Fight for a socialist alternative
Rae Cox, Oxford Socialist Party
Workers across the country have been feeling the squeeze of the ever-present cost-of-living crisis this winter. Debt advice charity StepChange had “3,958 visitors on Christmas Day, and 15,401 on New Year’s Eve and 1 January combined.” While the Debt Justice campaign reported a 300% increase in outstanding council tax since 2014, now totalling £8.3 billion. And with the backdrop of growing global instability, many will fear the cost of energy could spike dramatically, as we saw at the outbreak of the Ukraine war.
After years of cuts and underinvestment, the UK economy is practically stagnant with it growing by a paltry 0.1% last autumn. Some analysis predicts no growth at all occurred at the end of 2025! What this means is the bosses will try tightening our belts, with wage restraint at best and job losses at worst, all as prices continue to rise. Many workers have turned in the short term to borrowing and debt to make ends meet, with credit card debt growing at its fastest rate in the past two years this winter.
And Labour’s answer? Their hopes are banked on more private investment. But most of the bosses are largely uninterested in the tiny stagnating UK economy, and the rest are demanding deeper cuts and further attacks on workers’ living standards. No wonder Labour is historically unpopular, but with £91 billion of pledged cuts in his first 100 days if Nigel Farage becomes prime minister, Reform would be no alternative either.
Only the fighting working class can change this. Workers in Unite alone have won back £620 million by taking action since 2021. The May elections will be a key chance for workers to make electoral gains too, with local councils still responsible for over 800 services and functions. Bringing services back in-house, building more council housing and fighting to reverse a decade of austerity would go a long way in reducing workers’ bills.
But under capitalism, any gains workers win will be under threat from the bosses who try and maximise their profits. We need a socialist society to make these gains permanent. To take into the top 150 companies and the banking system and run them under democratic working-class control and management. To massively expand public services and renationalise what has been lost. For the mass building of genuinely affordable, high-quality, environmentally sustainable council housing.
If you want to fight for a socialist world then join the Socialist Party today.
