On Saturday October 1st, the Enough is Enough campaign said that 100,000 people had joined rallies across Britain, including 500 in Cardiff, to demand an end to the falling living standards and cuts being forced onto ordinary people.
Striking postal, rail and dock workers were central to the events. Mick Lynch, RMT union general secretary and leading figure in the campaign, addressed the crowd in London to huge applause. This is a full transcript of his speech.
*Cover image: Mick Lynch addressing the Enough is Enough rally in London, Oct 1st. Credit Steve Eason
“What this movement is about is giving a voice to workers and let’s be clear about what we mean. All of the workers. What we’ve been very careful about in these campaigns of People’s Assembly and Enough is Enough is the whole working class community.
We refuse to be divided. We refuse to pitch rail workers against nurses. We refuse to pitch care workers against private sector workers. We refuse to pitch Black versus White, Muslim versus Hindu. Whatever it is, we will take this campaign into every town and village.
Every temple, every synagogue, every gurdwara, every church. The whole working class together. No division. No worker is illegal in this country. We all stand together as one united working class. And what have we got in front of us?
I said in the [Tory] leadership campaign, if that’s what you can call it, that there’s a choice in the Conservative party candidates. Two people, they’re both short straws for this country and they’ve proven it. We had the most right wing chancellor we’ve ever had standing for election. He got beaten by a bunch of lunatics, libertarian nutters that want to drive working people down, want to change this society so the rich man’s on top and the working man is down below.
So what do we do? Other speakers have touched on it, it’s no good just coming to these rallies on a nice day. We have to keep working at this every day. It starts in your workplace, every single one of you. If you’re not in a union, join a union today. When you’re in the union get everyone in your workplace in that union. Bring all of those workers into activity, bring that activity into campaigning, and bring that campaigning into industrial action if we need it right across our society in every nation and every sector of our industries. Let’s bring it on and show them that we’re here. We are the working class and we’re back as a force in this society.
We are part of a progressive movement. Whatever we had in the past our differences, whether it’s based on an ideology or where we’re from, we have to put that to one side. We have to tell any politician, any of them, whether they are a Tory, whether they are a Liberal, whether they are Labour, or whether they are a national politician in the nations. We are going to put you under manners. We will not accept cuts. We will not accept austerity, no matter who’s delivering it whether it’s in Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff, all the cities, and all the parish councils for that matter.
So let’s take heart from each other. Hold hands together, put your arms around each other. We are workers. We refuse to be divided. And let’s say it and cheer it: we refuse to be poor anymore. We are going to fight for our class. We’re going to lift up our hearts, we’re going to apply our brain. We’re going to create a mass movement of working people, and we’re going to change this country, and we’re going to win for our people. This is the RMT, this is the CWU, victory for the workers!”
