1. The situation in Britain is marked by an historic offensive against the public sector, carried out by an openly bourgeois, anti-working class Tory government. Lib Dem support has plummeted – with most polls putting them below 10 per cent. The chief beneficiaries are Labour who are riding high on the back of the collapse in support for Lib Dems and anger over the cuts. The level of support for the Tories is, in contrast, pretty constant – most polls show them on 36 to 37 per cent, ie the same as the general election.
2. The Tories’ attacks are particularly hitting local government, where the cuts are front loaded, and disproportionately affect inner city areas where Labour are strongest.
3. As the Guardian has reported, Labour councils on average face 7 per cent cuts to ‘spending power’, while Tory councils face only 5 per cent on average. But in some areas this can be much higher. Labour controlled Camden, for example, has a 15 per cent cut in its spending power in the next financial year and £7 in every £8 the council spends comes from central government money.
4. Local anti-cuts groups meanwhile have generally succeeded in pulling in a wide range of forces from the labour and trade union movement and local community activists. But in some areas, such as Lambeth, sectarianism of the far left organisations still stands in the way of a united campaign. These anti-cuts campaigns have started to put pressure on the local Labour councils not to implement the cuts, to vote down cuts budgets, and instead build a national campaign of resistance. Lobbies and rallies have begun to crystalise and represent in embryo the potential for a mass movement of resistance.
5. The local anti-cuts campaigns have not however yet drawn in truly mass forces, i.e. thousands of local people. The potential for action on this scale at a local level has been shown recently in Birmingham, with a mass meeting of 3,000 trade unionists in Unison who voted unanimously for a strike ballot. Mobilisation on this kind of scale is posed by the cuts offensive in towns and cities across Britain. It is important for us to recognise that this will mean mobilising thousands upon thousands of traditional Labour supporters in a campaign of resistance.
6. A united front policy towards Labour is therefore critical to unlock this potential for a mass movement. This means putting the demand on Labour councils not to implement the cuts and forcing them into mass meetings, at a ward and housing estate level as well as borough-wide, to feel the pressure of the community. The Labour council leaders will blame the Tories government for the cuts and they won’t be entirely wrong in doing so. It is Tory-Lib Dems cuts that are to blame. But there is an alternative road to passing on the cuts to local people: don’t implement them and join us in the fight back. Of course, given the right ward evolution of the Labour Party over many years, it’s plain that a mass movement of resistance will need to be built to force Labour to change its line. This will show in practice that there is an alternative road to passing on cuts – it’s a militant, national campaign of resistance.
7. Should Labour councilors who have already voted for cuts be allowed to speak on anti-cuts platforms? This is a local tactical question, not one of principle. Such a tactic might help to expose pro-cuts Labour councilors in front of their voters, but at other times it may be divisive and cause unnecessary divisions in the local anti-cuts movement.
8. A mass movement at a local level will create the material basis for actually forcing the Labour councils to do a u-turn and not to implement the cuts or alternatively gather together the forces necessary to successfully stand anti-cuts candidates.
9. In the anti-cuts movement the Socialist Party and Tusc, along with some non-aligned anti-cuts candidates, have argued for the standing of anti-cuts candidates in forthcoming local elections. Workers Power believe that this is premature and the wrong tactic for anti-cuts groups to be pursuing at this time unless the anti-cuts campaign can claim genuine mass support, and Labour’s inability and unwillingness to stop the cuts has been exposed in the eyes of voters.
10. In the local elections there is very likely to be a continued surge in support for Labour whilst the local anti-cuts movements have generally not yet gathered together mass forces. This would mean anti-cuts candidates would in all likelihood perform badly. Nothing would be achieved from this, and it could actually undermine a future campaign.
11. The focus of anti-cuts groups should, in contrast, be building the mass movement on the ground and using this as the basis to maximise pressure on Labour during the local government election campaign through protests, occupations and strikes.
12. However if local anticuts groups decide, at democratically convened mass meetings, to stand anti-cuts candidates against our advice then, in the interests of unity, we may decide to campaign with them to help try to build the anticuts movement. But this will naturally depend on local priorities and it won’t change our general position in the election of a critical vote for Labour.
16 Feb 2010