The Socialist 27 January 2016

Housing: smash the Tory wrecking bill

Housing: smash the Tory wrecking bill

Davos summit: a broken capitalist system

Google pays pittance for avoiding £2bn tax

Red doors and wristbands scandal

Steelworkers may face benefit cut-off for not seeking bar jobs

Oscars snub black artists: fight racism and austerity in the arts

Labour councillor smears TUSC policy as 'BNP'

Them & Us

Top tweets: #TraditionallySubmissive

Teaching: a perfect storm is brewing

Teachers need national strategy for a national struggle

A day in the life of a teacher and mother

New wave of protests in Tunisia

India: student death exposes caste oppression

Tories 'Prevent' civil liberties

Labour councillor suspended for fighting cuts

Dave Nellist's byelection appeal to Jeremy Corbyn: 'let's discuss how to fight the cuts'

Labour election post-mortem: nothing to report!

The dark arts of Labour's right

Councillors must fight to defend our services

'People's budgets' and local democracy

Lewisham: no backsliding in council cuts fight!

"I have left work many times in tears" - a council worker

Trade union bill will stretch resources and limit action

Birmingham teachers strike to resist academy attack

24-hour tube strike suspended

Care services under threat in Haringey

Workplace news in brief

The end for deep coal mining jobs in Britain

Obituary: Dean Meehan 1962-2016

Letters

Protesting against closure of Huddersfield A&E

Coventry children's services closure protest

New Socialist Party branch fights against St Austell austerity

Socialist Party discusses the fight for socialism

Socialist Students bake-off

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Right-wing Labour councillor smears TUSC policy as 'BNP'

A right-wing Labour councillor in Tower Hamlets, east London, has accused anti-austerity activists of emulating the far-right, racist British National Party (BNP).

Councillor John Pierce attacked supporters of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) after they attended a council oversight and scrutiny committee meeting.

TUSC includes transport union RMT and the Socialist Party.

Activists were making the case for a legal no-cuts budget. They referred to Stoke's Tory-Independent council, which is using reserves to delay cuts. Unrelated to this, one of Stoke's independent councillors is apparently a former BNP member.

Right-wing Labour councillor smears TUSC, pic Naomi Byron (Click to enlarge)

I am disappointed Cllr Pierce attempted to smear TUSC as "advocating the policies of the BNP".

This was in response to TUSC arguing for Tower Hamlets Council to use some of its £71 million general reserves to temporarily stop cutbacks, in order to launch a mass campaign to win the money back from central government.

To say this is supporting BNP policies is ignorant in the extreme. BNP councillors have voted for cuts time after time. One BNP councillor in Kirklees boasted: "You get rid of 25% of council staff and no-one would notice."

The cuts Tower Hamlets Labour is proposing attack the most vulnerable. Worst of all, they are not necessary. The council has the money to protect jobs and services, buying time to coordinate trade unions and the community to fight for more funds.