As a party the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) is not only opposed to the cuts but says there is no need for cuts. Unlike other parties who are opposed to the cuts but are quite willing to implement them directly and indirectly because they have no alternative framework for running the economy. Our alternative framework can only be implemented in the short or medium term by independence and by starting to transform the economy in Scotland form a capitalist one to a socialist one. All this is captured in the slogan No Cuts with Socialist Independence.

Any party that forms a government in Holyrood after the next Scotties elections will be faced with the same constraint that while they may control how the budgets for health and education are spent but they do not control how much money they have to spend. This is decided by the Tory/LibDem Coalition. Similarly 75% of local authority budget comes in a block grant from Westminster. Only about 25% is raised through the council tax. We therefore have very limited means of raising additional tax through a rise in up to 2% on the basic rate of tax which is in itself not a redistributive tax or through a progressive tax replacement for the council tax such as the Scottish Service Tax put forward by the SSP. So the only way to put in place a redistributive tax system national and locally which is one of the cornerstones of raising the finances to avoid the cuts is by having full independence.

This is even more important as the cuts will fall heavier on Scotland because we have a higher proportion of public spending than other parts of the United Kingdom. The Conservatives in particular have little too loose in Scotland in terms of popular support and while they will look to make 25% to 40% of cuts in across the UK depending on how weak the UK economy turns out to be, the cuts in Scottish national and local funding will be in the range of 30% to 45%.

The other measures that are required to have no cuts can only be realistically taken in an independent Socialist Scotland. These include:
• tax corporations more;
• cutting defence spending;
• withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan; and
• Clamping down on tax avoidance.

Other measures that are required to avoid the cuts and regenerate the economy will be impossible to achieve except through the transformation of the Scottish economy to a socialist one. We would want full ownership of the banking system and to change the the bank’s business model from one based on private loans and speculation to one based on social rents and funding socially useful investment projects. But the banks’ assets are capital are stored virtually on computers. There will be an electronic flight of capital to England. But we can offer as part of the negotiations for economic independence from Westminster an exchange for our share of the national debt – about £100 bn by 2011 – 10% of the UK banks assets and capital which amounts to £60 bn in capital and £500bn in assets.

North Sea Oil
The next key building block of an economy under socialist independence is talking public control and ownership of our North Sea Oil. There are estimated 25bn barrels left of Scottish North Sea oil and at an average price of $US80 per barrel and at a cost of extraction of $US10 per barrel there would be generated revenues of £60bn a year for 15 years for the Scottish economy. This is equivalent to two thirds of the current Scottish Government budget. This revenue could be used to finance a national peoples’ bank that would fund social projects such as the construction and running of an integrated public transport system, a renewable energy programme and social housing. In the process as well as creating socially useful sustainable services, tens of thousands of jobs would be created for our young and old.

Scottish Currency
Scotland would need its own currency independent of either the pound or the Euro. The former is controlled by an unelected Bank of England committee made up of people who represent the interests of the City of London. The latter is controlled by the German and French governments who focus on controlling inflation with high interest rates and limit public spending through deficit targets – breaking these targets would mean severe austerity measures being imposed as is currently happening in Greece. We would back our currency with the revenues from North Sea Oil and align ourselves with other small countries’ currencies such as Sweden and create a defence fund to ward off international speculators.

Summary
The SNP’s solution, faced with a massive reduction in the budget from Westminster’s Coalition government, is to prepare for huge cuts in Scottish public spending drawn up by external consultants. Labour whether they were in power in London or Westminster would have faced the same situation.

Labour’s then chancellor, Alistar Darling, in his last budget and in the run up to the last general election announced proposed overall cuts in public spending for the next five years which came close to matching what the Coalition intend to cut. Local councils have already started implementing cuts or have announced planned cuts prior to real shrinkage of their central grants. Councils have to take such measures prior the coalition’s cuts because the SNP have frozen council tax – a measure that helps the better off more than medium and low earners – while council tax revenues and benefit payments have risen because of the recession.

Only the SSP in Scotland has put forward a No Cuts stance backed up with the concrete alternative way to run the economy based on transformation of society with Socialist Independence.
Just like the poll tax our stance will inspire the rest of Britain to come up with similar concrete solutions and the building of the type of political organisations and movements that can stop the cuts in England, Wales and Ireland.