The rich fund the Tories and Blairites, so help fund the working-class fightback

The Socialist Party needs funds to pay for leaflets and other campaigning material among other things, photo Samantha Smith, photo Samantha Smith (Click to enlarge)

Ian Pattison, Socialist Party membership subs organiser

The Socialist Party needs you to increase your subs.

The rich back their own parties. A donors' dining club has given the Tories £130 million since they were elected in 2010 to implement brutal austerity. Similarly, big business backed Labour under Tony Blair - donating over £9 million in 2003 alone - when they thought the Blairites best served their interests.

The Socialist Party has no rich backers. We rely solely on the support from working-class people - through the subs of our members and from donations. And the last quarter of 2019 was a record for donations.

We raised over £50,000 in fighting fund between October and December, the highest in a three-month period since the millennium. That's on top of regular donations, sales of the Socialist and pledges to our building fund - which helped us secure our own premises in 2019.

Now we're asking all our members to increase their regular membership subs. Please think about increasing yours. Can you increase your monthly subs by £30, £40, £50 or more, or if not by a smaller amount? Every extra pound is vitally important.

Ordinary people are still being hit hard by austerity. And now Tory chancellor Sajid Javid is proposing more - 5% cuts, weeks after saying austerity is over.

We say stand firm for socialist policies against the Tories. To Labour councils we say don't carry out Tory cuts - stand firm like Liverpool council did in the 1980s, with the slogan of "better to break the law than break the poor". We want our fighting socialist message to be part of every campaign against these terrible cuts.

But we need resources to do so. We need to maintain our premises, to continue the production of our weekly colour 16-page Socialist paper and monthly magazine Socialism Today; for our podcast - Socialism - and our website. For leaflets, petitions, posters, banners and flags.

Capitalism worldwide is in crisis - dozens of countries have been rocked by protests against capitalist austerity and oppression. A part of your subs also goes to the Committee for a Workers' International - CWI, the socialist international organisation the Socialist Party is a part of - to fund the fight for a socialist world.

If you like what we say, join us. But you don't have to be a member to start making a regular donation: www.socialistparty.org.uk/donate

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.