Strike together
Build a new mass workers’ party
Fight for socialism
Liz Truss’ brutal, pro-rich, anti-working class Tory government is on the rocks before it’s even set sail. She hasn’t got the support of the majority of working-class people who are struggling with the cost-of-living nightmare. She hasn’t even got the backing of her own MPs.
Forced to make one of the fastest and biggest political U-turns in history – dropping the massive tax boost for the richest in society while the rest of us can’t make ends meet – this is a weak, crisis-ridden government that could collapse at any time. But working-class people need to organise to make sure that happens.
The tens of thousands of workers who took strike action together on 1 October, and the tens of thousands more balloting for action on pay, will be taking confidence from the Tory party’s meltdown. Now is the time to intensify coordination of the strikes and maximise the collective power of working-class people.
As a next step, the Trades Union Congress should turn its 2 November lobby of parliament into a united day of strike action, with a national demonstration. A well-publicised and organised demo, demanding inflation-proofed wage rises; a minimum wage of £15 an hour; nationalisation of the energy companies, rail and mail, and Tories out, would attract massive support – not just from strikers but from everyone who wants to fight back against low pay, poverty benefits, rampant inflation and profit-greedy bosses.
With such an enfeebled Tory government, the next general election could be much less than two years away. But Keir Starmer, and Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, are already making it quite clear that they will not find the money to finance public services and the pay and benefit rises we need. The Socialist Party’s call for a new mass workers’ party has never been more urgent.
A step towards this would be to make sure that at the next election we have workers’ candidates standing that will fight for what we need, and not to defend the interests of the bosses and the super-rich, as all the main parties do. This is what the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – the electoral coalition that the Socialist Party is part of – is campaigning for. Even a few workers’ MPs in the next parliament could be the political focus for a working-class fightback and for building the mass socialist political alternative needed to a rotten capitalist system that puts profits before people. Join us in that fight.
