Looking ahead after a great campaign

Thanks for all your support!

After Labour’s meltdown – fight back against the Tories by building TUSC  

After a really excellent campaign our results are:

Nancy Taaffe in Walthamstow – 394 votes

Len Hockey in Chingford – 241 votes

We distributed well over 100,000 leaflets, had dozens of volunteers helping us campaign on the streets or bundle leaflets or raise money, and had thousands of conversations. “I see you everywhere” said many when they came across our pink flashmobs around the borough! And the pink is here to stay – this campaign was always a step towards something bigger, building for the future.

These are modest votes. We believe this reflects mainly the campaign of fear by the mainstream parties leading people to think they had no choice but to vote purely on who they would prefer to be prime minister. The on-going battle for every ounce of media coverage is also an issue. It’s clear from the thousands we spoke to that our support goes much wider than those who felt able to vote for us this time. Having said that, we increased our vote in Walthamstow from 2010 and there is certainly a small but growing constituency of committed TUSC voters.

We would appeal for those voters, and others who support us, to not just passively give us your vote but to join us. Help us build a political voice for working class and young people.

We’re horrified to see another Tory government elected. The Con-Dem Coalition is hated for what it has done to people in the last 5 years. In that situation the Labour Party should have been able to win this election hands down. That they haven’t is an indictment of Labour and its failure to inspire and enthuse the mass of people.

We would argue, if Labour cannot defeat the Tories now, when people are so angry and so keen for a change, then when could it? Labour is no longer capable of representing working class people in our fight against the bosses and their party the Tories. We have to build something new. The struggles that will inevitably follow in the next months and years to defend jobs and services from yet another Tory onslaught, need to take the lead. TUSC is at the heart of this process.

We plan to organise a post-election meeting soon, check back for details.

End of campaign rally: A voice for the 99%

Support DPAC ‘revenge tour’ – vote Len Hockey to sack Iain Duncan Smith

On Saturday 25th April we will be participating in the DPAC (disabled people against cuts) day of action against Iain Duncan Smith, Tory work and pensions minister and Chingford and Woodford Green MP, in Chingford – meeting at 2pm at Chingford rail station. Below is the text for our leaflet on the day:

TUSC supports the demands of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC).

As DPAC state, disabled people are affected by the cuts 9 times more than everybody else, and the most severely disabled people are affected by the cuts 19 times more than everybody else.

We agree with DPAC that this discrimination against disabled people must end – and also demand that ALL cuts and austerity must end.

The changes to benefits introduced by the Labour government and intensified by the Tories demonstrate the cold cruelty of capitalist parties who want to force working class people to pay for a crisis we did not cause, and who have sought to wreak their worst on people that they thought were hidden and would be less likely to fight back.

We applaud the bold actions of DPAC in fighting these cuts, and support the ‘Revenge tour’ fortnight of action in the run up to the election.

TUSC rejects austerity. The richest 1,000 people in Britain have doubled their wealth through this crisis, while working class people have lost jobs, pay, benefits, services and even homes.

Our manifesto states:

■ STOP THE ATTACKS ON DISABLED PEOPLE

Promote inclusive policies to enable disabled people to participate in, and have equal access to, education, employment, housing, transport and welfare provision.

Support measures to ensure disabled people receive a level of income according to needs. Equal pay for equal work.

In order to achieve these things, TUSC calls for the democratic public ownership of all transport, public services, utilities and the banks. TUSC stands for a democratic socialist society in the interests of the millions not the billionaires, with full human rights and equality for all; in which everyone can live a meaningful life with dignity and control, with full access to work, education, home, leisure, transport and public life.

What is TUSC?

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is an electoral coalition standing against all cuts. It includes the RMT transport union, the Socialist Party, the SWP and leading members of other trade unions and activists. We are standing 135 general election candidates and over 600 local election candidates this May.

Our candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green is Len Hockey. Len has been a porter at Whipps Cross hospital for 26 years and led numerous campaigns in defence of NHS services and terms and conditions for NHS workers.

Come to our end of campaign rally:

Sick of big business politicians and their cuts?

A voice for the 99%!

2.30pm Saturday 2nd May

Harmony Hall, Truro Road, Walthamstow

walthamforesttusc@gmail.com

@TUSCWF

Facebook: Waltham Forest Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

http://www.walthamforesttusc.com

We need YOU!

There are lots of dates coming up that it would be great to see as many supporters at as possible:

1) Friday 17th April TUSC TV broadcast

Catch it on all five terrestrial channels – BBC2 5.55, ITV 6.25, BBC1 6.55, C5 6.55, C4 7.55

2) Saturday 18th April Super-Saturday

-12pm campaign stall by Lidl on Walthamstow Market – wear pink!

-4pm fundraiser event at the William Morris Community Centre, Greenleaf Road, E17 6QQ – bring a dish, a bottle, a friend and some cash!

3) Sunday 19th April Chingford activity

12pm by Chingford Sainsburys – come along to help or meet candidates and supporters

4) Saturday 2nd May End of Campaign Rally – a Voice for the 99%

2.30pm Harmony Hall, Truro Road

Chingford: Meeting with Bilal Mahmood

I, and other trade unionist TUSC supporters, visited Bilal Mahmood, the prospective parliamentary Labour candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green on Sunday 26 January. TUSC had written to all the local Labour PPCs asking them to publicly state their position on trade union rights, restoring public services and benefits, a living wage, and public ownership.

Bilal was very hospitable and made us tea and biscuits. On the issues raised in our letter he explained that his general position was one of support.

He said he supported a living wage. He was appalled at the cuts and thought that his stance against Chingford MP and secretary for work and pensions Iain Duncan Smith was imperative to stop ideologically driven cuts. He agreed with trade union freedom and supported taking rail and Royal Mail back.

However when we pressed him on how he would have voted on Trident, and the £30 billion cuts just voted through by 550 MPs from all three main parties(including Stella Creasy and John Cryer) he admitted, not unexpectedly, that he probably would have been with the official Labour Party. His words were: “I will tow the party line”.

Bilal Mahmood reflects a kind of Labour representative that believes that Labour has to be supported even if he doesn’t personally agree with them on every issue. He saw Labour as a “last line of defence”.

He explained why he had left the Labour Party after the invasion of Iraq. Along with millions of workers he was appalled that Labour could take the country to war. However, he later changed his position, and was seen welcoming Alistair Campbell of the famous “dodgy dossier” to a Walthamstow Labour Party dinner last year. He did not get the irony!

He echoed the position of a few Labour politicians that some privatisation, like the Academies programme, the sell-off of Royal Mail at a knock-down price, and generalised outsourcing of public services had gone too far. And also like many Labour politicians his conclusion was, predictably, that Labour wouldn’t be able to reverse any of these measures.

Working people in Chingford may want to get rid of the Tories, but, really, what kind of alternative does this candidate offer? This interview made us even more determined to try our best to get a TUSC alternative on the ballot paper in Chingford.

By Nancy Taaffe, TUSC prospective candidate for Walthamstow

Why I’m standing: Sarah Wrack, Valley

Sarah on the National Union of Students demonstration in 2012

I first moved to Waltham Forest in 2004, when I was 15. I didn’t spend much time here then – it was before I got involved in politics, all my friends were still in Tower Hamlets and as far as I was concerned, there was nothing to do here.
But when I came back from university in 2010, I started a job in Leytonstone and moved into a shared rented house just down the road. I was a member of the Socialist Party by then and so got to know lots of other activists who worked and lived in the borough.
At the end of 2010 I organised groups of college students from Leyton Sixth Form to protest as part of the student movement against the tuition fees rise and scrapping of EMA.
I helped set up the Waltham Forest Anti-Cuts Union and in 2011 we marched through the borough against the devastating cuts being made by the local Labour-led council, particularly to children’s and young people’s services.
In 2012 I took part in the campaign against the far-right, racist English Defence League who attempted to march in the borough twice. There was a fantastic response from the community and we stopped the EDL holding their rally in August and scared them off completely in September.
In 2013 I was involved in the campaign led by Whipps Cross hospital workers in defence of the hospital and trade union rights and against cuts and down-bandings, including a great demonstration through the borough, led by the nurses affected.
So in 2014 I’ve decided to stand as part of the Waltham Forest Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition list against all cuts. I’m standing because these fantastic campaigns might have successes or failures, but the bosses and politicians always have more attacks around the corner.
The issues aren’t separate – NHS cuts, council cuts, racism, the anger of young people – all a result of the capitalist system we live under that is run purely for the profit of the super-rich 1%. I’m fighting for a system democratically run by and for the 99% – one that can provide everyone with a decent home, education, job, healthcare and leisure time.
I’m standing because I want the 15 year olds in the borough today to feel engaged – to be involved in fighting to make the borough, and society generally, better for themselves and their futures. I don’t think any of the main parties are capable of offering that, but TUSC is.

Letter by local TUSC candidate in the Guardian

This letter, written by local TUSC candidate (for Endlebury ward) Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, was published in today’s issue of the Guardian.

John Harris ridicules as outdated the left-of-Labour calls for a mass house-building programme to solve the housing crisis (The Tories own the future – the left is trapped in the past, Comment, 3 April).
But a new report predicts that London will be “crippled” if there is no solution to housing disaster. What would Harris offer to the private tenant whose landlord is demanding a rent increase on his one-bedroom flat in Walthamstow from £800 to £1200? This is what is old-fashioned, stuck in the pre-council-house past where landlords’ greed was the only factor determining rents.
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition calls for mass building of council homes, for trade union rates of pay in the jobs created in the building and refurbishment schemes, and for rent control, with rent councils to set the cap. To most people, that’s a programme that addresses the future.
Sarah Sachs-Eldridge
London