TUSC Supports Jeremy Corbyn in Opposing Austerity in Leicester

On October 5 the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) hosted a well-attended public meeting in Leicester city centre. Around 40 people turned out to discuss the effect that Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour Party’s new leader will have on building resistance to Tory austerity.

Former Labour councillor, Wayne Naylor, spoke passionately at the meeting, explaining why he felt forced into leaving the Labour Party last year, and why he then helped launch local TUSC affiliate, Leicester Indepednent Councillors Against the Cuts (LICAC).

Working with fellow LICAC councillor Barbara Potter, the duo organised a people’s budget conference. Inspired by local support, they took forward the demands of this anti-cuts conference to the Council’s budget setting meeting earlier this year.

Photo by Karl Cross

At this Council meeting they laid out an alternative, and legal, budget which would utilise existing Council bank reserves to prevent cuts to public services. If passed, it was felt that such a budget would then give the Council the time to organise a city-wide fight-back against austerity and the Government.

In many ways Wayne and Barbara’s firm commitment to stand against all cuts has been vindicated by the recent election of Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour Party’s new leader. This is because Corbyn was elected on a clear mandate to oppose austerity.

TUSC chairman, Dave Nellist, spoke to the Leicester meeting, noting that Jeremy Corbyn’s victory was “probably the best victory for the Left in Britain since the Poll Tax, 25 years ago. So it’s a historic moment and one that we very much welcome.” He continued:

“But there are two Labour Party’s. There’s the Labour Party which Jeremy Corbyn now leads, which has probably got 300,000 enthusiatic supporters who voted for him and have joined the Labour Party since he became leader. And then there’s the Labour Party in the towns and cities, like Leicester, where councillors are still planning millions of pounds worth of cuts over the next year or two. And if George Osbourne is to be believed then come November the budgets of local authorities will be cut even further.

“Now if there are local councillors inspired by Jeremy who now believe the time has come for all local Council’s to stand together, and to refuse to carry out these cuts, and to get an alternative campaign for them nationally, TUSC would like to work with them. But where that isn’t the case there is still definitely a role for TUSC in challenging the austerity that is carrying on on a local scale.”

If democracy within the Labour Party is to be reclaimed by the working-class then much hard work needs to be done. As Nellist warned, despite Corbyn’s massive popular support:

“There are other power centres in the Labour Party, and the Parliamentary Labour Party and the 7,500 Labour councillors in this country are important components that don’t support Jeremy. So if he is to succeed he needs more mates. He needs more mates in the trade union movement, and he needs more anti-austerity socialist parties and organisations behind him.

“With this in mind, I think that the first thing that he should do is recognise that there are a tiny number of heroic councillors who held the line against austerity, not least Wayne and Barbara here in Leicester. He should invite such working-class activists back into the Labour Party straight away in order to send a signal out that the future under Jeremy is an anti-austerity one.”