Trade unions must name the day for a demo

Mark Best, Socialist Party national committee

Cuts to disability benefits, pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and public sector spending across the board. The record of Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been one of attacks on the working class. They have raised tuition fees for the first time in a decade and drag their feet on improving rights at work.

And the situation facing working-class people is getting worse. The cost of the food we buy is going up. Finding a job, especially for young people, is dire. And rents are still out of control. And, most importantly for the politicians, ‘the markets’ are looking shaky.

Desperate to steady the rocking ship, the government has pushed back the Budget to 26 November. That’s about as late as it could possibly be. They’re hoping against hope an economic miracle happens in the meantime. But we have to be clear, alongside potential tax rises which will hit working-class people hardest, Labour is preparing the next round of brutal austerity. It would mean cuts to our NHS, education system, local councils and civil service – already all in deep crisis.

We need to prepare the fight back now. The TUC (Trades Union Congress) met at the start of September and passed a motion that called on it to “organise a weekend demonstration against Labour austerity as a launchpad for sustained trade union action in defence of workers and young people”. It needs to start building for it now.

Why not name the date the 22 November, the Saturday before Rachel Reeves’s planned brutal budget? It would show working-class people are ready to fight back, and act as a launchpad for coordinated industrial action.

Socialist Party members are fighting in our unions, our communities and on our campuses for an alternative to endless austerity. By fighting together we can win – that is the lesson of the monumental strike wave of 2022-23. Workers who took action forced the then-Tory government back to the table and were able to win pay rises previously ruled out of the question.

While Labour politicians meet and shake hands with representatives of big business to reassure them that the Labour government will continue to be for the bosses, working-class people need a party of our own. One that will take the wealth and resources out of the hands of the super-rich capitalist class and run society on a truly democratic basis, putting the power into the hands of ordinary workers to make decisions based on what we need instead of the profits of a few.