Nick Chaffey, Southampton Socialist Party
We are sad to hear the news that Don Thomas has passed away. Don joined the Socialist Party’s predecessor Militant in the 1980s, and later the Socialist Party when, alongside Keith Morrell, he refused to vote for Southampton Labour council’s cuts budget in 2012.
Labour’s cuts included plans to close Oaklands Swimming Pool in Don’s Coxford ward. With the support of Unite and Unison council worker union branches, Labour’s proposed closure was defeated, the pool was refurbished, and remains open to this day.
In 2013, Don and Keith presented a legal, balanced, no-cuts budget to the Southampton Council budget meeting, demonstrating that the proposed strategy of using council reserves and borrowing powers to defend jobs and services by the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) met the legal requirements to be included in the official budget papers.
Labour councillors didn’t agree, and voted to remove it from the budget meeting, to the uproar of council workers, and Don and Keith’s supporters in the public gallery.
Voters in Coxford, however, didn’t back Labour. They voted to return Keith, then Don, to the council as anti-cuts councillors in 2014 and 2015. Don’s daughter Tammy was then elected as the third anti-cuts councillor for Coxford in 2016.
The stand that Don and Keith took inspired many locally, and others around the country, who backed the fight against brutal Tory austerity being carried out by Labour councils.
Don’s stand will remain as a legacy to his courage and determination to defend the interests of working-class people, and stand by his socialist principles, and the huge popular response their stand gained.
We send our condolences to Tammy, all Don’s family, and his great friend and comrade Keith.
