Cameron Must Go!

Fred Leplat on the People’s Assembly demo next Saturday.

The Tories are facing their biggest crisis yet. The revelation of David Cameron’s stake in his father’s off shore tax haven, proves that this is a government for the privileged few, not for the majority. This shows beyond all doubt that Cameron is divorced from the life of any working person.

The National Demonstration on Saturday 16 April will be where everyone can come together and demand: Cameron Must Go!

Just three weeks before the local elections on the 5^th May, The People’s Assembly Against Austerity is calling for everyone to demonstrate for Health, Homes, Jobs and Education. The demonstration on is also backed by the UNITE, PCS and NUT unions.

The weakness of the Tory government is now being unravelled for all to see. Osborne’s budget was yet more privatisation and cuts to public services and hand-outs to his rich friends. The Tories believed they could get away with more austerity for the millions while helping out the millionaires. But the Tories are now falling apart and not just over whether to stay in or leave the EU.

In a totally cynical and opportunist move, Ian Duncan Smith resigned over cuts to disability benefits while further tax breaks were being given to the rich through a reduction in Capital Gains Tax. The Panama papers leak reveals the scale of greed and corruption of the rich who hide their money in the British territories of the Virgin Island, Bahamas and Guernsey. Cameron protected off-shore trusts from scrutiny against EU attempts, and has done little to clean up the City or banks like HSBC which key players in this scandal.

Tory backbenchers of the 1922 Committee are rebelling over the plan to turn every school into an academy, presumably because they want to keep their local selective grammar schools. The crisis in education is not just the threat of total academisation (a soft privatisation), but that of the dramatic crisis in recruitment as 40% of newly qualified teachers drop out soon after their first year on the job because of overwork and underpay.

The crisis of the NHS is also haunting the Tories. Hunt wants a seven-day NHS without extra funding. But every day now brings news of hospital trusts in financial difficulties because they have to divert money to hire expensive agency staff to cover shortages. Meanwhile, the junior doctor’s strike against the imposition of a contract, which will worsen dramatically their working conditions, is hugely popular. Everybody knows that they are striking not just for themselves, but also for all the other staff who are threatened with the same changes. They are also striking for the NHS in its original form, as a public health service for everybody from the cradle to the grave, free at the point of delivery, and funded by taxation.

The result of 5 years of the Tories’ policies – that as much as possible should be left to the free market – is there for all to see: unaffordable housing, exhorbitant public transport, and millions without secure employment with decent pay as they work on zero-hours contract or are forced into self-employment. It is even more obvious with the lack of action by the government to save the 40,000 jobs if Tata Steel close, with Cameron, Osborne and Javid ruling out nationalisation because they believe that the free market and private ownership works best.

With the Tories weak and divided, now is the time to step up the fight in the communities, in the workplaces and in the ballot box for an alternative to austerity. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell provide a political alternative that Left Unity supports. They should be defended against the right who are livid that a coherent alternative to austerity is proving to be popular. A huge demonstration for Health, Homes, Jobs and Education less than three weeks before the election will give encouragement to all those who want to punish the Tories in the local elections on the 5^th May, and who want a alternative that meets the needs of people and the planet, not that of private profit.