Why I joined: “In those 16 pages of the Socialist I found more sense and integrity than in the mainstream media”

The Socialist is a campaigning newspaper which gives the working class a real voice

The Socialist is a campaigning newspaper which gives the working class a real voice   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Leon Wheddon, Wirral Socialist Party

I have read the Socialist paper occasionally over the years and chanced upon Socialist Party members selling it locally one weekend. In those 16 pages I found more sense, integrity and genuine class pride than in months of propaganda and spin from the mainstream media.

I emailed the party about joining and received a reply from Dave, the Wirral branch organiser, inviting me to attend a meeting. Work commitments stopped me from attending as regularly as I would like but by my second meeting I had signed up as a member.

I found intelligent, eloquent comrades from diverse backgrounds passionate enough to give up their evenings and weekends for a demo, rally or picket line. Wirral Socialist Party provided much-needed support for Wallasey Labour members suspended on baseless Blarite allegations. We are very active locally and have become a regular presence in the area.

I joined because I stand for the woman fleeing an abusive relationship only to find Tory cuts have closed the refuge, with the migrant worker too scared to confront his boss over low pay and long hours. I stand with the pensioner forced to choose between dying from hypothermia or malnutrition as their pension buys less and less by the week.

I stand with the junior doctors and their colleagues in the NHS as they fight a government determined to ruin us all in a failed experiment of austerity. I stand for those who can’t stand up for themselves, those who have bought the lie of neoliberalism and found themselves blamed for the greed of bankers and privateers.

Those killed for the colour of their skin or because they loved the ‘wrong’ person. I stand to make the world better for those not yet born – in the hope their world will be a better one.