Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, Socialist Party executive committee
When you join the Socialist Party you join the fight to end the cost-of-living crisis, NHS crisis, war, climate catastrophe – and the profit-before-all-else capitalist system lying behind them.
The election leaflets of our candidates, standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, put it clearly: “Fight for socialist change. Take the wealth off the 1%. Run society in the interests of the many not the few”.
In joining the Socialist Party you join a party with a record of organising for the interests of the working class. That includes twice leading mass organised workers’ action that defeated Margaret Thatcher. First in Liverpool City Council 1983-85, winning funding for 5,000 council homes, nurseries, and apprenticeships off the Tories; and against the Tories’ hated and unfair poll tax, reducing the so-called Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, to iron filings.
Our party aims to bring together workers in struggle at every level – local community campaigns against cuts, student action against campus attacks, fighting discrimination, and trade union organising.
Socialist Party candidates are not unique in opposing the slaughter in Gaza, but we call for – and campaign for – “mass trade union action to stop arming the Israeli state”.
The trade unions, the main mass organisations of the working class, have enormous potential strength, which needs to be at the heart of the movement to stop war.
Austerity represents a transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich. Millions will be relieved when the Tories get booted out.
But the Labour manifesto makes it clear that Starmer’s party has no alternative, for example, to the local government austerity crisis. It only commits to giving councils “multi-year funding settlements and end[ing] wasteful competitive bidding”.
Local government is about jobs and public services, including youth services, domestic violence refuges, social care, and special education needs. It’s about homes and homelessness.
At the recent conference of Unison, the biggest local government union, the leadership failed to offer a strategy to fight back in this area.
But the Socialist Party stepped up with the call for councils to implement no-cuts needs-based budgets and for national strike action to win a £4 billion emergency government funding package, as well as funding lost through austerity.
Fighting to realise this strategy – in the workplaces and communities ravaged by cuts and ready for change – will be a key part of what you will be involved in as a member of the Socialist Party.
Our ideas are the product of fighting to absorb the lessons of history and of our participation in the struggles of workers and young people. We do this collectively when we meet as local branches, trade union activists, and nationally – and internationally as part of the Committee for a Workers’ International.
Young people have been at the sharp end of Tory attacks. But Labour has dropped its commitment to free education. No new money is promised for training, despite the 350 richest individuals and families in the country holding a combined wealth of £795 billion – a sum larger than the annual GDP of Poland.
In 1997, when student fees were introduced by the New Labour government, Socialist Party student members helped build a mass movement against tuition fees, including education strikes.
If you are a young person, joining the Socialist Party means getting active on campus, college, or at work, to fight for young people to get organised.
Taking the wealth off the 1% starts with the call for nationalisation of the likes of Royal Mail, transport, water, and other utilities, but also the main industries in the economy including steel, and the banks – with no compensation to those fat cats and under democratic working-class control.
In this rich country, everyone should be able to afford a warm home, have a well-paid job, access free education and health, while protecting our environment.
As Socialist Party members, campaigning for nationalisation allows us to explain the first steps towards that and the completely different way of running society we need, democratically planned and organised to meet the needs of the 99% and the environment, not the profits of the 1%.
And as Socialist Party members we fight for the organisation of the working class that can advance all these demands – campaigning trade unions but also a new mass workers’ party in which we will unite behind a common socialist programme to end the rule of the rich. That will be necessary also to stop Farage and Co presenting their dead-end divisive ideas as a voice for the working class.
We hope this helps you see how your place is in the Socialist Party – join us!
