Protest outside council budget setting meeting, Swansea, 25.2.16

Protest outside council budget setting meeting, Swansea, 25.2.16   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

The sound of protest is the music of the future!

Ronnie Job

I doubt that any Swansea Socialist Party members have been on a more musical protest than the one against council cuts that took place on 25 February at Swansea Guildhall.

Trade unionists, including representatives of Swansea Trades Council and council workers, took part in the lobby but by far the biggest contingent was of teachers, pupils and supporters of West Glamorgan Youth Music Service, who are facing devastating cuts in funding. They were angry, determined and they brought their instruments!

Despite the cold they maintained an upbeat musical accompaniment to the lobbying of councillors making their way into the annual budget-setting meeting. Or at least those councillors who didn’t sneak in the back, hoping to vote for cuts unnoticed.

The council has set out plans for £21 million of cuts this year, preparing to axe 640 jobs and outsourcing services, particularly leisure and culture. But if the councillors think their cuts will go unchallenged then they are very much mistaken. Tonight’s protest represents the music of the future as workers, trade unionists and the public who use services that are under threat unite to fight for their future.


Alec Thraves went into the budget-setting meeting. He reports:

For the past three days Swansea’s Labour council has taken a full page advert out in the local press, under the banner of ‘Delivering for Swansea’, trying to convince the public of the brilliant job it is doing despite the Tory cuts!

In the ten minute ‘Public Question Time’ allowed before the budget debate, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Party and Swansea Trades Council, I said that if this cuts budget of £21 million was passed then they would be ‘Delivering Misery’ for the 640 council workers and their families whose jobs are going and misery for Swansea residents who will see their services slashed and privatised.

Swansea Unison branch finally submitted a formal response to the budget proposals, the day before the council meeting, calling on the council to commit to a ‘no cuts’ budget, a strategy that has been actively campaigned for over the past few years in neighbouring Carmarthenshire Unison.

The council leader refused to answer the direct question: Would Swansea Labour council line up with its workforce and community campaigners and set a ‘no cuts’ budget or is it going to line up with George Osborne and his Tory government and implement these devastating cuts?

These ‘realistic’ Labour councillors acted as Osborne’s ‘mini butchers’ and dutifully lined up with the Tory ‘big butchers!

Unfortunately there were no Swansea Unison representatives in the public gallery to condemn these vicious attacks that their workforce now face in the coming months.


This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 29 February 2016 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.