set out in (my union) the National Education Union’s ‘Manifesto for Change’ which calls for an end to cuts and child poverty, an engaging and inclusive curriculum, and an end to the exam factory culture.

4.    How will you help ensure that schools get more funding?
School budgets in Chorley have been cut by a staggering £7M in real terms since 2010. Instead of demanding that the enormous wealth in our unequal society is used to fund schools, both main parties are agreed that they will maintain a tight hold on spending. So, winning better funding is going to need parents, students and school staff to get organised. As MP, I can use my position to help lead those struggles, in the House of Commons, at local demos and meetings, and on the picket lines of school staff unions taking action to demand the funds we need.

See: https://schoolcuts.org.uk/

5.    What plans do you have to support disadvantaged children in schools?
Firstly, that disadvantage needs to be tackled in the communities our schools serve. I stand for a minimum wage of at least £15 an hour, for a cap on soaring rents, for a benefits system which is based on actual need and a reversal of the cuts to our NHS, social care, mental health and youth services. In school itself, every child should have a free nutritious school lunch, and support based on need instead of resources being blocked by bureaucracy and a cap on council budgets.

6.    How will you raise awareness of current international issues (for example Gaza and Haiti)?
I will be an MP who, in the words of Keir Hardie, one of the first ever trade unionists to be elected, won’t be ‘silenced nor controlled’. So, I will speak up against injustice, inside and outside Parliament, both in Britain and across the globe. I would speak up for a permanent ceasefire and demand an end to the siege of Gaza to allow urgent action on its health, housing, food and sanitation crisis. I will call for the global solidarity needed to reverse disastrous climate change and to prevent the disintegration of countries like Haiti where people have been left by the world’s powerful to face poverty and violence for too long.

Both parties fear the presence of [MPs] whom they can neither SILENCE nor CONTROL"

7.    How will you ensure I can buy a home in Chorley when I grow up?
Everyone should have the right to a safe, secure, and genuinely affordable home. For those who want to buy – an impossible dream for so many nowadays ! – there should be cheap low-interest mortgages for home buyers. But we also need the mass building of high-quality, carbon-neutral council housing to provide the homes we need and rent controls and an end to ‘no fault evictions’ too.

8.    How will you ensure that schools remain inclusive, given recent government guidance on issues such as transchildren?
Hated for the way they have served the wealthy instead of the working-class, some Tories have tried to divert opposition by spreading anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ scare stories. I would urge Chorley voters not to fall for those ‘divide-and-rule’ tactics. Schools must be inclusive places where every young person feels secure, and staff can ensure student welfare is always the highest priority.

9.    What will be your first priority when elected?
To meet with all the many different parts of the Chorley community that have already contacted me about the issues they face: trade unionists, young people and parents; hospital campaigners and those demanding action on war and climate change; all the many local people we have met on the doorsteps and on our stalls who are struggling with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. As Bob Crow, the union leader who first helped found the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition famously said “If you fight you won't always win. But if you don't fight you will always lose”. I intend to be a workers’ MP that can give people confidence that, together, we can win change for Chorley – and for working people across Britain.

My Pledge as a Workers' MP for Chorley - Stop School Cuts

Chorley voters have been writing to me to ask that I pledge support for issues that are of particular concern to them. So that they are on the record for all voters, I am posting my response on some of the key issues here on my blog:

As a secondary science teacher and NUT - now Lancashire NEU - trade union member for nearly 40 years - as well as being a former Local Secretary National Executive member of the National Union of Teachers and Regional Secretary of the National Education Union - I fully back my Union's campaign against the underfunding of our schools and colleges.

As the NEU and the 'School Cuts campaign explains explains: "70% of schools in England have less funding in real terms than in 2010. This means they can’t afford the same essential running costs they could 14 years ago. Schools in England need £12.2 billion this year to start reversing the impact of 14 years of government cuts".

The School Cuts website shows what this means for schools in the Chorley constituency - a cut of £7M in real terms since 2010/11.

As one of my fellow Lancashire NEU members put it in an email to candidates: "You can’t cut school budgets year after year without education suffering. Our class sizes in the UK are among the highest in Europe. Whole subjects are being lost to cuts, with children missing out on life-changing opportunities to study arts, sports, and music. School staff are being driven to burnout by relentless stress and sky-high workloads".

That's why I have pledged to urgently fix the school funding crisis by campaigning for:

• Real-terms growth in funding for schools in my constituency.
• Urgent investment to tackle the SEND funding crisis.
• Funding to address backlog of building work required in schools.
• All pay awards and other new initiatives to be fully funded by the government.

I also pledged support for the NEU's wider Manifesto for Education on the day it was first released, earlier this month. As well as opposing cuts, this includes demands to end child poverty, improving pay and workload, for appropriate special needs support, and for for an engaging curriculum - which, I would add, should also include teaching about the climate crisis:

I would add that TUSC also opposes the privatisation and marketisation of state education and so I would also add, on top of the demands in the Union's Manifesto, two further demands - to oppose academisation and to return all schools and colleges into democratic local control - and to reverse the privatisation of supply cover in order to to end the rip-off of both school budgets and the agency workers who they profit from (and which I suffer from personally!).

Martin Powell-Davies, Trade Unionist and Socialist Candidate for Chorley.

My Pledge as a Workers' MP for Chorley - on Water Aid

Chorley voters have been writing to me to ask that I pledge support for issues that are of particular concern to them. So that they are on the record for all voters, I am posting my response on some of the key issues here on my blog:

The facts that WaterAid's Manifesto for Water point to - about such a basic necessity as clean water - spell out the huge - and worsening - inequality on our planet:

- 1 in 4 people still don’t have safe water.

- 1 in 2 don’t have a decent toilet where waste is safely managed.

- 2/3 of healthcare facilities in the 46 least developed countries do not have access to basic hand washing facilities.

Water Aid are therefore absolutely right to be calling on the next government's international development agenda to prioritise global access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene. Sadly, however, given that both main parties have made clear that they are parties that will do the bidding of big business, I fear theirr call will be lost under the financial policies that such a new government will follow.

While the representatives of the world's wealthy protect their interests, large parts of the world face social disintegration. Countries such as, for example, Madagascar are ravaged by drought. Not only lack of access to clean water but hunger, famine and destitution are affecting the neo-colonial world on a scale not experienced previously, contributing to an unprecedented migration crisis which the far-right will also seek to exploit.

If elected as MP, I will certainly speak up on this issue, and against global injustice, but I will also speak out for a more lasting solution and that, in my view, is to change the way our society is run from a capitalist one that benefits the few to a socialist one that benefits the many, one that brings into democratic public ownership the major companies and banks that dominate the economy, so that production and services can be planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the environment, not just in Britain but globally.

Martin Powell-Davies

TUSC Candidate for Chorley

My pledge to be a Workers' MP on a Worker's Wage

Most voters think that 'politicians' are, at best, out-of-touch with the problems their constituents face in paying their monthly bills. At worst, MPs are seen by many as simply careerists out to line their own pockets by doing the bidding of the wealthy and powerful. And they certainly get a very nice salary - as the graph shows:

Figures based on April 2024 salaries taken from BBC sources

We're not the same as the establishment politicians

Socialist Party members - like myself - elected as MPs for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition can show that we're not the same as the establishment politicians - because we pledge to act as a 'Workers' MP on a Worker's Wage'.

In doing so, I would simply be following the traditions of any elected trade union representative, seconded from their job to represent the members in their workplace. They don't expect to be paid more than their colleagues - they live on the same terms and conditions, face the same bills, and try and deal with the same financial pressures and problems as the people around them. 

That's exactly how I was paid when I was Secretary of Lewisham NUT from 1993 - 2015. I remained on a classroom teachers' salary, so fighting for my own pay rises at the same time as fighting for my union member colleagues' pay rises too! A workers' MP should be the same.

Not losing touch with the cost of living struggles facing Chorley voters

Too many MPs in the past have been elected with the best of intentions, only to lose touch with the problems their working-class constituents face when living comfortably on their MP's salary (which presently stands at £91,346 a year). But some MPs made sure they kept in touch - like Dave Nellist, now the National Chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, but once the Militant-supporting MP for Coventry South-East.

As Dave explains here: "When I was an MP in the 1980s, my family and I took only the average wage of a skilled worker in a unionised factory in Coventry. We weren’t isolated or insulated from the problems of the people in our city. When I complained about the cost of living, it was because it hit my family exactly the same way it hit the people I represented. And every Socialist Party member standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in this general election makes the same pledge. If elected, we would be socialist MPs living on a worker’s wage. I think that’s worth supporting. I hope you do too".

Accountable to the voters I represent

I'm happy to discuss with local trade unionists and campaign groups what the appropriate 'worker's wage' would be for me. Whatever we agreed, I would also make sure that my income -  and any expenses claims that I needed to make - were open for inspection, so that I was accountable to the voters I represent. I would also share how I was using the (not inconsiderable!) difference between the wage I was taking, and the income that I would receive officially as an MP, as a resource to help support trade union, socialist and community campaigns.

As a starting point, thanks to a supportive school in South-East London, where I was working as a secondary science teacher in Catford alongside my union duties, I was able to progress to the top of the classroom teachers' 'Upper Pay Scale' in the past. So, if working as a teacher in a school that recognised 'pay portability' for previous entitlements, I could now claim a U3 salary - which, for Chorley, would now be £46,525. However, as I have been working for the last five years as a supply teacher, usually paid beneath the statutory scales by privatised agencies even when I was in long-term posts, then the most I might be likely to earn was M6, the top of the main pay scale, with an annual equivalent salary of £38,330. That might be a more appropriate 'worker's wage'. Alternatively, my income could be based, like Dave's in the past, on the average skilled workers' salary for Chorley.

A Worker's Wage or a Speaker's Salary?

Either way, it's worth saying in conclusion that the worker's wage that I would take as an MP would only be around a quarter of what the previous MP for Chorley, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, would earn if re-elected in his role as 'Speaker'.

According to the BBC, from April 2024, the Speaker is entitled to a salary of £79,760 in addition to his salary as a Member of Parliament. That would total an annual salary of £171,106. How many Chorley voters earn anywhere near that much a year??

My Pledge as a workers' MP for Chorley - End the Housing Crisis!

Chorley voters have been writing to me to ask that I pledge support for issues that are of particular concern to them. So that they are on the record for all voters, I am posting my response on some of the key issues here, on my blog:

Action to end the housing crisis is one of the key demands of our campaign to elect a workers' MP for Chorley who speaks up for homes and health, not war and privatisation.

Let me start by making clear that I am not just a candidate who makes these pledges at election time, I am a trade unionist and socialist who is actively campaigning on these issues. 

Martin campaigning in Chorley

Martin on a successful TUSC Council Lobby over Housing

I have been campaigning with South Lakes TUSC over the housing crisis, surveying people on our campaign stall about the solutions we are putting forward. All of our solutions were widely supported - but the demand to "build enough council homes for all" got the most backing of all:

And TUSC haven't just been talking about these issues - we act on them too. 

For example, in South Lakes, our pressure has been having an effect on local decision makers. As explained in this post, we lobbied the Council over the second of these priorities - ending the scam of supposedly "affordable homes" - and I was given the opportunity to address the planning committee on behalf of TUSC. 

I put forward our case in the Council Chamber, exposing the profiteering developer and pricking councillors' consciences on genuinely affordable homes. A deferral on a planning decision was passed, despite the pressure put on the councillors by council officers.

That was only a small victory but as a workers' MP for Chorley, I would have a platform to demand far more. I would speak up for urgent action to address homelessness and the lack of genuinely affordable housing, on behalf of those without secure housing and for the many renters and mortgage holders whose rising housing costs add significantly to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

Our demands include:

• Build council homes to meet need - for a mass building programme of high standard, eco-friendly, affordable council homes to tackle the housing crisis - take over empty properties - end 'right to buy'.
• Ban no-fault evictions, secure tenancies for all.
• Rent control that caps the level of rent. Fair rent decisions should be made by elected bodies of tenants, housing workers and representatives of trade unions.
• Stop the scam of “affordable” homes – rent of 80% of local market rates is not affordable.  Affordable new homes to be rented at genuinely affordable social housing rents.
• Immediately fund remedial measures for all unsafe homes and carry out the work required to insulate homes to address the climate crisis.
• Ensure quality homes - Introduce compulsory licensing of all landlords. Take big homebuilders into democratic public ownership to ensure quality and safety.
• For affordable mortgages – nationalise the banks to be run under democratic workers’ control and management.

Martin Powell-Davies

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition Candidate for Chorley

My pledge as a workers' MP for Chorley - cut the working week with no loss of pay

Chorley voters have been writing to me to ask that I pledge support for issues that are of particular concern to them. So that they are on the record for all voters, I am posting my response on some of the key issues here on my blog. This reply is to an email from the '4 Day Week Campaign":

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition's Core Policy platform, on which all TUSC candidates are standing, includes the following policy on Employment and Trade Union Rights: Scrap zero hour contracts.  Guaranteed hours and full employment rights for all, including migrant workers, from day one of employment; including trade union rates of pay and sickness pay, and sickness, parental and holiday rights.  Cut the working week to 32 hours with no loss of pay.

I am therefore very happy to sign your pledge "to campaign for and support legislation that will enable the transition to a four-day, 32-hour working week with no loss of pay". This is fully in line with the position of TUSC, and also of my party, the Socialist Party, one of the constituent parts of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, for which I am standing as General Election candidate for Chorley on July 4th.

As a teacher trade unionist, I have long campaigned for at least 20% non-contact time and a fixed limit for overall working hours to address the relentless workload that has driven so many teachers out of the profession for so long.

I can recall that it was not so many decades ago when science and current affairs programmes discussed how technology was going to enable the working week to be hugely shortened. Instead, we now live in a society where hours, and the intensity of those hours, have hugely worsened and many low-paid workers work more than one job in order to pay their bills. 

As the Socialist Party states in its "What We Stand For" pamphlet: 
"One hundred years ago the trade union movement was fighting for a living wage and a maximum working day of eight hours. Today the battle has to be fought again. The average working week in Britain is 41 hours, with 12% of workers slaving for more than 50 hours a week to make ends meet. Meanwhile others, including many young people, are left unemployed or trying to survive on just a few hours work. The Socialist Party stands for sharing out the work – with a maximum working week of 32 hours with no loss of pay – so that everyone has the right to full-time work on a living wage, but no one should slave every hour to make enough to live on. This – combined with a major programme of increased public services – could eliminate unemployment and underemployment".

The question, of course, is how to win the demand? I wish your '4 Day Week' campaign well in convincing more employers - like those listed on your website - to see the benefits of cutting hours without loss of pay in terms of higher productivity and reduced staff turnover. However, I fear that the drive to maximise profit will mean that the majority of employers - and governments that represent those big business interests - will continue to try and increase exploitation through making employees work longer hours for less pay. 

As a trade unionist and socialist, I believe the answer lies with organising trade union action aimed at winning your demand but also, to make such a policy permanent, building a socialist society run for the billions, instead of the billionaires. Under such a society, a plan for sharing out work for the good of all could be democratically agreed and applied in a way that will never be done under crisis-ridden capitalism.

I hope that explains the basis on which I have signed your pledge and why, if elected, I would be happy to work with you on helping to make the demand become a reality. 

Martin Powell-Davies
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition Candidate for Chorley

My pledge as a workers' MP for Chorley - Stop Climate Catastrophe

Chorley voters have been writing to me to ask that I pledge support for issues that are of particular concern to them. So that they are on the record for all voters, I am posting my response on some of the key issues here, on my blog:

There are fewer more pressing issues than combating climate change through stopping new oil and gas and making a rapid transition to renewable energy. The reasons for taking urgent action are scientifically unopposable - but that science now needs to be acted upon with absolute urgency.

However, for too many years, capitalist politicians have made promises about taking climate action but, in practice, have continued largely with business as usual - and with the fossil fuel companies it is a very profitable business of course.

The world requires massive investment in renewable energy and transforming industry and infrastructure. However, private ownership means giant corporations dominate the economy and they always put short-term profits first. Competition between capitalist states, and between individual capitalists, also prevents the global collaboration needed. 

That's why, in order to stop and reverse climate change and fight its effects, a global systematic change is required. Transformation on the scale needed needs global planning, investment and coordination. I believe that only a socialist society, with nationalisation of energy, and the world’s biggest banks and companies, can allow for the use of resources to be planned democratically by the working class. This is what is needed to provide tangible solutions to climate crisis, and ensure a safe and decent life for all.

The working class mustn’t be made to pay for the climate crisis that is not of their making. There needs to be a fully-funded and planned transition for oil and gas workers and the communities that depend on them, with a clear plan for investment in alternative jobs and training, a real "Green Industrial Revolution".

As a long-standing trade unionist I would want to use my role as an MP to help bring together workers, trade unions, scientific and technical experts, alongside environmental campaigners, to work out a commonly agreed transition plan with nationalisation ensuring this is enacted on the basis of urgent need - instead of the issue again being 'kicked down the road' by big business backed parties to protect the interests of the fossil fuel profiteers.

Unlike the formally 'impartial Speaker', as a workers' MP for Chorley, I would use my position to help build a mass movement demanding change, the approach which I believe is the best strategy for success.

As I explained in this article that I wrote ahead of last year's COP28 talks: "Our task is to bring together those drawn into action over climate change with those fighting back over low wages, housing, inequality and all the other failings of crumbling capitalism. A mass movement built on those forces would have the strength to force the world’s capitalist politicians to actually enact some of their climate pledges – but, above all, it would have the strength to take decision making out of their failed hands and into the hands of the workers of the world. That would at last bring about a genuine global collaboration, utilising the world’s resources for the benefit of all, not for the short-term gain of a wealthy elite who have put the future of our planet at risk".

[ See also this accompanying response on 'people and planet' ]

Martin Powell-Davies
Trade Unionist and Socialist Candidate for Chorley.

My pledge as a workers' MP for Chorley - for people and planet

Chorley voters have been writing to me to ask that I pledge support for issues that are of particular concern to them. So that they are on the record for all voters, I am posting my response on some of the key issues here, on my blog:

A good starting point to explain my position on the environment is the following article that I have just had published on the pollution of our water, rivers, seas and lakes by profiteering privatised companies : https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/125697/05-06-2024/stop-the-sewage-nationalise-under-democratic-workers-control/

In addition, one of the key areas highlighted in our campaign leaflet is the nationalisation of the water, transport and energy companies to allow planned investment in 'green jobs' to combat climate change, without short-term profit being put ahead of the long-term needs of people and planet:

I should add that such necessary and bold steps should not be held back by arguments from big business politicians that it will require excessive expenditure on 'compensating' the big corporations and shareholders. But, as I say in the article, "why should these fat cats receive a penny more? They’ve already fleeced billions out of the public purse and billpayers. Compensation should only be paid where there is a genuine proven need, for example to safeguard workers’ pension investments or small shareholders – but certainly none to the big corporations".

Investment in insulating and improving our outdated and inefficient housing stock would be a key part of such a plan. Friends of the Earth data shows how significant an issue this is for Chorley - where 50% of homes are rated EPC “D” or below,  and where there are 11 areas that FoE describes as "energy crisis hotspots" ( where incomes are below average, but bills are above average) and thousands of homes that would benefit from loft and/or cavity wall insulation.

I note that FoE also points to the growing risk impact of flooding, an issue which will become a growing problem with a warmer, wetter atmosphere and more extreme weather events. Rewilding and tree-panting can provide one important strategy to mitigate these risks. 

A sustained programme of rewilding - not to mention a rapid reduction in fossil fuel use - may, of course, require taking on powerful vested interests, at which point some politicians may waver in their determination! I can assure you that as someone with a long campaigning and trade union history, I will press for the justified demands of my constituents to be carried out.

In conclusion, my position also reflects the national platform of TUSC which is as follows:

PROTECT OUR ENVIRONMENT – STOP GLOBAL WARMING

● Prioritising major research and investment into replacing fossil fuels and nuclear power with renewable energy to achieve deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions – otherwise climate change, caused by capitalism, will destroy us.
● Nationalisation of the energy companies, under democratic control, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need, in order to invest in publicy-owned and controlled renewable and affordable energy for all. Oppose fracking.
● Move to sustainable, low-pollution industry and farming – stop the pollution that is destroying our environment. No to profit-driven GM technology.
● Produce for need, not profit, and design goods for reuse and recycling. End the use of single-use plastics.

[See also this accompanying response on climate change: https://www.mpdnut.com/2024/06/my-pledge-as-workers-mp-for-chorley_2.html]

Martin Powell-Davies
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition Candidate for Chorley.