WE WANT change. We demand equality. We need prosperity in place of austerity and for the many not the few.

We want to build a society based on an economy where there is real democracy, where public services are publicly owned and delivered. A society where there is a real redistribution, not just of wealth and income but of power too.

Voting Labour at the general election is not in itself enough, but it is the best hope that we’ve got in 2015 of achieving this kind of radical transformation.

A Labour government under pressure from working people through the organised trade union movement has ushered in groundbreaking change in the past, from the creation of the welfare state to full employment, homes for all and a social wage.

Of course we don’t agree with everything Labour does in power or out of office, and never have, but every good thing we have in our society — from the NHS and trade union rights to public ownership, health and safety and equality laws — has been delivered by Labour governments down the years.

It is no secret that some working people in Scotland are thinking of voting SNP at the general election. But the SNP in power has let us down.

In the last year it has failed to roll out the living wage to private contractors delivering public services and public works in Scotland.

It has failed to take any decisive action to stop companies involved in the blacklisting scandal from winning millions of pounds worth of public contracts. The SNP government has also disproportionately hit jobs and services in local government in Scotland. So while the SNP claims it wants to join a so-called “anti-austerity alliance” at Westminster, it has been busy implementing austerity in Scotland.

Worse still, its avowed aim to introduce Scottish fiscal autonomy would in one fell swoop mean a massive £7.6 billion of additional public spending cuts.

By contrast, Labour has pledged to increase tax on the wealthy with a mansion tax, a bankers’ bonus tax and an increase in the top rate of income tax, underpinned by a serious clampdown on tax evasion.

In its first 100 days a 2015 Labour government will legislate to devolve the setting of income tax to the Scottish Parliament, with new borrowing powers. It will give the final say on the level of welfare benefits paid in Scotland to the Scottish Parliament, coupled with the power to introduce entirely new benefits. The Scottish Parliament itself will also be entrenched as a permanent institution.

At last the House of Lords will be abolished.

And in the field of worker and trade union rights, Labour will end abusive zero-hours contracts, outlaw agency exploitation and bogus self-employment, abolish employment tribunal fees, re-invest in a more robust health and safety executive and take firm action on blacklisting and justice for the victimised miners.

In this general election it is Labour which is building its case on political principles for a higher cause, not looking to some base, expedient and tactical considerations which others are relying on.

If we want a change in the balance of power in society and in the economy, a Labour vote is our best hope.

It will then be up to us, as it always has been, to force that change and to make it endure.

• Richard Leonard is GMB Scotland political officer and a member of the Red Paper Collective.