Last week, the following letter from Liverpool Solidarity Federation was published in the Liverpool Echo. We wrote the letter to try and counter the idea that the anti-working-class agenda of the ruling elite can be defeated through the ballot box simply by voting against the Tories and their Lib Dem coalition allies. As anarcho-syndicalists we reject party politics and all collaboration with legislative bodies. Exploitation, wage slavery and social injustice will never be voted out of existence. They can only be defeated, once and for all, through militant solidarity, direct action and working-class self-organisation.

JOE Anderson [the leader of Liverpool city council] says he has no choice but to enforce spending cuts due to reductions in the government grant. David Cameron says he has no choice but to enforce spending cuts due to the budget deficit left by the last government.

All over the world, governments of both the left and right are inflicting austerity measures on the working-class and making us pay for a crisis we didn’t create.

With local elections approaching, it’s increasingly clear that the only worthwhile thing to do on polling day is to reject all politicians by actively abstaining and building popular resistance outside the ballot box.

Ethel MacDonald, Liverpool Solidarity Federation