27.01.2011

Practical Hackney

Bev James gives the latest from the Hackney Alliance to Defend Public Services

Around 30 people attended the latest meeting of the Hackney Alliance to Defend Public Services (HADPS) on January 25. The alliance has been meeting bi-weekly since June 2010 and is being maintained by the local branch of the Socialist Workers Party. There were about six SWP members present, and another half dozen sent apologies. Also present were a comrade from the Socialist Party, a member of the Commune, a couple of elderly Morning Star supporters, representatives of a number of Turkish groups (Day-Mer and Gik Der) and quite a few independent activists. In Dave Osler there was even a member of the Labour Party in attendance.

The most prominent Hackney residents from the revolutionary left were, however, missing: John Rees and Lindsey German seem to be giving local activity a miss to concentrate on their new endeavour, Counterfire. In fact, nobody from the Coalition of Resistance was there. So it was down to the CPGB's Tina Becker to give a report on the latest activities of COR (to quite a few raised eyebrows).

Hackney is one of the poorest boroughs in London and an estimated 60% of all tenants are dependent on one form of benefit or another. The government's cuts will hit local people hard. Homerton Hospital, for example, has announced it will be making 'savings' of £15 million over the next year. So it is perhaps no wonder that the local Labour Party is somewhat split on the cuts (which in Hackney amount to 9% of the council budget) and how to resist them. Two branches have affiliated to the alliance and comrade Osler reported that some local Labour activists are organising stalls around Hackney on a Saturday in order to highlight their opposition to the coalition assault.

However, while Hackney's Labour mayor, Jules Pipe, has been condemning the government cuts on TV programmes galore, he also announced that he will in fact enforce them locally - what other choice does he have? In its latest bulletin, HADPS makes a few good points on that question. The article, 'Can councillors refuse cuts?', answers with an unequivocal 'yes' and reminds readers that governments in the past had to make concessions towards leftwing councils in revolt - "Liverpool in the 1980s, Clay Cross in the 1970s and nearby Poplar in the 1920s". Of course, such localised revolts cannot defeat nationally enforced cuts, but they can certainly help to build the confidence of the movement.

Unfortunately though, so far only six of the 50 Labour councillors in Hackney have announced that they will vote against the local budget, which has to be set by March 11. But it is to be welcomed that the alliance decided to drop off some of their bulletins at the Labour Party stall. (After a few people in the audience groaned at the suggestion, SWP national committee member Julie Waterson had to remind them from the chair that "we do want to convince Labour members, don't we?")

Unfortunately, Hackney TUC is involved in efforts to build a rival anti-cuts organisation. "We have made effort after effort to bring them on board, but we are too leftwing for them", reported Glyn Harries from the Hackney Solidarity Network, who acts as joint secretary of the alliance. "There are Tory councillors distributing their leaflets - that gives you an idea of their politics," he said.

HADPS is organising a number of local protests, a meeting with Bob Crow on February 10 and a march on the town hall on February 19. However, there was a decided feeling of 'going through the motions', as well as a lack of ambition. For example, the whole meeting was spent on rather dull organisational matters and hearing local reports.

When comrade Becker raised the suggestion to start future meetings with a political opening - for example, on the question of illegal budgets - there was a lot of nodding. "We used to do that," said comrade Waterson. "But the meetings got smaller and smaller." Which, of course, is not an argument against politics - but one for more of it. Instead, the comrades decided just before Christmas to put more effort into building structures in Hackney's 19 local wards. That might be a good idea, but it should not be done in opposition to making Hackney-wide meetings more interesting and more political.

Our proposal was noted, but who knows what will happen to it? Ditto our suggestion to include COR and the other organisations in plans to hold a "London-wide meeting of anti-cuts campaigns". Again, not a bad idea. But who is organising this? Under what auspices? What is the aim of it? None of this was clarified. But comrade Waterson insisted: "I think it should not be an event where people from different parties get up and announce their programmes. It should be a practical event that discusses how to resist a library closure or how we can defend nurseries from being shut down."

So, in reality, it will probably be organised by the SWP's front, Right to Work, and the only "programmes" announced will be those of the SWP.