Nick Chaffey, Socialist Party national committee
Strikes. Demonstrations. The Socialist Party has raised its voice, providing a socialist alternative and a strategy to take the struggle forward.
We can’t be certain of tomorrow’s events. We live in times of sharp turns and sudden changes. But we do know that a general election is looming. We know council elections will take place on 2 May. So we must prepare.
If we want socialist ideas to be heard in the general election, we are going to need to find the resources to stand. Local elections are free and we must exploit that to the full, by standing council candidates as widely as possible this May. But general elections come at a cost.
The Socialist Party is preparing to stand 30 to 40 candidates as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). For every candidate we want to stand we need a £500 deposit and the money to produce leaflets for the Royal Mail freepost we can send to every home in each constituency we stand in, a minimum of £700 for 40,000 A5 leaflets. A minimum target of £50,000 is necessary.
That is a large sum for a small organisation of workers and young people squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis. But we have to rise to the challenge and dig deep to have a socialist voice that can reach thousands of voters, strikers, anti-war protesters, workers and young people.
The Socialist Party has a history of working-class struggle, of past victories that should inspire us for the tasks ahead. We have a clear fighting socialist programme that can point a way out for humanity in this era of war and economic crisis. We have confidence in the working class and the roots we have built up in the trade unions and communities that can fight back and win in the period ahead.
In the 1980s we turned bold socialist ideas into the election victories of Terry Fields, Pat Wall and Dave Nellist, workers’ MPs on a worker’s wage who gave a voice to the epic battles against Thatcher.
Workers and youth today are looking for answers and a way to fight back. There is no mass party representing the interests of the working class. The political vacuum is enormous and we can only partially fill it.
Based on the huge events that are coming, thrown up out of capitalist crisis, the organised working class in the trade unions will be compelled to fight in the electoral field.
These steps, towards the development of a new mass workers’ party will raise the sights of the working class as a conscious force to fight for socialist change.
It would be a mistake not to take seriously the role we can and must play. We need to grasp every opportunity in the general election to build support for socialist ideas – raising the necessary finances for that fight is the challenge we must rise to.
How much can you give? Pledges to be made by 2 May, and paid by the end of June. Pledges can be sent now to [email protected] and donations can be paid at socialistparty.org.uk/donate with “GE appeal” in the comments.
