Join the socialist, anti-cuts election stand!
Sheila Caffrey, Socialist Party National Committee and NEU Executive member (personal capacity)
The working class is angry. We had a taste of our potential power during the 2022-23 strike wave, we can see through the Labour government’s lies, and we’re pushing back.
Education workers in the National Education Union (NEU) are launching a national ballot next month to fight against workload, funding cuts and redundancies. And other workers in the public sector – ravaged by austerity cuts and privatisation – can fight back too.
Birmingham Labour Council has been to court, trying to push through an injunction to hinder solidarity action with bin workers fighting against extreme pay cuts and cuts to health and safety. Phlebotomists in Gloucestershire have been on strike for months to win a regrading pay rise that recognises them as vital health workers.
But politically, we don’t have a voice. None of the capitalist establishment parties represent us. This Labour government represses protests, passes bills backing the bosses, and implements further cuts and privatisation.
We clearly need a new party – one that is built by us, controlled by us and led by us. One that is part of the working-class and trade union fightback for the jobs, pay, and services we need.
The May elections are an enormous opportunity to stand hundreds of trade unionists and working-class fighters, putting forward what is needed to win.
Without a working-class alternative, many will look to express their anger and frustration by voting for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. But like all the other mainstream parties, Reform promise more of the same cuts, closures and redundancies, and help the bosses by trying to divide our class.
We need people who will stand fighting for funding for health, education and public services. A programme of mass council house building and an end to homelessness. A programme that is built on what working-class communities need and will fight for, one that smashes the lies that ‘it’s not affordable’ by pointing to the obscene wealth of the super-rich and fights for socialist change.
If you support that, it’s time for you to step forward! Come and stand with us, as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), to fight for what is needed.
