Crunch time: 5 reasons to vote Green in #GE2017

This unofficial video by Green Party member Ousman Noor throws out a challenge to voters - 5 reasons to vote Green in the General Election.

Barnet rocking against austerity and education cuts on Saturday with fair funding meeting on Tuesday

People in Barnet are really getting organised regarding education cuts. In addition to the event above a meeting has been organised for next week:

Fair Funding For All Schools

The meeting is at East Barnet Secondary School on Tuesday April 25th at 8pm.

Chestnut Grove, 

East Barnet

EN4 8PU 

Speakers will be from Fair Funding For All Schools, NUT and  Barnet Head teachers.

WANTED: Councils to take the lead in campaigning against cruel cuts to local government

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Just over a year ago Labour leaders Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell issued their instruction to Labour councillors that in the face of cuts to government funding of local authorities that they should set legal budgets - in effect implement cuts.   This was accompanied by talk of leading a mass movement of councillors against austerity and the cuts.    At the same time many independent activists and some from smaller left parties, including the Greens, had joined Labour or Momentum seeing it as the only way to oppose austerity.

The campaign never materialised but the 'legal budget' edict disarmed critics of Labour council cuts. The impact of cuts can be clearly seen in terms of  closure of  youth provision, closure of libraries, the increase in pot-holed roads in many city areas as well as the crisis in social care and the out-sourcing and privatisation of services.  Many activists who would have been in the forefront of campaigns are now involved in the debilitating  internal Labour and Momentum struggles.

At the time a Green Left colleague wrote LINK

No doubt JC & JM feel that they “have no choice” as 95%+ of their councillors support this approach. But it does undermine those trade unionists and campaigners actively arguing for them to stand up to the Tories. It implies there is no choice, when of course there is a choice. Labour has over 100 Councils. If Labour nationally opposed the cuts and organised some or all of its councils to refuse to implement them, there is absolutely no way the Government could send in Commissioners to run them all. It would provoke a huge national debate on the cuts and local democracy, and have the potential to force the Government to back down partly or wholly. As it is, right-wing Labour councillors are tweeting the letter to attack anyone on the Left campaigning against the cuts.  

In the end, the problem with the JC letter is that it completely understates the scale of the attack on local government and local democracy. This is not “business as usual”, a few nasty cuts etc.  This is a once in a lifetime, permanent dismantling and shrinkage of the local state, a huge extension of privatisation of local services and an undermining of local democracy itself - there is little point in having locally elected councillors if their job is (from Nicholas Ridley’s famous quote): “to meet once a year to hand out the contracts”.  

The only silver lining in the letter is its appeal for councillors to support local campaigners (even if this is clearly contradictory to their councillors supporting cuts budgets!) and to be organising mass campaigns against local government cuts. This gives an opportunity to campaigners to point out that Labour councillors are only doing one half of the message from the JC letter, and not the other.

Michael Calderbank, of Brent Central Labour Party and a Momentum supporter responded:

Well, yes, I tend to agree with your Green Left colleague. But in order to have dictated terms to local councillors, JC and JMc would have need there to be a mass campaign against local cuts. At long last they are trying to kick the Labour LGA into actually running a political campaign - all too often it's as though Labour councillors have forgotten they are members of a political party and just presented themselves as competent and compassionate administrators, powerless to do better in the circumstances. Frankly it's no good claiming to be an anti-austerity party in opposition whilst going along with it where we're in power.

Soon Brent Labour will be selecting candidates to stand in the 2018 local election and the candidate's stance on cuts will be a test for those who joined Labour in the Corbyn. One current anti-Corbyn councillor has already announced that he will not stand again and will move out of Brent. Those elected will have been left a legacy of cuts to be implemented in their first year:

Source Brent Budget Scrutiny Report

Bristol Green Party, in a city facing damaging cuts again this year, yesterday returned to the need for a national campaign LINK:

As January blues begin to kick in and the grim extent of the cuts to Bristol City Council becomes even clearer, Green councillors have responded to the Mayor’s Corporate Strategy consultation 2017-2022  calling for bold opposition and creative alternatives to the downward spiral of austerity. 

Greens are warning that the £92 million cuts forced on the Council by the Tory austerity programme will devastate public services across Bristol. The Greens are calling upon Bristol’s Mayor to take a leading role in opposing national austerity alongside other cities, networks, unions and progressive parties. They have also put forward an alternative vision for local government financing, including calls for a return of unallocated business rates to local government and for Bristol to receive its fair share of infrastructure spending. 

Leader of the Green Councillor Group, Charlie Bolton said:

Further cuts to the council will destroy many of the public services we all rely on. Services for older people, those with disabilities, our young people and children will all be slashed. Local traffic schemes that keep our children safe as they walk to school, well-loved library services and the parks that provide the ‘green lungs’ for our city will all be affected.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. These cruel cuts to our services are a choice that is being made by this Tory Government – to dismantle our public services instead of raising money by closing tax loopholes, reforming our finance system, bringing good growth to our economy or increasing tax for the top 1%. Essential public services are being abandoned, yet Government remains committed to the soaring costs of replacing Trident, building a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point and developing the HS2 vanity project.  

Molly Scott Cato, MEP, Green Party Economics Spokesperson and Green Parliamentary Candidate for Bristol West said:

We know austerity is a downward spiral. As you cut the state you reduce job quality and tax revenue, leading to less money available for investment, which in turn cuts the state still further. It’s time to say loud and clear that austerity has failed and that we value our public services and believe they should be properly funded. 

Tony Dyer, Green Party Local Government Spokesperson and Green Parliamentary candidate for Bristol South added: 

Many of our cities are being disproportionally affected by Tory cuts. Bristol has already suffered three times more cuts than neighbouring authorities. The 10 Core Cities outside London are all run by Labour. They are home to almost 19 million people and contribute more than a quarter of the combined wealth of England, Wales and Scotland – so why aren’t we seeing more vocal opposition to this latest unjust assault on our services? We call upon Bristol’s Mayor to take the leading role in opposing national austerity alongside other cities, networks, unions and progressive parties.

Figures from the Institute of Fiscal Studies demonstrate that cuts have not been shared equally across the country LINK  

Labour stifles the anti-cuts movement

A year ago I published a piece on Wembley Matters which asked what Jeremy Corbyn, then the new Labour leader, would do about local council cuts.  I drew attention to the contradiction that under him Labour claimed to be an anti-austerity party while local Labour councils were implementing the Tory austerity agenda by making cuts to services. LINK

In December last year Corbyn and McDonnell, responding to pressure from local council leaders who in turn were under pressure from anticuts campaigns, threw the towel in and wrote to Labour councillors telling them to set 'legal' budgets:

Failing to do so can lead to complaints against councillors under the Code of Conduct, judicial review of the council and, most significantly, government intervention by the Secretary of State.

It would mean either council officers or, worse still, Tory ministers deciding council spending priorities. Their priorities would certainly not meet the needs of the communities which elected us.

In effect this meant implenting cuts.

In March this year, just as Councils were formally approving budgets, the People's Assembly Against Austerity LINK  asked councillors to sign the following letter:

As Councillors we believe this Tory Government's ideological opposition to public services lies behind the deliberate underfunding of Local Authorities.

Councils have faced unprecedented cuts; Local Authority grants in England have been slashed, with £12.5 billion of cuts and half a million Council workers losing their jobs since 2010. Osborne has forced through 40% cuts to Council budgets meaning that local authorities face the reality of cutting frontline services including Adult Social Care and Children's Services, leaving those that rely on them at risk.

We believe that austerity is a political choice. We oppose all cuts from Westminster and believe Osborne’s plans for Local Government will only make a bad situation worse.

We call on the government to reverse cuts to council funding so we are able to provide essential services our communities rely on. Furthermore we call for an end to austerity that is seeing living standards for the majority fall.

Given the Labour leadership's instruction this meant paper opposition only, although councils tried to find alternatives by rising charges and rents and finally raising council tax. This still meant of course that the poor were paying for austerity - but by a different route.

The situation is now worse as a result of cuts in real terms to local authority education grants. LA education budgets have not been increased to take account of increased pension and national insurance contributions or the increasing number of pupils in schools.

The anti-cuts movement had argued for councils to refuse to set budgets, set illegal budgets or devise a needs based budget, as an alternative to making cuts. This to be accompanied by a mass campaign involving councillors, trade unions, voluntary organisations and the public. 

In practical terms combining the two approaches didn't work because no group of councillors took the former approach although some individual councillors voted against budgets losing the whip as a consequence.  It was then difficult for local Labour parties to mobilise the public against cuts when they themselves had implemented them.

This year, by agreeing to the freezing of the Revenue Support Grant and the associated four year action plans, councils have accepted the government cuts and boxed gthemselves in for 4 years.

The Labour National Executive Committee has now strengthened control over Labour councillors with the following  rule change:

Members of the Labour group in administration must comply with the provisions of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and subsequent revisions and shall not vote against or abstain on a vote in full council to set a legal budget proposed by the administration.

Members of the Labour group shall not support any proposal to set an illegal budget. Any councillor who votes against or abstains on a Labour group policy decision in this matter may face disciplinary action.

My interpretation of this is that when in opposition Labour groups can decide to vote against cuts budgets but where Labour is in power individual Labour councillors cannot vote against cuts budget.  These are not just any cuts, these are Labour cuts - and therefore preferable?

I searched in vain for any reference to challenging cuts and mobilising mass campaings in Jeremy Corbyn's Conference speech.  I publish the section on local councils in full. He praises local councils for what they have done despite the cuts and describes (rather than advocates) some councils' decisions to take services back in-house. In doing so he says that this is cheaper and preserves working conditions. However this presents difficulties as year after year Labour administrations have argued that out-sourcing to private providers has saved council tax payers money whilst not acknowledging that lowert costs have been achieved by lower wages, worse working conditions, poor pensions etc.  

Even worse some councils have argued that the private and voluntary sector is more able to respond to local need in araes such as youth provision and social care.

Already, across the country, Labour councils are putting Labour values into action, in a way that makes a real difference to millions of people, despite cynical government funding cuts that have hit Labour councils five times as hard as Tory-run areas.

Like Nottingham City Council setting up the not-for-profit Robin Hood Energy company to provide affordable energy;

Or Cardiff Bus Company taking 100,000 passengers every day, publicly owned with a passenger panel to hold its directors to account;

Or Preston Council working to favour local procurement, and keep money in the town;

Or Newcastle Council providing free wi-fi in 69 public buildings across the city;

Or Croydon Council which has set up a company to build 1,000 new homes, as Cllr Alison Butler said: “We can no longer afford to sit back and let the market take its course”.

Or Glasgow that has established high quality and flexible workspaces for start-up, high growth companies in dynamic new sectors.

Or here in Liverpool, set to be at the global forefront of a new wave of technology and home to Sensor City, a £15million business hub that aims to create 300 start-up businesses and 1,000 jobs over the next decade.

It is a proud Labour record each and every Labour councillor deserves our heartfelt thanks for the work they do.

But I want to go further because we want local government to go further and put public enterprise back into the heart of our economy and services to meet the needs of local communities, municipal socialism for the 21st century, as an engine of local growth and development.

So today I’m announcing that Labour will remove the artificial local borrowing cap and allow councils to borrow against their housing stock.

That single measure alone would allow them to build an extra 12,000 council homes a year.

Labour councils increasingly have a policy of in-house as the preferred provider and many councils have brought bin collections, cleaners, and IT services back in-house, insourcing privatized contracts to save money for council tax payers and to ensure good terms and conditions for staff.

Corbyn's election campaign inspired many independent activists (and not a few Green Party members) to join the Labour Party and gave the left inside the Labour Party fresh energy. 

The problem now is that on the ground, and impacting on the poor, they face 4 more years of local government cuts, 'efficiencies' where fewer workers do the same or increased amounts of work, council tax rises, increased service charges, dodgy regeneration projects to increase the council tax base and privatisation.

Maintaining the morale of new recruits in such circumstances will present a real challenge.

Clive Lewis & Caroline Lucas head up speakers list at Progressive Alliance event next week

From Compass

 Politics is in crisis and the repercussions from the result of the referendum are being felt socially, politically and economically. For many people, it feels like the country is being torn apart.

If we want a politics and economy that puts all of us first, it's time to come together and start building alliances. We need a democracy that listens and responds, that puts the people in control. We will not get there by shutting people out and perpetuating divisions, but by building bridges, alliances common cause.

In the current political chaos the Right are asserting themselves across the political terrain, while most of the Left's focus is on how Labour is pulling itself apart. Only a progressive alliance of all parties, people and movements can flip the debate to one that builds a society that is much more equal, sustainable and democratic. With a general election looming in the Autumn, a popular front of ideas and organisation is the only way to defend what we hold dear and to start to build a society that we can all live in and be proud of.

We are calling a series of public meetings to explore: what could a progressive alliance look like? How possible is it? And what can we do to start to make it feasible?

The first meeting will be on Tuesday July 5th. While this event is in London, local groups are exploring holding simultaneous events around the country. We are working on live streaming the event (details to follow) and will be hosting online discussion and meetings across the country in the coming weeks and months.

SPEAKERS:
Caroline Lucas MP, Green Party
Clive Lewis MP, Labour Party
Amina Gichinga, Take Back the City
John Harris, Journalist
Hopefully SNP & Plaid Cymru speakers tbc

VENUE: Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8EP.
The venue is fully accessible for wheelchair users.

DATE & TIME: Tuesday July 5th, doors 6pm for a prompt 6.30pm start, finishing at 8.30pm

TICKETS: Please click here to get your tickets, spaces are limited.

Tickets are pay what you can to help us cover the cost of putting on the event, if you would like to come but are not able to pay, please do email clare@compassonline.org.uk.

This is about parties and seats - we need to make sure that the Conservatives and Right do not win the next election - but it must also be much richer and deeper. It must be about values and movements; it is a time for all of us to step up and get involved.

This event will launch a series of conversations about a Progressive Alliance that will then continue across the country, linking up with parties, movements and organisations. There has been a lot of talk about the need for Progressive Alliances over the last week, now is the time to start organising.

UN report provides opportunity to campaign to restore children's right to play

Re-blogged with thanks from policyforplay.com

The campaign to save Stonebridge Adventure Playground

 The UN’s latest report on the UK government’s record on children’s rights includes some stringent conclusions about the abandonment of play policy. If play advocates can seize the moment, suggests Adrian Voce, it also provides the basis for a persuasive influencing campaign to restore children’s right to play as a national priority.

The concluding observations of last week’s report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, on the UK’s recent record on children’s rights, has been welcomed by Theresa Casey, the President of the International Play Association (IPA) as ‘the strongest I’ve seen’ on children’s right to play.
This is perhaps no cause for celebration among play advocates. The CRC’s ‘concern about the withdrawal of a play policy in England and the under-funding of play’ across the UK, merely confirms what we know about the woefully inadequate, not to say destructive response of the UK government since 2010, to a human right for children that the CRC says ‘is fundamental to the quality of childhood, to children’s entitlement to optimum development, to the promotion of resilience and to the realisation of other rights’.

The Children’s Rights Alliance for England went on to observe that, since 2010, the government had in fact ‘undermined children’s rights under Article 31 …’

The dismissive approach of the Coalition and Conservative governments of David Cameron, to article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which commits states parties to support and provide for the fulfilment of the right to play, was highlighted by the independent NGO, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) last year. Its civil society report to the CRC on the UK government’s record on children’s rights pulled no punches when it came to play, saying: ‘Rest, leisure and play have been a casualty of the austerity drive. In the absence of a national play policy, many councils have disproportionately targeted play services for cuts with many long-standing services and projects closed and the land redeveloped’.

The CRAE report went on to observe that, since 2010, the government had in fact ‘undermined children’s rights under Article 31 by: abandoning a ten-year national play strategy for England with eight years still to run; cancelling all national play contracts … (and) withdrawing recognition of playwork in out-of-school care…’

Many observers of the work of the CRC over the years have been disappointed at its lack of rigour in holding governments to account for article 31, but the committee’s publication in 2013, of a general comment[1] on the ‘right to rest, leisure, play, recreational activities, cultural life and the arts’ appears to have raised the bar, further vindicating the work of Theresa and her colleagues at IPA in lobbying the UN to produce the document.

UN expects national governments to honour its obligations to ‘respect, protect and fulfil’ children’s right to play

The General Comment (GC17) on article 31 expands on government responsibilities for children’s play under the 1989 convention, urging them ‘to elaborate measures to ensure’ its full implementation. GC17 makes it clear that, in the face of increasing barriers, the UN expects national governments to honour their obligations to ‘respect, protect and fulfil’ children’s right to play by taking serious and concerted action on a range of fronts including, in particular, ‘legislation, planning and funding’. Last week’s report simply highlights what we already know: that the UK government, having been among the world leaders in national play policy before 2010, has since been in abject dereliction of this duty.

While we take no pleasure in this confirmation of the steep decline in the status and priority afforded to children’s play within national policy, we should, nevertheless, see the UNCRC’s report as both an opportunity and a reminder. The opportunity is to fashion an influencing campaign, aligned to the wider advocacy movement for children’s rights in the UK, to persuade future governments to recommit to children’s play. Unsurprisingly, the CRC is critical of the UK record on children’s rights in other areas than play. Its main recommendation is that a broad national children’s rights strategy, abandoned by the coalition government in 2010, should be ‘revised … to cover all areas of the convention and ensure its full implementation’. In England, this plan included a 10-year national play strategy. The play movement should be building links with other children’s rights advocates – who will now use the CRC’s report to put pressure on policymakers – to ensure that the right to play is properly considered in any such revision.

There has been a tendency, since the demise of the Play Strategy, in England at least, to lower our ambition for play policy

The reminder delivered by the CRC report is that children’s play is a serious, crosscutting policy issue, requiring a strategic response and high-level leadership. There has been a tendency, since the demise of the Play Strategy, in England at least, to lower our ambition for play policy. The Children’s Play Policy Forum, for example, has seemed to level its proposals at an agenda that disregards play for its own sake, relegating it to the level of an activity with only instrumental value to such existing policy areas as improving children’s health, reducing neighbourhood conflict or encouraging volunteering.

Good public play provision and playable public space can contribute to all these things of course, but the UN reminded us last week that our government has a duty to legislate, plan and budget for children’s play, first and foremost, because it is their human right. Such an approach will most likely fall on deaf ears, as does so much else with this government, committed as it is to relentlessly scaling back public services and privatising the public realm. Our duty in this case is to point out its failure, and to cultivate support from policymakers outside the government.

An All Party Parliamentary Group, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, the Children’s Commissioner for England, the Leader of the Opposition and now the United Nations have all recently called for a higher priority to be afforded to children’s play by our local and national governments – many of them urging the UK government to emulate that of Wales in adopting a play sufficiency duty on local authorities.

The Play England board earlier this year sanctioned an open, independent debate about its future role and purpose. Sadly, it seems to no longer have the resources even to manage its own consultations; but if it only does one thing between now and the next general election, this must surely be to cultivate and capitalise on such support in high places and coordinate a cohesive, sustained influencing campaign for play to be once again afforded the status it needs within government policy.

Adrian Voce
[1] A UN General Comment is defined as ‘the interpretation of the provisions of (its) respective human rights treaty’ by its treaty bodies. In other words, it is the UN ’s own interpretation of how nation states should meet their obligations under international law.

Greens out in force to support the People's Assembly's 4 demands

There was an excellent Green Party presence at the People's Assembly March Against Austerity today as Greens rallied to support the four demands on Health, Homes, Jobs and Education.

1500 Green candidates will fight tooth and nail to protect services and tackle the housing crisis

Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, has launched the Green Party’s Local Elections campaign in Bristol alongside Tony Dyer, the Greens’ Bristol Mayoral candidate, and Bristol councillor Daniella Radice.

Ahead of the launch Bennett said:

Green councillors have proven their ability to stand up for their constituents and deliver real change and we are excited to be standing almost 1,500 candidates on 5 May. In a period when councils have been under enormous pressure to execute savage cuts handed down from Westminster, I am proud to say Green councillors have fought tooth and nail to protect essential public services and vulnerable people. By challenging the destructive budget priorities of councils led by the old parties that have run out of ideas, and holding planners and developers to account, Green councillors have made a real difference to people’s lives.

The Green Party are standing over 1,500 candidates on 5 May. Alongside the Greens’ 168 principal authority councillors, those newly elected next month will move to demand that local authority pensions are not invested in companies that have links to tax havens or unethical concerns.

At the launch, Bennett challenged our unfair tax system, and the notion that austerity is inevitable:

The recent tax evasion and avoidance scandals involving the shady financial arrangements of the super wealthy show that austerity is not unavoidable – it is a choice. The loopholes that exist in our unfair taxation system, and the ability of millionaires to avoid paying their way, shows there is enough money to pay for our vital council services - all that is needed is the political will. 

But while councils have been hard hit by Tory austerity, they should be straining every sinew to protect care services, community facilities and leisure spaces - finding creative ways to preserve them for the future. Greens have ideas to help with that, as well as scrutinising, challenging, and asking tough questions - being a new broom sweeping through often dusty corridors. 

If you want to send your message about the need for real change – about the need for multinational companies and rich individuals to pay their way and about the need for creative solutions in local communities, vote Green on 5 May.

Tony Dyer commented:

The astonishing success of the Green Party's recent Election Broadcast  clearly shows that it struck a chord with people who are sick and tired of the playground antics that too often dominates political debate. From standing up for the most disadvantaged, to taking real steps to alleviate Bristol's ever worsening housing crisis, Greens are committed to grown up politics that deliver real change."

Greens will campaign tirelessly in coming weeks for measures to address the housing crisis and deliver decent homes for all. The party is committed to cap rents, introduce longer tenancies and license landlords to provide greater protection for renters. We will also break the stranglehold of the big volume builders, helping smaller builders, community groups and individuals build genuinely affordable homes and renovate more empty homes.

Daniella Radice, part of the team of that have been rapidly greening Bristol’s council, commented:

We call on this government to restore local peoples’ powers to protect their own environments, and to stop damaging and exploitative developments in our towns and countryside.

Where one part of government talks about devolution, in fact it is busy removing powers from local councils and the people they represent. The government must stop treating local communities like children. Local people know what is best for their areas and must have a real say over new developments. They should be able to say no to polluting industries, fracking, and unaffordable housing built by exploitative developers – all to the benefit of investors rather than local people.

The Green Party is opposed to the centralising proposals in the Housing and Planning Bill which will further undermine the ability of Local Councils to insist on truly affordable homes, or negotiate with major developers.

Cllr Radice added:

It is no coincidence that the Conservative administration has received so much funding from the same property tycoons and investors who will benefit from this centralisation of control. We call on the government to halt this damaging bill, and enable local councils to build the affordable homes we desperately need.

Call for action by councillors to challenge cuts to local government funding

The People's Assembly Against Austerity have put forward these thoughts and actions as a further contribution to the discussion on local government cuts. This is clearly relevant to the debnate at Brent Momentum on Saturday.

The Peoples’ Assembly is completely opposed to Tory Governments cuts and campaigns against them without qualification. We aim to build a national movement to stop the cuts and will support tactics that will help to build this movement.

Local council budgets is one area that has been hit particularly hard by the Government. Some councils have faced a 40% cut to their budgets compared to 2010. This has led to hundreds of thousands of public sector job losses across the country and the closure, or privatisation, of essential services. This inevitably hits the most vulnerable in society hardest. We now face a situation where Central Government is set to impose further cuts to local council budgets and there is difficulty for councils to even provide basic statutory services.

The situation when campaigning against council imposed cuts is therefore more complicated. Our attitude toward councillors and local councils can be considered in three categories:

1.  Those that fully support the neo-liberal austerity agenda and work hard to apply cuts and privatisation of services

2.  Those that are opposed to austerity but have applied cuts locally, reflecting the budget given to the council by Central Government.

3.  Those who are opposed to cuts, vote against local council austerity budgets, try to minimise them and (the better ones) work with others to resist and challenge them.

The PA is opposed to council cuts and supports local groups in their efforts to resist these and build the protest movement. In an ideal situation hundreds of councillors / councils would fall into category 3.

However, to date, not one council has set a ‘needs budget’ or ‘illegal budget’ rejecting cuts to council budgets from the government. However, there are thousands of councillors who fall into category 2 – those that are against having to make cuts but don’t feel like there’s any other option than to set a budget with the allowance set by the government.  On the question of calls for councils to set ‘needs budgets’ or ‘illegal budgets’ we recognise that where that may be done there are legitimate concerns from councillors that the Government will impose commissioners to politically manage the budget set by Government, or simply that they have no other option than to work with the budget they have been given.  Councils will have usable reserves but, in recognising that this is likely to be a long struggle, they may not wish to spend these reserves quickly.  Others may prefer to invest the reserves in socially useful areas, such as housing, which would increase revenues, create local jobs and meet a pressing need.

The job of the anti-austerity movement should be to work with any councillor who is opposed to austerity and create a movement that can shift as many councillors from category 2 to category 3.

The PA is asking local councillors to sign the following letter. To sign follow this LINK

As Councillors we believe this Tory Government's ideological opposition to public services lies behind the deliberate underfunding of Local Authorities.

Councils have faced unprecedented cuts; Local Authority grants in England have been slashed, with £12.5 billion of cuts and half a million Council workers losing their jobs since 2010. Osborne has forced through 40% cuts to Council budgets meaning that local authorities face the reality of cutting frontline services including Adult Social Care and Children's Services, leaving those that rely on them at risk.

We believe that austerity is a political choice. We oppose all cuts from Westminster and believe Osborne’s plans for Local Government will only make a bad situation worse.

We call on the government to reverse cuts to council funding so we are able to provide essential services our communities rely on. Furthermore we call for an end to austerity that is seeing living standards for the majority fall. This is why we also support the national march for Health, Homes, Jobs & Education on Saturday 16 April 2016 in London.

Will Momentum cause some friction at church today?

The conference at Neasden Methodist Church today organised by Brent Momentum, Brent Trades Council and Brent Fightback will be a test of the extent to which the recently formed Momentum Group is able to reach out to local grass roots campaigns and non-Labour activists.

Originally billed as 'Is a better Brent possible?' it is now 'Brent Uncut', which as I've pointed out before is a bit of a joke given the swathe of cuts Labour Brent Council has made. The leaders of the council are listed as speakers.

Momentum is responding to a challenge to his followers by Jeremy Corbyn to have a dialogue with councillors on how they can challenge austerity and local government cuts - although remaining 'legal' of course.

Today's programme is ambitious and it will interesting to see how many people turn up on a grey Saturday morning in Neasden.  I will be raising the Green Flag.

The venue is a walk from Neasden station via the underpass at Neasden Shopping Centre or 182, 232, 245,  297 or 302 bus.

Brent Uncut: Fighting austerity for a better borough - Saturday

Readers may be surprised to see  Cllrs Butt and Pavey on a flyer about fighting austerity when they have been giving into it and implementing cuts, but I am assured by an organiser that this meeting is  not about giving Butt and Pavey a 'free pass' but  '..about a critical dialogue with them, taking the Corbyn letter at its word when it asked them to work with community groups and unions to build up a campaign against Tory austerity and its impact locally.'

We shall see.

Brent Uncut (if only!) event on March 12th

At the Green Party Conference there was a discussion on whether we could work as part of a 'progressive alliance with the Labour Party. Opinions and experiences were mixed with some claiming that although Momentum had come out of the Corbyn leadership campaign it was little more than an election machine for the Labour Party who would back any Labour candidate, regardless of whether they supported anti-austerity or Corbyn, as a defeat would be seen as a blow for Corbyn.  I hope to post a video of the discussion later.

Meanwhile Brent Momentum has sent out the following invitation. Brent Momentum's event is called Brent Uncut, although of course Brent Labour Council has cut local services to the bone as a consequence of central government slashing local governnment finances. I  would be interested in any comments you wish to make.

What would Brent look like without austerity? Brent Momentum with Brent Trades Council and Brent Fightback presents Brent Uncut: Fighting Austerity for a Better Borough. Come along for a day of workshops and discussions, with:

Shelly Asquith (National Union of Students), Melissa Benn (journalist, writer, campaigner), Dawn Butler MP,  Muhammed Butt (Leader, Brent Council) and Michael Pavey (Dep Leader, Brent Council).

Participate in workshops on: education, transport, health, energy/climate, housing, PREVENT, welfare/disability and culture.

Brent Uncut will be held from 10 - 4 pm on Saturday 12 March 2016 at  Neasden Methodist Church, Neasden Lane North, NW10 0AF.

Please sign up and share via Facebook.

You don't need to be an expert or have been to events like this before. Everybody has great ideas and contributions to make for how we can improve our local area. Come along and be part of the movement for a more democratic, equal and decent society.

In solidarity,

Team Momentum

Green MEP to join Shadow Chancellor addressing ‘alternatives to austerity’ conference

Molly Scott Cato MEP will join Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell at a conference in Manchester tomorrow exploring how to build an economy to serve people not profit. Molly and John McDonnell will be two of the keynote speakers and will be joined by Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, and writer Frances Coppola.

Molly, who is a member of the European Parliament’s Economics Committee and Green Party speaker on finance, said:

Greens have always advocated co-operative alternatives to austerity and rampant free market capitalism. I’m delighted that Labour now seem genuinely to be engaged in a debate on how we can build an economy that will be more jointly and justly owned. We need to see all progressives unite behind policies such as fair taxation, regulation of banking and Green Quantitative Easing.

We must also ensure that this new economy operates within environmental limits. This means phasing out fossil fuels, opposing expensive and dangerous nuclear and actively supporting the rise of community owned renewables.

Does the People's Assembly motion show us a way of fighting council cuts?

Following the discussion on this blog on local council cuts, after the Corbyn letter to council leaders, arguing that they had not choice but to make cuts LINK , I thought it would be worth publishing the motion passed at the People's Assembly Conference earlier this month.  The motion from Cardiff PA was more contentious that other motions but passed with a clear majority.
 

“No Cuts” Campaign Against Council Cuts

Conference notes

1.  People’s Assembly opposes all cuts. Five more years of council cuts is unsustainable.

2.  Council cuts derive from the Tory government’s austerity policies of making us pay for the financial crisis not of our making.

3.  People, especially younger people, across the UK are under financial pressure from benefit cuts and falling real wages. In these circumstances they increasingly rely on the collective provision of council and other services, only to find that they are being withdrawn whilst at the same time experiencing increased payments for less provision.

4.  Council cuts are transmitted down from the UK Tory government by a combination of withdrawal of finance and requirement to set a legal budget.

5.  Councillors, lacking politics and confidence to challenge this political and bureaucratic process, buckle under and pass ‘their problem’ as they see it, on to us.

6.  Historical examples of councils defying central government: Poplar 1921, Clay Cross & Bedwas and Machen 1972, Rate Capping Rebellion of 80s with 26 Labour councils pledging to defy government with Liverpool and Lambeth going furthest.

7.  Recently examples of Northern Ireland Assembly and House of Lords prepared to risk a constitutional crisis over implementation of Tory welfare reform and tax credits.

8.  A small number of Labour & Green councillors have voted for no cuts.

Conference calls for

People’s Assembly to launch a national campaign for councils to refuse to set cuts budgets this year and instead set ‘needs’ budgets based upon estimating what is actually needed to adequately maintain services and campaigning for the government to provide it.

Conference therefore resolves to

1.  Publicise and develop arguments around ‘needs budgets’ to aid activists

2.  Prepare model motions calling upon councils to set no cuts budgets for use by local anti-cuts groups, trade union branches etc

3.  Give a platform to, and amplify voice of councillors who vote against all cuts 4 In all council areas an electronic petition could be drawn up demanding councillors vote against all cuts, raising directly the issues that we face and the responsibility our elected representatives have to fight back.

5.  Rectify lack of material on PA website supporting local campaigners around council cuts, especially around the political arguments (ie.  responding to ‘cuts have to be made’, ‘we have no choice’, ‘what would you cut instead’)

6.  Organise a national meeting for councillors, trade unionists and anti-austerity campaigners to explore how councils can resist.

7.  Compile and share information on examples of council ‘best practice’ in resisting austerity such as using reserves, no bedroom tax eviction policies, pledges of non-cooperation with the Trade Union Bill, Manchester Council opening up empty buildings to homeless etc.”

This along with the suggestions from  Felicity Dowling LINK and William Quick LINK could provide the basis for a discussion at Brent Fightback and Brent Momentum early in the New Year.