The Socialist 13 July 2016

Organise the resistance: fight the Tories and the Blairites

Child poverty rises by 200,000 in a year

Welsh Assembly to scrap 'right to buy'

Nine-month prison sentence for fleeing ethnic cleansing

HSBC jailbreak

Rail fail

What we saw: Angela Eagle Facebook meme

Them & Us

Fight racism: for jobs, homes and services for all

Police racism still lethal in Britain

Majority support migrants staying - fight hate crime

Step up the campaign to back Corbyn's fight

Tory coronation is attempt at stability that can't work

Chilcot Iraq report: More piles of evidence against the blood-soaked war for oil

Angry prison officers walk out over reforms

New threat to impose junior doctors contract must be met with strike action

Vote Chas Berry for Napo national chair

Unite policy conference 2016: Blairite coup, Trident and cuts dominate opening days

Workplace news in brief

Spain: Disappointment for left in re-run general election

CWI in brief

Thousands mobilising to #KeepCorbyn

Why I joined: "I no longer felt isolated from politics"

Fight back is on to save NHS heart services

Sales of the Socialist through the roof since the referendum

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Welsh Assembly to scrap 'right to buy'

Socialist Students members on the Wales March for Homes, 17.10.2015, photo Becky Davis (Click to enlarge)

Jaime Davies, Caerphilly and Rhondda Cynon Taf Socialist Party

The Welsh Assembly has announced it plans to scrap Thatcher's ruinous 'right to buy' policy in Wales. The Socialist Party welcomes this move - but this alone will not be enough to solve the housing crisis.

Socialists fully understand working class people deciding to buy their council homes after Thatcher introduced the policy in 1981. Home ownership can provide partial security against the instability of life under capitalism.

We also welcome the Welsh Assembly's decision to abolish the right to buy within the next year. It is one of the fundamental causes for the shortage of housing in Wales and across the UK.

While ex-council houses have been on the market for the past three and a half decades, councils have not replaced them. Private sector buying and renting is very expensive, and not able to make up the shortfall.

Although welcome, the assembly's decision doesn't go far enough. In order to truly tackle decades-long queues for council housing and meet demand, particularly from young people still stuck at home on low wages, the Welsh Assembly must commit to a mass house building programme. In the process this would create the opportunity for a lot of unemployed people to gain skilled jobs.

Devolved and local governments across the UK should follow suit by abolishing the right to buy. And go further - plan mass building of council homes, and cap private sector rents, so that affordable homes are guaranteed for all.

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Socialist Party news and analysis

Child poverty rises by 200,000 in a year