Stop £101m Cuts to Bristol City Council!

£101m cuts are due to be voted on by Bristol City Council on Tuesday 21st February. We don't yet know the full details of what these mean - most of them come under vague headings of "rethinking" or "restructure". However what we do know indicates that these cuts will devastate many vital local services. Libraries will be sold off, public toilets will close, as will all council advice centres other than Temple Street. Less will be spent on adult education, arts, swimming and busses. There will be £1m cut from the Crisis and Prevention Fund. Charges will also be rising for things as varied as dementia care, museum admission and residents' parking schemes. See below for a full list of the cuts, events coming up to oppose them and for comment on how they can be beaten. 

A full list of the cuts proposals so far can be found on the Bristol Post website.

Stopping Council Cuts - Socialist Party public meeting

Tuesday 7th February, 7.30pm

Malcolm X Centre, 141 City Road, BS2 8YH

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At this meeting we will be discussing how council cuts can be stopped and hearing from Nick Chaffey from Southampton's people's budget campaign.

Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance Demonstration

Saturday 18th February, 11am

College Green, Bristol

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Join the protest the weekend before the council meets to vote on the cuts. 

Sign and share the BADACA online petition against the cuts - to be presented to the council when they meet to vote on the cuts budget. 

The Labour Party have been distributing the leaflet above, claiming to be fighting back against Tory cuts. However, while Bristol's budget is being cut by the Tories in Westminster, it is Labour mayor Marvin Rees who is passing on the cuts locally. They have been drawn up by him and his cabinet team (which includes a Tory) and it looks likely that they will be voted through by the majority Labour council. This is a disgrace, people didn't vote for a Labour mayor to get Tory cuts. Instead of handing out leaflets trying to shift the blame Labour should be building a campaign to defeat the cuts. Fighting back should start with not voting for the cuts, which undermines Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity message and causes more misery for the people of Bristol, especially the most vulnerable who will be hardest hit. 

We reject the claim that Labour have no choice but to make these cuts. The Socialist Party calls for a no-cuts budget based on what Bristol needs, not the cuts the Tories are demanding. This must be backed by the building of a mass campaign that can push the government back. The council has huge reserves which can be used to keep services running while such a campaign is built.

Working with the unions and anti-cuts campaigners, local people can be brought into a campaign of protests and strikes if necessary that can force the government to reverse the cuts. Linking up with other Labour councils that have been put in the same position by the Tories and are willing to fight will strengthen the campaign further. The Tories are hopelessly divided over Brexit, this is a weak government and they can be beaten. 

There is plenty of money in the country for us to be funding these vital services. Austerity is a political choice not an economic necessity. The Tories claim that there is no money for public services but have still managed to cut taxes for the super-rich. We need to stop the austerity steamroller and fight for a socialist society where the needs of ordinary people come before the profits of big business.  

More Massive Cuts Planned for Bristol City Council

Bristol mayor Marvin Rees on BBC Points West

By Mike Luff, Bristol Unison member, personal capacity

Bristol is facing a massive attack on its jobs and services, with a rapidly capitulating newly elected Labour mayor and its Labour controlled council. The Mayor, when challenged on the television that he was elected on an anti austerity platform, surprised the interviewer saying by saying “NO”.

Proposed cuts include the halving of bus subsidies, charges for users of dementia service, fees for disabled parking bays, handing over parks from Council control, cuts in museum hours, reduction of lollipop controls, ending of companion bus passes for carers, library service closures and some removal of short term help for paying bills – the list goes on. This amounts to £27 million cuts for 2017/2018, and then there is a further £65m cuts by 2020. Even the Mayor describes his proposed cuts as “horrifically unpalatable”.

This is in addition to 1000 full time equivalent posts being cut, one sixth of the workforce over the next few months. This will inevitably lead to hundreds of compulsory redundancies. No service closures have been announced, so we are likely to see reductions in services. As a Regional Unison officer said ”the cuts in jobs are not sustainable at such thin levels”. Services will easily collapse.

On the day before these announcements, the Anti Cuts Alliance, BADACA, met with Mayor Rees. We gave a clear way forward to build a mass popular campaign of trade unions, communities and campaigns from across the city, which would strengthen the demand for the return of our money from this weak Tory Government. By using reserves, prudential borrowing, the cuts can be frozen legally for a period, during which such a campaign can be built. This could act as a beacon to other authorities to build a national campaign to defeat the Tory government cuts.

The excuse given for not trying to build such a campaign was that it would weaken negotiations with the government! The fact that such an approach has been used and failed over the previous years is conveniently forgotten. On the following day, Sajid Javid, the Local Government Secretary visited Bristol and was asked about the government funding, he said “What I say is local government are looking to use their money more efficiently and having to make savings”.

Jeremy Corbyn has visited Bristol supporting Rees on a number of occasions  during the election campaign stating “the message of opposition to austerity”. Jeremy has to face up to those who are undermining the general election campaign of an anti austerity government by carrying out the Tory cuts.

Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance public meeting

Report back of meeting between BADACA and Mayor Rees

7.30pm, Monday 17th October

Tony Benn House, 92 Victoria St, BS1 6AY

Come to the meeting and hear a full report back of the discussion between Marvin Rees representatives of BADACA. We will also be discussing how we can resist this latest round of swingeing cuts.

BADACA meeting - Stop the 1000 job cuts at Bristol City Council!

From the Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance (BADACA):

BADACA public meeting

Report back of meeting between BADACA and Mayor Rees

7.30pm, Monday 17th October

Tony Benn House, 92 Victoria St, BS1 6AY

Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees addresses a lobby opposing huge cuts to council jobs. 

Bristol Labour Mayor Marvin Rees has agreed to meet a delegation from Bristol & District Anti-Cuts Alliance (BADACA) to discuss our concerns about the cuts programme that he has already embarked on, 1,000 extra redundancies this financial year, and cuts planned in the budget for future years. The delegation will be lead by two-time anti-austerity mayoral candidate, Tom Baldwin. (Tom stood for mayor in 2012 & 2016 for the Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) )

BADACA has always opposed all cuts and will be calling on the mayor to refuse to implement the cuts and to join with the Local Government unions, the anti-austerity movement & Labour authorities in other cities in fighting back. Reserves & prudential borrowing should be used to stop the cuts for now while the movement builds. Jeremy Corbyn has just been re-elected as Labour leader, with an increased mandate & on a clear anti-austerity programme. Labour has the power to start to push back on Tory austerity measures as they have successfully under Corbyn with disability benefits & tax credits. Local authorities can't take any more - we need to end austerity NOW!!!

With the Tories in disarray after the unexpected Brexit vote and the sudden political demise of Cameron, Osborne, Iain Duncan-Smith & Michael Gove, we can push them back. Replacement chancellor, Philip Hammond has already abandoned Osborne's austerity targets... the alternative to fighting is the end of council services as we know them in Bristol!!

Come & join us at Tony Benn House at 7.30pm on Monday 17th October for a report-back on the meeting with the mayor and a discussion on where the campign needs to go from here. All welcome!!

The meeting will hear from a member of the Save Hanham Library campaign about the cuts to libraries in South Gloucestershire and a teacher about the attacks on education from the Tory government, including the proposals for new grammar schools. 

This meeting follows our successful meeting in September which was attended by about 15 people and agreed to continue to get BADACA meetings going again. At this meeting we are hoping to set a date for an AGM so new officers can be elected. More info in an email bulletin shortly. If you're not on our mailing list and would like to be, please message matthewcarey@mykolab.com with your name & email address.

Save Bristol's Libraries!

Protecting our libraries has been an important part of Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition campaigning in Bristol. 7 libraries are set to be closed in a cut put forward by the independent mayor and his cross-party cabinet. Scandalously this closure programme has been fronted by the Green Party assistant mayor. Despite their avowed opposition to cuts they are at the sharp end of implementing Tory austerity. Saving our libraries and other services requires principled and consistent opposition to the cuts, in actions, not just words.

Local people will fight to save their libraries and we will stand with them. In many cases these are the only resource that communities have left. They are used by people across the generations and provide far more than just books. Below is an eyewitness account of one library user's experiences and how vital the service was to him.

Tom Baldwin

"In September last year I found myself evicted and unemployed, while I never had to sleep on the streets not having a place of your own still comes with its problems.  Due to my low mood and feeling of helplessness I started to drink, a lot.  I thought there was no way out and even one day called 999 to tell them that "a friend" was considering taking his life.  Of course the friend was me and the ambulance crew came and did their duty, but that is a different story.

"After hitting rock bottom I thought that I had to do something, and do something fast.  While I do have friends in Bristol I am from Belfast so I have no immediate family here.  And my friends were not in position to do much other than the occasional night on the sofa.

"Being homeless and without a internet capable phone I went to the local Bedminster library.  In my first session there I found a homeless charity, St Mungos, who I registered with and was able to get a free meal once a day.  They also helped me with the council as in getting on the homeless register.  So that was one meal a day sorted out and at least a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. 

"On the job front, I was able to use the library to search all of the main job sites, alter my CV and scan legal documents when required.  Again, the light at the end of the tunnel got a little brighter.

"While all of this seems logical and something that you would expect, there is another less tangible way the library helped me.  It gave me something to do, I was living in a squat with no amenities or facilities, literally sleeping on the floor in an empty room.  So each day when I woke up I knew that I could go to either Bedminster library for one hour internet or the central library for two hours.  Add to this that I was now attending interviews and able to go to St Mungos, this gave me some structure and hope.

"As of writing this today, I am in a job that I like, I viewed a property last night, again, found on the internet using the library, and it looks like I will be moving in next week.

"I have learnt a lot in the past months, about taking responsibility for yourself, about support there is out there for you and how important something that people take for granted, a local library, can be a life saver.

"I think the proposed cuts to the libraries are a disgrace and will put further pressure on people that rely on them, not just for books and education but for other services that people tend to forget about."

Sean R