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After Labour’s complete failure to defeat the Tories:

Help build a fightback against austerity

Support the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

Millions of people woke up on Friday 8 May to face the nightmare of a Tory majority government. Workers, pensioners, young people, the unemployed and the disabled: all of these people and more are now in fear of the misery that this new government will mete out.

The stock markets meanwhile rose in relief that ‘their government’ was in power.

It is incredible that, after the Con-Dem coalition presided over the longest wage squeeze since Victorian times and the decimation of public services, Labour proved incapable of defeating it.

The right-wing press has declared this proves Labour was too left wing. But the opposite is true; Labour was not left wing enough, refusing to put forward a real anti-austerity alternative.

In Scotland the SNP swept the board, virtually annihilating Labour who were derided by Scottish voters as ‘red Tories’. While in reality the SNP in Scotland has carried out austerity, it was by posing as being to the left of Labour and anti-austerity that the SNP was able to win.

Voters in England and Wales were also enthused by a seeming voice against cuts. In opinion polls the SNP reached 9% across the whole of Britain, despite only standing in Scotland!
Yet Labour endlessly repeated that it too would carry out further severe cuts in public spending and would be ‘tougher on benefits’ than the Tories. Ed Miliband refused to contemplate forming a government supported by the SNP even if that meant the Tories coming to power as a minority.
For all those desperate to end austerity Labour was clearly signalling it wasn’t on their agenda.

The Tories didn’t win it – Labour lost it!

In 2010 only 24% of the electorate voted Tory. This time their vote increased marginally, by just over half a million. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats lost well over four million votes.
It was mainly by winning a section of ‘right-wing’ Liberal Democrat voters that the Tories were able to gain seats, despite only a very small increase in their vote.
Undoubtedly some of those voters were affected by the scare campaign – particularly against the SNP – run by the Tories and the right-wing media, given Labour’s complete failure to answer it.

Labour did manage to increase its share of the vote more than the Tories, but only by 1.4%. Turnout in Scotland was high, but in England it was just 65%, no higher than at the last election. Millions didn’t vote because they are so disillusioned with all the establishment parties.

Others protested by voting for the right-wing, divisive UKIP which came second in over 90 constituencies, many of them previously Labour strongholds.

Others – around a million people – voted Green.

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)

TUSC stood in 135 parliamentary and over 600 local elections on 7 May 2015. TUSC does not yet have the strength or the profile to channel the majority of the anti-austerity mood. Nonetheless, over 100,000 votes were cast for TUSC in these elections.

In Coventry North West Dave Nellist, chair of TUSC, received 1,769 votes. In Southampton, Councillor Don Thomas, a TUSC supporter who has taken a clear anti-cuts stance, won his council seat with 2,500 votes, a majority of 1,000.Details of the TUSC results will be posted on: www.tusc.org.uk

TUSC’s 100% anti-austerity stance in these elections is a very important first step to building a party which stands in the interests of the working class. Labour’s dismal failure in this election puts the need for a new voice for the working class centre stage. The trade union movement urgently needs to discuss how to create a mass workers’ party.

At the same time the workers’ movement needs to prepare to resist and defeat the attacks this government will launch. The last government could have been defeated if the public sector general strike in November 2011 had been used as a starting point for a mass movement against austerity.
Instead the majority of the trade union leaders derailed the struggle, telling workers that we should hold on for a Labour government to solve our problems. We need to get organised to prevent that happening again.

The National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) conference on 4 July will be vital in preparing that struggle. But if a movement against austerity is blocked by the trade union leaders it will find another road, as has happened with the magnificent anti-water charges movement in Ireland.

But to make sure all the opportunities to build a movement against austerity are seized we need the strongest possible socialist organisation: which is why you should join the Socialist Party today.

Join the socialists

• Go to: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/main/join
• Text JOIN with your name & postcode to 07761 818206
• Email [email protected] Phone 020 8988 8777
• Write to Socialist Party, PO Box 24697, London E11 1YD

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National Shop Stewards’ Network (NSSN) conference:

Stop the union busters!

Saturday 4 July

11am-4.30pm
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL

Confirmed speakers include:
Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary,
Ronnie Draper, BFAWU General Secretary
Dave Smith, anti-blacklisting campaigner

£6 per delegate/visitor
All trade unionists welcome.