Socialist Party Scotland
Leeds, 22.5.14, photo Tanis Belsham-Wray

Leeds, 22.5.14, photo Tanis Belsham-Wray   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Mass pressure is building on Glasgow Labour, who face a choice on 10 March on whether to implement £133 million of cuts.

Trade unions are preparing for widespread industrial action and a mass mobilisation of communities against the cuts.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) responded to the report in the Evening Times newspaper on 3 March, that Glasgow Council officers have produced a letter to councillors outlining the consequences of not setting a budget.

Jamie Cocozza, a member of Socialist Party Scotland (formerly Militant) and TUSC, commented: “The letter is a reflection of the mass pressure that is building on elected councillors not to implement savage Tory austerity.

“Neither TUSC nor the joint trade unions in Glasgow are calling for a budget not to be set. TUSC’s alternative is for a no-cuts budget. At the same time this could launch a mass campaign of councillors, the trade unions and the wider working class for a return of the almost £1 billion stolen from Glasgow since 2010.”

The article is inaccurate over the history of the heroic Liverpool Council struggle in the 1980s. The socialist Liverpool Council began in 1984 by setting a needs budget, defying Thatcher’s cuts, and mobilising a mass campaign that was successful in winning increased funding from the Tories.

The following year Liverpool delayed setting a rate for a short time because other Labour councils in Britain advocated such a stand. In the end Liverpool stood alone. It was the delay in setting the rate that led to the councillors being surcharged and made liable for the money.

Today, the surcharging of councillors is no longer available as a sanction. If Glasgow Council refuses to make cuts and set a no-cuts budget they would win mass support. Are the so called ‘anti-austerity’ Scottish National Party going to play the role of the Thatcher government in the 1980s by sending in commissioners to administer the cuts?

It’s long past time that so-called ‘anti-austerity’ politicians from Labour and the SNP stood up and stopped playing pass the parcel with Tory cuts.