MPs MAY have voted against adjourning Parliament to allow the Tories a pre-election beano next week, but the People’s Assembly Against Austerity will still be in Manchester to ensure those guilty of the crimes committed in the name of austerity against working-class communities are appropriately “welcomed” from their daily commute, and marching tomorrow with the clear message that it’s time to go.
 
We’re marching with a clear vision of a fairer, more equal society based on a new politics and economy; our values of social solidarity, the demand for a green industrial revolution supporting sustainable jobs, homes, health, peace and justice. 

We’re marching to expose the Tory lie that austerity is over. In solidarity with the millions suffering misery, poverty and hardship on a daily basis, the consequence of an ideological political choice to inflict pain and suffering on the most vulnerable in society. 
  
We’re marching because the austerity imposed on us by the Tories and their Liberal partners in crime is burning through working people’s lives — a relentless political attack on the many, by the few.
  
A bombshell survey by my union, Unite, found that 70 per cent of those forced onto universal credit had skipped meals and 42 per cent used foodbanks. Foodbank use stands at a record 1.6 million, with half of emergency food parcels going to children.
 
In the fifth-richest country on our planet, people are unable to heat their homes, pay the rent, meet their bills or buy school uniforms. 

Benefit sanctions are plunging people into the depths of despair and several of those who responded to the Unite survey said they’d tried to kill themselves, or had suicidal thoughts.
 
One of those forced into in-work poverty by the Tories’ vicious, uncaring regime is Emma (I’ve changed her name). She’s a front-line NHS worker who was in a horrible, abusive marriage. 
 
Not only was she psychologically abused, she was a survivor of marital rape. Emma, who has two young children, eventually found the courage to leave her husband. 

She can only work 24 hours a week due to a disability and was forced from working tax credits to universal credit. And that’s when her life began to spiral out of control.
 
Immediately losing £350 per month, her debts mounted and she eventually had a complete breakdown. An NHS worker doing a vital job broken by a system that fails to treat people as people.
 
And the saddest thing of all? Emma told Unite that if she’d known at the start what she’d go through she would have stayed with her abusive, rapist husband.
 
That’s why we’re marching, because we can’t and won’t let the Tories off the hook for the utterly disgraceful reality that in Tory Britain, people are treated with such brutal cruelty.
 
We’re also on Manchester’s streets because the Tories’ economic and political failure has sent Thomas Cook workers to the dole queue, denied hospitality workers their tips, put British Steel on the edge of collapse and condemned thousands of skilled workers in our manufacturing heartlands to an uncertain future. 

We’re marching in solidarity with workers fighting exploitation, for jobs and their communities everywhere.

We’re marching in solidarity with our colleagues occupying Belfast’s iconic Harland and Wolff shipyard, an inspirational fight for jobs and a future for their families and communities. 
  
But most of all we’re marching this weekend for hope — the message of hope and opportunity coming from this week’s Labour’s conference and the clear alternative to the austerity economics and neoliberal dogma that our country is crying out for.
 
For the council homes necessary to end the housing crisis, investment in our health service and the education of our young, a living wage of £10 an hour for all, day one employment rights and the ending of exploitative zero-hours contracts. 
 
For an inspiring green industrial revolution renewing our manufacturing heartlands and making skilled, decent work the backbone of our economy again. 

For an end to prescription charges and for the state production of generic medicines that corporate greed is rationing through the relentless drive for excessive profits. 

We’re marching for the repeal of Tory anti-union laws, alongside new rights to sector level collective bargaining and access to workplaces, making it easier to organise, meet and represent members. 

For a shorter working week and expanded public services enriching our lives.
 
So the fight is on. It’s our responsibility, our duty, to step up in the fight for a new politics and an economy that works for all. 

To fight for a future we can be proud of, that addresses the climate crisis and provides dignity from cradle to grave. 

That future is based on the socialism of a Corbyn-led Labour government and it’s our responsibility to deliver it. Join us in the fight this Sunday!

Steve Turner is national chair of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, and a Unite assistant general secretary.