Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/1072/30226
From The Socialist newspaper, 5 February 2020
The rich fund the Tories and Blairites, so help fund the working-class fightback
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.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
In The Socialist 5 February 2020:
News
6.5 million working poor: Fight to end low pay
Labour leadership contest and public ownership
Coronavirus exposes capitalism's weaknesses in healthcare and economy
Record dissatisfaction with democracy: capitalism's dead end
Refuges turn away 64% of women - set no-cuts budgets now!
Grenfell watch: Unions challenge 'mockery of justice'
Rail
Nationalise the railways: For an integrated public transport system
Expensive, overcrowded and unreliable: Renationalise the railways!
Cancel the franchise, not our trains
Will the North get investment and transport infrastructure?
What we think
'Post-Brexit' era of crisis ahead
Workplace news
Huge victory for Bromley library workers after 241 days on indefinite strike!
14 more days of university strikes over pensions, pay and conditions
500 BBC journalists' jobs under threat
Newham council tax workers' pay victory
No to academisation of east London schools!
Ealing tax office workers strike against closure
NHS
Outrageous waiting times will put lives at risk
NHS: Save stroke beds in Coventry and Warwickshire
International
Syria: Assad regime consolidates power after brutal counterrevolution
Israel/Palestine: Trump 'peace plan' promises further conflict
Campaigns
Socialist Party calls anti-austerity protest on Budget Day
Sadiq Khan "out-Tories" himself to defend tech firms' tax bonanza
Reading Labour council: Stop privatising our leisure services
The rich fund the Tories and Blairites, so help fund the working-class fightback
Support the working-class press in 2020
Defend and fight for warm, safe housing for Samira and everyone
Alternative Burns Night success
Readers' opinion
Liverpool council: "No more cuts" - Is Joe Anderson serious?
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