Policies

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POLICIES PEOPLE CARE ABOUT

Our party is different to the other main parties. New policies must be proposed by members with the initial backing of 10% of the members. A 2/3rds majority vote by members is needed for policies to become party policy. Our strategy is to not rely on career politicians. We encourage local people to join the party who agree with the party's aim of representing ordinary people. Regarding issues that affect us, our right to informed consent represents real democracy. Please join EDINBURGH PEOPLE so that you can propose and vote on policies at our next meeting. Membership fees are voluntary, so do join us.
EDINBURGH PEOPLE was first founded on 27th April 2024 with a dozen members. As a new and growing party, we are gradually developing our policies. We aim to have a comprehensive manifesto ready for May 2025, one year before the May 2026 Scottish Parliament elections.

Local Democracy

Our elected representatives must take instructions from the members of EDINBURGH PEOPLE from within the ward on how to vote on their behalf. This is true representative democracy: the opposite of autocratic top-down parties which whip their Councillors, MSPs and MPs into voting along party lines or face a disciplinary procedure.

Business Support

Encourage new small businesses to lease empty shops by offering them a 2-year rates relief holiday to help them get past the 18-month period within which most small businesses fail. Increase the VAT threshold from £90,000 to £300,000 to incentivise small one-man-band & family businesses to grow. It will level the playing field with multinationals who enjoy economies of scale and greater purchasing power.

Women’s Equal Rights

Equal rights are a central and important issue to ensure that men and women are treated equally and must be protected. Women’s rights are under threat and the Equality Act 2010 is not sufficiently clear and is not sufficiently publicly supported. The Equality Act 2010 enshrines in law that “Sex” is one of the nine protected characteristics. Equal sex-based rights must be protected to help Scotland be a more equal society and that requires that “Sex” means biological sex. Support all equal rights and women’s equal rights by ensuring that in Edinburgh there is no room for bullying of any group and that women’s rights are protected by the provisions in the Equality Act 2010. It is not acceptable to engage in intimidation by making, sending or posting threats of violence – including towards women who are concerned about their sex-based rights. Law enforcement authorities will be directed to investigate such messages.

Education

Improving literacy and numeracy in Primary Schools is a priority. We will spend time and money researching the best practices so these can be rolled out providing teachers the support they need. We cannot afford to let standards drop further. We also recognise parents’ central role in a child’s education. The Scottish Government’s own Statutory Teaching Guidance for relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) states: “Parents and carers play a key role in all aspects of their children’s education”. In practice, the Scottish Government fails to inform parents of what their child is being taught and does not proactively seek their consent about controversial subjects. Parents are excluded from the decision-making process and are assumed to have given consent. As well as supporting teachers, parents must be empowered in their children’s education to ensure that every child is offered the best education. Our policy is to ensure parents are informed of the RSHP topics at the start of each term, proactively requesting all parents’ consent or decision to opt-out their child from certain topics. It is time to empower parents.

Scottish Independence Referendum

We support the inalienable right of the people of Scotland to self-determination and we support the right to vote on any constitutional change. 

Scottish Independence

Our members have decided to set aside party-political differences, come together and fix politics for the better that way everyone will benefit. Our policy on Scottish Independence is to be neutral and to not have a policy in favour of or against Scottish Independence. Once 2/3rds of the members decide that we should have a policy then we will vote on whether the party should become pro-independence or pro-union. Our members include pro-independence and pro-union members. We have decided on this approach because the priority for EDINBURGH PEOPLE is to have as many members, voters and candidates as possible and to secure as many elected representatives as possible soon.

Social Care

Protect the Social Care budget and oppose any cuts by the council to these important services. Increase financial support for carers who are caring for loved one’s and are facing financial difficulties as a result. Many carers are in extreme hardship due to being unable to keep working alongside their caring responsibility – sometimes having to resort to using foodbanks. No-one should be penalised for caring for their loved ones.

Community Support

The Tourist Tax should fund initiatives for local communities and not for visitors such as floodlit astro football pitches in half a dozen outskirt regions of Edinburgh to empower communities to inspire their children to be active and improve their leadership and team skills and their mental wellbeing. Enhance the central support and funding for amateur sports clubs across Edinburgh. We want everyone to be able to enjoy these benefits, wherever they live in Edinburgh and whatever their personal circumstances.

Roads

The Roads Budget should target long-term resurfacing rather than short-term repairs. We propose to learn best practices from other councils regarding coordinating the different utilities digging up the roads. Other councils around the country are a lot better at this than Edinburgh. More detailed policies will follow once we have investigated the best practices.

Climate Change

Our overall shared aim is to have a healthy planet to leave the next generation, with the least possible disruption to human rights and normal life. We want to see research into which environmental measures will work to everybody’s satisfaction (without harming our civil rights). We think people should have a say in decisions that affect them. This means carrying out a harms-benefits analysis for different possible measures.

Some measures that are intended to reduce emissions are not very effective (such as electric vehicles). Others are ‘benefits’ that the majority of people may not actually value – like the ability to replace a defunct computer every couple of years. That’s probably something that everyone would be prepared to swap for other benefits, if we can provide a good alternative, whereas the freedom to choose when and where you wish to travel is impossible to replace with an alternative.
Let’s review “Net Zero” targets. More time is needed to evaluate which policies are working and which are not before they are rolled out.
Reverse and stop the implementation of new Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. Evidence from around the country shows that these are making car journeys longer. Forcing more traffic on the main arteries is causing congestion and more pollution for buses, taxis, cyclists and pedestrians.
The roll out of Electric Vehicles (EV) should be slowed to evaluate how environmentally sustainable this policy is. For example, EVs involved in minor accidents are having their batteries replaced because of the uncertainty over their safety. This is pushing up car insurance premiums higher and is not environmentally friendly. Instead, we should (for example) legislate for longer-life personal electronic items, and for the right-to-repair these; and explore new possibilities for using recycled materials, and non-toxic renewable materials, in construction and fabrication. We should strengthen clean air and water regulation.
We are backing the right of the people to be informed of the costs and benefits of all the proposed measures and plans, and to have their wishes and interests represented.

Farming

Increase the farming budget and focus on supporting smaller farms to keep farmland in use. Help farmers to farm, remove rewilding incentives and incentives which pay farmers to leave or retire. Scrap climate-related farming subsidies. Productive land must be farmed. Ban arable land from being used for solar farms as Italy recently has.

Investigate ways supermarket buying power can be curtailed. Help farmers sell their produce directly to the public by creating an online ordering and delivery portal managed by Edinburgh Council like offline traditional farmers’ markets are. Change planning laws to support farm shops with zero business rates.

NHS and Health

STOP any further privatisation of the NHS and reverse the privatisation that has already been implemented. The benefits of the NHS’s economies of scale and purchasing power are enormous. What drives the NHS must be improving the care and health of patients and not profit.

Support good nutrition. The more unhealthy and ill people are the more profits there are to be made from ill-health by private healthcare companies and pharmaceutical companies. We believe medical students and nursing students should receive more in-depth education on nutrition, which could prevent much illness. Our policy is to increase the focus on prevention and cures rather than focusing primarily on treating symptoms.
Implement policies to increase the number of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. We urgently need to reduce the length of NHS waiting lists – the only way to do this is to hire more medical professionals, and to provide them with the support they need to do their jobs.

Medical Autonomy

Medical interventions should not be mandated and forced onto people, as happened to NHS staff in 2022 with the Covid vaccine. NHS staff were mandated to be Covid-vaccinated by February 2022 or risk losing their job. So many had chosen to resign and lose their job rather than take the vaccine that the NHS mandate policy had to be reversed. Since then, the uptake of the Covid vaccine among frontline medical staff dropped to 24% in Autumn 2023 and 14% in Autumn 2024. It is immoral to violate medical autonomy and mandate medical treatment.

Defence & Foreign Affairs

We will always call for a ceasefire and a negotiated peace in all conflicts. People never want war, only those who profit from war do. With regards to Gaza, we advocate for an immediate, permanent ceasefire & hostage deal in the current situation, and we support a new political settlement that recognises the equal worth of Palestinian and Israeli life.

Oppose plans to increase the Defence budget. We will invest in building peace to make a genuinely secure world to leave our children.

Telecoms Infrastructure

All telecom masts should require full planning consent. Many people are dismayed at the rate at which these 50-foot masts are being erected in their neighbourhoods. In a recent 12-month period there were 4509 objections lodged against 17 planning applications for 5G masts in Edinburgh.

Planning law allows for only properties within 20 meters of the boundary of the property where the mast is proposed to be officially informed about the planning application. Our policy would be to increase this radius to 200 meters for 50-foot telecom masts as these should not be governed by the same law that governs the planning application for a garden shed.

A full planning application is needed in conservation areas because the 50-foot masts might be too ugly for beautiful neighbourhoods. Outwith conservation areas, full planning permission is not needed as permission has already been granted by the government. For these all that is needed is that the planning authority is informed and for them to agree that they do not need planning permission. Our policy is that all of Edinburgh’s neighbourhoods deserve the same treatment because these 50-foot masts are ugly irrespective of where they are.

Our policy includes a fully costed risk-benefit analysis which would include full disclosure of the Telecoms company’s public liability insurance cover, which is currently, impossible to obtain. Our policy will inform residents properly and provide them with an effective mechanism for their informed voices to be heard irrespective of where they live.