Former Lambeth Labour councillor standing for TUSC


From a Southwark TUSC press release

Former Labour councillor, disciplined for making a stand against cuts, resigns from Labour to stand for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

Kingsley Abrams, a former Labour councillor in Lambeth, suspended from Lambeth Labour group for opposing cuts, has announced that he has applied to stand for TUSC, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, in Bermondsey and Old Southwark in the general election in May.

“I haven’t given up. I intend to continue fighting austerity. I have just taken off the shackles”.

Kingsley continues: “Across the country, ordinary hard-working people are struggling in this period of austerity. Nurses, firefighters, council workers, office workers. They did not cause the banking crisis. They did not make huge profits from the cheap money that was flowing around 10 years ago. Yet ordinary people have borne the brunt of the cuts that government, both national and local, has inflicted upon them.

“Benefit cuts for the poor, including the working poor. Pay freezes. Indeed for many, actual cuts in take home pay. At the same time, tax cuts for the richest. Yet it has become increasingly clear that Labour has no narrative that will differentiate it from the Tories. The same local government settlement. The same spending caps and limits. The same rhetoric on unwelcome immigrants”.

“This is not a party that countenances an alternative to austerity even though voters in two other European countries are keen to give it a try. Labour also appears indifferent to the unfairness of many of the current anti-union laws and the Tories’ proposals for several more”.

“I am from the traditional wing of the Labour party and fervently anti-austerity. But it has become increasingly clear that these policies cannot be articulated within the current Labour Party”.

Local trade union activist April Ashley said: “I was proud to be selected by TUSC in Southwark to stand in Bermondsey and Old Southwark. However, I am happy to step aside to allow Kingsley to stand in the constituency he knows well and has contested before for Labour. Kingsley’s stand is symptomatic of the fracturing of politics in Britain as all the main parties offer a diet of austerity for the majority and tax cuts for the rich. It is time for a national anti-austerity alternative in Britain. I will be backing Kingsley’s campaign, and also seeking to represent TUSC in another area”.

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