A good start
While we have a long way to go from here, Dave Isaacson argues that the anti-cuts movement in Milton Keynes has made an impressive start
The past week has been an important one for the anti-cuts movement in Milton Keynes. Here the left and anti-cuts activists seem to have united to build a single campaign around the local Coalition of Resistance group (MK COR) to oppose the cuts. Those involved in the group’s activities, as well as individuals, include members of Counterfire, the Socialist Workers Party, Communist Party of Great Britain, the Greens and Labour lefts. The group is also supported by a range of trade unionists and the Milton Keynes Trades Council. None of the left groups is dominant and all seem to be cooperating well so far.
On February 18 MK COR hosted a public meeting attended by a fantastic 400 people. The headline speaker was the veteran Labour movement campaigner Tony Benn, who made a nonsense of the coalition government’s claim that “We are all in this together”. The cuts will hit the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest. He also explained how the mass movements which fought for trade union rights and universal suffrage had at times found it necessary to go against the laws of their day. However, his economic solutions were Keynesian, not revolutionary.
Speakers from the rail union Aslef and the Communication Workers Union joined student activist Feyzi Ismail, Dot Gibson of the National Pensioners Convention, Paul Brandon (chair of Right to Work), and Neil Faulkner (Coalition of Resistance steering committee) on the platform. The latter three spoke most militantly and most clearly about the fact that this was a class conflict. While Paul Brandon insisted that we must do more than simply get rid of this government, his vision only extended as far as a movement militant enough to force a Labour government to act in our interests.
Neil Faulkner was the clearest in outlining a way forward for the movement. He was not afraid to speak openly about the difficulty of the task ahead of us: “Don’t be under any illusions … we are going to have to fight very hard.” The TUC protest on March 26 is just a start. We must build a wave of strikes, occupations and further protests on the back of that movement. He was also clear that a challenge to the whole system of class rule was needed.
Many speakers referred to the inspiring examples of the the mass uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and across the Arab world. Paul Brandon, amongst others, spoke of creating our own Tahrir Square in London on March 26. It is absolutely right that we draw inspiration from these and other struggles across the world. But we need to do more than that. As well as organising locally and nationally to oppose capitalist austerity we must link up and coordinate joint actions globally.
Four days after this public meeting, on Tuesday February 22, around 60 people attended a vocal protest organised by MK COR when Milton Keynes voted through its cuts budget. We marched and chanted outside before taking our arguments into the council chamber itself. From the public gallery both official questions and militant heckles were thrown at the councillors. As we fully expected the councillors refused to challenge central government and voted through a cuts budget. However, the decision not to close the libraries in Stony Stratford and Woburn Sands immediately should be considered a small and temporary concession brought about by the energetic and popular campaigns to save them. They remain under threat and we must continue to make the case for keeping them open and opposing all of the cuts.
Both the protest and public meeting forced the attention of the local media onto opposition to these devastating cuts. There is an opposition to these cuts and it is getting organised. This is clearly only the beginning. As services are wrecked and workers are made redundant, we can expect the anti-cuts movement to deepen its roots. Already 299 job losses have already been announced by the council, with another 400 likely to follow soon.
We need to build a united mass campaign which includes all those who want to oppose these cuts. Within that campaign the revolutionaries need to ensure that a clear alternative to the whole capitalist system is articulated. So far, particularly for a town like Milton Keynes, which has little by way of a tradition of protest, we have made a good start.
Video coverage of the MK COR public meeting can be seen on the Milton Keynes Citizen website, here: http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/videos/tony_benn_cuts_are_meant_to_hurt_ordinary_people_1_2438209
Alternative Publications and Cards –
– we distribute…
1. “HIDDEN WOUNDS” Brutalised soldiers are coming home to brutalise…
About the rehabilitation / psychological problems that Northern Ireland veterans experience on their return to civvy street and the number who end up in HM prisons. Also comment on Vietnam veterans. By former soldier
Alistair Renwick. £4.99. (nb. Between 1984 and 2006, 687 serving soldiers committed suicide-MoD statistics)
They ask me where I’ve been
And what I’ve done and seen.
But what can I reply
Who knows it wasn’t I,
But someone just like me
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands…
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name. Wilfred Gibson 1WW vet
2. “NOTHING BUT THE SAME OLD STORY” – the roots of anti-Irish racism by Liz Curtis.
“I welcome this book and feel it will help play a valuable part in helping to remove the negative and racist stereotyping which so often adversely effects the Irish community in Britain.” Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London. £2.50
Part of our Irish Studies series – includes books and videos. Ask for separate leaflet.
3. An Interlude with Seagulls – Memories of a Long Kesh internee by Bobby Devlin. ‘I went into Castlereagh a poor, humble postman, but according to information received, I was a brigadier-general in the Irish Republican Army. This dramatic promotion must have even eclipsed General Custer’s meteoric rise in the American civil war. £1.50 scarce
4. …LAST NIGHT ANOTHER SOLDIER…by Alistair Renwick. A novel written by an ex-soldier. Not for the
faint hearted, it deals with the reality of British soldiers experience in Northern Ireland. £3.95
5. Cormac Strikes Back – resistance cartoons from the North of Ireland. Cormac is a radical and very popular Belfast cartoonist. Introduction by Guardian cartoonist
Steve Bell. £2.50
6. British Soldiers Speak Out on Ireland. 1969-198? A real exposé by ex squaddies. Some then on the run. Published at 40p scarce item now £5.00. Only a few
7. THEY SHOOT CHILDREN – between April 1972 and April 1986, 16 people, seven of them children, were killed by plastic and rubber bullets. £1.00 scarce
Also – Peace Cards, Rebel Cards, May Day Cards, Celtic art workshops and exhibitions – we attend community festivals.
8. Selected Short Stories Of Donall MacAmhlaigh. – Northampton based writer and chronicler of the Irish working experience in Britain, author of An Irish Navvy,
Schnitzer O’Shea, An Dialann Deoraí etc. £6.00
9. An Irish Navvy by Donall MacAmhlaigh now back in print. £10.00
10. Irish Poetry BEYOND THE SHORE
A poetry anthology by the first and later generations living in Britain, France and the USA. 47 poems by 32 internationally acclaimed poets. Fergus Allan, Linda Anderson, Samuel Beckett, Brian Farrington, Nigel Gray, Desmond Greaves, Sean Hutton, Derry Jeffares, Richard Kell, Brendan Kennelly, Thomas Kinsella, Tom Leonard, James Liddy, Eddie Linden, Roger McGough, Edward Mackin, Joe Malone, Gerard Mangan, Ewart Milne, Aiden Murphy, Hayden Murphy, Michael P O’Connor, Desmond O’Grady, Michael O’Neill, Derry O’Sullivan, Tom Paulin, Cyril Leslie Riley, Padraig Rooney, Deirdre Shanahan, Matthew Sweeney, Shaun Traynor, Robert Welsh. £4.00 including uk postage. $10.00 USA airmail – only a few left.
11. Rebel Cards – a celebration of our heroes – most cards have a picture on the front with a short biography or quote on the inside left. Wolfe Tone 3, Robert Emmet 2, Jamie Hope, Henry Joy McCracken, Chartist Leaders, Feargus O’Connor, Bronterre O’Brien, James Fintan Lalor, Michael Davitt, Robert Owen, Young Irelanders, James Connolly – 3 Countess Markievicz, Padraig Pearse, Roger Casement, Michael Collins, Maud Gonne MacBride, Jim Larkin, Jim Connell + The Red Flag, Charles Bradlaugh + I was there quote, Anne Besant, Joseph Priestly, Terance MacSwiney, John MacLean, William Morris, Robert Tressell, Sylvia Pankhurst, G.B.Shaw, John Devoy, Charlotte Despard, Keir Hardie, Thomas Paine, Martin Niemoeller quote, Gustaf Holst, Eva Gore-Booth, Shelley red poet, John Clare farm worker poet, Scotland Go Bragh, Erin Go Bragh, Irish Proclamation – facsimile edition, Revolution means Change, The Minstrel Boy, The Training Ground, etc + May Day Cards – 10 designs-The Solidarity of Labour, Tolpuddle Martyrs etc. Peace Cards (anti-war)-12 designs, Bookmarks etc. £7.00 for ten.
12. The Missing Piece in the Peace Process by Ken Keable. Why British people must campaign for Britain to withdraw from Northern Ireland. Foreword by Tony Benn. £3.00
13. The Irish Republican Congress Revisited by Patrick Byrne (former joint Secretary with Frank Ryan) £2.00 o/p
14. Video – ‘The Irishmen’ they came to rebuild a post war Britain – social commentary made in 1965. Music by Ewan Macoll and Joe Heaney. £18.00 – rare footage.
From-Northampton Connolly Association 5 Woodland Avenue, Abington, Northampton NN3 2BY. Tel. 01604-715793 e-mail. Northampton70@o2.co.uk