Now is the time to act

While the devastation of budget cuts here has yet to manifest itself, working people across the country are now squarely confronted by the urgent necessity to resist the vicious vampirism of big business and our complicit ‘leaders’ – we can no longer afford to sit idle and hope the worst will pass us by.

n Rotherham this Saturday, the BNP again held a stall. Their racist sloganeering, xenophobia and nationalist jingoism are a gift to dominant centres of elite power; by turning working class people against working class people they thereby fail to draw attention to, and direct anger against, the real outrage of the day – namely, the theft and fraud carried out by international bankers and financial institutions at the expense of OUR public service institutions.

In the face of the coming ransacking of the institutions our relatives and ancestors fought for and won for us, we must reject simple-minded arguments which play on our fears and be mindful of the Greek and Irish examples.

Rotherham must come together to stare in to the face of private power and fight against it… I invite all socialists, trade unionists and other non-affiliated members of the public to the Bridge Inn on the evening of Thursday December 2 to discuss the formation of a non-partisan Rotherham Anti-Cuts movement.

We have no time; we are not safe.

Chris Bingham, Socialist Party, Rotherham Branch.