Former RMT General Secretary, the late Bob Crow, avidly championed working class politics. He became disillusioned over time by the failings of the Labour Party leadership; a party that RMT, as the Society of Railway Servants, helped found 114 years ago.

No longer, he and others felt, could it be claimed that “One Nation Labour” represented working people. It has become hardly more than a Tory second eleven.

Consequently, RMT helped forge the Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in 2012 - a new and re-invigorated political voice for workers, rooted in the organisations and communities of working class people.

TUSC is important because it is the only nationwide, socialist electoral alternative to the pro-business mainstream; standing as it does on a firmly anti-austerity platform.
So far, voters perhaps understandably have settled for Labour, as the lesser of two evils. Many are turned off politics altogether, or have fallen for the lure of the far right UKIP as a (mistaken) protest vote.

However, if Labour came to power, they would carry on cutting services and slashing jobs. They have committed themselves to maintaining the Tories’ austerity programme, having voted to continue with £30bn worth of cuts, if elected. Confirming what more and more workers know already, this is what the Financial Times cynically commented today (2nd Feb), “Conservative and Labour policies are closer than either [leader] would care to admit…”

Bob Crow at RMT’s 2012 AGM said, “Millions of workers have had their pay frozen for years now and have seen their real standards of living decrease by 16% while boardroom pay has gone through the roof. You would have thought that the Labour Party might do something to side with those taking a battering and against those dealing it out but you would be wrong.

Labour and the government are now positioned like Tweedledum and Tweedledee; whichever one you vote for you end up with the same kick in the teeth for the very people that make this country tick, and that is a disgrace.

Who are those nurses, teachers and public service staff going to vote for, now that Labour has made it clear they have abandoned them?

The case for a political party rooted in the trade unions and with a clear socialist agenda is now overwhelming as Ed Miliband and Ed Balls signal their desertion of the working class and their adoption of a pro-business, pro-EU and pro-austerity programme”.

As part of his legacy on May 7th 2015, TUSC will stand 135 parliamentary candidates and around 1000 candidates in local elections. This is the biggest left challenge to New Labour for generations! With TUSC, socialists, trade unionists, community workers and others are changing the political agenda in Britain!

Glen Hart, LTRC Political Officer and membership secretary for RMT Morden and Oval branch (LT regions), is standing as a TUSC Parliamentary Candidate for Croydon North.