Oppose the reduction in opening hours
Fully fund all council services
Brighton Socialist Party leaflet
Brighton & Hove Labour council is reducing the opening hours for Jubilee and Hove libraries in yet another attack on our services. Two community libraries have also been completely closed in recent months.
The reduction in opening hours is by five hours each week, with the main cut coming on Sundays. The main library in our city will now only be open 40 hours a week. Five hours might only seem like a small amount, but it will still have a significant impact on users who have nowhere else to work and study. This is not the first time opening hours have been reduced – how long before they decide they want to close the libraries entirely?
The council attempted this in the past with Hove library and was only stopped by a significant local campaign. If this attack is allowed to go through now, it will only give the council more confidence that they can carry out further cuts in the future.
How much more are young people expected to take? Youth clubs have been shut. Schools are underfunded. The Labour government is raising university tuition fees again and there is no guarantee of a good job even if you get a degree. Now one of the few spaces where we can work and study for exams is being cut as well.
We need to build a mass campaign of library users and trade unions to oppose the cuts. We will be protesting on 12 April – the first Sunday that the reduced hours take effect – to kick off the campaign and show the council that we won’t take their cuts lying down. The protest is your opportunity to speak out. Library users should draw up plans for the library service we need. This could include increasing opening hours rather than cutting them!
When the campaign has drawn up plans for the library service it could ask candidates in next year’s council elections to pledge to support them.
If councillors are not willing to fight for what we need then they should be replaced with anti-cuts, socialist councillors who will! Trade unions and anti-cuts campaigns should plan to put forward their own candidates as part of fighting to build a new mass workers’ party which can stand in opposition to all the establishment politicians.
Join the protest
1:30pm, Sunday 12 April, Jubilee Square, outside Jubilee Library, Brighton
We say:
- Stop the reduction in opening hours at Jubilee and Hove libraries – build a mass campaign of residents and library users
- Reopen all previously closed libraries -expand local services under the democratic control of the community and workers
- Stop the cuts to all our services – councillors must pledge to oppose austerity, not implement it
- Build a campaign of local trade unions and community groups to win the needed council funding from central government
- No trust in Starmer’s Labour! Build a new workers’ party to fight for us, not the 1%
Libraries in crisis:
- 773 libraries closed between 2010 and 2019
- 22% reduction in opening hours – 780,000 hours a year
- 8,400 fewer librarians
