South London

On 19th February 700 people marched through Lewisham to protest against local and national austerity measures. The “Carnival Against Cuts” had starting points all over the borough which converged at the Town Hall and marched to the centre of Lewisham. Despite the rain there was a good atmosphere with a samba band, singing, chanting and even SolFed members in wigs! The usual speeches were made by the usual people but 700 people on a Lewisham protest is not usual. It’s a positive sign but much more needs to be done.

South London SolFed leaflet produced for the event:

STRIKE, BLOCKADE, SABOTAGE!

Where are the St Thomas' disappeared?

Where are our workmates?

Last month 72 workers disappeared from Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals. They were part of the hospitals’ ancillary staff. They are migrants. Where did they disappear to? The economic crisis means their cheap labour is not as useful anymore – at least for the moment. So the UK Border Agency was called in to get rid of them. The NHS trust complied. The workers were either arrested or deported.

The workers who clean the hospital and feed the patients earn around the minimum wage. And due to the UKBA the workers are not even always paid for their hard work. Isn’t this slavery?

As hospital users, as workers, as trade unionists, as migrants’ rights activists we cannot stay silent in the face of this brutality. Exactly when cuts and privatisation are threatening our public health service the exploitation of migrant labour increases. This is an attack on all workers.

At 5 pm on Sat 5th feb, a group of about 30-50 local people, including members of SolFed and other local anarchists, occupied New Cross library. Initially this had been part of a national ‘read in’, supporting threatened libraries across the country, but developed into an occupation as participants decided to stay.

As the only occupation out of 450 read-ins, New Cross got a good amount of press. This was more or less the aim; getting publicity for the libraries campaign and keeping up the momentum of the anti-cuts movement in general.  As one optimistic campaigner, James Holland, put it; “I think with this occupation we are going to take the libraries campaign – and the anti-cuts campaign in general – to a whole new level.”

On the 29th November, Lewisham held its full council meeting to agree its first tranche of cuts, involving over 400 job losses, cuts to services and the closure of a children's centre. Not yet agreed were proposals to close five libraries.

Students walking out on 24th November should avoid being trapped outside the Lib Dem HQ, says one of the groups behind the Radical Workers and Students Bloc on the 10th November demonstration. Instead, according to South London's branch of the anarcho-syndicalist Solidarity Federation, those taking action on this day should hold roaming marches blockading general economic targets.

By attempting to occupy the Liberal Democrat HQ, students and workers are likely to be confronted by a much greater show of police force than was encountered at Millbank Tower. The Metropolitan police were left red faced by the trashing of the building containing Conservative Party HQ and will be looking to ensure that those events are not repeated. Anyone going there risks being kettled and quite possibly feeling the wrong end of a truncheon. To keep the movement growing we need to spread throughout the city bringing it to a standstill.

Solidarity Federation, which helped organise the Radical Workers' and Students Bloc at the NUS/UCU education march derides "absurd and patronising" attempts to blame it for damage at Tory HQ - and calls for increasing direct action against cuts.

News reporters have been indulging in some imaginative speculation over the last few days suggesting that the temporary occupation of the Conservative Party headquarters on November 10 was down to an internet conspiracy consisting of, among other groups, the Solidarity Federation. This is sensationalist nonsense.

The text of the leaflet being distributed on the London anti-cuts march on Saturday 23rd October 2010.

The working class across Europe is facing the worst attacks on our standard of living, jobs and services for decades. We have been forced to pay for capitalism’s crisis since it began; redundancies, pay cuts, benefit cuts, increasing workloads for those who kept their jobs... the private and public sector alike.

As the scale of the cut-backs begins to sink in, there are signs of a growing
movement against the cuts, with hundreds attending public meetings across the country. Many, disenchanted with the anti-war marches and the lethargy of the unions, are arguing for more direct methods in this struggle.

On Saturday 23rd October 2010 a number of trade unions have called for a march in London to lobby the TUC to fight the cuts. This is the same day as the annual London Anarchist Bookfair and a day when a large number of anarchists are in the city. We are calling on all anarchists and militant workers to join us in forming a 'Radical Worker's Bloc' on the demonstration, not to beg the trade union bureaucrats to take action, but to argue that we fight the cuts based on the principles of solidarity, direct action, and control of our own struggles.