Build the socialist election stand

Daniel Forrest, Teesside Socialist Party

Prices, interest rates and rents still rising – the squeeze on working-class people across Britain keeps getting tighter.

People are worse off, and our public services are crumbling. For good reason, people hate the Tories and can’t wait to get them out!

Was the Tory budget the last big throw of the dice before a general election? A reduction in national insurance by two pence, higher taxes on vapes and business class flights too. Will this make any meaningful difference to the lives and living standards of working-class people? Absolutely not.

The ‘tax cut’ will have no effect on those who don’t pay national insurance due to low earnings or being out of work. And with income tax thresholds ‘frozen’, more people pay more tax than they did when Sunak took over.

Ironically, the other major announcement was the scrapping of the ‘non-dom tax status’, an idea stolen from the Labour Party – which also shows how little ambition Keir Starmer has for his likely upcoming government.

The money raised won’t be used to properly fund the NHS, education or local government, however, it will be used to fund opportunistic Tory tax cuts for their big-business handlers.

The Tories have never been friends of the working class and do not pretend to be. But we don’t have to accept that voting for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour is the only option. After all, neither he or his pro-big business shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will stand up for the working class.

We need a new mass workers’ party to fight for our services, jobs and rights. The upcoming local elections on 2 May give us one way to fight back. By standing candidates as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), Socialist Party members are campaigning with others for an end to cuts, and for elected representatives who will fight on our side against the bosses.