Steve Score, East Midlands Socialist Party regional secretary
50 people crowded into a hall in the Highfields area of Leicester, at a Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) meeting to discuss a working-class electoral challenge in the city council elections. Organised at short notice with limited publicity, the turnout reflected the anger against the Labour-controlled city council, especially over the huge hike in district heating charges on a number of city estates.
The council had originally planned to quadruple the charge to £2,760 a year for a one-bedroom flat for example, more for more bedrooms. This figure would not include electricity, cooking etc. and many residents are on very low incomes. The Highfields area is the centre of the garment industry, which became national news during the pandemic because of thousands being paid wages well below the minimum wage, with no health and safety provision – leading to longer Covid lockdowns in Leicester.
A campaign by residents, activists from ‘Enough is Enough Leicester’, and local councillor Gary O’Donnell, which included big estate meetings and a lobby of the city council meeting, forced concessions from the council. But the charge now being implemented will still more than double from April.
Everyone at the meeting agreed that this attack was connected to the huge cuts to services made over years by the city council, and that the time had come for the community to stand against those councillors who had gone along with it. Socialist Party members and TUSC supporters at the meeting explained we needed to take the first steps to create a new party of the working class, as more people become aware that the Labour Party doesn’t play that role.
Cllr O’Donnell, who represents another affected area, spoke at the meeting. He voted against the rise and the City Mayor’s cuts budget when they were put to the council. He has resigned from Labour and will stand in his area as an independent, but agrees with us that there needs to be a city-wide alliance of candidates opposed to cuts.
Labour turmoil
The Labour Party is in turmoil because selection of council candidates was removed from local party control and handed to a Labour National Executive-appointed panel. A tranche of sitting councillors are being removed only days before nominations open for this year’s local elections, including any who have shown dissent.
Some Labour councillors supported a motion to abolish the role of City Mayor, which was described by one as “making councillors almost redundant.” They were immediately suspended from the Labour group and therefore automatically excluded as candidates in these coming elections, although the group was given no opportunity to discuss its position.
The apparent excuse for national intervention was the disastrous recent ward by-election where Labour lost a huge majority to the Tories after selecting a candidate who supports Indian Prime Minister Modi and the far-right BJP. Several Labour councillors in Leicester East support this position and are backed by the ex-Labour MP Keith Vaz. The by-election took place while there had been violence and conflict on the streets between a minority of Hindu and Muslim youth initiated by far-right Hindu fundamentalists of the semi-fascist RSS.
However, the councillors who have been removed across the city have nothing to do with that. It has been used as an excuse by the Starmer wing of the party to carry out a purge of any dissenters. Even before this crisis, Leicester West Labour Party, for example, had already lost 45% of its membership since Starmer was elected, many of whom had actually voted for him in the first place!
TUSC will be standing candidates in these elections arguing that all cuts to services, penalising rises in charges and rents must be opposed. The city council could use the more than £200 million it has in available reserves to stop and reverse cuts, while building a mass campaign to force more from the government. We will seek to build an alliance with any councillors or candidates who sign up to that programme. Never has it been clearer that a new mass workers’ party is needed.
