Wakefield councillors fight cuts

Iain Dalton, Socialist Party Yorkshire secretary

Despite the Labour government’s announcement of ‘extra’ funding for councils, Wakefield Labour council is making £11.5 million “service efficiencies and savings” – i.e. cuts.

Wakefield Socialist Party held a public meeting on 22 January to discuss how councillors can fight back against Keir Starmer’s austerity. We’ve discussed these issues before. But this is the first time we had the leader of the opposition on the council in the room!

Jake Williamson – an ex-Labour councillor, who voted against last year’s cuts budget, alongside another Labour councillor – formed the Unity group on the council. They have been joined by two other councillors, on a pro-worker and anti-austerity basis.

Jake pointed out that the ‘new money’ the council is receiving, isn’t new. Some was raised by baking-in council-tax rises, as well as taking money from other areas. He said: “Whilst we’ve had a rough deal from the Tories, I don’t want to see workers in London lose out, as they’re struggling too.”

Jake and the Unity group have scored some victories, forcing the Labour majority to adopt their policies, such as agreeing to ‘in-house’ by default on contracts. Unite the Union research reckons this could free up to £12 million for spending on local services.

Unity group councillors want to take up issues in their alternative budget around housing and ending outsourcing and privatisation of services. Jake raised the importance of a national struggle against cuts.

Socialist Party member Michael Johnson was the other speaker. Michael built on Jake’s references to historic struggles, like the poll tax and Liverpool city council.

New homes, leisure centres, and other services – brought to working-class people as a result of their struggle in the 1980s, led by Militant, predecessors of the Socialist Party – made a real difference. So much so that the Labour vote in Liverpool actually went up repeatedly during their battle with the Margaret Thatcher Tory government.

Michael said that the technical means to struggle can always be found, so long as there is political will. Key in Liverpool’s battle in the 1980s was that councillors were spokespeople for a broader struggle, then organised through the District Labour Party, involving delegates from the trade unions and other workers’ organisations.

Socialist Party members are working alongside Unity group and Your Party supporters to push for the widest possible anti-austerity challenge in May’s all-out elections in Wakefield.

We’re fighting cuts in Reading

Samuel Fisher, Reading Socialist Party

Socialist Party members helped Your Party supporters in Reading organise a public meeting on 25 January. Socialist Party national youth and student organiser Adam Gillman, who stood for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in Reading in the general election, spoke.

20 attended, highlighting education, lack of services, and that “there is no money out there”. We answered these questions, saying how mobilising unions, the working class, and the nationalisation of the economy could combat these issues and reverse the cuts.

We talked about Reading’s ‘people’s budget conference’ on 7 February, to draw up demands to present to Reading Council at its budget meeting.

We want to show the working class that we do not have to take cuts lying down, and can fight them. We have a National Education Union (NEU) rep speaking, and have invited reps from FBU, BMA, Unite, Unison, as well as all Reading councillors. The Greens are sending two members.

A petition to “call upon Reading Borough Council, and other Berkshire councils to reverse budget cuts, set a needs-based budget, and publicly demand the Labour government to provide adequate finds for local councils” was agreed. We will use this at the budget meeting to show that people have had enough.