TUSC must continue to present the alternative to pernicious cuts

Councillor Kevin Bennett, the TUSC parliamentary candidate for Warrington South, summed up his thoughts on his election campaign.

Here in Warrington it has been a short campaign, I only resigned from the Labour Party at the end of February 2015, but it has been an intense campaign and we have raised the profile of TUSC. Having received 238 votes, I take heart from this and I will keep up the momentum ready for my local election campaign in 2016, for my ward Fairfield and Howley.

The surprise of the Tories gaining a majority victory makes it all the more important that TUSC keeps up the pressure to show people that we are the only real alternative to the pro-austerity, establishment parties.

The campaign drew in people who want to see an end to austerity. As a TUSC candidate I want to continue building a left alternative, following the largest left campaign we’ve seen since the Second World War. We’ve got to have a debate with the trade unions and with other left groups to create a more united left after the election. I feel that the Labour Party will move more to the right now and so TUSC will be the ‘credible’ alternative for the many who can’t bear to see the Tories in power.

We need a network of people who know that there will be pernicious cuts to come and who are prepared to fight.

Union-Labour link

In April this year, Unite leader Len McCluskey warned Labour leader Ed Miliband – who introduced the Labour-trade union ‘reforms’ – that Unite could break its links with Labour if the party lost the next election.

He said he could see the union voting to disaffiliate from a defeated Labour if it ceased to be the voice of working people. It’s time to hold him to this. The Labour Party was warned time and again not to continue with its ‘austerity-lite’ policies and now it has it should be representing, I believe it’s time to break the link.

The rows with the party over allegations of the rigging of a Labour candidate selection by Unite in Falkirk, central Scotland, as well as Labour’s support for public sector pay restraint, should have been the catalyst for breaking the link at that time. This Labour defeat should surely be the last straw.

More than a million public sector workers will need the support of the left to protest over government policy on cutting public sector services and jobs. There’s no doubt about it, we are now facing the fight of our lives and TUSC is the only credible alternative to take up the ‘crusade’.

I stand fully behind the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and agree that we need a radical left agenda. TUSC will put forward an agenda for the people and I will be proud to fight for a better future.