Despite the crisis of the thirty-year neo-liberal project, the three main parties are promising more of the same. All they have on offer is war, environmental destruction, unemployment, public service cuts, wage cuts, privatisation, racism, repression and surveillance and a lack of affordable housing for working people. Labour are putting in (inadequate) fiscal stimuli, whereas the Tories would let the market rip. But all three are united in making the working class pay for the crisis.

The much-vaunted green shoots of recovery are a cruel deception. The reality is that the crisis will continue and unemployment will continue to rise up to and beyond the general election. All this makes it the most important general election for a generation. It will take place amidst a toxic mix of rising unemployment and a profound discrediting of the political system brought about by the MPs’ expenses scandal. Millions of votes, which would normally go to the main parties, particularly Labour, will be up for grabs.

This puts a huge responsibility on the left — and on this conference today — to get its act together and provide a left alternative to which ex-Labour voters can relate. To say that there has never been a more urgent case for a united left alternative is to understate the situation.
The looming danger in this election is not just the Tories but the fascist BNP and the right-wing racist UKIP. They stand to be the big winners from the election, particularly if there is no united left alternative.

As part of the process of building a broad inclusive working-class party, it is therefore crucial that there is a viable left challenge at the General Election. It is now very late but today’s conference — along with the unions represented at it — is best placed to start the process towards this.

A new party is for the future, but a common framework for the election — maybe based on the People’s Charter —which allowed existing parties to stand in their own name would be an important step forward.

On November 14th, there will be the Respect conference in Birmingham. It has the biggest electoral footprint on the left, and has the possibility of doing very well, or even winning, in three Westminster seats, especially now that the Greens have made the welcome decision not to stand against Salma Yaqoob. There are other areas where the left could do well: for example, Dave Nellist in Coventry or Caroline Lucas for the Greens in Brighton.

Only a strong united left intervention can offer the possibility of a real alternative to falling working-class living standards, job and service cuts, increased racism, discrimination, climate catastrophe and war policies espoused by the traditional parties and the fascist BNP.

This is the final text of the leaflet to be distributed by Socialist Resistance’s London branch at the RMT conference this Saturday on working class political representation. It can be downloaded as a PDF document from http://bit.ly/12Ef4T. An earlier version is in Spanish here.