People Before Profit is contesting the council election to put workers’ demands at the heart of the political discourse, providing a socialist alternative to the failed politics of division.
Faced with crumbling public services and a deepening cost-of-living crisis, tens of thousands of workers have taken to the picket lines. Stormont continues to falter under the weight of its own sectarian contradictions, but workers are unwilling to wait for a broken assembly.
As May’s poll approaches, we will amplify these striking workers' demands for fair pay, investment in services, and for radical reforms that can reshape our society. Their actions have done more to unite our communities than decades of Stormont dysfunction.
Now is the time to expand grassroots action to challenge devastating Tory cuts, overcome sectarianism, and uplift all communities together. Our election campaign will be waged on behalf of working-class communities who have not felt the 'peace dividend’ heralded with the Good Friday Agreement.
We're asking voters to strike back at the ballot box. To use this election to punish the DUP for placing its narrow agenda above public welfare. The assembly boycott has put people at the mercy of a Tory party intent on a return to austerity, but a restored executive, returned to type, will not bring the change we need.
For decades, establishment parties have implemented Tory policy; Sinn Féin and Alliance are as guilty as the DUP. Their record includes public sector pay cuts, slow privatisation of our health service, and even welfare reform. As they clamour for a return to an Executive unchanged, voters should remember how they implemented cuts in the past, and are likely to implement them again.
In local councils, People Before Profit will not work to prop up these rotten policies. We believe councils should be bulwarks against austerity, ones that protect our communities. We opposed recent rates hikes ratified by the DUP, Sinn Féin, and Alliance Party. We oppose the running down and privatisation of municipal services. We oppose corruption and the sectarian carve-up of council resources, which sees financial support given to a select few.
Unlike others, we believe your rates should fund public services instead of being funnelled to private consultants, used to court big developers, or going unspent in coffers.
People Before Profit is a genuine opposition to the DUP and their bedfellows in local government. As private profits soar and a bloodbath budget looms, we will strike back against ruling political forces that protect the wealthy and impoverish the rest.
In 2019, we returned a historic number of socialist councillors to local councils. In May, we will stand our biggest ever slate of candidates, determined to continue that fight.
Ours is a voice to protect the vulnerable, improve workers’ wages, and to take on the profiteers who are driving wealth inequality.
Workers and the trade union movement are ready for that fight, and we will contest the election to put their voices to the fore.
On May 18, we say workers should strike back at the ballot box. Strike back for pay. Strike back against poverty. Strike back against the rich and the political establishment.
Strike back with People Before Profit.
