Berkay Kartav, London Socialist Party
On Wednesday 17 May, around 40 local trade unionists, socialists and Croydon residents held a protest against the 15% council tax hike and council cuts outside Croydon Town Hall, where the council’s annual meeting was being held.
Both Tories and ‘Tory-lite’ Labour councillors have passed on brutal cuts for more than a decade. Activists from the RMT, Unison, CWU and Unite unions spoke at the protest about the need for an electoral challenge to get rid of these pro-austerity establishment politicians.
Socialist Party members raised the point about the need to build a trade union-led mass movement to organise in the community and to defend those who won’t be able to pay a 15% council tax rise in their bills amid a historic cost-of-living crisis.
We welcome trade unionists and socialists to stand under the banner of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) to challenge these pro-austerity politicians at the ballot box in the upcoming elections, as part of a wider electoral challenge across the country.
