Fight for socialist change

As the Socialist goes to press for the last time in 2023, it is not known whether or not Rishi Sunak will still be in Number 10 in the New Year.

The level of devastation the Israeli state forces are yet to inflict on Palestinians in Gaza and on the West Bank is also unknown.

It is almost certain that world leaders will fail to agree to phase out polluting fossil fuels at the COP28 climate conference. And absolutely certain that households in Britain will face an even more austere festive period than last year.

War, poverty and climate destruction are the symptoms of profit-driven capitalism in crisis. The consequences of a super-rich capitalist elite competing for who can make the most money at the expense of working-class and poor people in Britain and internationally.

2023 has seen no shortage of working-class people fighting back; through a strike wave on a scale not seen in a generation, and with some of the biggest-ever pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Starting the year refusing to even meet unions to discuss pay, the Tories were forced by workers’ action to concede. The 11 November mass Gaza demo claimed the scalp of hated Tory home secretary Suella Braverman.

The Tories won’t survive long in office. Labour’s Keir Starmer is dead set on course to be next prime minister, but promising iron-clad fiscal rules (read ‘cut-backs’) and backing the Israeli state’s onslaught on Gaza.

The best new year’s resolution you can make is to organise and strengthen the working-class fightback in 2024. Join the Socialist Party in fighting for a working-class stand in the general election. Help us, with others, put up a set of workers’ candidates – trade unionists, anti-war campaigners, community campaigners – to take on the Tory-Labour pro-war, cuts consensus.

Help us fight for the socialist policies needed to transform working-class people’s lives in Britain such as: a £15-an-hour minimum wage, fully funded services and council house building. And help us win support for socialist change internationally – taking the vast wealth and resources out of the hands of the capitalist elites, to put into democratic public ownership and planned to meet the needs of all, not profit – the only way to end war, poverty and climate destruction.