This year, Green Party leader Zack Polanski was invited to address the conference of the National Education Union. In the press conference, Rob Williams, covering the conference for the Socialist newspaper, had the opportunity to ask him a question:
Rob:
I think you’ve had a great response today Zack, because you have come to a conference of teachers who have fought austerity for 16 years, and you’re fighting hard in the local elections. But you’ve also got an opportunity, if you’re successful, to send a signal after May, that Green councils are different.
The question that’s going to be posed, is: what are Green councils going to do with stringent budget restrictions from a Starmer of government? Are you going to use the opportunity to have councils that run no-cuts, needs-based budgets and refuse to pass on austerity?
Zack:
So I think people do need to balance their budgets at local council level, which is why I said in my speech more widely: We need to recognise that we’re the sixth wealthiest economy in the world.
There are 50 families in this country that own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population – that’s 50 families against 34 million people.
So there’s plenty of wealth around. It’s just very rarely wealth that’s given to teachers, or to schools, or to hospitals. And actually, what I think we ultimately need to do is stop putting councils in this situation in the first place, where they are given such tight budgets.
You know, some councils up to 80% is spent on adult social care. That’s outrageous.
And so I think it’s about making the political argument right now, both at the national level and then at local council, that we need to challenge the austerity that’s coming from national government, as a political choice, because they’re not making other political choices to tax multi-millionaires and billionaires.
Zack is right – there are vast quantities of wealth in the bank accounts of the super-rich, and no reason why our local services should be cut and our council tax and charges increased.
Like Rob said, the over 900 existing Green councillors – including in the dozens of authorities where they already form part of the leading administration as part of coalitions and alliances, and in Bristol as the majority group – have a political choice. Will they use their positions and influence to refuse to pass on austerity and build a campaign to demand the money from the weak and divided Starmer government?
