UNIONS, food bank volunteers, community organisations and socialist Labour MPs united to say "enough is enough” today, as they launched a nationwide fightback against the crippling cost-of-living crisis.
The grassroots campaign, backed by rank-and-file workers and key labour movement figures — including RMT general secretary Mick Lynch and Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana — comes as a toxic mix of Tory austerity, stagnating wages and soaring inflation pushes millions of families to the brink of catastrophe.
Enough is Enough is demanding a “huge slash in energy bill prices, a real pay rise for all, an end to food poverty, decent homes for all, and greater taxes on the super-wealthy” to address the crisis, as Britain teeters on the edge of yet another recession.
Mr Lynch said: “For 30 years, living standards have been falling in this country.
“We’ve seen our council housing sold off, our education system commodified, our NHS privatised, work terms and conditions torn up, wages put back and pensions robbed.
“It doesn’t have to be like this – things could be so much better for working-class people across this country. It’s time to say enough is enough.”
The initiative, also endorsed by Communication Workers Union leader Dave Ward, Liverpool West Derby MP Ian Byrne and socialist publication Tribune, has already established more than 50 branches in villages, towns and cities nationwide, organisers confirmed.
Large-scale rallies will be held across the country in the coming weeks, they said, while branches will be organising to assist workers taking industrial action during the “summer of discontent” by encouraging support for picket lines and strike funds.
Campaigners will also be collecting food for those in need, building community groups to help the most vulnerable and encouraging mistreated tenants to “channel anger into action,” organisers stressed.
In a campaign launch video, Mr Ward said: “There’s always another crisis, and workers always pay the price.
“We’ve suffered the biggest pay squeeze in history, and work has become all about working harder and faster for less.
“Now they want workers to pay for it all over again — we think it’s time someone else paid the price. Workers always make the sacrifices, yet the CEOs always reap the rewards.
“Fair pay, affordable bills, enough to eat and a decent place to live — these things aren’t luxuries, they’re your rights.”
Ms Sultana warned of “record profits for big business and billionaires as life gets harder for everybody else.
“It’s all about one political choice — your need or their greed,” she said. “It’s time to channel anger into action.”
Dave Kelly, organiser at Merseyside-based Fans Supporting Foodbanks, said: “Working-class communities face the worst humanitarian crisis in our lifetime.
“With record levels of fuel and utility charges and food prices rocketing we know that Britain isn’t eating.
“The time is now to stand as one — things must change.”
The country is “set up to protect the profits of the rich and make the rest of us pay through the nose,” Nick Ballard of tenant union Acorn charged.
“The only people we can rely on are ourselves and the only organisations that will support and fight for us are our own,” he stressed.
“Our communities deserve safe, secure and affordable housing, well-paid jobs and well-resourced cities and towns.
“Our communities deserve better, enough is enough.”
More information about the campaign can be found at wesayenough.co.uk
