Why won’t Labour support 10 July strike?
Left wing political party Left Unity is calling on the Labour Party to join it in supporting the public sector strike on Thursday, after Labour put out a statement saying it will not back the action.
Felicity Dowling, one of Left Unity’s principal speakers, is a teacher and will be on strike herself on Thursday. She said:
“Despite Ed Miliband’s talk of the ‘cost of living crisis’, Labour is refusing to support us when we strike for fair pay. They talk about better education but refuse to back the people who are fighting to improve it. Where is the sense in that?
“Many of those striking on Thursday will be members of Labour-affiliated unions. They will be wondering what on earth they pay their money for if Labour won’t even support them when they are standing up to this government.
“Every day we see how far Labour has strayed from its roots. That’s why we need a new party of the left, and that’s why we formed Left Unity.”
For more information contact press@leftunity.org
Notes for editors
1. Left Unity is the new party of the left in Britain. Founded in November 2013, it already has over 2,000 members and 50 branches across the country.
2. Ahead of the strike, Labour has put out the statement below:
“No-one wants to see a strike, not least because of the impact on children and parents. Instead of ramping up the rhetoric the Government should get round the table, because both sides have a responsibility to stop it happening.
“Does Labour support the strikes?
“No. We don’t want to see strikes happening, but the best way to stop them happening is for the Government to avoid ramping up the rhetoric.”
See http://labourlist.org/2014/07/labour-moves-to-clarify-position-on-july-10th-strikes/
7 comments
7 responses to “Why won’t Labour support 10 July strike?”
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Q. I know that a socialist party/revolutionary forms of organisation, to raise the working class to position of ‘ruling class’ with it’s own interests as priority, must be put on the agenda for trade unions etc,. Is this the aim of Left Unity, and how are you different from Peoples Assembly??
“No-one wants to see a strike….”
What idiots! Clearly those who voted for strikes want to see them. Sometimes I wonder if young Milibore ever had the intellectual curiosity to sneak into his dad’s study and read one or two of the books.
As a retired member of Unite I was on the march through our City,It was a great day, Miliband would of course been leading the charge if there was kudos in it for him.
Someone should should send him this video. Economics for dummies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bXpOUYrr1c
I was on the march in Newcastle Upon Tyne today as a Unite member. I was on the look out for fellow Left Unity members and ran into Terry Conway (Membership & Communications Officer). Terry kept me well stocked with the Left Unity Defend Public Services, Support Striking Workers leaflets which I was happy to distribute amongst the general public and fellow activists. Good turnout on a sunny afternoon in the toon!
Well, I think that we now have our unequivocal answer to the question, “Why won’t Labour support 10 July strike?” :
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/20/labour-leaders-policy-forum-vote-spending-plans?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Labour’s policy forum has committed a Labour government to implementing the coalition’s 2015/16 spending plans. In my own borough of Stockport, these involve £22.5 million of cuts in the local authority only.
Kate Hudson (albeit speaking with her CND hat on, rather than as National Secretary of Left Unity) shared with the Peoples Assembly demonstration in Parliament Square on 21 June, her hope that the next government would be a Labour government comminted to an anti-austerity manifesto. We have our answer to that hope now too, in the Labour Party policy commission resolution.
It is test time for Left Unity now. Are we going to play a full part in standing principled anti-austerity candidates against the overwhelming number of Labour MPs who will support the Miliband-Balls cuts, whilst working closely with the principled minority who most certainly will not?
It is test time too of course for those unions whose members took part in the 10 July strike and which stand to finance the Labour Party’s bid for power on the “maintain austerity” pledge. Are they going to pull the financial plugs.
I think we are now seeing the fully predictable final collapse of British social democracy into the role of pro-capitalist prosecutors of vicious attacks on the working class, that we have previously seen in Greece.
It is a pity that our National Council is not due to meet until September but it is essential that a call to action focusing on the 2015 general election campaign comes from that meeting.
John Pearson
Chair, Stockport Left Unity (personal capacity)