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From The Socialist newspaper, 18 April 2018
Give us your change (and more) to fight for system change!
Marching to save Chatsworth ward, 2.9.17, photo Elaine Evans (Click to enlarge)
Ken Douglas, Socialist Party national treasurer
Socialist Party members strained every sinew to try and reach the target of £30,000 for the first quarter of the year; in the end we fell just short, raising £28,372.
However this was a fantastic effort as in the same period we have also raised over £82,000 for the building fund.
The fighting fund underpins our ability to campaign and get our ideas out to as wide an audience as possible.
We have no rich backers, we rely on the support of ordinary people and the energy and drive of our members to ensure that we have the resources we need.
The year started, as 2017 had finished, with our members campaigning to save the NHS, a crisis entirely manufactured by the Tories' programme of cuts and privatisation.
Branches from Plymouth to York, Bristol to Liverpool, Wirral, Stoke and Huddersfield have been fighting to save their local hospitals.
In Leicester and Mansfield victories were scored as Glenfield Heart Unit and Chatsworth Ward were saved from closure by determined campaigns.
We battled the snowy conditions in February and March, supporting the UCU education strikers, who showed the anger there is at the bosses' constant undermining of living standards and working conditions.
Regional conferences saw good finance appeals, with over £500 raised at the West Midlands and London conferences, and over £6,000 at our national congress.
At those same meetings appeals for the building fund were also helping raise over £150,000 in pledges; a fantastic response showing how seriously our members take the need for finance. £452 was raised at long-standing member Mary Jackson's funeral in Doncaster.
Branches also tapped into other ways to raise funds, with Swansea raising over £200 selling second-hand books and £100 on a car boot sale.
Carlisle continued their tradition of Burns Night celebrations, raising £190; Salford branch raised £200 with a music night with local bands.
Now branches will be campaigning in the local elections - a great opportunity to raise fighting fund; ensuring that we continue to have the resources we need to build support for a socialist alternative to the corruption and greed of the bankers, the super-rich and their capitalist politicians.
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In The Socialist 18 April 2018:
What we think
Labour Party
For a fighting, democratic Labour Party
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
Give us your change (and more) to fight for system change!
Building fund: £150,000 milestone smashed!
The Socialist - a fighting, campaigning, workers' paper
Hull says no to war, no to austerity
Victorious Fearnville Fields campaigners thank the Socialist
Socialist Party news and analysis
1,400 beds empty as patients lay in corridors: health unions must act now
Catalonia: 1m marchers demand self-determination
Billions for the bosses, benefit cuts for us
Local elections 2018
Labour councillors could stop unsafe 'driver-only operation' tomorrow
Grimsby local paper reveals Labour candidate 'tried to defect to the Tories'
TUSC campaigners challenge youth club cuts
Huddersfield TUSC takes on the Blairites
Butterfields tenants join TUSC campaign
Haringey TUSC fights Blairite cuts
Socialist history
Enoch Powell's racist 'Rivers of Blood' rant 50 years on
Workplace news and analysis
Usdaw conference 2018: time for new era of fighting trade unionism
UCU members vote to end pensions dispute
Bromley libraries - indefinite strike action continues
PCS rejects Acas offer - further strikes announced
Vote for a left, fighting PCS leadership
Avenue School strikers and parents win judicial review
Workers' victory over anti-union Scottish council
Opinion
Vital depiction of fight for Aids prevention and treatment
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