Councils and the cuts in Wales – event report

15 February 2013: Darren Williams, secretary of Welsh Labour Grassroots, reports from a day school in Cardiff on councils and the cuts

Hilary Wainwright addresses the Welsh Labour Grassroots event

Wales is particularly vulnerable to the UK government’s public spending cuts, as it has higher levels of deprivation, economic inactivity and benefit dependency than the UK as a whole. The Labour-led Welsh Assembly, which lacks any financial autonomy – having neither tax-raising nor borrowing powers – has seen its budget cut by more than £2 billion in real terms over the three years of Osborne’s comprehensive spending review – the biggest cut imposed on any of the devolved administrations. It, in turn, has handed down budget reductions to Wales’ 22 local authorities, as well as to the NHS.

Who's in office?

Voters punished the Tories and Lib Dems in the Welsh council elections of May 2012, which saw Labour take overall control of ten authorities and become the senior coalition partner in another four. Among the hundreds of new or returning Labour councillors are dozens of left-wingers, many of them elected for the first time, including numerous members of Welsh Labour Grassroots (WLG), the network of left and centre-left activists, which campaigns for socialist policies and for greater democracy.

With most Labour groups run by comparatively conservative politicians with, at best, a somewhat fatalistic attitude to the cuts, WLG decided to hold a day school to help socialist councillors consider how best to defend their communities from austerity.

Councils and the cuts day school

The event was held in Cardiff, 26 January, and was attended by more than 40 WLG members, including councillors from at least three unitary authorities and a couple of town and community councils. Mick Antoniw, Assembly Member for Pontypridd, got the proceedings off to a good start with a frank and thoughtful assessment of the challenge of the Tory cuts for Wales and the difficult decisions facing the Welsh Government and Labour councils. The next session sought to provide some historical context, by recounting the stories of rebel councils from the 1920s to the 1980s – taking in ‘Poplarism’, Clay Cross and the anti-ratecapping struggle – in each case, defying central government to protect the living standards of their communities.

Reports from England

The meeting then heard from two English Labour councillors with different experiences of defending their communities. Charlynne Pullen recounted an impressive record of achievement, in difficult times, since Labour regained control of Islington council in 2010. This included the establishment of a Fairness Commission, the introduction of free school meals, the partial restoration of Education Maintenance Allowance and the bringing back in-house of previously outsourced services.

Greg Marshall described how he had campaigned and won office in Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, in 2011 on a clear anti-cuts platform. He and two fellow councillors have maintained this position in the ruling Labour group, winning some important concessions from the majority while also campaigning alongside unions, the local trades council and community groups to defend services.

The role of socialists in public office

The final guest speaker, Red Pepper co-editor Hilary Wainwright, addressed the broader question of the nature of power and of how socialists who win public office can use their position to promote participatory democracy and anti-capitalist policies. Hilary explained how the rise of Syriza in Greece has demonstrated the potential for the left to use electoral success not simply to administer state power but to transform the character of government by enabling ordinary people to drive the formulation and implementation of policy. In this respect, it echoes previous radical experiments, like the Greater London Council in the 1980s and the Brazilian Workers Party in Porto Alegre.

Armed for the coming battles

The stimulating ideas presented by Hilary and the other speakers throughout the day were matched by the lively and thoughtful contributions of the WLG members who attended. WLG hopes that these discussions will have helped arm our comrades – especially those in Welsh council chambers – for the coming battles to protect jobs and services. Already, as Labour-controlled councils begin to announce their budget proposals, controversial cuts are highlighting the difficult choices facing councillors who want to remain true to their principles and loyal to the people who voted them into office. If the event has at least helped to open up the debate around these issues, then it will have been worthwhile.

If you would like Red Pepper to attend your event please contact jenny@redpepper.org.uk

Solidarity with Max Watson and Jawad Botmeh

13 February 2013: Two members of London Metropolitan University Unison, including the branch chair, have been suspended. Union activists launched a campaign to defend them

LMU Unison branch chair Max Watson, a contributor to Red Pepper, and fellow union activist Jawad Botmeh, recently elected as staff rep on LMU's governing body, have been suspended by the university. Branch members insist that the pair have done nothing wrong and believe Max has been targeted because of the strength and leadership he has shown as their chair.

The university has launched an investigation into a 'serious matter of concern' relating to 'gross misconduct', believed to be related to Jawad’s appointment to the university five years ago.

Jawad declared a conviction on application to work at the university. But the 1996 conviction for conspiracy to cause explosions was deemed an appalling miscarriage of justice by many including Amnesty International and his local MP Jeremy Corbyn.

'Kangaroo court'

Max explains 'on Thursday last week a "Kangaroo court" summoned me to a hearing that lasted 30 minutes. I had no time to prepare and I had no indication what it was concerning'.

He also states: 'This is not about me or Jawad, in the end. It is about our right, as workers, to organise in the workplace and to elect our own reps. It's about justice and solidarity for those who put their head above the parapet. It's about every one of us standing should to shoulder in defence of our jobs and in defence of our right to organise.'

In December Max wrote in Red Pepper of how his union branch helped stave off privatisation proposals at the university.

How you can help

You can send messages of support and find out more on the LMU Unison branch website.

Tunisia’s poet and politician: who was Chokri Belaid?

12 February 2013: The assassination of opposition figure Chokri Belaid has sparked a new surge in the Tunisian movement. Mohamed-Salah Omri explains who he was and why he mattered

Since opposition figure Chokri Belaid was assassinated, Tunisia has been thrown into total turmoil. Political violence is rare in Tunisia, so the assassination targeting a household name and performed in such spectacular style – Belaid was shot four times at point blank range by an unknown gunman outside his home – shook Tunisians to the core.

Following news of his death, protesters took to the streets of Tunis, clashing with police and calling for the fall of the regime. President Moncef Marzouki flew straight back to Tunisia, cutting short his visit to France and cancelling his trip to Egypt. Four Tunisian opposition groups met in an historic and unprecedented meeting and announced their withdrawal from the national assembly. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said he would dissolve the government and install a small cabinet of technocrats in its place until elections. And al-Nahda, the ruling Islamist party and the party of which the prime minister is a member, rejected Jebali’s proposed dissolution.

This has truly been one of the longest 24 hours in Tunisian politics. The scale of the response against al-Nahda and the new unified stance of the opposition could prove to be a turning point in Tunisian politics. All this was triggered by the death of the 49-year-old lawyer and secretary general of the Unified Patriotic Democratic Party (UPDP). But who was he?

Student activist in the 1980s, civil rights advocate since the 1990s and prominent anti-Ben Ali figure, Belaid became a household name from January 2011, peering through the television screens almost daily, with his trade mark thick moustache, fluent speech and forceful opinions. He was smeared by Imams in mosques as being an atheist (‘kafir’); accused of being an informant for former president Ben Ali; blamed for instigating strikes and demonstrations by the government; and satirised in comedies and on social media.

At the same time, he was – just like his even more iconic friend and fellow leftist, Hamma Hammami – “humanised” to the general public through human interest stories such as television visits to his home and appearances on social programmes and even in Ramadan entertainment shows. In addition, Belaid was a burgeoning poet before devoting himself to politics. He often quoted the literary tradition at will and spoke flawless Arabic. For these reasons, he could not be accused of being the traditional uprooted Francophile secularist or the customary dogmatic Marxist.

And like in life, his tragic death also had poetic overtones. His assassination was foretold in more than the many threats he received, publicly and in private, and as a poet, he is best remembered for a poem dedicated to Husain Muruwa, the Lebanese intellectual assassinated by Islamists in the late 1990s.

Along with his popular appeal, Belaid maintained a strong line against neoliberal policies and vociferously opposed many Islamist ideas. His message as well as his profile seem to have resonated well with the core values of the revolution: work, dignity and freedom. His line of thought and action ran through Tunisian politics largely through the potent and ubiquitous Tunisian General Union of Labour (UGTT) in which the Tunisian left has maintained a strong presence at the regional as well as national levels. The same is true of the student movement, which Belaid led and in which he had his training as an activist.

His appeal also has been complemented by a rather traditional leftist profile: he lived in a rented apartment with his wife and two young daughters; he did not own a car; he spoke the dialect of the interior regions of the country and avoided glamorous and rich circles.

Behind Belaid’s personal and activist story lies the complex and compelling story of the Tunisian left as a whole. Responses to his death may well mark the end of the line for Islamist politics as we know it in Tunisia. It may also mark the rise of a unified opposition, which now realises that its fight is not only, or no longer, for freedom of expression and association, but an existential one – a matter of survival.

If Belaid was a thorn in the side of the al-Nahda, the Salafis and the government during his life, he is likely to be a decisive nail in their coffin now that he is dead. The split emerging between prime minister Jebali and al-Nahda is perhaps the start of this trend. But amidst this still-developing situation, one thing is now a reality: Tunisia, which prided itself on peaceful politics, is no longer an exception in the region.

This article was first published by Think Africa Press.

Video: Peter Tatchell speaks on economic democracy

8 February 2013: We expect political democracy, argues Peter Tatchell, so why not economic democracy too?

Council housing shouldn’t just be for the poor

8 February 2013: Martin Wicks, Secretary of Swindon Tenants Campaign Group, tells us why we must defend 'secure tenancies' for council tenants and resist means-tested council housing

Ever since 1980 council tenants have been 'secure tenants' under law, which gives us genuine security. We know that if we pay our rent and behave in a civilised fashion then we don't face the prospect of being turfed out of our homes. We don't face the insecurity which tenants do in the private rented sector.

However, this 'secure tenancy' is now under threat. All local authorities are in the process of drawing up a 'Tenancy Strategy' which must include the type of tenure it offers to its tenants. They now have the freedom to introduce 'flexible' or 'fixed term' tenancies in effect; temporary tenancies, for a number of years. Many councils are introducing five year tenancies, two years for some. The government's rationale for these is that 'social tenancies' should provide a 'safety net' for when people are 'in difficulties', a tenancy 'when it is needed for as long as it is needed'. In other words 'social housing' is conceived as a tenure only for the poor.

The coalition government doesn't talk about 'secure tenancies'. It prefers to call them 'lifetime tenancies'. There is a propaganda purpose in this. It implies that it's unreasonable to give tenants 'a home for life'. In fact, a 'secure tenancy' is an open-ended tenancy, but it's not necessarily for life. Tenants can be evicted for breaches of their tenancy agreement and are.

How will it work in practice?

Councils introducing fixed term tenancies have to draw up a set of criteria for deciding whether or not a tenancy is renewed or terminated. If the latter then the tenant will have to either find more expensive private rented accommodation or get themselves a mortgage, if they can.

Many councils are setting an income threshold above which a tenant will be considered not to 'need' the tenancy. For instance the Conservative administration in Barnet has set a threshold of £32,580 whereas Westminster has set one of £61,400 (for 1 and 2 bedroom households) or £74,000 (for 3 bedroom or greater). In the case of Westminster 'capital assets' (savings above £16,000) will be taken into account and 'can be assessed as notional income'. Some authorities, including Labour ones, have decided that if there is a change in the composition of a household, say a child leaving home, then a tenancy which is 'under-occupied' will not be renewed. Although existing tenants will keep their 'secure tenancies' the annual turn over would over time see them dying out.

The party which prides itself as the defender of 'individual liberty', is proposing to give councils power to intrude into the lives of tenants as never before; the power to impose a means test on people who pay full rent; the power to move people from property to property without their agreement and against their will; the power to rigidly impose a 'bedroom standard' which originates from the 1930's when overcrowding was far worse than today, and one bedroom for a couple alone, would have been a step forward.

The campaign so far

Tenants organisations and tenant activists are campaigning against the ending of 'secure tenancies' because it would mean that council housing would become a means-tested tenure. 'Flexible tenancies' would undermine our independence, introducing instability, making tenants fearful for their future.

The government's 'social housing' policy is consistent with its suite of 'welfare reforms'. It's 'bedroom tax' is designed to pressure tenants into work and/or into smaller homes by cutting the meagre amount of money they have to live on, even though there is. The 'flexible tenancy' is designed to force people out of their homes if they earn 'too much' or if their children leave home.

At the TUC Congress in September a resolution from UCATT was passed which committed the TUC to campaigning not only for 'a massive social house-building programme' but for an end to the 'right to buy'. However, to move forward to this we have to defend what we have. Currently there is not a very widespread appreciation of the implications of flexible tenancies and the further impoverishment of 'social housing' tenants. The campaign to defend secure tenancies needs to be stepped up. In particular those unions that voted for the TUC resolution, especially the big three which are affiliated to Labour (Unison, Unite, GMB) should be pressing hard for a commitment from Labour that if elected they will reintroduce 'secure tenancies' for all.

Although housing benefit is means tested, council housing, as such, has never been. The coalition government is treating it like it is charity, giving councils the right to evict tenants who have done nothing wrong. But council housing was built on a mass scale because private builders were not interested in building homes for poor working people. Today's housing crisis will not be tackled unless there is a return to building council housing on a sufficiently large scale such that the numbers of households on the waiting list, 1.8 million, begins to decline rather than continuing to rise.

A local campaign

Swindon Tenants Campaign Group is campaigning locally for the continuation of 'secure tenancies' for all and pressing the Labour councillors not only to oppose fixed term tenancies but to make a public commitment to reintroduce 'secure tenancies' if they are forced through by the Tories (they only have a majority on one seat). Everywhere that 'flexible' tenancies are introduced there needs to be a campaign to end them, especially where Labour authorities have abandoned the principle of 'secure tenancies' for all tenants.

Read more about the Swindon Tenants Campaign Group