TUSC says: Councils must say No to Osborne austerity


A press release from TUSC

‘Let’s start People’s QE now’, says ex-Labour MP

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has responded to the Comprehensive Public Spending Review by calling on Labour-controlled councils to come together and resist George Osborne’s latest cuts to vital local public services.

Dave Nellist, a former Labour backbench colleague of Jeremy Corbyn, who is now the chair of TUSC, said:

“If Osborne can be forced into a U-turn on his tax credit cuts by the House of Lords he can be made to retreat on his new draconian cuts to local council funding. But it will need a determined fight by Labour councillors”.

TUSC, which stood over 600 candidates in the 2015 local elections, released today a report showing that just the 58 Labour-led councils with elections next May, hold over £4.5 billon in useable general reserves. Pooling these would mean that no Labour council would need to make cuts in order to agree a legally-compliant budget for the 2016-17 financial year.

Dave Nellist said: “These figures give a glimpse of the substantial resources of the ‘local state’ that are under the control of the Labour Party. And that’s not just resources to resist Osborne’s cuts.

“The Labour-led councils that we have prepared our report on, also have sufficient capital reserves, for example, to legally undertake ‘prudential borrowing’ (‘unsupported’ borrowing in that it is not matched by government grants) to build 100,000 council homes in the next financial year. And there are, in fact, over one hundred Labour-led councils across the country who could take such a stand.

“Building council homes and saving local public services could be a way to put Jeremy Corbyn’s idea of ‘People’s QE’ into action, if Labour councillors were prepared to follow their leader’s anti-austerity position”.

There will be around 2,400 councillors elected in English councils next May. In the 58 Labour-led local authorities with elections there were 135 councillors who declared their support for Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign. TUSC is writing to all Labour candidates to see if they are now prepared to shift their position after his victory and take a stand against austerity.

Dave Nellist concludes:

“Using councils’ reserves and borrowing powers could buy time and save vital local services now. In other words, a councillors’ revolt could stop the Tory cuts.

“But only if it is the first step in a national campaign of defiance to force central government to provide the funding needed”.

Information

1. TUSC was co-founded in 2010 by the late Bob Crow of the RMT transport workers’ union, together with other leading trade unionists, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and other socialist groups, to provide an electoral alternative for those opposing austerity. For information and video clips about TUSC see: www.tusc.org.uk

For interviews and any other information requests, please email: [email protected] or call Clive Heemskerk, the TUSC National Election Agent on 020-8988-8773 or 07989-360158. The TUSC national chairperson Dave Nellist can be contacted on 07970-294237.

2. The TUSC report Labour-led councils with elections in May 2016: statistical profiles, is available at http://www.tusc.org.uk/txt/350.pdf . The TUSC letter to Labour councillors is available at http://www.tusc.org.uk/17116/12-09-2015/model-letter-to-labour-councillors

2. The TUSC conference held on September 26th agreed the following policy platform for prospective TUSC candidates in the May 2016 local elections:

Build on Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity call

A councillors’ revolt could stop the Tory cuts!

The May 2016 elections will be the first wide scale ballot box test for the Tory government’s claim that it has a mandate for its ‘eternal austerity’ agenda. These elections include contests for around 2,300 local council seats in England, providing a chance to challenge austerity policies across 128 local authority areas.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has rightly made the call for local councils to stand together and refuse to implement government cuts and over 450 Labour councillors endorsed his leadership challenge. But there are over 7,000 Labour councillors across Britain and the vast majority, alongside Liberal Democrat, UKIP and Green councillors too, continue to vote for cuts in the council chamber, saying there is ‘nothing they can do’.

That is just not true. The National Audit Office estimates that funding for local councils will have dropped this year by 37% in real terms compared to 2010. But English councils still control budgets totalling £114 billion pounds, over one fifth of all public spending, with responsibilities for adult social care, housing, education support, transport, recycling and rubbish collection, libraries and other services. That’s a powerful position from which to organise a fightback.

The previous Con-Dem government aimed to pass on responsibility for slashing local public services by ‘devolving the axe’ to local councils. But by giving local authorities a ‘power of competence’ to do “anything apart from that which is specifically prohibited”, they gave councils a greater power to resist – if they would only use it.

It is a fact that if just a handful of councils used the powers they have to refuse to implement the cuts the Westminster politicians could be made to back down.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition has a policy platform for local council elections (below) which could make a difference. Even one councillor in a local authority taking a stand, if they used their position in the council chamber to appeal to those outside, could give confidence to local trade unionists and community campaigners to fight. A network of rebel councillors across the country could have an even bigger impact, building on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign in shifting the terms of the debate. A councillors’ revolt could stop the Tory cuts!

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) will work with any Labour councillor who backs the call to refuse to implement the cuts. But any politician who votes for cuts cannot be allowed a free run at the ballot box, no matter what party label they wear.

The position of TUSC is clear. All councillors elected under our banner will:
  • Oppose all cuts to council jobs, services, pay and conditions. We reject the claim that ‘some cuts’ are necessary to our services or that the national debt is a reason for austerity.
  • Refuse to implement the Bedroom Tax or the new attacks on housing benefit. Councils should write off all housing benefit cuts-related arrears, withdraw all court proceedings and eviction orders where they have been a factor, and call on Housing Associations to do the same.
  • Support all workers’ struggles against the cuts, privatisation and government policies making ordinary people pay for the crisis caused by the bankers and the bosses. Defend the national collective bargaining arrangements for council workers.
  • Reject increases in council tax, rent and service charges to compensate for government cuts.
  • Vote against the privatisation of council jobs and services, or the transfer of council services to ‘social enterprises’ or ‘arms-length’ management organisations, which are first steps to privatisation.
  • Oppose racism and fascism and stand up for equality for all.
  • Campaign for the immediate introduction of the TUC’s policy of a £10 an hour minimum wage for everyone, without age discrimination, including for council employees and those working for council contractors.
  • Say no to academies and ‘free schools’. We stand for good, free education for all, under democratic local authority control.
  • Use all the legal powers available to councils to oppose both the cuts and government policies which centrally impose the transfer of public services to private bodies. This includes using councils’ powers to refer local NHS decisions, initiate referenda and organise public commissions and consultations in campaigns to defend public services.
  • Oppose council re-organisation proposals which reduce local democracy or make it easier to implement cuts. We will campaign against the imposition of directly-elected mayors.
  • Vote for councils to refuse to implement the cuts. We will support councils which in the first instance use their reserves and prudential borrowing powers to avoid making cuts. But we argue that the best way to mobilise the mass campaign that is necessary to defeat the dismantling of council services is to set a budget that meets the needs of the local community and demands that government funding makes up the shortfall.
  • Oppose fracking. Support action against climate change and for a future where sustainability comes before profit.