Trade unions must lead

Labour’s Autumn Budget, presented to parliament on 26 November after the Socialist goes to press, will be a budget for the bosses.

It will double down on austerity policies of cuts and privatisation, designed to make the working class pay to try to keep the capitalist ‘markets’ happy; whatever the price for the working class, our communities and the services we all rely on.

It is plain for all to see that the working class does not have its own party. And in the absence of a genuine workers’ voice, right-populist Reform is benefiting by posing as being anti-establishment, but doing the bosses’ bidding trying to divide the working class.

The 800,000 who initially signed up to support the creation of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party is proof of the huge desire for a left-wing political alternative.

The trade unions – representing over six million workers already organised to defend the working class against the bosses’ attacks – must take the lead.

By acting on the policy of the TUC (Trades Union Congress) to organise a union-led weekend demo against Labour austerity.

By organising the industrial fightback against the bosses’ and Labour’s attacks, like the heroic strike against the disgraceful attempt to slash £8,000 from Birmingham bin workers’ salaries.

And by taking the lead in organising for a political alternative to Labour. For example, by fighting for candidates to stand in May’s elections who pledge to resist austerity, backing no-cuts budgets, set to meet the needs of our communities and demanding the super-rich are made to pay.

Three days after the Budget, Your Party starts its founding conference. To make good its stated intention of ‘putting the working class at its heart’, would require giving the organised working class in the trade unions a democratic voice inside its structures. And it should take up the huge and pressing opportunity of fighting for a wide, anti-cuts stand in the elections in May.