THE issue with the deluge of post-election analyses is that instead of using our energies to rebuild and organise, we are spending that time attacking the very people we need to help us rebuild. Trade unionists pounded the street and campaigned for the most radical and progressive manifesto we have seen in decades from any main political party, yet have been on the receiving end of some attacks within our movement.

Our job as trade unionists is to rebuild our workplaces and communities and there is no quick fix in doing this. The Tory government are no friends of workers — yet we need to ask ourselves why workers voted for them and win those workers back. We can now expect further attacks on pay, pensions, health and safety, equalities and further draconian changes to the Trade Union Act.

It can be hard to follow the dictum “don’t mourn, organise” after such devastation but it is paramount to keep up the fight. We have built an incredible movement during this general election campaign, a movement that has inspired the youth to become more politicised and active, with the foundations being laid the years preceding it. But many of those activists will not be in a trade union and it’s our duty as trade unionists to urge working people to sign up and become members.