2024 is highly likely to be the year that we finally see the back of the Tories after five Tory prime ministers. Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron are hate figures for many working-class people for the devastation they have inflicted on our services and communities over more than a decade.
Millions hope against hope that a government led by Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer will be different. What’s needed is money for council services, investment in our NHS and a fully-funded decent pay rise for public sector workers.
But Starmer has promised none of that. His watchword is ‘fiscal discipline’ – cuts. And like the Tories too, he stood behind the Israeli state’s bombardment of civilians in Gaza.
Trade unions, made up of working-class people defending their living standards, have been to the fore fighting the Tories in 2023. Mass protests against the onslaught on Gaza brought down Tory home secretary Suella Braverman.
The anti-war protests continue, and junior doctors and London Underground workers are on strike at the start of this year.
Labour should be wholeheartedly campaigning for an end to the war on Gaza and for Palestinian national self-determination, as well as promising to meet the doctors’ and tube workers’ demands.
To best fight for working-class people in 2024 means continuing to take strike action where necessary, whichever party is in power. And also, to use the upcoming elections – local and general – to fight for pro-working class policies. That’s why the Socialist Party is preparing with others to stand as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) – a step towards the new mass workers’ party we need.
The end of the Tories has to mean the end of the Tories’ policies. Socialist Party campaigners will be fighting for socialist policies such as building council homes, a £15-an-hour minimum wage, and the renationalisation of mail, rail and the utilities. These things can be afforded, and more. But it means taking on the super-rich profiteering bosses, and fighting for socialist change by taking the big companies into democratic public ownership so the economy can be planned to meet the needs of all, not the profits of the rich.
