Build the socialist opposition
“Cuts to the welfare bill that out-Tory the Tories,” is how one Labour MP described attacks chancellor Rachel Reeves is planning. On 26 March, she will present her ‘spring forecast’. Up to £5 billion of cuts to disabled people’s benefits are being discussed, as well as swingeing cuts across public services.
There were 190,000 excess deaths from Tory austerity between 2010 and 2019, according to researchers at the London School of Economics. The causes: ‘deaths from despair’, health and benefit cuts, as well as the pervasive effects of economic hardship. Since, there has been a brutal cost-of-living crisis, and now further austerity.
As if people weren’t already angry enough. Keir Starmer is prepared to spend billions more on war while attacking pensioners and disabled people. He is scapegoating disabled people while cosying up to Trump and the super-rich.
Those who act like Tories should expect to be treated like Tories.
The Tories were smashed in the general election after facing the biggest strike wave in a generation. ‘Stormy’ is our forecast for this Labour government.
But the socialist opposition has to be organised and built. Like it did during the strike wave, the trade union movement should lead from the front again – by organising a weekend demonstration against Labour austerity in its own name, as a start. And by leading in the development of a new mass party of the working class.
Where they are taking place, May’s local elections include the opportunity to put a socialist challenge to Starmer’s Labour, as well as Tories and Reform, at the ballot box. Socialist Party members will be standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
