Ken Douglas, Socialist Party national treasurer
Socialist Party members have begun 2013 in the way they finished 2012 – by continuing the fight against the attacks of the Con-Dem government and, in the process, continuing to smash the fighting fund targets.
We raised £25,910 – 104% – in the first three months of the new year.
This month, dubbed ‘Black April’, sees the NHS opened up for further wholesale cuts and privatisation, the Con-Dems’ attacks on the poorest through the hated bedroom tax and other changes to housing and council tax benefit coming into force.
Throughout England and Wales our members have been campaigning against these attacks. This government of millionaires is almost daily ratcheting up its measures to make the working class pay for the crisis caused by the banks and big business.
The fighting fund enables the Socialist Party to produce campaigning material on all these issues – to put forward a programme to defeat these attacks and bring down this government.
We say that all workers under attack can unite in coordinated strike action, initially in a 24-hour general strike bringing together public and private sector workers.
We say there is the money to pay for our services but it is locked away in the banks and the vaults of the big companies, who are sitting on vast hoards of wealth, and salted away in tax havens by the super-rich.
As well as the donations we receive from ordinary working class people in the course of our campaigning, over £10,000 was raised from the finance appeal at the recent Socialist Party congress.
This is an indication of the confidence of our members in our perspectives for the developing struggle against austerity and the understanding of the importance of being able to finance our campaigning.
It also shows our confidence in the idea that only through a socialist transformation could we democratically control the vast wealth and resources in society and build an alternative to the future of misery and austerity offered by capitalism.
You can help! Can you make a donation to our fighting fund to take us on the way to reaching our target for the next three months?
You can pay via the Socialist Party website www.socialistparty.org.uk/donate or telephone 020 8988 8762.
