Leaflet handed out by Socialist Alternative for the November 5 People’s Assembly Against Austerity demonstration in London
- Mass struggle for a general election now
- Coordinate, escalate, broaden the strikes For an inflation-busting payrise across all sectors, and a £15/hr minimum wage
- No return to austerity! Fight all cuts to public services!
- End the dictatorship of markets – nationalise mail, rail and the key sectors of the economy
- Fight for a socialist alternative! Build a new left party of working-class struggle
The Tory government has been in freefall. Now Rishi Sunak, the 3rd Prime Minister this year, is aiming to patch up and halt the collapse of his party. He stands, unelected, at the head of a government which has presided over the biggest fall in working class living standards for 60 years, as part of a cost-of-living crisis which risks driving millions into destitution.
At the same time, big business reports record profits. The government is continuing its lurch to the right, attacking our democratic rights to strike and protest, as well as the rights of LGBTQ+ people, and has refused to take meaningful climate action. It is clear that they have to go – now! But they will not cede power willingly. If we want to be sure of seeing the Tories out of office before 2024, we must organise a colossal struggle to force the government’s hand.
Strike wave sweeping Britain
Already, we are seeing the beginning of coordinated strike action to fight for inflation-busting pay rises across the board. On 1 October, railway workers in RMT, ASLEF and other unions joined postal workers in the CWU and others, including dock workers, in the biggest day of strikes in over a decade. We need to continue building on this type of coordination, and it should be stepped up and broadened out even further. Teachers, university workers and others will be striking over the coming months, posing the possibility of an almighty strike wave to develop. We need a one-day general strike to bring together all these movements together with millions of workers who want to fight back over low pay and terrible working conditions.
However we cannot just wait for the TUC leadership to start organising for this scale of action. By building unity and coordination between unions and campaigns such as Enough is Enough, we can prepare for a national day of coordinated action with hundreds of thousands of workers on strike together. Enough is Enough and other campaigning groups should be built as platforms to bring together workers, tenants and students to broaden the protests and strikes that are taking place.
University students can build support for their staff by joining picket lines and organising solidarity demos on campus. Fighting to build support for workers in the NHS and schools who are balloting to go on strike will also be crucial in the coming weeks This could be enough to force out the Tories, who still hang by a thread. It would set the stage for an election framed by mass struggle against inflation, austerity and all attacks against working class people.
Our struggle must not end if a general election is called. While many will hope that a victory for Starmer’s Labour Party offers a chance to halt the worst of the Tories’ anti-trade union laws and most brutal austerity policies, unfortunately Starmer has already said that the current crisis will mean “tough choices” for a Labour government. But these choices will only be “tough” for ordinary people.
The Labour leadership has already indicated what these plans will mean in practice: loyalty to the needs of big business and the bankers at the expense of public services and workers’ wages. An end to the Tory government will not mean an end to the crisis of the capitalist system. The struggle against the effects of capitalism on wages, services and communities will have to continue!
After November 5 – build a mass movement for socialist change!
We need to continue building this struggle in workplaces, on housing estates and local communities, in universities and on the streets, to wage the strongest struggle possible.
Through organisations like Enough is Enough, we can begin to develop a mass working class movement, controlled from the bottom up, with a fighting strategy to force a general election. To end spiralling inflation and the endless string of economic crisis that has become ‘the new normal’, we will need to take the energy and rail companies into public ownership, along with the banks and other massive corporations, under democratic workers’ control and management, to plan production and prices based on our needs rather than the profits of the super-rich.
Join us to fight to put an end to this capitalist system which means poverty, war, oppression and climate destruction. If you agree with the need to get organised and fight for socialist change, get in touch with us today!
