TRADES unionists and anti-poverty campaigners gathered in their thousands in Glasgow yesterday to call for an end to Westminster austerity economics and demand more powers for Holyrood.
Marking the end of Challenge Poverty Week, the rally - billed as backing A Just Scotland - organised by the STUC saw about 3500 people march from Glasgow Green to George Square. Similar rallies took place in Belfast and London, with calls coming for a living wage and for urgent action to tackle inequality.
STUC general secretary Grahame Smith said: "The referendum campaign showed the appetite that exists in Scotland for tackling poverty, for fairer wages and against austerity.
"As the debate over future powers [for Holyrood] continues, we must not lose sight of the practical solutions to combating poverty: fair pay and working conditions, a living wage, decent housing and combating fuel poverty."
Poverty Alliance director Peter Kelly said more than 800,000 people in Scotland lived in low income households, adding: "In a rich country like ours, this is unnecessary and unacceptable."
Although the speakers primarily attacked David Cameron and the Conservatives for welfare cuts and austerity, there was also criticism of Labour leader Ed Miliband and Ukip's Nigel Farage.
Referring to the commission on devolution being led by Lord Smith of Kelvin, Grahame Smith said: "The so-called 'vow' promised extensive new powers … and the people of Scotland will be directly engaged in the process. Well, I've seen nothing yet to convince me that either of these promises will be delivered.
"If the politicians think they can cook up a deal behind closed doors, to be handed down to a grateful public, then they've learned nothing from the last two years and should think again."
Owen Jones, a political commentator and author, said: "When Ed Miliband called for the minimum wage to rise to £8 by 2020 that was not just derisory, it was an insult. No-one should work for their poverty. Never, never, never."
He said the referendum had made Scottish democracy "the envy of the entire world", but warned: "Promises were made to you. Promises that, if those at the top can get away with it, will be broken, every single one."
Jeane Freeman of Women for Independence said women suffered disproportionately from poverty.
She said: "Poverty in this rich country does not land on us from the sky. It's the result of political choices that see an economic policy based on austerity as the right way to go."
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