IN TRUTH, this general election campaign has been a depressing spectacle.

Admittedly, anyone who has witnessed the devastation the Tories have wreaked on our economy and public services, with a noxious cocktail of anti-trade union legislation and dog-whistle racism, will cheer when they finally leave office. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. 

But the tame fare from the official opposition means any celebrations will be short-lived.

The Labour manifesto is marked by caution and caveats. It’s as if it was written with one eye looking over their shoulder, at the right-wing press and the CBI. There is no reason to suggest things will change in government. 

The main party campaigns have been marked by a kowtowing to the most base instincts of the right — a nightmarish vision completely at odds with labour movement and progressive traditions, from the insistence on greater military spending and “pushing the nuclear button” to raising hands for greater controls on migration. 

We need hope. Not just in the here and now, but for the longer term. That hope will only come from a bottom up, grassroots movement, which will need to be broad, open and inclusive — a coalition of the best parts of our culture and politics, in direct opposition to the narrowing focus that we’ve seen in this general election campaign. 

That’s why the People’s Assembly decided to relaunch an updated version of the People’s Charter last week.

It is a reworking of the 2009 version, presented by Tony Benn alongside a coalition of trade unions and other radical figures 15 years ago – and based on the original 1838 Chartist demands presented to Parliament in June 1839.

Those original People’s Charter demands, around the vote, suffrage, property qualifications and constituencies, were eventually won (five out of six anyway – annual parliaments never quite made it) but only after a prolonged struggle of mass meetings and demonstrations. 

Similarly, to turn the current situation around will take sustained and determined action. The Charter is designed to be used as an organising tool, not a document to be filed away and brought out for conferences or meetings. 

And, importantly, it is not just aimed at the current Tory government, or as a set of demands for parliamentary candidates, but fundamentally as a guide for activists and supporters under any new government that comes to power after this election – and it will be used to challenge any government that doesn’t take the steps necessary to provide the people of Britain with a better life and a safer world.

The demands of our 2024 People’s Charter cover the economy, a just transition, housing, public services, the NHS, education, equality, and peace. They include:

• An economy that works for the majority and not the rich. Redistribute wealth for the common good. A real living wage, which can give workers enough to pay the bills and live a decent life.
• Better pay and conditions in the workplace and a green revolution. Put workers at the heart of a just transition to a carbon-free economy. Repeal the anti-trade union laws and replace them with a radical new deal for working people, which genuinely shifts power to workers & their unions. 
• A massive house building programme. Decent rights for renters and an end to homelessness. Take away power from landlords and put it into the hands of renters. Build affordable, publicly owned, good quality homes to address the housing crisis.
• No more cuts in public services. Invest in local government, the welfare state, public health services, education, transport and a publicly funded social care system. Reinstate our public services on their founding principles, based around people, not profit.
• Justice, equality, and fairness for all – fight racism. Challenge xenophobia, authoritarianism, and petty nationalism — refugees are welcome. Fight disability discrimination and sexism in society and the workplace.
• Welfare not warfare. Conflict resolution and human rights at the heart of our foreign policy. End the war on Gaza. No more warmongering that brings death and destruction to the poorest and most oppressed abroad.

What’s worrying, looking back at the 2009 People’s Charter, is how far we’ve fallen since. We can no longer appeal to a political class that is divorced from our daily realities and the struggles facing the labour movement — we have to do it ourselves. 

It’s clear that we are not going to hear about the fundamental issues that divide our society and wreck our collective futures in the final days of the election campaign. But we can use this moment as a point where we say enough – there is an alternative. 

This 2024 People’s Charter restates the case for humanity, equality, justice and peace. I hope it can play a unifying role, in bringing people together who believe we can do better than the pernicious, degrading and damaging politics of the moment.

As Bertolt Brecht once said: “Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.”

You can read the People’s Charter 2024 here: thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/the-peoples-charter-2024/

Ben Sellers is national secretary of the People’s Assembly.