Nancy Taaffe
My friend phoned me recently to say that he’d been to a Labour Party constituency meeting. There were about 200 people there. Before the meeting started Labour councillors had put a copy on every seat of the letter Corbyn and McDonnell wrote to council leaders saying they must set legal budgets.
The meeting discussed the devastating cuts being proposed in the town. There were members from local authority unions, as well as other trade unionists.
The meeting lambasted the councillors as they justified their decision. Members expressed despair at the devastation that would ensue if the budget was cut like that.
To no avail. The councillors kept on saying there was no choice. The trade unionists asked for support as they would have no alternative but to strike against the cuts. Right wingers said they would be striking against Corbyn’s Labour Party, and shouldn’t be supported.
The Labour councillors constantly referred to the letter on people’s seats, saying to the new joiners ‘the leader of the Labour Party believes, like us, we have no alternative.’ The resolution to support the local authority trade unions campaign was voted down.
In the pub afterwards many trade unionists sat miserably over their pints. They knew they would have to defend their members’ jobs, pay and conditions, and the services in the communities where they live which their own families use.
Corbyn and McDonnell can still make a stand and call for Labour councils to set no-cuts budgets.
- Names and places have been omitted to protect those involved from witch-hunts in the Labour Party
