Sunak and Starmer on bosses’ side
Build a new mass workers’ party
Elaine Brunskill, South Tyne and Wearside Socialist Party
In working-class communities and among swathes of young people, there’s a groundswell of anger and frustration against this rotten Tory government.
Their almighty battering in the local elections was just a taste.
Incredibly, as 13 years of Tory attacks take their toll, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has bragged that ‘Labour are the real conservatives’ and promised to protect ‘our way of life’. Also, to change his party’s ‘DNA’ to be like Tony Blair ‘on steroids’!
Exactly which way of life is Starmer seeking to preserve? Go to any pub, travel on public transport, visit any picket line, or queue alongside other workers and it’ll not be long before you hear the sentiment, the rich are getting richer, while the rest of us are getting poorer.
In my home town of Gateshead, babies born today in parts of the borough are expected to live 12 years less than in more affluent parts of the country.
There is now a record number of people reliant on food banks, including pensioners, NHS staff and teachers. It has been reported that staff and volunteers in food banks are so stressed they are suffering from burnout.
Across the UK growing numbers of workers and young people are living shorter, harder lives. Meanwhile, the rich and super-rich are rolling in it. The chasm between rich and poor is stark.
According to Oxfam, the richest 1% in Britain hold more wealth than 70% of the rest of us. Incredibly, just five super-rich Britons, who could fit into a family car, have more wealth than 20 million British people. Is this the way of life Starmer is wanting to protect?
The gap between the rich and the rest of us is wider than ever before, but the gap between Starmer’s Labour and the Tories is virtually invisible to the naked eye.
Yes, we want to get rid of the Tories, but they need to be replaced with politicians prepared to fight in the interests of the working class, against those of the bosses. We need a new mass workers’ party.
Socialist Party members are campaigning for such a party, and for a workers’ list of candidates, backed by the trade unions, for the next general election as a start. We need a socialist alternative to capitalist greed and austerity.
