Hull councillors ready to vote No

Phil Culshaw, Hull Unison steward, personal capacity

Three Hull city Labour councillors - Gary Waring, Gill Kennett and Dean Kirk - have told the local press they will vote against cuts in jobs and services at the council budget setting meeting on 28 February.

Hull council faces losing a third of its funding over the next three years. Already, 55 people chase every job vacancy in the city.

The remaining Labour councillors are faced with a decision: do the Tories' dirty work or stand united with their workforce and the people of Hull to build a mass campaign to defend much-needed jobs and services.

But council leader Steve Brady has already distanced himself from the rebel councillors, and the militant traditions of the labour movement.

The east London Poplar councillors' motto in the 1920s was: "Better to break the law, than to break the poor!" They were jailed during their successful struggle where obeying the law would have meant cutting services, making the rates (equivalent to council tax) unaffordable, or reducing poor relief to a level that would not stop the unemployed and their families from starving.

The 1983-87 Liverpool city council adopted the same motto as Poplar in their struggle for the return of funding that was cut by Thatcher's Tory government.

Liverpool's militant stand won £60 million, resulted in the largest council home-building programme in the country at that time and created children's nurseries and apprenticeships for unemployed youth.

The council was never voted out of office. Instead it was undemocratically dismissed by the courts with the backing of both the Tory government and the national Labour leader, Neil Kinnock.

In the early 1990s, Militant (now the Socialist Party) led a mass campaign of 18 million poll tax non-payers which forced the Tories to ditch their hated tax along with their leader Margaret Thatcher. If people had followed the advice of the Labour leadership then no doubt we would still have that unjust tax!

Hull trade unions are organising a series of public and consultation meetings to build a strong anti-cuts campaign that follows the traditions of Poplar, Liverpool and the anti-poll tax movement.

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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.