Opposition Councillors Accuse Labour of Making Un-Necessary Cuts

Last Thursday (September 18) was a busy day in Leicester, especially for those organising opposition to the government’s relentless attacks on the working class. First, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), as part of a national tour to publicise their fight against cuts, spoke to a rally on Humberstone Gate to highlight the necessity for united resistance to the ongoing attacks on vital public services. This day of reckoning was followed by the second full Council meeting featuring Leicester’s very own rebel Councillors, Wayne Naylor and Barbara Potter — now acting as the official opposition group as Leicester Independent Councillors Against the Cuts.

Having in the past been forced to remain silent while acting as members of the all-powerful Labour Group — which was, and still is, controlled by Leicester’s resident boss Sir Peter Soulsby – thankfully both Wayne and Barbara left the Labour Party, thereby detaching themselves from the Party’s spineless and totally unnecessary implementation of the Con-Dem cuts agenda.

Having attended the firefighters rally, Wayne proudly displayed their T-shirt upon his desk for all to see in the Council chambers. The defiant script on the shirt reading: “WE RESCUE PEOPLE NOT BANK! STOP THE CUTS”; something that Councillor Naylor then attempted to do, by facing off against a cynical and now disgruntled Labour Council, who are committed to enforcing savage public sector cuts in Leicester. No doubt the handful of firefighters in the gallery watching the Council meeting were happy to find members of a political organisation willing to actively fight upon their behalf.

Determined to hold the Labour Council accountable, the rebel councillors proceeded to grill the city’s so-called leaders; although of course, like the last full Council meeting, the meandering and evasive “responses” offered up by Labour notables were unsatisfactory to say the least. By way of a contrast, Wayne passionately led off by demanding:

“At a time when the council is spending millions of pounds on regeneration projects in the business centre of the city, how can the city mayor justify the cutting of £130,000 from voluntary and community organisations resulting in the closure of services and loss of jobs?”

Resigned as ever to the Con-Dem’s cuts, the City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby responded by saying that Labour were “required” to cut some £150 million a year from the Council’s budget because the Con-Dem’s were making them do it. This was patent nonsense (as clearly explained in earlier articles on TUSC’s web site). Thus Wayne was quite correct to add that “the introduction of a competitive tendering process for funding” voluntary and community organisations was “abhorrent and a dereliction of [the Council’s] duty of care to the citizens of Leicester.”

Wayne then highlighted “the grievances of RMT union taxi drivers against the council…” noting the irresponsible actions “of the council to permit a further private company… to undercut the incomes of self-employed taxi workers at a time when many are struggling to find work and resorting to self-employment, at the risk of great personal insecurity…”

He then interrogated the Council about their attacks on the disabled by “cutting of yet more local provision for those with disability, such as the Douglas Bader centre and the scaling back of the Watershed Youth centre services,” despite the healthy and growing pay packet of Sir Soulsby and his wealthy Labour friends.

Wayne continued, demanding action from the Labour Party on resisting the ongoing dismantling of the NHS in Leicester, asking:

“Can the majority Labour City Council then detail what is being done currently to defend Leicester residents from cuts and privatisation in local healthcare… and the outsourcing which is now resulting in 20% cuts to Interserve cleaning staff in Glenfield Hospital?”

Wayne laid the blame for such catastrophic changes clearly upon all the mainstream Party’s of cuts, pointing out that “Labour introduced the private-finance initiatives that created the marketised NHS trusts.” Adding, “Labour to that extent probably has as much blood on its hands as the other Party’s.” He concluded by asking if Labour would “come up with a concrete program to fight cuts and private sector involvement in healthcare?” Deputy City Mayor Rory Palmer answered with a lot of bluster, but, as one might expect, little of substance.

Using his limited time in the Council chambers to maximum affect, Wayne then highlighted the hypocrisy of a Labour Council spending millions on housing just one dead man (King Richard III) when they were happy to enforce the Bedroom Tax, push through a 20% cut to council tax benefit, and oversee brutal cuts to homelessness hostels. He also drew attention to the “ irresponsible and unacceptable” way in which the Council has treated the elderly following “the council’s privatisation and selling-off of all [its] publicly run elderly care homes…”

In a further pointed question Wayne asked whether the Labour Council would “commit to a progressive program of rebuilding council houses rather than sinking more public money into private hands for profit?” Yet once again, like a broken record, the waffling non-responses to these queries demonstrated the Labour Party’s unwillingness to defend the interests and urgent needs of their electorate.

Following this glowing lead, Barbara Potter then proceeded to entertain the public in the gallery who had turned out in force to support the two Councillors opposing Labour’s cuts agenda.

It seems that the Council chambers have finally been injected with a little democracy, and with Wayne and Barbara’s determined effort’s to build for a People’s Budget meeting on 25th October — which they aim to use to inform their work in the Council — it looks like the Labour Party will be in for many further democratic shocks in the future.