A FAIR day’s pay for a fair day’s work, that is supposed to be the deal.

But when was the last time that was the case?

After 13 years of Tory austerity, increasing climate breakdown and ecological destruction, we are facing our darkest hour.

Those in power expect the practical work of running a country to continue no matter how low they suppress wages or how high they hike prices. When challenged by striking workers, they plead powerlessness.

They point to inflation, the market, global conditions. They will say and do whatever it takes to protect their positions, their access, their privilege.

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But we have one thing they don’t: strength in numbers. Put simply, we outnumber them.

The underpaid, the discriminated, the marginalised, and, yes, the middle-class homeowners. Anyone and everyone who is failed by our current economic system has something in common.

And by coming together we can change the system.

That’s why it’s imperative that each of us join – and play an active role in – a trade union and take up local campaigns on the issues affecting our communities. And when it comes to parliament, we need to make sure that our party – a party of labour – represents our needs, in all their diversity.

Creating a party to encapsulate the diversity of needs among all who lose under Capitalism was no mean feat, and the founding of the Labour Party was by no means the end of the struggle.

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By its very nature, our broad church requires continuous and constant evolution to serve the people in the face of mutating Capitalism. That means each of us has a responsibility to ensure the longevity and viability of a party of labour, not least those of us entrusted with elected representation.

Labour members and supporters want a Labour government

We do so because of what our party has a proud history of standing for: social justice and economic redistribution The leader, though wielding huge power, is in the grand scheme of things not the priority.

The nature of a democratic party is such that leaders come and go. What is most important is that the principles of the party remain intact, running like a thread connecting us with all those who came before us, connecting us to our history and guiding our future.

That’s why I, like many others, have spoken out in defence of scrapping the cap on child benefit.

Despite this placing us in direct opposition to the current leader.

Not simply because the two-child limit is heinous and punitive. And not only because as an economic lever it pays for itself multiple times over. But because it represents a statement of intent for us as a movement of the people.

READ MORE: Monica Lennon slates Starmer for saying he won't scrap two-child cap

As the labour movement’s representation in parliament and government, the Labour Party have a central role in making the case for socialism, repeatedly, vociferously and unapologetically.

How we respond to the Tory politics of divide and rule contributes to the public consensus of the kind of society we want to be. Creating a society that values everyone’s contribution and demands our collective dues requires hope that things can and will change.

If people do not believe things can get better, then our movement is sapped of energy, our class doesn’t progress.

We lose our sole advantage over the Capitalist class: strength in numbers

So, as democratic socialists, social democrats and anyone who believes in a fairer world, of eradicating poverty and rebalancing the scales of financial inequality, it is our duty to speak out. Even when it risks bad press or internal strife.

The future of an effective party of labour is at stake. As participants of a mass movement and caretakers of the Labour Party, it is our responsibility to advance society to the next stage.

Before a Labour government created the NHS, good health was the preserve of the elite. If you couldn’t pay, you weren’t seen.

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With the founding of the NHS, Labour showed that we could change the economic and social system, so that good health was a right of everyone equally, not just those with the deepest pockets.

It did so in the face of huge social strife and economic uncertainty following the Second World War. That time seems a world away, yet we face many profound challenges now as we did then.

Economic uncertainty is not a reason not to act. In fact, it is all the more reason to act. Because without government intervention, there will be no economic recovery, there will be no improvements in living standards and we will not have a healthier, fairer world to pass on to future generations.

We cannot manage the current broken system, waiting passively for the next advance in conditions for our class. We must bring about that change ourselves. Now. No one can do it for us.

We must bring about the dawn of the next epoch and, to overcome the challenges we face, it must be a socialist one.