Re-run: 16. Are no-cuts council budgets possible?

Councils have the power to resist continued Tory austerity.

It’s budget-setting season again for local authorities in Britain. The Tories in central government have succeeded in making local councils do their dirty work and implement savage austerity for a decade.

In fact, so successful was this strategy, that the lack of any practical distinction between Labour and Conservative at a local level was a significant factor in Jeremy Corbyn’s general election defeat in December. From the perspective of many in working-class communities, nothing ever seems to change. So why bother voting for Labour?

But the general election is behind us for now. Council jobs and services are utterly threadbare. And there is major economic uncertainty ahead. Councils have a choice.

Either carry on acting as managers of austerity - as tame local representatives of Tory central government. Or set no-cuts budgets, and demand the stolen millions back from Westminster - as fighting representatives of local workers and residents. This could even paralyse and eventually overturn Johnson’s unstable government.

The Socialist Party calls on Labour councils to fight, and for Labour leadership candidates to commit to pushing for such a fight. It’s the same road taken successfully by the famous socialist Liverpool Council in the 1980s. Now is the time to take the Liverpool Road once more.

This is a re-run of episode 16 from January 2019. The situation has changed, but the need for council to fight has not. This episode of Socialism asks: are no-cuts council budgets possible?