END the “marketised failure” of social care with a publicly owned national care service, the Communist Party of Britain demanded today as part of its campaign for the upcoming Edinburgh Council by-elections.

The party is standing candidates Richard Shillcock for the Southside/Newington ward and Peter Olech for the Portobello/Craigmillar ward on September 3.

The Communists argue that Edinburgh’s current social care landscape, which is deeply reliant on private contractors and plagued by low wages, is failing both the vulnerable and the workforce.

The party is campaigning for a structural overhaul that mirrors the founding principles of the NHS — care that is fully nationalised, universally accessible and free at the point of use.

The campaign centres on localised demands designed to reverse decades of council privatisation and outsourcing, including of adult social care contracts to be brought back under NHS and local authority management and ending exploitation of the predominantly female and ethnic minority workforce.

It also calls for the expansion of municipal budgets by taxing the city’s private corporate wealth and shifting resources away from military spending toward local services.

Mr Olech said that Edinburgh’s social care infrastructure is “crumbling and working-class communities are paying the price.”

“Turning care into a profit-driven market has driven down wages for care workers and diminished the quality of life for those needing support,” he said.

“We are standing to ensure care is treated as a fundamental human right, managed for the many rather than corporate shareholders.”

Mr Shillcock said: “The choice facing Edinburgh voters on September 3 is simple: welfare or warfare. 

“We could fully fund a dignified, publicly owned care system and reverse years of devastating budget cuts if we prioritised investing in people.”