The cost of living crisis has created a new movement called Enough is Enough – and it is quickly building momentum.
Even Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is reportedly going to join its ranks, following in the footsteps of renowned US politician Bernie Sanders who backed the campaign last week.
Here’s everything we know about Enough is Enough and its growing reach.
What is Enough is Enough?
The left-wing campaign has five demands to tackle the current challenges facing the UK, and is founded by trade unions and community organisations. It is planning 50 rallies around the country next month.
It wants to introduce a real pay rise for workers, slash energy bills, end food poverty, provide decent homes for all and tax the rich.
The movement is calling for a rise in the national minimum wage, a path to £15 an hour, real public sector pay rise, and an increase in pensions and benefits.
It wants to return to the pre-April energy price cap, £1,277 per year, and bring energy companies into public ownership, while increasing investment in renewable energies.
By reinstating the £20-a-week universal credit uplift, and universal free school meals, along with a new independent regulatory body to hold the government to account, and introducing a wealth tax, the organisation hopes to end food poverty too – while providing 100,000 council homes a year.
A wealth tax, abolishing non-dom status and increasing capital gains tax, while reversing the recent hike in National Insurance Contributions also sit among their policies.
Enough is Enough’s website explains: “We can’t rely on the establishment to solve our problems. It’s up to us in every workplace and every community.”
It will be holding rallies across the UK in the coming weeks, and will be “organising community groups, supporting picket lines and taking action against companies profiteering from this crisis”.
It has risen out of the multiple crises faced across the country right now which is set to see two-thirds of UK households potentially in fuel poverty by the winter.
The campaign comes as multiple industries consider following in the rail workers’ footsteps and striking – meaning the whole of the UK could face a winter of discontent soon.
How popular is it?
When the campaign first launched its website on August 8, the organisers said it crashed due to a wave of thousands of sign-ups.
It now has close to 450,000 supporters, and the head of communications at the communications Workers Union Chris Webb, who helped set the movement up, told The Guardian: “It is growing at such a rate we have had to update our database infrastructure. There is potential for us to call our own mass demonstrations.”
The general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, Mick Lynch was one of the leading voices of the campaign during a rally on Wednesday night in London and said he wants to turn “anger into action”.
He vowed: “The working class is back and we refuse to be poor anymore.”
Who else has got involved?
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, is also pipped to join one of the rallies next week.
As a former Labour health secretary, he has been a strong critic of the Conservative government for several years. He is expected to speak alongside Lynch at an event next week at Manchester Cathedral.
Only last week, US senator Bernie Sanders also elevated the cause by tweeting about it.
He wrote: “Enough is enough. In the UK and across the world, working people are fighting back.
“They are sick and tired of seeing the rich get richer, while workers fall further and further behind.
“We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the UK.”
Sanders, who unsuccessfully ran to be the Democratic candidate for the US Presidential election back in 2016 and 2020, is often seen as the voice of the working people in the US – and beyond.
It’s also backed by Labour MPs such as Zarah Sultana, who said: “Things can’t go on like this: record profits for big businesses, record number of billionaires, record wealth for the top 10%, but life is getting harder for everyone else.”
Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labour Party, has also lent his voice to the campaign, along with famous names such as the journalist Caitlin Moran and the children’s author Michael Rosen.