Sean Robertson, Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist (Scottish TUSC) Candidate for Inverness Central in the 2022 Highland Council elections tells us why he’s standing in May.
We have just gone through more than two years of some of the hardest times both socially and economically in living memory. Hundreds of thousands died, many unnecessarily. Public services were stretched to breaking point. All sectors of the economy were hit. Workers lost their jobs. There were months in which we couldn’t visit our families, celebrate weddings, or go to our friends’ funerals. Waiting lists in hospitals are so long they won’t recover for decades.
On top of austerity cuts, there is a rapidly expanding cost of living crisis. Voters in Inverness Central are seeing their energy bills to increase by more than 50%. This is a particularly acute problem here because fuel poverty stands at 33%, well above the national average. Benefit recipients have lost the £20 uplift at the worst possible time. Many people are facing the impossible choice of whether to heat or eat.
Thousands of people in our community are reliant on food banks. Thousands of families have no home to call their own. More than 8000 people in Highland are on the waiting lists for social housing.
Things can only get better, or so you would think. But almost immediately following the protracted loosening of restrictions we have been plunged into an unprecedented cost of living crisis. With inflation at 7% RPI, and energy prices sky high, workers and families in Inverness Central will feel that they hope of as brighter future or at least ‘getting back to normal’ have been dashed.
Following the recent Highland Council budget it has been made clear that our communities will once again have to pay for the economic failures of capitalism. Highland council is making further tens of millions of cuts to add to the hundreds of millions they have inflicted upon us over the last decade. They gloat about these ‘savings’ which have decimated public and third sector services.
For this, Highland council will make us pay more! Council tax will be raised by 3% again this year pouring more petrol on the cost-of-living bonfire.
You may imagine that the increase in council tax will protect services. Not so, however. Highland council pays out £10s of millions in interest on historic debt from before Scottish Devolution to the UK government. Scottish local government is spending the equivalent of 44p per £1 of council tax collected from Scottish residents on servicing debt liabilities.
Mismanagement in the past is making the situation worse. PPP style contracts, which in any case should be scrapped with no compensation, cost the council £27 million every year for maintenance and hire of 15 schools. In-house the council could have built and run these schools at a fraction of the cost. This prior ‘investment’ in Schools hasn’t improved the educational achievements of our children. Around Inverness Central ward, some schools are performing well below the national average, because of austerity. Only 13% of pupils at Inverness High School obtained 5 Highers, the 8th worst performing school in the country according to the Daily Record. 13 of the 50 worse performing primary schools are in our region. Surely, we can do better for our young people.
Things in our community don’t need to be this way, however. If we fight, we can change them. The first step in the fight will be to elect a combative socialist councillor. A councillor who does not accept the need for austerity, which is impoverishing our communities.
If elected, I will demand concrete measures to improve the lives of workers, families and the poorest in our communities. Fundamentally, I believe that we need to build a different type of society. A society which values education, housing, and meeting all the needs of our community and not protecting the obscene profits of big business and rich individuals. This means fighting to end capitalism for good and replacing it with a socialist society in which the economy is planned to ensure everyone has enough to live comfortably, to provide a roof, food, jobs, a future for our kids.
A fighting councillor.
I have a proven history of fighting for my community. I lead the successful Highland No to Bedroom Tax campaign from 2013 which eventually ended the tax in Scotland. I am a GMB union rep and regularly win for my members in the workplace. I will be the most available councillor in Highland, with several surgeries a week and will struggle shoulder to shoulder with trade unions, workers and communities to oppose closures of facilities, cuts to public services, council tax rises attacks on jobs, pay and conditions. Vote 1 Sean Robertson, Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (Scottish TUSC) on May 5th for real, socialist change in our community on May 5th. Below is an outline of my programme if elected:
Fight for No-cuts Budgets
If elected I promise never to vote for austerity cuts which threaten our lifeline services.
I will never vote council tax increases.
I will campaign for no-cuts budgets which meet the needs of our communities and for the money stolen from the council by cuts imposed by central government to be returned.
I will call for all local authority debt to be written off by the Westminster government to help achieve this needs budget.
I will call for all PFI type contracts to be scrapped and the money saved to be invested in public services.
Energy
·I will use the platform afforded to me as an elected official to make the case for the socialist public ownership of the energy sector to end fuel poverty once and for all.
The paltry amount promised by the council to help alleviate fuel poverty, amounting to £4 per household, won’t even touch the surface of the increases our communities face in the coming year. I will campaign locally and nationally for more funding for this, and we have a strong case: 33% of highlanders live in fuel poverty far above the national average.
I will visit homeowners and tenants across Inverness central and ensure that everyone is offered all available help, including funding for first time central heating and insulation to reduce their bills and put them in contact with the relevant organisations in the public and third sector to ensure they have the maximum help available to reduce their energy costs.
I will Challenge barriers to help with energy costs such as illiteracy, social exclusion access to the internet, addiction etc
Cost of living
I will use my public platform to campaign for a £15 per hour minimum wage for all without exceptions.
I will support all trade union campaigns for pay rises, both inside and outside the council.
I will argue that all council contractors, and all organisations funded by the council should pay £15 per hour as a contractual stipulation.
I would campaign for benefits you can live on and to keep the £20 uplift in Universal Credit.
I will take action to ensure everyone has the correct benefits, tax credits etc and are receiving all public money and third sector funding they are entitled to.
Housing
I will campaign for the building of an additional 10000 council houses in Highland in the next period.
I will fight for rent controls in the private sector.
I will campaign for the council and Housing association rent to be reduced by 20%.
I will campaign for all outstanding housing debt, including from the bedroom tax or the pandemic, to be written off and will oppose all evictions for any reason. Housing is a human right.
I will actively support Living Rent’s campaign to effectively control short term lets increasing housing stock to locals.
I fully endorse Living Rent’s Tenants, manifesto.
I will campaign for the taking into public ownership of empty properties and for these to be made available to locals for rent.
I will call for councillors to immediately give up holiday lets both on and off Airbnb and all private rental properties to prevent them profiting from the housing crisis.
Transport for our communities, not Stagecoach profits.
From July 2022, local authorities can run their own bus services once more. I will call for highland council to run all services in the region, with heavily discounted fares, free bus travel for benefit recipients, low paid workers, and students.
No More Empty Shops, industrial or w spaces. Let’s fight food poverty, joblessness, and debt instead.
I will campaign for empty shops to be put to use for benefit the community rent free as community kitchens, art spaces youth and educational spaces for IT or community owned credit union to tackle problem debt for example.
I will argue for empty commercial premises and industrial to be taken into public or community ownership and put into use to create work.
I will fight to prevent the council or third sector organisations closing community facilities and will campaign for reduced rates and increased usage of community facilities like gyms and halls.
Sean speaking at NHS workers' protest for fair pay in Inverness
Find out more about Sean's campaign on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/voteSeanRobertsonScottishTUSCinHighlandsAndIslands
See also: https://twitter.com/ScottishTUSC
https://www.facebook.com/ScottishTUSC
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