Why I joined the Socialist Party

By Lewis Hunter

I JOINED the Socialist Party late last year after meeting Socialist Party members outside Queen's University protesting the morality police in Iran who had murdered Mahsa Amini for not wearing her hijab correctly and were repressing the movement of Iranian women, workers and young people against them. After finding out more about the party and how the party prides itself on its anti-sectarian politics that takes the best interests of both sides of the working class divide this was welcoming. It is an issue I had with the major parties that they were sectarian and only focused on one side of their community rather than both.

When researching more into the topic it became clear to me that there was a serious divide in the lives of those in parliament and those of the working class, this became more evident with the response of one MP declaring that nurses using food banks were simply just “bad at budgeting”. The realisation that capitalism only benefits those with money and neglects the working class with things such as austerity and anti-worker sentiment led me to joining the Socialist Party as I believe that socialism puts the best interests of the working class first, while capitalism is only to serve the ultra-rich elites.