Ben Golightly, Swansea and West Wales Socialist Party
150 protesters converged on Swansea Labour council as it met to vote on £12 million of proposed cuts to the city’s budget. Simultaneously, the council is splashing out on Skyline – an environmentally destructive vanity project.
Swansea Council began by marking International Women’s Day. Yet, in its own budget, it admitted the local figure for women’s life expectancy is already 2.1 years below the national average. This makes a mockery of its attempts to supposedly ensure the cuts don’t have a “disproportionate” impact.
Socialist Party members and representatives from Swansea & District Trades Union Council called on councillors to set a “legal, no-cuts, needs budget that is formally ‘balanced’ by the use of prudential borrowing powers and reserves, in order to build time for a mass campaign for adequate government funding, while still maintaining the functioning of the council.”
‘No provision’ for disability cuts
The Disabled People Against Cuts Cymru (DPAC Cymru) coordinator raised Swansea Council’s own shocking admission. The Swansea Labour budget makes “no provision” for any increased costs or reductions in income, arising from disability cuts.
DPAC said the Labour council is in for a shock in April, when people newly unable to work through disability will be more than £200 per month worse off than disabled people today.
Two Kilvey Hill Skyline protesters also attempted to question the council. But they were cut off, and told the answer was confidential.
Swansea councillors have spent 15 years loyally implementing Tory austerity, waiting for a UK Labour government to save them. But now austerity is continuing – carried out by a Labour council, a Labour Welsh Government, and a Labour UK government.
We need a political alternative. Unfortunately, not a single one of the main parties, Greens and Plaid Cymru included, supports the policy of organisations such as TUC Cymru, representing 400,000 trade union members in Wales, to set no-cuts council budgets.
Mistakenly, Swansea’s sole Green councillor – who is also their Senedd (Welsh parliament) election candidate – only abstained on Labour’s cuts budget. In fact, they didn’t even turn up to vote.
That’s why in the Senedd elections Swansea Socialist Party members will be standing for the Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the Gŵyr Abertawe constituency – to stand up for council workers, service users, and communities.
