Violent attacks on societies most vulnerable by our crumbling Tory government must be combatted with the appropriate political response. Research just published by the British Medical Journal demonstrated that over 120,000 people have died unnecessarily as a result of Tory cuts to health and social care.
Labour’s indefensible response in Leicester has been to launch a consultation on how they can work with (not against) such devastating Tory funding cuts. Rather than propose to fight the Tory cuts, Assistant city mayor for housing Cllr Andy Connelly offers up the non-solution that the Council “must therefore make sure we are making best use of the funding available to us…”
If you think back to the roll-out of the hated “bedroom tax” you will recall that Cllr Connelly has form on such issues. This is because he failed to make the minimal commitment to opposing the bedroom tax which he could have done by refusing to enact evictions resulting from the regressive tax – a demand that was put to him by concerned trade unionists and community activists in our fair city.
Now we find out that in the Council’s homelessness consultation documents that over the last year our Labour Council had served six eviction orders which “involved debt relating to welfare reforms (all these related to the ‘bedroom tax’).”
More than ever we must demand that our Labour Council refuses to do the Tories bidding. Labour must adopt the simple anti-austerity suggestion that was made by John McDonnell and the Labour Representation Committee in December 2015.
This suggestion was not rocket science, it just called upon Labour-run councils to avoid making any service cuts by “exhaust[ing] all available avenues under the law, including extensive drawing-down of reserves and use of prudential borrowing powers, to forestall the latest round of cuts while an effective mass campaign of resistance is built.” www.goo.gl/cgXh8s
Thoughts of a Leicester Socialist 