Letters: You’re wrong! Left can win many Reform UK voters

Campaigning against Reform UK in Runcorn (Photo: X/Stand Up To Racism)

I disagree with Tomáš Tengely-Evans when he says, “A left alternative is not going to win over large numbers of Reform UK voters.”

Reform UK’s 200,000 die hard racist members only make up a small proportion of the overall Reform UK vote. Beyond that lie large numbers of working class and lower middle class people who vote for the party.

Many of these voters have turned to Reform UK out of sheer desperation. That is shown by the 29 percent of disabled people that say they will now vote Reform UK, despite it being a vote against their material interests.

Reform UK says it will continue with the attacks on disability benefits.

A left alternative with a bold socialist programme, rooted in struggle and making no concessions to racism, would present an alternative pole of attraction offering hope over despair.

To say such a project could not win “large numbers”—I am not saying a majority—risks writing off millions of people.

John Curtis, Ipswich

• Elections are an arena of struggle, albeit not the main one.

These contests are the few seconds of democracy which bourgeoise democracy allows us. But we do not spurn it but seek to extend it.

In debates and discussions at work, people are more likely to be discussing politics prior to an election. And these discussions can morph easily into ones about how society should and could be run.

The actual election result gives us a snapshot of what people think, but it is only partial.

I have just been out leafletting against racism and to inform people of Reform UK’s policies. I would not have done that if elections were unimportant.

Socialists must use what ever platform we can get.

Julia Richardson, Swansea

We need an indefinite school strike

It was great that the NEU education union conference voted to ballot for strikes if the government doesn’t properly fund an above inflation pay rise.

There is much work to do, as in our electronic indicative ballot we just failed to reach the 50 percent threshold mandated by the anti‑union laws.

But this is only part of the story. To get the funding and pay increase, we are going to have to put forward a strategy that can actually achieve a decisive win—unlike when struck two years ago.

We have to follow the example of the successful junior doctors’ strike and take really hard-hitting action. It should not be forgotten that teachers’ strikes are very powerful. 

When we don’t go to work it means that many more people cannot do so, as they have to take time off to look after their kids.  The effect on the whole of the economy is massive.

Threatening to quickly move to an indefinite strike is the only way win. It is also the best way to make sure we win the ballot.

Terry Sullivan, Joint secretary, Islington NEU (pc), north London

Strikers were right to picket our union office

Staff working for the UCU further and higher education union are continuing their strike against toxic management practices and racism at work.

The Unite union members picketed our University of Liverpool UCU office last Friday.

Our UCU branch wholeheartedly supports the strikers and their campaign for a safer, fairer workplace free from racism.

We welcome the picket of our union office and encourage trade unionists from UCU and other unions to show support too. We call on UCU leadership to resolve the dispute as an urgent priority. There is no place for racism in our union.

Peta Bulmer, Branch secretary, University of Liverpool & Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine UCU

Violence in Kashmir 

Last week’s terror attacks in Kashmir were a bloody reminder that millions of Muslim people there live under colonial conditions.

The Indian government removed the region’s “special status” back in 2019 and also took away what freedom of speech and association existed.

The Indian state’s murders, disappearances and false imprisonments are surely context in which the attack occurred. But ordinary Hindus and other victims are not the enemy in Kashmir. It is the state.

Rohan Krishnappa, Kerala, India