Common Sense Budget 2024: Chris Williamson deputy leader Galloway's Workers Party, 2024 election

Redistributive Economics

https://workerspartybritain.org/manifesto-britain-deserves-better/

https://politicsthisweek.wordpress.com/2024/03/07/not-the-bcfm-politics-show-presented-by-tony-gosling-180/

The Workers Party of Britain is a socialist party but we are not utopian, nor are we bound by abstruse theory. We have a common-sense analysis and a practical mission. The Workers Party is committed to the redistribution of wealth and power in favour of working people.

Our analysis recognises that the era of modern capitalism and the international system of capitalist imperialism is not going to be replaced overnight, and that the growth and development of a socialist system of economy is intertwined with the growth and development of working class political power. It may take many years to transform the Britain into a secure democratic socialist state. But it is possible. It is necessary. And some things we can do immediately.

We will, for example, increase the personal tax threshold for the poorest paid workers to remove tax entirely from the first £21,200 of wages for two million low paid workers. This alone would increase take-home pay for a worker on the threshold rate by £1,700 per annum.

Inflation hurts working people the most. Our policies are based on doing what is required to cut the cost of living and drive sustainable growth. We will re-industrialise the country based on new technology investment, effective and efficient public spending directed at building infrastructures to provide future wealth and an active redistribution of assets to the benefit of the people.

We are not afraid of selective nationalisation especially of dysfunctional utilities and for strategic assets. We will end the dangerous practices of public-private partnership and ensure best value for the public whilst recognising the reasonable rights of private producers, manufacturers and productive businesses. And we will build regional and infrastructural banking support structures to provide credit on sustainable terms to socially useful productive capacity.

The Bank of England should be influenced by working class economic priorities as part of an integrated national economic system but there is no point in handing our central bank to control of politicians in Parliament who still speak for business interests. The Bank will be instructed to meet working class priorities with mandatory working class representation throughout the governance structures of the Bank not excluding the Monetary Policy Committee.

There is no conflict between the struggle for socialism as a system of social ownership and our immediate need for effective infrastructural planning for Britain. With enhanced worker’s control and industrial participation going hand-in-hand with an entrepreneurial culture centred on working class creativity and its aspiration to create a better world for families and the community, the WPB is optimistic about our national economic future under new political management.

National Investment in Infrastructure

Decades of under-investment in our social and economic infrastructure have resulted in a series of systemic breakdowns that must be reversed. We see potholes in every road, water pipes bursting, streets losing power, a thousand small problems that tell us something is going very wrong with the administration of our country.

Social and economic investment are two sides of the same coin. Without adequate education or social care or mental health provision, we have a population that is not at peak effectiveness. If mobile coverage is poor, roads constantly being closed or businesses flooded, there is waste of potential capacity.

The Workers Party of Britain will make it a priority to reverse this rot. Our nationalisation policy is based on a simple proposition that anything that is a monopoly or essential to the functioning of the country, especially those businesses strategically required in times of crisis, should be considered for re-nationalisation or nationalisation.

We say ‘considered’ because full nationalisation may not be necessary in every case, such as national logistics, if the industry concerned is prepared to operate constructively in line with national planning guidelines and places the nation before investors. If we have to legislate to give the national interest priority over the market, we will not hesitate to do so.

Our first task will be to end private-public partnership initiatives in the public sector and build the capacity for a national contracting agency integrated with the national economic plan. From there we will review all candidates for nationalisation with priority given to monopoly and public service entities such as Railtrack, the electricity grid and the water companies...