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They say that change is the surest sign of life. And if it is, then politics in this place has been a dead duck for some time.

That is until last week . The election of two People Before Profit MLAs, in Foyle and West Belfast, has lit a spark under the usually sleepy political discourse in the North.

In Foyle, Eamonn McCann defied the odds by taking a seat, and in West Belfast we stormed home in spectacular fashion with enough votes to have won two seats. Our North Belfast candidate, Fiona Ferguson, scored an impressive vote too. 1,300 on her first time out, sure to make a breakthrough in the future.

So what is this sudden burst of red flags and socialism all about? And what kind of politics can two PBP MLAs bring to the table at the Assembly? In short, we are about doing politics differently: a new, radical way of looking at the world, based on socialist principles and organised around people power and grassroots campaigning.

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We believe that Stormont is too cosy with the corporations. They barely blinked an eye when they decided to cut thousands of jobs. Yet they are wilfully, and enthusiastically, planning to cut tax on corporations.

Thatcher and Regan were wrong, and Stormont is too; there is no trickledown economics. The rich are rich because the poor are poor. The only way to reverse the balance is by tackling the power and wealth of the elites, not by giving them handouts.

We say that austerity is a political choice not an inevitability. Stormont borrowed £700million to make 20,000 workers redundant. They have refused to lift the cap on rates for the wealthy.

They spent nearly £70million on wining and dining the G8, millions more on wasteful consultancy and PFI projects. The Tories didn’t make them do this, they did it of their own free will. A socialist would refuse to implement cuts, warn people about them, and help them get organised to resist them.

PBP stands up for the rights of workers and their trade unions. Where there’s a picket line there will be a PBP member. We want to see the repeal of the anti-trade union laws, and a strengthening of union membership.

There is no power like the power of the working class, and we will use the platform afforded to us to help raise people’s confidence to fight back for themselves.

We are steadfast in our defence of women’s rights, unrelenting in our solidarity with the LGBTQ community, and proud supporters of the rights of Irish language speakers. When the spectre of racism raises its ugly head, we will be there to challenge it. United we stand, divided we fall. PBP can be relied on to stand up against all attempts to divide us.

In Stormont we will not designate as ‘Unionist’ or ‘Nationalist’, but ‘Other’. Anti-Sectarianism will be at the heart of everything we do, and we will seek to build an alternative to the paramilitarism of the past. That does not mean, however, that we are naive about the legacy of division here, nor the impact of decades of state repression.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below

The State cannot wash its hands of its role in the conflict. The government polices us, but who polices the government? We will fight to hold the State to account, and to support others who are campaigning to do the same.

We will support the families of Bloody Sunday , the Ballymurphy Massacre , the Shankill bombing and others. We need a full accounting for what the government was and is up to. Otherwise how can we be confident it will never happen again?

Lastly, we are for the unity of working class people across the divide and we are organised across the 32 counties. Like James Connolly, PBP stands for a Socialist Ireland, a society in which everyone can have a stake in.

It will be a long fight to get one, but we are up for the challenge. Think about getting involved yourself. The reds are rising.

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