The Socialist 28 February 2018

Workers strike back!

Corbyn's customs union dividing line: now stand firm for pro-worker Brexit

Save Our Square occupation: "This land is our land!"

Three major West Wales hospitals could close

Corbyn didn't collaborate with Stalinism - but with Trotskyists against it

Stormzy is right to slam Tories for Grenfell

KFC delivery crisis: make the bosses pay, not the workers!

Resist the Tory war on women

Workers strike back!

Lecturers strike around country in defence of pensions

University bosses rocked - strikes can save staff pensions!

Unite victory in EDF meter workers' union recognition fight

Corbynism shows 'Clause IV' still relevant a hundred years on

Socialist Students conference highlights successful work

200 years of Marxism meeting

United States: young people demand change after latest mass shooting

'Anti-austerity' Bristol Labour passes £34 million cuts budget

Newham: teaching workers and parents determined to halt academies

Building fund appeal: Behind the scenes at the Socialist Party office

Mary Jackson: funeral and memorial meeting

Union-led campaign beats Blairite attacks on homeless

Belper hospital threatened

Selling the Socialist in Stoke

What's behind the surge in eating disorders?

The Socialist inbox

Socialist anti-war exhibition opens in Kingston

PO Box 1398, Enfield EN1 9GT

020 8988 8777

[email protected]

Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/984/26963

Search the site	Printable version

Home | The Socialist 28 February 2018 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | Audio | PDF | ebook

'Anti-austerity' Bristol Labour passes £34 million cuts budget

Anti-cuts protest, Bristol, 9.9.17, photo Matt Carey (Click to enlarge)

Tom Baldwin, Bristol Socialist Party

Bristol City Council will make another £34 million of cuts in the coming year. This cuts budget was proposed by Labour mayor Marvin Rees and voted for by Labour councillors.

This was despite the intervention of a distraught mother whose daughter had taken her own life a few days before.

Her explanation of the failures of social and mental health services brought home the brutal reality of what austerity means. She said that further cuts would mean "a lot of blood in this council chamber". But still the cuts continue.

Rees even congratulated himself and the council on passing a 'prudent' budget that would protect services! He ignores the fact that he is making the cuts the Tories are demanding. There can be no kind way to make these cuts.

I spoke at the start of the meeting, presenting a petition from the Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance calling for a no-cuts budget. The council has choices and could use its position to resist the cuts.

Bristol council has around £80 million in general reserves and over £200 million in 'usable' reserves, as well as the power to borrow cheaply. By using some of this money it would be entirely possible to set a legal and balanced budget, without cuts, while a mass campaign is built.

It is not just the Socialist Party and the anti-cuts alliance that have put forward this approach. It has even been urged on the mayor by elected bodies of his own party. Yet he still parrots lies about 'illegality' and claims to be powerless in the face of cuts.

We will continue to push for an anti-cuts fight from our council. Even if they don't then we will continue to fight every cut ourselves. We cannot stand to see another worker lose their job. We certainly cannot stand to see another parent lose their child.

In this issue

What we think

Corbyn's customs union dividing line: now stand firm for pro-worker Brexit