Coalition of Resistance

Here:

It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government's budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services.

The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers' profligacy.

The £11bn welfare cuts, rise in VAT to 20%, and 25% reductions across government departments target the most vulnerable – disabled people, single parents, those on housing benefit, black and other ethnic minority communities, students, migrant workers, LGBT people and pensioners.

Women are expected to bear 75% of the burden. The poorest will be hit six times harder than the richest. Internal Treasury documents estimate 1.3 million job losses in public and private sectors.

We reject this malicious vandalism and resolve to campaign for a radical alternative, with the level of determination shown by trade unionists and social movements in Greece and other European countries.

This government of millionaires says "we're all in it together" and "there is no alternative". But, for the wealthy, corporation tax is being cut, the bank levy is a pittance, and top salaries and bonuses have already been restored to pre-crash levels.

An alternative budget would place the banks under democratic control, and raise revenue by increasing tax for the rich, plugging tax loopholes, withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, abolishing the nuclear "deterrent" by cancelling the Trident replacement.

An alternative strategy could use these resources to: support welfare; develop homes, schools, and hospitals; and foster a green approach to public spending – investing in renewable energy and public transport, thereby creating a million jobs.
We commit ourselves to:

• Oppose cuts and privatisation in our workplaces, community and welfare services.
• Fight rising unemployment and support organisations of unemployed people.
• Develop and support an alternative programme for economic and social recovery.
• Oppose all proposals to "solve" the crisis through racism and other forms of scapegoating.
• Liaise closely with similar opposition movements in other countries.
• Organise information, meetings, conferences, marches and demonstrations.
• Support the development of a national co-ordinating coalition of resistance.

We urge those who support this statement to attend the Organising Conference on 27 November 2010 (10am-5pm), at Camden Centre, Town Hall, London, WC1H 9JE.

Signed: Tony Benn; Caroline Lucas MP; John McDonnell MP; Jeremy Corbyn MP; Mark Serwotka, general secretary PCS; Bob Crow, general secretary RMT; Jeremy Dear, general secretary NUJ; Michelle Stanistreet, deputy general secretary, NUJ; Frank Cooper, president of the National Pensioners Convention; Dot Gibson, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention; Ken Loach; John Pilger; John Hendy QC; Mark Steel; Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary NUT; Cllr Salma Yaqoob; Lee Jasper, joint co-ordinator of Black Activists Rise Against Cuts (Barac); Zita Holbourne, joint co-ordinator of Barac campaign and PCS national executive; Ashok Kumar, VP education and welfare, LSE student union; Hilary Wainwright, Red Pepper; Francis Beckett, author; David Weaver, chair, 1990 Trust; Viv Ahmun, director Equanomics UK; Paul Mackney, former general secretary NATFHE/UCU; Clare Solomon, president ULU student union; Lindsey German, convenor, Stop the War Coalition (personal capacity); Andrew Burgin, archivist; John Rees, Counterfire; Romayne Phoenix, Green party; Joseph Healy, secretary Green Left; Fred Leplat, Islington Unison; Jane Shallice; Neil Faulkner, archaeologist and historian; Alf Filer, Socialist Resistance; Chris Nineham; James Meadway, economist; Cherry Sewell, UCU; Alan Thornett, Socialist Resistance; Peter Hallward, professor of modern European philosophy; Matteo Mandarini, Historical Materialism editorial board; John Nicholson, secretary Convention of the Left; Michael Chessum, UCL union education and campaigns officer; Mark Curtis, writer; Nick Broomfield; Sean Rillo Raczka, chair, Birkbeck College student union, and mature students' representative, NUS national executive; Robyn Minogue, UoArts NUS officer; Prince Johnson, NUS president Institute of Education; Roy Bailey, Fuse Records; Doug Nicholls; Granville Williams; Gary Herman (CPBF national council member, in personal capacity); Louis Hartnoll, president UoArts student union; Sarah Ruiz, former Respect councillor and community activist in Newham; Michael Gavan; Mary Pearson, National Union of Teachers, vice president Birmingham Trades Union Council; Joe Glenholmes, Unison, life member Birmingham Trades Union Council; Baljeet Ghale, NUT past president; Jane Holgate, chair of Hackney Unite and secretary of Hackney TUC; Marshajane Thompson, Labour Representation Committee NC; Richard Kuper; Chris Baugh, PCS assistant general secretary; Trevor Phillips, campaigner; Stathis Kouvelakis, UCU, King's College London; Carole Regan; Bernard Regan; Roger Kline; Hugh Kerr, former MEP; Nina Power, senior lecturer in philosophy Roehampton University; Norman Jemmison, NATFHE past president, NPC; Kitty Fitzgerald, poet and novelist; Iain Banks, author; Arthur Smith, comedian; David Landau; Anne Orwin, actor.

coalitionofresistance@mail.com

Why give the list of signatories in full? Because although some are from the Hard or even the really Far Left, several are not, and it is a pity that a broader base could not have been found. Presumably because it was not sought, since the potential for it certainly exists. After all, that is the same Stop The War Coalition that brought millions onto the streets. And that is the same John McDonnell who was nominated for Labour Leader by Frank Field, by Kate Hoey of the Countryside Alliance, by an outspoken opponent (and where are they on the Conservative benches these days?) both of European federalism and of Scottish separatism, and by both Labour MPs, being half of all the MPs, from the second most rural county in England, one of whom is a pro-life Catholic.

The use of the present economic travails to impose the London think tank circuit's longstanding wish list of "free" schools (which it turns out that no school wants to become, so watch out for compulsion), flogging off of our GP services to American healthcare companies, creating for-profit universities, privatising the Royal Mail (and thus ending door-to-door deliveries, next day deliveries, and any Post Office presence outside town centres), abolishing all three Armed Forces by "merging" them under American command, and so on, is no more popular among Conservative voters in the country at large than it is with anyone else. Just look at the Telegraph and Mail newspapers, which know their readerships.

There is clearly an emerging organised opposition. Whether or not it will include the Leader of the Opposition now depends on whether or not that Leader is the man who tried to implement all of these vicious and anti-conservative policies, and who devised several of them, but who was mercifully thwarted by Gordon Brown.

Anyone but David Miliband.

In practice, that means Ed Miliband.