Assembly Election 2022

People Before Profit are standing twelve candidates in the election to the Northern Assembly on May 5^th.  They are offering a radical alternative to the failed policies of the Stormont establishment and their communal headcount politics.

The mainstream media presents the election as a run-off between the DUP and Sinn Fein to see who will be the First Minister.  Yet before every election, the big parties beat the communal drums; afterwards, they work together to preside over inequality and poverty, until a new crisis in Unionism starts the game all over again.

The latest crisis of Unionism sees the DUP whipping up fear over the protocol in a desperate attempt to deflect from disastrous polls and their failure to deliver for working-class people.

Yet this is the very party that welcomed the protocol and believed the lies of Boris Johnson who they invited with open arms to their 2018 conference. Now they pretend that a ‘Unionist identity’ is under threat from both. Thankfully, they don’t speak for the majority of people, including those from a protestant background.

Sinn Féin claims that winning the position of First Minister will take us on the high road to a united Ireland, but that position is purely symbolic. While we disagree with those who would boycott an Executive with a Sinn Féin First Minister, People Before Profit believes it will make little difference to people’s lived experience, given the record of Sinn Féin working with the DUP to deliver austerity.

Just look at their combined record:

• Energy prices are soaring yet the Executive has delivered little beyond a one-off £200 payment for those on benefits. No offering for low or paid workers, and no price caps.
• One in four children is currently living in poverty, with the use of foodbanks rising.
• The average cost of childcare is £170 a week – one-third of the average household income and the highest figure in the western world.
• As inflation nears 8%, the Stormont Executive imposed yet another below-inflation pay offer for public sector workers, including health, local government, Housing Executive, Education Authority, and Transport workers.
• The Stormont Executive failed to devolve or increase the minimum wage. Average wages are a full £2,000 less than the UK average, with four out of ten workers on or below the poverty line.
• The Stormont Executive maintain a discredited, unfair, and discriminatory welfare system which treats people with suspicion and disdain.
• They have agreed to ‘rebalance’ the economy away from the public sector, creating a low paying private sector economy that benefits from reduced corporation tax.
• Scotland has abolished tuition fees, yet in the North, they are over £4,000 per year.
• NHS care and nursing homes have been shut while struggling families pay a staggering £700 a week.

People Before Profit believe that there is another way. We have been told there is no money to fund jobs, healthcare or a fair benefits system. The past two years have shown this to be an utter farce. When the pandemic hit, politicians found money overnight for various handouts, not least £155 million for retail vouchers and hundreds of millions more on an “eat out to help out” scheme.

People Before Profit demand the same type of urgency to deal with the crippling cost of living crisis, to revitalise our health service, our housing stock, and our other public services. As hardship increases, a radical and transformative approach towards politics and economics is needed more than ever.

Stormont should immediately launch a Hardship Emergency Fund to distribute a direct payment of at least £1000 to households hardest hit by the cost of living crisis.

The Hardship Emergency payment should be means-tested and aimed at those outside the top 25% of earners.

Major energy companies and other big profitable corporations operating here should be called upon by Stormont to contribute to the Hardship Emergency Fund.

People Before Profit are out to fight for a different kind of politics, rooted in communities instead of Stormont, that can reach across the divide and win real change for ordinary people from all backgrounds.

A new generation of workers is already leading the way by standing up for their rights. We salute the local government workers, the education workers, university workers, and all others who are taking action to raise their wages.

We salute the thousands of women who have stood up to the dinosaurs of the DUP in asserting their right to control their own bodies and have abortion services in the North. We salute the young people who are rising and demanding climate action now!

We want to see a radical, united Ireland that implements the vision of James Connolly for a country that puts people before profit.