cuts

El pasado 26 de marzo la gente se lanzó a las calles en el Reino Unido para protestar y resistir los recortes sociales y los ataques a la clase trabajadora. Las cifras oficiales ya han admitido que sólo en Londres hubo unas 500.000 personas. Miles de organizaciones de todo tipo y color se organizaron en torno a una variedad de actividades que contó desde la marcha kilométrica de Blackfriars Bridge a Hyde Park, hasta la ocupación y ataques a empresas símbolo de la crisis económica y las injusticias en el sistema tributario, sin faltar la respuesta a las cargas policiales y los discursos soporíferos de los líderes laboristas.

Members of Brighton SolFed supported a 20-30 strong protest and picket at ATOS healthcare in Brighton today as part of a national day of action against benefits cuts. The protest was organised by the Brighton Benefits Campaign (BBC), a group of claimants and workers fighting the cuts to welfare provision. ATOS is a private company paid millions of pounds to stop sick and disabled peoples benefits by declaring them 'fit to work' via a computer programme, which has given absurd diagnoses such as describing hand amputations as 'mild' and thus no barrier to work.

Today, as part of a national day of protest against benefit cuts, Liverpool Solidarity Federation picketed the offices of ATOS origin in the city centre. We were supported in our action by members of UK Uncut Liverpool.

We were there to raise awareness of the role being played by ATOS in the government's war against disabled people.

The company is being paid £300 million by the government to carry out ‘work capability assessments’. The assessments are supposedly aimed at finding out if people receiving sickness benefits are fit to work. The real purpose is to strip benefits from as many people as possible and save the government money.

Today, members of Liverpool Solidarity Federation joined members of Liverpool Uncut who had organised an occupation of BBC Radio Merseyside.

The occupation took place at 2.30pm, when over a dozen people entered the building and announced that they were staging a sit-in. The protesters announced that they were protesting against "the appalling coverage" of UK Uncut actions in London on March 26th and would show "how civilised the UK Uncut occupations are by having a lovely tea party."

Whilst the occupiers sat down to eat cakes and drink tea and coffee, a contingent of 8 police officers arrived. They could do little more than stand around, awkwardly. When asking who was in charge, replies of "we all are" and "we operate on consensus" were met with blank looks.

We're writing this to you to try and prevent the anti-cuts struggle being split up and weakened by the media.

We are anarchists (well, anarcho-syndicalists, technically) – a word that is much misunderstood and misrepresented. We are also students, workers and shop stewards. We co-organised a 'Radical Workers Bloc' on the South London feeder march. The aim was to provide a highly visible radical presence within the workers movement of which we are a part, advocating strikes, occupations and civil disobedience.

Saturday's demonstration was far bigger than anyone expected, and saw thousands go beyond a simple A-B stroll to take direct action. The UK Uncut actions on Oxford Street and in occupying Fortnum and Masons provoked harsh treatment from police, including mass arrests.

Members of Northampton Solidarity Federation joined the masses on the streets of London on March 26 to protest against the brutal cuts being imposed by the government.

People were marching for many reasons: some still accepting the idea that cuts are necessary but wanting to slow them down or alter the focus, some suggesting that investment rather than cuts would stimulate the economy which in turn would reduce the deficit, many pointing out that if taxes were fully collected and if military interventions were curtailed the cuts would not be necessary.

On Saturday 26th March the Trades Union Congress has called for a march against the cuts, and there is going to be a South London feeder march starting at Kennington Park which we will be joining. We are calling on anarchists, libertarian communists and militant workers from across the country who agree with the principles of solidarity, direct action, and self-organisation to join us on the demonstration to provide a visible presence and a revolutionary alternative to the reformism of the TUC.

Joe Anderson, the leader of Liverpool City Council, is trying to paint himself as some kind of anti-cuts rebel. In January he joined an anti-cuts march in Liverpool, not long after he wrote to David Cameron to withdraw Liverpool from the Big Society, and then had the cheek to lead a march against cuts in February. This is nothing more than cheap political opportunism, and it should be rejected.

He tells us that the council is “bracing itself” for the cuts. He “warns” us that compulsory redundancies in the council will come. He is “incensed” by Liberal Democrats accusing him of having a “politically motivated” approach to job cuts.

But, for all the talk, he and his council are the ones who will be wielding the axe in Liverpool, and who have already promised that 1,500 jobs will go, and who has made the decision to rob people of their livelihoods whilst their own pay and pensions are entirely secure.

Remember the boom?

The anti-cuts movement should avoid the temptation of blaming public spending cuts on greedy bankers or Tory politicians. Given that bankers, and Tories, tend to be a pretty obnoxious lot it is perhaps understandable that they are used as hate figures by the left. However they are a symptom rather than the cause of the crisis.

There’s been a lot of talk in the anti-cuts movement about the importance of ‘winning the argument’. This strategy holds that the best way to go about fighting attacks on wages, living conditions and services is to point out the flaws in the pro-cuts arguments and suggest alternative policies which would avoid the need for cuts.

Some even seem to think that if the argument is won, the government will see the error of its ways, stop the planned cuts and everyone can go home happy.

It isn’t hard to see where this strategy falls down. It certainly isn’t the weakness of the anti-cuts arguments; it’s been convincingly shown that these cuts aren’t ‘necessary’ at all.

No, its mistake is the belief that society is based on rational arguments in the first place. Our society is not a debating chamber, but a power struggle between different groups with competing interests.