All Campaigns subcategories:
Election campaigns keywords:
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
Highlight keywords |
Print this article
Search site for keywords: Cuts - Labour - Government - TUSC - Austerity - Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - Local government - Anti-austerity
Labour councils should use £14bn reserves to fight all cuts
Trade unionists in Carmarthenshire lobbying their Labour council for a no-cuts budget in 2014, photo Scott Jones (Click to enlarge)
Tom Baldwin, South West Socialist Party organiser
A new report from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has set out the ability of Labour councils to resist cuts.
Local authorities have been among the areas worst hit by austerity, losing more than half the money they receive from the government. Savage cuts have been made to jobs and to services like social care, libraries and road maintenance.
Despite the desperate cost-cutting, some councils have still been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy and are struggling to provide even the services that are required by law.
Shamefully, all the parties leading councils have taken them down the path of austerity. This serves a dual purpose for the Tory government - they get the cuts and privatisation that they want, and they can also try and deflect the blame.
Choice
But councils have a choice. Three years in to Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party there has been no change in direction for the party in local government to try and make his anti-austerity agenda a reality. Councillors claim they have no choice but to cut. But this is not true, there is an alternative.
Labour councils have significant amounts of money in reserve as well as the ability to borrow. They could use this to fund no-cuts budgets. This would buy the time to build a mass campaign that could successfully demand funding.
The TUSC report lays out the enormous potential for doing this that Labour councils have at their fingertips. There are 125 Labour-led local authorities in Britain which administer a total budget of £79 billion! They hold a combined £14.2 billion in usable reserves and there is nothing to stop them creating a solidarity fund where reserves are pooled across different councils. Blairite council leaders are using the lie that they can't fight austerity to hide the fact that they don't want to.
Most English councils used reserves in their last budgets anyway. Funding cuts have been so severe they've been forced to dip into savings. Surely it is better to do this as part of a clear strategy to end cuts? Labour's leadership could empower local councils by announcing they would restore full funding and reimburse reserves that have been used as soon as a Labour government is elected.
It's beyond time for Labour councils to actually make a stand for the people they're meant to represent. Doing so wouldn't just be a vital line of defence for jobs and services, it would be a direct challenge to a weak and wobbly Tory government.
- See the TUSC report at tusc.org.uk
Donate to the Socialist Party
Finance appeal
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.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
LATEST POSTS
12 May Stop Israeli state brutality
 |
9 May Post-election meetings
15 May Birmingham Socialist Party: How can we fight for socialist change and a new workers' party?
17 May Oxfordshire & Aylesbury Socialist Party: The role of the state
18 May Bristol North Socialist Party: Liverpool - history of socialist struggle
CONTACT US
Phone our national office on 020 8988 8777
Email: [email protected]
Locate your nearest Socialist Party branch Text your name and postcode to 07761 818 206
Regional Socialist Party organisers:
Eastern: 079 8202 1969
East Mids: 077 3797 8057
London: 075 4018 9052
North East: 078 4114 4890
North West 079 5437 6096
South West: 077 5979 6478
Southern: 078 3368 1910
Wales: 079 3539 1947
West Mids: 024 7655 5620
Yorkshire: 078 0983 9793
ABOUT US
ARCHIVE
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999