The Workers Party of Britain:
- is committed to the redistribution of wealth and power in favour of working people.
- is committed to a reversal of policies aimed at deindustrialisation & to exploring innovative demands for workers control and participation in the future of industry through our trade unions.
- supports the call for a Net Zero Referendum as soon as possible to create a national debate on who profits from these targets and on what terms. We will oppose ULEZ initiatives because of the costs they impose on working households and small businesses.
- promises to undertake a major review of pensions policy with the ultimate aim of restoring a life-long commitment through earnings to adequate pension provision with all workers having the option of retiring at 60.
- will legislate to support workers and managers in the acquisition of productive enterprises and their assets that otherwise would be closed or distributed to shareholders where the company is either intended to be sold to a foreign owner or to be closed in order to export production overseas.
- supports campaigning to preserve the right to use cash. We are not Luddites when it comes to digital currency and fintech – our demand, however, is that this and other technologies, including blockchain and artificial intelligence, are under sufficient community control to ensure positive social and economic outcomes for the working class and the vulnerable.
- will immediately increase the personal tax threshold for the poorest paid, removing tax entirely from the first £21,200 of wages for two million low-paid workers, and at the same time we commit to a one-off wealth tax on all estates valued fairly at over £10 million to make a start on redressing the colossal gap between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population.
- will ensure working class representation throughout the governance of the Bank of England.
- will fully renationalise the NHS and commit to significant spending on social and economic infrastructure and implement major efficiency savings.
- will take a decisive role in the pharmaceuticals industry on which our NHS depends. An entirely private pharmaceuticals industry is inimical alongside a public health system. Without close monitoring and significant control, it offers a recipe for profiteering at best and dangerous malpractice at worst.
- will support Britain’s children by committing to free public travel arrangements, mirroring those that currently exist for children in London by offering them to the rest of the country. Furthermore, we will support the provision of free good quality and nutritious breakfast and lunch meals during term time to all children in school without means testing.
- by committing to a review of policing priorities, will support a refocus on street safety and estate crime as an antidote to policing by Twitter and criminalising speech and thought.
- makes no apology for our support for Palestine and the people of Gaza during the current brutal onslaught which has been enabled by Labour and Tories alike. We call for a single state in which all those born in Palestine-Israel can live in peace with equal rights.
- is committed to offering a long term and well organised socialist alternative to the corrupt Labour Party, which is now nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
- will undertake a thoroughgoing review of our defence and foreign policy.
- is calling for a referendum on membership of NATO with a view to a national debate on all our collective security arrangements. Our own position is clear – under current circumstances, we will continue to campaign for Britain to leave NATO as a clear and present danger to the security of the British population and seek new collective security arrangements centred on the protection of peoples and not of states or industries.
… and we offer so much more than this …
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.
