Both Starmer’s New Labour and the Tories got a hammering in the elections on 7 May. Anger at the establishment politicians is growing.
No wonder, after decades of low pay and rising prices, high taxes and public services that are falling apart, alongside Starmer’s support for the Israeli government’s genocidal destruction of Gaza.
But a large minority of voters expressed their rage against the establishment by voting for Reform. It is a party that poses as standing for the ‘little people’, yet Farage gets a £5 million ‘gift’ from a billionaire, and there are now eight ex-Tory ministers in the leadership of Reform.
Farage is also cynically winning votes by using racism and anti-migrant rhetoric, building on what has already been whipped up by successive Tory, and now Labour, governments.
The working class has abandoned Labour because it has continued with Tory austerity. It is essential that the trade unions take on the fight against Labour austerity if they are to cut across Reform. That includes the trade unions starting to build a new party of the working class that can take on Reform at the ballot box, and more.
Many protested against both Labour and Reform on 7 May by voting for the Green Party, which has just won control of five more councils on the basis of opposing austerity. Some of the new councillors are determined to implement that stand, but unfortunately, the Greens as a whole are not committed to refusing to carry out more austerity.
Any councils that took a clear stand against austerity, refusing to make cuts or increase council tax, would have a huge impact – not least on winning working-class voters who voted Reform.
To successfully defeat Reform we need to build a workers’ party with a leadership accountable to the working class, and which is committed to fighting in the interests of the working-class majority.
Today capitalism is in crisis – and governments that defend the capitalist system are determined to make us pay for the crisis of their system. The working-class majority has the potential power to bring this rotten system to an end, provided we are united. If you want to join the fight for socialism – a society in which the vast wealth and resources are democratically owned, controlled, and planned by the working-class majority to meet the needs of all – join the Socialist Party today.
- Read Socialist Party analysis of the 7 May elections, pages 2-4
