'The Attorney-General should issue a government health warning that capitalism seriously harms you and those around you', Graham Stevenson told the Communist Party executive committee at the weekend.
He referred to rising unemployment, escalating personal debt and bankruptcy, widespread use of hard drugs and anti-depressants, alcohol abuse and NHS cuts in a society where a small minority continue to accumulate massive and mostly tax-free wealth.
'Workers should focus more on the free movement of capital than the forced migration of labour as a major cause of insecurity and instability', he suggested, pointing out that five of Britain's six biggest energy utilities were now in foreign hands - to be followed soon by Corus, ICI, Intercontinental hotels, United Biscuits, Whitbread and the London Stock Exchange as a result of 'a roll of the dice on the Monopoly board'.
'Faced with the economic downturn predicted by the World Bank, overseas transnationals will close their subsdiaries in Britain before their core operations at home', Mr Stevenson charged, 'while the British capitalist class use the City of London to export their capital around the world'.
He spoke as Britain's Communists launched a new edition of the Left-Wing Programme for public ownership, progressive taxation, a wealth tax, capital controls, higher state pensions and benefits and compulsory audits for equal pay. The party's executive committee urged full support on picket lines for the January 31 one-day strike called by civil service unions in defence of jobs, pay and conditions.
National trade union official Mr Stevenson also warned of plans to revive the European Union Constitution as part of a drive to enshrine privatisation and other neo-liberal policies in a fundamentally anti-democratic super-state. He welcomed the establishment of a Communist Party advisory committee on the European Union, comprising party and non-party trade union officials and academics.
The CPB executive committee condemned British government support for US President Bush's new offensive in Iraq. Warning that a new military alignment in the Middle East is creating the context for an Israeli nuclear strike against Iran, party leaders urged a massive mobilisation for the February 24 peace demonstrations in London and Glasgow.
General secretary Robert Griffiths reported that party membership rose by 10 per cent last year, with 69 per cent of 655 applications to the Communist Party and Young Communist League coming from people under the age of 30.
