All Organisations subcategories:
Committee for a Workers International
Nationalist and National Liberation
Pro capitalist and Imperialist
Left and radical keywords:
International Socialist Resistance (54)
Revolutionary Communist League (1)
Socialist Peoples Party (Denmark) (1)
Green
Highlight keywords |
Print this article
Brighton pensioner jailed for non-payment of council tax
Bill North, Socialist Party, and former chair of Brighton and Hove Anti-Poll Tax Federation
In 2011 Brighton and Hove became the first local authority in Britain to be run by the Greens. The Green manifesto looked forward to "a just and equal city where everybody is treated with kindness, respect and dignity".
On Thursday 26 July Brighton and Hove city council successfully applied to have Josephine Medhurst, an 80 year old pensioner, jailed for ten days for non-payment of council tax. Family members told the Socialist Party that the bill - around £3,000 - was incurred by her deceased husband over a decade ago.
Green voters might well be asking: "Where's the dignity in that?"
At an earlier hearing magistrates found that Mrs Medhurst's non-payment was due to "culpable neglect" and told her to pay the totally unrealistic amount of £20 a week. When she couldn't make the payments they jailed her.
A council spokesman claimed that "repeatedly over a number of years" the council had tried to help; and no doubt Green councillors will point out that the case was started by the previous (Tory) administration. But that is completely irrelevant. Mrs Medhurst is in prison because of the actions - or lack of actions - of the Green-led council which could have stopped the court case at any time over the last year.
So what has been achieved by jailing Mrs Medhurst? She doesn't have the money, her family don't have the money and the council doesn't have the money. Once a debtor has been imprisoned there's no further action the council can take to enforce payment. The most that the council - to its shame - could expect to gain was to frighten her and her family.
Benefit cut
All this has happened during the same month that the Green council has published its "preferred alternative" to the coalition government's plans to abolish the national system of council tax benefit.
Con-Dem plans would mean a £2.5 million cut in council tax benefit locally. The Green's "preferred" response would mean that everyone below pensionable age would be charged at least 10% of the council tax.
In one way this is worse than when Thatcher brought in the hated poll tax at the end of the 1980s. At least then the Tories brought in a token increase in benefits, pretending it would compensate the poorest in society. The Greens have come up with their proposals at a time when benefits are actually being cut!
There can be no doubt that more people would fall into debt. How many of them would the Greens be willing to put in prison?
Before last year's council elections Brighton and Hove Socialist Party warned the Green Party that by refusing to challenge government cuts they would be forced into attacking local services. We rejected their argument that the best they could do was protect the vulnerable (although even we did not predict that they would try to 'protect the vulnerable' by sending some of them to prison!).
We called on the Greens, and every councillor claiming to oppose the cuts, to build a movement in Brighton and Hove and help build a campaign nationally to demand a restoration of the cuts in funding.
We called on them to set a budget to reflect the needs of the city's population, not the dictates of the cold-hearted Tories and their Liberal Democrat playthings. Instead, the Greens have allowed themselves to become licensed bullies, trying to intimidate working class people in an effort to raise council tax revenue.
- No to jailings or punitive measures for non-payers who cannot afford to pay
- No cuts in council tax benefits or any council services and no to privatisation
- Build a mass challenge to this and all future governments to demand lost funding is returned to the city
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