THE Socialist Alliance believes that healthy, secure and comfortable accommodation is a basic human right. New Labour's policies are compounding the problems inherited from the Tories, driving up property prices and leaving many, including key professional workers, unable to afford a place to live in much of London, the south east and other high priced areas. The Tory sell-off of council housing has been followed by Labour's attempts to privatise remaining public housing stock. Meanwhile council tenants are forced to wait and wait for basic repairs or desperately needed transfers, and tens of thousands are condemned to temporary bed and breakfast accommodation.

• Stop the sell-off of council homes - retain and extend publicly-owned housing. "Arms length housing companies" are New Labour's latest ruse to persuade tenants to leave the public sector - they mean higher rents and less security of tenure. Whilst there is an urgent need for improvements, local authority provision is still the best way to ensure decent housing for all and decent conditions for workers involved in housing maintenance.
• For an emergency programme of renovation and home building to provide homes for the homeless and key workers, and to clear council waiting lists. Release the billions raised from council house sales to help finance the new building, refurbishment and repair we need.
• Require by law every residential property to be fit for habitation, with severe and effective remedies against any landlord who fails to meet these standards.
• Freeze rents and give tenants greater control over the administration of estates.
• Strengthen tenants' rights and security of tenure in private and "social landlord" sectors. For democratic control over "social landlords" such as housing associations.
• Reinstate rent controls in the private sector. Stop the housing benefit rip-off by private landlords. End capping of housing benefits, which hurts tenants in the private sector.
• End the disastrous privatisation of housing benefit administration.
• After 25 years paying rent in a particular tenancy, tenants will no longer be required to pay rent.
• Bring unoccupied commercially-owned properties into local authority ownership, to provide immediate accommodation for the homeless.

End the Transport Chaos

PRIVATISATION has wreaked havoc on the country's transport system, yet Labour cannot bring itself to renationalise the railways.

Cash raised through the supposedly "green" tax on fuel has been squandered on tax cuts for the rich, while public transport teeters on the brink of collapse. Safety, reliability, affordability and the environment have been sacrificed on the altar of private profit.

The Socialist Alliance says we need an integrated, publicly owned, democratically accountable and environmentally friendly system of transport.

• Renationalise the entire rail network and place it under the control of those who work on and use it.
• Bring the entire bus network into public ownership, under democratic control.
• Invest to provide an affordable, fully accessible and high quality integrated transport system. This will include urban light rail, bus services, traffic calming, home zones in residential areas, and extensive provision for cycling and walking.
• Stop the privatisation of London Underground and of the air traffic control system - Treasury cash must be invested to modernise these basic services.
• New road building to be carried out only after genuine democratic consultation with the communities affected.

Rural Britain in Crisis

FROM BSE to foot and mouth disease to poor transport networks to low pay, our rural communities face a severe crisis. Small farmers, small businesses, agricultural and other rural workers are being squeezed by agribusiness, the supermarkets and the chaos of capitalist production. Last autumn's rebellion by small business and farmers over the price of fuel showed the uncertainty and anger in this section of society, which has only been exacerbated by the foot and mouth epidemic. Farm incomes are down by 60 percent in the last three years. EU agricultural subsidies have mainly benefited wealthy farmers with large tracts of land, and have encouraged overproduction and environmental degradation. Meanwhile the giant supermarket chains exploit the rural crisis to hammer down farm gate prices, even as they charge their customers some of the highest retail prices in Europe.

The Socialist Alliance believes that the countryside is a precious resource that belongs to us all. We want a policy that sustains a diverse and accessible rural landscape, populated by diverse and vibrant rural communities. The Countryside Alliance, led by the rural rich, is no answer for farm workers, small farmers, low paid workers in rural areas or the unemployed. If the labour movement fails to champion the rights of rural workers, small businesses and farmers, then we leave them open to manipulation by reactionary forces. That's why the Socialist Alliance will fight for a real alternative in the countryside:

• Secure rights of tenure for small tenant farmers and small business, with low rents.
• Cancellation of debts to banks arising from disproportionately high interest rates. Provision of low interest rates for small business and farmers.
• Incentives for small farmers to form cooperatives to share and reduce costs - scientific and technical advice, research facilities, administrative assistance and grants for capital improvements.
• Grants for small farmers to switch to organic production.
• Grants and incentives to small farmers and rural communities to undertake environmental rehabilitation and preservation.
• Prosecute - and nationalise - the feed manufacturers at the root of the BSE crisis. Institute strict regulation, with scientific controls and monitoring of the content, quality and potential effects of animal feed, fertilisers and agricultural chemicals. Renationalise the meat inspectorate.
• Stop the commercial use of genetically modified foods - a moratorium on crop trials pending further scientific research.
• Strip the supermarket chains of their powers to determine what we eat, and to rig prices to the disadvantage of farmers and consumers alike.
• Investment in cheap, efficient and widespread public rural transport - including an expansion of bus and rail services.
• A minimum wage equivalent to the European Union Decency Threshold - currently �7.40 an hour.
• Investment in active and diverse rural communities - community facilities, youth clubs, primary schools, healthcare provision, environmental projects and useful public works to create new jobs.

Save the Planet

Socialist Policies for the Environment

URGENT action is required if we are to save our planet from environmental degradation. Prescott and Blair fiddle while our globe gets hotter, our water supply becomes more polluted, and our health is endangered by multiplying threats - not least from BSE and, potentially, genetically modified crops. New Labour's "green" policies have been mainly cosmetic. Labour has levied massive taxes on petrol and on car owners but, like the Tories, who introduced these taxes, it has not invested the money raised in public transport, so the disincentive to private car use is ineffective. Huge subsidies to rail operators have been pocketed by shareholders, while the system teeters on the edge of disaster. New Labour's embrace of agribusiness, the big corporations and economic globalisation has contributed to the pollution of land and waterways, and exacerbated the post-BSE crisis and the foot and mouth outbreak in the countryside.

The Socialist Alliance is determined to stop the ongoing destruction of the environment. We call for firm and urgent action:

• Emergency action to reduce fossil fuel use and slow down global warming. For massive investment in the development of sustainable alternative energy sources including solar, wind and wave power.
• Invest now to build a cheap and integrated public transport system to lessen reliance on private cars.
• Tough action on corporate polluters - fines and awards for damage must be substantial enough to act as a real deterrent. Whistle-blowers must be protected.
• Bring the oil companies into public ownership.
• The planned closure of nuclear energy plants, with workers involved transferred to jobs at equivalent rates of pay.
• The planned closure of open-cast coal pits, with workers involved transferred to jobs at equivalent rates of pay.
• Introduction of clean-burn technologies in coal-fired power stations.
• Public investment to make all homes energy efficient.
• Food and other agricultural products should be locally grown as much as possible. We must replace intensive capitalist exploitation of land and animals with sustainable farming.
• Renationalise the water industry, scrap water charges, and finance a clean-up operation of rivers, lakes and the sea.
• Provide every household with quality doorstep recycling facilities so that at least half our waste is recycled by 2010 and no new incinerators are built.
• Stop the commercial use of genetically modified foods - a moratorium on crop trials pending further scientific research.
• For the workers' movement to launch an independent inquiry into the BSE scandal, and for full compensation to those harmed or killed by it so far.
• Promote the right to roam - equal access to the countryside.

Where Will the Money Come From?

GORDON Brown preaches prudence and "living within our means," yet Britain is a country of huge wealth - wealth that remains largely in the hands of a tiny elite. The Socialist Alliance stands for a transformation of society that will enable this wealth to be used for the benefit of the great majority. Labour ministers talk at length about tough measures to fight alleged "fraud" by social security claimants, but turn a blind eye to the tax evasion and fraud by the real scroungers - big business and the super-rich.

The difference between New Labour and Tory spending plans currently amounts to about 1 percent of gross domestic product. In a society where the richest 20 percent take home more than 45 percent of all post-tax income, where corporations pay the lowest tax rates in Europe, and where some 5 million people (9 percent of the population) live in absolute poverty and millions more struggle to make ends meet, that is simply not good enough. The Socialist Alliance says there is an alternative:

• Abolish VAT and replace it with a tax on the rich - for a steeply progressive income tax, and a big increase in corporate taxes towards the higher average levels elsewhere in the EU. Simply by raising corporation tax from 30 percent to 40 percent, we would raise an additional �14 billion annually.
I
• ncrease the income tax thresholds to ensure that all those with an income of �13,000 or less pay no income tax.
• For a swingeing tax on the profits of the oil companies like BP-Amoco.
• A turnover tax on all multinationals doing business (and making profits) in Britain.
• Increase tax on capital gains.
• Raise the top rate of inheritance tax, impose higher duties on other transfers of wealth and financial transactions, and tax dividend income at higher rates.
• Increase stamp duty on stocks and shares.
• Crack down on tax evasion by large companies.
• Abolish the ceiling on National Insurance contributions.
• Raid the offshore tax havens.
• Abolish VAT exemption on private education, giving us an extra �1 billion a year to spend on state schools.
• Slash current spending on arms, nuclear weapons and defence to release money to rebuild the NHS and other public services.
• Bring all the utilities privatised since 1980 back into public ownership to be run by workers and consumers, paying no compensation to the fat cats who have pocketed huge profits since privatisation.
• Centralise all pension funds into one national fund run under the supervision of the workers who have paid into these funds.

The measures above would enable us to make major strides in eliminating poverty, providing the public services we need and advancing towards a just society. Most of them could be implemented tomorrow. But if we are to maintain these improvements we will need to go further.

The Socialist Alliance believes that there is a fundamental contradiction between the needs of capital in an exploitative, profit-driven system, and the needs of the large majority of human beings in this country and throughout the world. What is required is a thoroughgoing restructuring of the economy and society as a whole.

We are convinced that more and more people will come to recognise the need for a new system of production and distribution to meet genuine social need without the waste and exploitation inherent in the current system. That's why we call for policies to:

• Take the major corporations, banks, insurance companies, pension funds and other giants of the financial sector that dominate the economy into public ownership, along with the major transport, construction and manufacturing industries. All of these should be run under democratic working class control and management so that their assets can serve public need, not private greed
.

No Compromise on Equality

Our fight against racism, sexism, homophobia and all forms of discrimination

NEW Labour has shamelessly scapegoated asylum seekers, hounded single mothers, called for curfews on young people, and has buckled before bigotry against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. Home Office minister Barbara Roche recently boasted that New Labour is now deporting more people than any previous British government. In addition, thousands of innocent asylum seekers are held in detention centres like Campsfield and Oakington, or in prisons. Many thousands more are forced to live on vouchers worth only 70 percent of minimum benefit levels, and are dispersed against their will across the country. New Labour's anti-refugee policies and the rhetoric used to sell them to the public have given encouragement to racists and fascists, who have waged a mounting number of violent attacks on black and ethnic minority homes and families.

The cases of Roger Sylvester, Zahid Mubarek, Ricky Reel, Delroy Lindo and many others demonstrate that under New Labour the lives and human rights of black people continue to be disrespected by police, prisons and other government agencies. Jack Straw welcomed the Macpherson report into the death of Stephen Lawrence, then left its most important recommendations, especially those for police and judicial reform, on the shelf. For the Socialist Alliance, combating racism isn't about honeyed words from politicians at election times. It is a struggle that goes on in communities across the country day in, day out - a struggle our candidates are committed to supporting with practical action. Wherever racism or fascism rear their ugly heads, we will be there to challenge and oppose them.

Despite a clear manifesto commitment and a majority of 180 (a larger majority than the total number of Tory MPs), New Labour has failed to abolish the Tories' bigoted Section 28, which institutionalises discrimination against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. It has still not equalised the age of consent. Three times it has vetoed amendments to protect lesbians and gay men against discrimination in the workplace. It has press ganged single parent women into low paid jobs under threat of losing benefit rather than extending free nursery provision, affordable housing, properly resourced education and training programmes, and ensuring women get equal pay for equal work. Likewise, New Labour has focused on tightening the scrutiny of people with disabilities through the machinery of incapacity benefit rather than on enforcing the half-hearted legislation on accessibility of buildings and services for people with disabilities.

The Socialist Alliance fights for an end to all forms of social discrimination, and for measures to make equality a reality for all:

• Defend asylum seekers, scrap the voucher, dispersal and detention systems. Give asylum seekers and refugees the right to work, tear up the EU's Schengen treaty and the "Fortress Europe" policy that criminalises people from the Third World. Why should multinational corporations be free to move anywhere they like while human beings face discrimination and persecution if they try to do the same thing? The Socialist Alliance fights for freedom of movement, open borders and an end to immigration laws.
• Stop police harassment of black people. Justice for those whose relatives have died in prison or police custody. A systematic eradication of racism in all our institutions - the police, the civil service, the media, the courts and prisons.
• We support all measures to make the police accountable to democratically elected, civilian bodies. Stop police attacks on trade unionists, black people, young people and those exercising the right to protest or demonstrate. End the armed policing policies that led to the shooting of Harry Stanley and others. End the use of CS gas, batons, manacles and other forms of weaponry on vulnerable people. Disband all special police units.
• Coordinated emergency action to stamp out racial violence. New Labour's attacks on asylum seekers have helped fuel racist violence. Since February 1999 at least 20 individuals have been killed as a result of racially-motivated violence - an increase over previous periods. The real lessons of the Stephen Lawrence case have not been learned. We call for the immediate implementation of the recommendations in the Macpherson report pertaining to police accountability and measures to stop racial violence. As the cases of Satpal Ram and others have demonstrated, too often the victims of racial violence are being punished for fighting back against perpetrators. We say self-defence is no offence.
• Repeal Section 28 without delay. Equal rights for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals with heterosexuals in all legal matters - age of consent, partnership and parenting rights, protection from discrimination at work or in the community - and action to stamp out homophobic violence.
• End discrimination against women in jobs and society at large - fine all employers who refuse to grant equal pay for equal work. For a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, an end to the NHS "postcode lottery" on abortion facilities, for free, safe contraception on demand and increased provision of sex education, an expansion of free nursery places and diverse forms of childcare. Support for the victims of violence and abuse, and a mobilisation to end domestic violence in our society.
• End the exploitation and harassment of youth - no curfews, restore benefits and increase non-commercial facilities for youth, end young people's exemption from the minimum wage, for the right of school students to organise their own unions, lower the voting age to 16.
• End discrimination against senior citizens, including in employment. Ensure senior citizens have the means to take a full part in our society - raise pensions, lower the retirement age, provide free quality residential care to those who need it or resources to enable senior citizens to live in their own home with free phone, TV and internet access, free fuel and transport.
• Action to protect elderly people from violence and abuse.
• End discrimination against disabled people and those with mental health problems in employment and in social life. Increase benefits for disabled people and end harassment by benefits agencies. Investment in resources - building design, transport, leisure facilities, etc - to make disabled access a reality. Equal rights and legal representation for people threatened with compulsory treatment orders and detainment against their will.
• A concerted drive for equal access to sporting resources and facilities for women, black and ethnic minority communities, and disabled athletes. Commercial sponsorship of sports restricted to male participants will be banned, so if Vodafone wants to sponsor Manchester United for �30 million it will have to cough up another �30 million for women's football.

How Democratic is Britain?

FAR from reversing the Tories' attacks on our civil liberties and democratic rights, New Labour has deepened the damage. Even as New Labour has granted ever greater freedoms to big business, it has imposed ever greater restrictions on our rights and liberties.

Jack Straw's shameful Freedom of Information Act has been condemned by campaigners as "weaker than the Conservatives' openness code." The new Terrorism Act has imposed frightening curbs on basic political freedoms. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act extends the state's powers to mount electronic surveillance of individuals. While legal aid and equal access to justice are eroded, the Lord Chancellor's office is mired in favouritism and party fundraising. In this general election New Labour is seeking a mandate to further restrict our right to a fair trial before a jury and to lock up unprecedented numbers in (increasingly privatised) prisons. It wants to put a price tag on justice.

"Control freakery" is the hallmark of New Labour. In contrast, the Socialist Alliance stands for the expansion of democracy and participation. Despite having the "mother of parliaments," countless decisions that shape our lives are made behind our backs by people who are neither elected nor accountable. Big business donors now determine the policies of the major parties. The power of money has undermined democracy, and has produced a political system riddled with sleaze and corruption.

For the Socialist Alliance, socialism is about protecting and expanding our democratic rights. It is about making real the promise of self-government and equal rights for all. It is about promoting accountability, transparency and accessibility - without compromise - in all our institutions.

• Defend the right to a fair trial before a jury - New Labour's plans will lead to more miscarriages of justice, more pointless prison sentences, more scope for bigotry and prejudice.
• Repeal Tory and Labour restrictions on freedom of assembly and association, the right to silence, and protection from arbitrary police powers. Repeal the Criminal Justice Act, the Terrorism Act, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the Emergency Powers Act.
• Expand access to and funding for legal aid, reinstate legal aid for personal injury, fund law centres, Citizen Advice Bureaux and other agencies to ensure working class people can secure their rights under law. Reduce court fees. All laws should be drafted in plain language accessible to the citizen.
• End big business influence in elections and political decision making - tough legal penalties for failure to make full public disclosures of all financial interests and earnings. End "moonlighting" (second incomes) by MPs - MPs should receive an average worker's wage. In elections there should be a "level playing field" for all democratic parties including equal access to the media and to public spaces.
• For a real Freedom of Information Act conforming to the highest standards of openness and practical access.
• Oppose the cabinet and mayoral system in local government - decision making by local authorities must be open and accountable. There must be genuine opportunities for local people to inspect and influence decision making in all its stages.
• Replace the quango trust boards currently running the NHS with elected health authorities involving representatives of health workers and local communities.
• End the monopoly of the media barons and open the media to the people - state-funded public access TV, radio and printed media open to all. Expand the number of radio franchises issued, and change the criteria for them to ensure genuine diversity and community access in radio. For an effective right to reply in all media. Internet access in every home - ensure cheap and equal access to emerging media technologies (digital broadcasts, mobile phones, etc). Maintain and expand the BBC as a public service, and replace the BBC board of governors with a representative and accountable body.
• Protection for rank and file personnel against bullying in the armed forces, full trade union and democratic rights in the armed forces, end officers' privileged status.

Margaret Thatcher famously insisted that "there is no such thing as society, just individual men and women, and their families." More than two decades of Thatcherite economic and social policies have indeed served to break up communities and weaken the bonds of social solidarity. They have also produced entrenched deprivation side by side with great wealth. These are the real "causes of crime" but New Labour has not been nearly so "tough" on them as it promised to be. Starved of the human and financial resources to rebuild new and supportive communities and really tackle "social exclusion," the situation in the most deprived areas has changed little since 1997, and many people are left feeling vulnerable to and aggrieved by criminal activity.

It's not socialists but the police, preoccupied with protecting the property of the wealthy, who are largely indifferent to the problems of petty burglary, robbery and violent crime against working class families in inner city areas and council estates. And it's the Socialist Alliance, not New Labour, that will put an end to the dog eat dog "free market" policies that have encouraged the growth of crime.

Jack Straw's policy of talking "tough on crime" merely echoes the failed policies of his Tory predecessors. Stepping up police harassment and building more jails to lock up more people for longer clearly does nothing to make communities safe or to rehabilitate criminals. All the evidence shows that prisons, far from deterring crime, serve to brutalise and dehumanise young offenders. They also act as training centres, turning petty thieves into skilled professional criminals. Resources need to be made available urgently for more effective alternatives to imprisonment - alternatives which have been shown to minimise levels of repeat offences.

• The Socialist Alliance will deal with crime by building strong communities, expanding youth facilities and improving public safety - employing more concierges, investing in better street lighting, designing or redesigning housing estates so that everyone can walk to and from their home freely, without fear of being trapped in a place hidden from public view.
• We support all measures to make the police accountable to democratically elected civilian bodies. Stop police attacks on trade unionists, black people, young people and those exercising the right to protest or demonstrate. End the armed policing policies that led to the shooting of Harry Stanley and others. End the use of CS gas, batons, manacles and other forms of weaponry on vulnerable people. Disband all special police units.
• Legalise cannabis and decriminalise all drugs. For accessible health facilities for users who need them.
• End inhuman conditions in prisons - the Socialist Alliance aims to reduce the prison population to the bare minimum, and to ensure those remaining in prison are rehabilitated for useful jobs and life outside. This means provision of appropriate mental and other health services. Prisoners must be allowed the opportunity to develop themselves as human beings, and enjoy full democratic rights and safeguards. People should only be imprisoned a short distance from their homes, and there should be only one prisoner per self-contained cell, daily visiting hours and weekly 24-hour conjugal visits and worthwhile prison work at trade union rates. Prisoners should have the right to vote and seek election, and their votes should be counted in the constituency where they actually live, not where they originate.

In order to create a genuinely democratic society we will also need to transform many of our state and civil institutions.

• Establish fixed-term democratic elections, based on proportional representation and the accountability of all elected officials, and of all MPs to their constituents.
• Abolish the monarchy, the House of Lords, the Privy Council and Crown Powers - these archaic institutions have no place in a society of free and equal human beings.
• Disestablish the churches of England and Scotland - a democratic society requires the complete separation of church and state, not least to ensure that we all enjoy the freedom to worship, or not, as we choose.
• For the right of self-determination to Scotland and Wales - it is up to the people of Scotland and Wales to decide where their future lies.
• Abolish the Lord Chancellor's office - all judges to be elected and accountable. Create a free national legal service (similar to the NHS) to ensure equal and effective access to justice for everyone. Establish the right to sue any official before a jury.
• Disband Special Branch, the secret services, and all surveillance agencies and operations. Our government's job is not to spy on its citizens - these unaccountable and secret bodies undermine democracy.

Culture: Sport and the Arts

NEW Labour has pursued an elitist policy that excludes millions from cultural participation while promoting a corporate-dominated arts and leisure industry. Local facilities and grassroots initiatives are starved of funds, playing fields are sold off, leisure services privatised, and corporate sponsors and media giants given free rein. In a democratic society the Socialist Alliance does not believe we can leave arts, sports and the media to the free market.

Sport for All, Not for Profit

The Socialist Alliance believes sport is a public service, and that sports institutions (football clubs, governing bodies, etc) should be publicly owned and democratically accountable to the people who play and watch. Unlike New Labour, the Socialist Alliance will not let big money determine the future of football and other sports, which have been created and maintained by working class people, not multinational corporations. We aim to provide all children and adults with real access to and choice of sporting participation.

• Increased spending on a diverse range of sporting facilities and activities in schools and communities. End the privatisation of local authority leisure services. No sale of land currently used to play sport.
• Working class children get the worst sporting deal. The Socialist Alliance supports the provision of diverse forms of PE in schools, investment in school-based sporting facilities, and payment for teachers supervising sports activities.
• No more expensive status-seeking World Cup and Olympic bids!
• Get rid of the "blue blazer brigade" who run English sport, including the white, male, millionaire-dominated FA. Replace them with democratic and representative bodies with statutory duties to ensure equal and easy access, diverse community participation, etc. Strict and total separation of sponsors, media interests and sports management.
• Ensure the free telecast of all major sporting events in Britain, or involving British teams or competitors. We will not allow Rupert Murdoch to decide what we can and cannot watch. Regulate ticket prices for all live sporting events to ensure access for working class people.
• A concerted drive for equal access to sporting resources and facilities for women, black and ethnic minority communities, and disabled athletes. Commercial sponsorship of sports restricted to male participants will be banned, so if Vodafone wants to sponsor Manchester United for �30 million it will have to cough up another �30 million for women's football.
• Active opposition to racism and jingoism in spectator sport.

The Arts: Diversity and Participation

THE combination of government underfunding and corporate power is profoundly undermining our cultural freedom and creativity, as well as working class access to diverse art forms. Artists and their communities need greater democratic control over what they do and how they do it. The whole arts funding system is in disrepute and deeply unaccountable. The Arts Council and other responsible organisations should be dismantled and replaced with democratic and accountable bodies.

• Massive increase in arts funding across the board. The whole infrastructure of the arts is in deep trouble after years of Tory neglect. Comparatively, the Europeans (Germans, French, Scandinavians) dedicate a much higher percentage of gross domestic product to the arts than we do. As a minimum, the Socialist Alliance will raise arts funding to the highest current European level.
• Arts policy (and funding) must be part and parcel of community and education policy. Arts should be restored to a central place in the schools curriculum.
• Abolish the hierarchy of art forms. It is right to spend money on opera and ballet, but there should be parity among all art forms - including children's and community arts, innovative, popular, traditional and experimental forms.
• The rule of the Arts Council accountants with their business criteria must be overthrown. The Arts Council should be replaced with a democratic, accountable and representative body. The assessment criteria for grants must be transformed, and secretive procedures replaced by transparent ones.
• Free museum admission. Free admission to all government-funded arts events. Free admission to other (partly) government-subsidised arts events (performing arts centres, theatres, opera, sports centres, etc) to all those under the age of 12, over the age of 60 or in receipt of welfare benefits.

Socialism is International

THE SOCIALIST ALLIANCE stands for international solidarity with all workers and oppressed peoples struggling against the poverty, famine and military repression inflicted on them by the great powers and the multinational corporations.

Under New Labour, British troops and planes have continued at the service of imperialist interests. Britain has been the US's number one partner in crime - in the bombing and economic strangulation of Iraq, and in the bombing and devastation in the Balkans. British arms exports have continued to bolster some of the world's most repressive regimes. The cause of global nuclear disarmament has been set back by Blair's insistence on retaining the wasteful and dangerous Trident "deterrent." Meanwhile, the Blair government has given strong support to projects, like the Ilisu dam in Turkey, that benefit British corporations while threatening the lives and rights of people on the ground.

Bomber Blair stands for the unchecked rule of global capitalism. He has promised in his second term to promote "liberalisation" and "flexible labour" through the WTO and EU. And he is already positioning himself as George W Bush's major partner in the development and deployment of the US's reckless "Star Wars" missile defence system.

The Socialist Alliance argues for a fundamental transformation of foreign policy. Our allies should not be the powerful governments of the G8, EU, World Bank and WTO, but the working people around the world fighting to rid themselves of corrupt and dictatorial governments.

• Stop the bombing of Iraq - lift the sanctions now.
• British troops out of the Balkans, the Gulf and Ireland.
• Self-determination for the people of Ireland.
• Disband NATO, and oppose the use of military force in pursuit of British and Western interests.
• Nuclear weapons have no place in a civilised world. For immediate and complete unilateral nuclear disarmament. A halt to all cooperation with the US's "National Missile Defence" system - no use of Menwith and Fylingdales.
• End the use of depleted uranium and other toxins in weapons.
• End the arms trade - Britain should no longer act as a global exchange and mart for instruments of death and destruction. Scrap the Export Credit Guarantee scam, whereby taxpayers underwrite arms sales. Support all those struggling for human rights, democracy and self-determination. No deals with dictators and repressive regimes.
• Cancel Third World debt - with no conditions. End "structural adjustment" conditions that impoverish Third World people. For a major increase in aid spending on democratic development projects, health, education and welfare in poorer countries. Abolish the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organisation, oppose the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS).
• For workers' and socialist unity across Europe. For a democratic and federal Europe based on solidarity and cooperation. Against the Europe of the bosses, the unelected European Central Bank, and the creation of "Fortress Europe" as a bastion of racism and exploitation. Against British nationalism and the re-raising of barriers between nations in Europe. No to the monetarist criteria for European Monetary Union - we neither advocate the euro nor defend the pound.

Our Socialist Vision of the Future

THE SOCIALIST ALLIANCE believes that people should come before profit, that our common resources should be used for the common good. We believe that decisions about how and where we should use those resources should be made by the people themselves through democratic means. In order to build a society in which need comes before greed, we believe our economy must be reorganised on a radically democratic basis.

By socialism we mean nothing like the old Stalinist Soviet Union, with its repression and bureaucracy. For us, socialism is about making solidarity the guiding principle of society. We mean the working class organising to liberate itself from the rule of profit and create its own democracy, abolishing the privileges of managers and officials. Every major industry should be reorganised on the lines of social provision for need - publicly owned, and democratically controlled by workers and the community. No rich and no poor, no profits and no wage slavery, no palaces and no homeless, no jobless and no overworked!

Within the ranks of our Alliance there are different views on what will eventually be necessary in order to achieve this. But we are all united on one principle - the decisions on how to fight for socialism will be made by working class people themselves, through their own democratic organisations.

Socialism will never be achieved behind the backs of the working class by decree, or by some committee or other.

Above all, we are united in our support for every struggle waged by working class or oppressed people against injustice, and for a more equal and democratic society.

The policies in this manifesto are based on a wide-ranging democratic discussion within the Socialist Alliance. But we know that they are not exhaustive, comprehensive or the last word. The Socialist Alliance is committed to further debate and discussion, and welcomes your participation in the development of our socialist alternative.

In the meantime there is now a clear choice in the general election - a choice between the New Labour/Tory consensus, and the Socialist Alliance's programme for economic and social equality, public ownership and an expansion of democracy.

THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE
VOTE SOCIALIST ALLIANCE