What kind of strategy would unite the maximum forces for progress, reforms and socialist revolution in each of its likely phases?

The immediate need is for an approach which takes as its starting point the objective basis for building a broad alliance of a wide range of movements: namely, opposition to the policies of state-monopoly capitalism in Britain. This has to be done taking into account the differing conditions in Scotland and Wales—not least the existence of their own parliament and assembly.

The European and wider international dimensions also have to considered when devising such a strategy.

The reality is that most of the capitalist monopolies based in Britain are owned and controlled at the British—not the Scottish, Welsh, European or global—level. Likewise, their political power is exercised primarily through the apparatus of the British state.

That is why the Communist Party proposes an alternative economic and political strategy (AEPS) to that pursued by the capitalist monopolies and their state power at the British level. Because the revolutionary objective of this programme is the capture of state power by the working class and its allies, this means that in foreseeable circumstances this will take place at the level of the British state.

In our estimation, this struggle is likely to be weakened if it is divided separately between three nations, while the ruling capitalist class remains organised and united at the British level. That is why this strategy places so much emphasis on the need to maintain and enhance unity at this level between the labour and progressive movements, across England, Wales and Scotland.

The AEPS must, therefore, identify the policies which can draw together the widest, most powerful range of forces from the outset, while also outlining the most likely stages through which such a popular anti-monopoly alliance will have to pass before state power is achieved.