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Vol. 74/No. 19      May 17, 2010

 
UK communist: ‘Can’t
reform banks to be fair’
 
BY PETE CLIFFORD  
EDINBURGH, Scotland—“Look at Greece and Portugal. The capitalist class has no solution other than massive cuts like those being planned there,” said Caroline Bellamy, Communist League candidate for Parliament in the United Kingdom. “They can’t reform banking to make it ‘fair.’ It’s part of the capitalist system that exists to make profits at our expense. This is why the Communist League’s campaign centers on the capacity of working people to take political power and end this system.”

Bellamy, the Communist League candidate for Edinburgh South West constituency, was speaking to a crowd of 70 at a candidates debate April 29 in Sighthill, a working-class area of Edinburgh.

“We’re looking beyond election day May 6,” explained Bellamy. “None of the employers’ parties will do anything other than try to solve the crisis on the backs of working people. We, on the other hand, will join the inevitable response by workers to these attacks.”

Communist League candidates have spoken to some 900 people in seven hustings (election debates). They have also talked with hundreds of workers at factory gates and campaign tables in working-class neighborhoods as well as to college students. The public debates have featured candidates or representatives of the Labour Party, Conservative Party, Scottish Socialist Party, Green Party, Liberal Democrats, and the Communist League. Alistair Darling, member of Parliament and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government, took part in two of the hustings.

The immigration issue came to the center of the national debate leading up to the election. Leaders of the three main capitalist parties debated immigration at the final of three live TV debates April 29. Conservative leader David Cameron claimed “immigration was out of control these last few years” and “the Liberal Democrats would make it much, much worse.”

Liberal Democrats say they would allow an amnesty for undocumented workers who have been in the country for 10 years. But Liberal Democrats leader Nicholas Clegg countered Cameron by arguing that the Conservative Party’s proposed immigration cap would not limit the number of European Union residents. Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Gordon Brown joined this British nationalist chorus by calling for limits on immigration in areas where sufficient “homegrown” workers are available to fill jobs.

Speaking before 500 people April 28 at a debate in Juniper Green, a middle-class neighborhood of Edinburgh, Bellamy said that defending immigrant rights, and using union power to do so, is vital for working people in forging unity in the battles ahead. Her comments were met with a hostile reaction from sections of the audience.
 
 
Related articles:
Greek government announces harsh cuts for public workers  
 
 
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