Message from Rochdale rebellion

In Gaza, after five months of bombing and siege, huge swathes of the two-million-strong population face acute hunger. Israeli forces gun down those queueing for limited food. Egypt’s president Sisi is building what is effectively a prison camp to hold Gazans in the event they are driven from the Strip into the Sinai desert.

And yet in Britain, Tories and Labour conspire to prevent a vote for an immediate ceasefire in parliament. MPs have also never voted on whether or not to drop the millions of pounds worth of explosives in Yemen.

One thing they are prepared to vote on is further cuts. Whatever the details of the Tory budget, to be presented after the Socialist goes to press, our public services will remain underfunded. And for a hint of what a future Labour government will be like, look no further than the council budget votes in places like Birmingham and Nottingham – Labour councils slashing hundreds of millions of pounds. (see page 5)

The Tories are hated, and there is no enthusiasm for Labour too – the result of the Rochdale by-election, won emphatically by George Galloway, proves it.

Working-class people need our own political voice.

The RMT rail workers’ union has given its support for Jeremy Corbyn to stand in the general election. Why not other fighters too?

Imagine if there was a list of workers’ candidates, backed by the trade unions, fighting in the interests of working-class people against the bosses. Standing firmly for an immediate end to Israeli state terror and in support of the Palestinians’ right to national self-determination.

Such a stand would be an important step towards the development of a new mass party of the working class. And to be able to stand consistently on the side of workers in the face of capitalist crisis, to offer a way forward to bring an end to war, poverty, inequality and climate destruction, it will have to fight for socialist change.

That is what the Socialist Party is fighting for.

Join us!