As we reported in the last issue of The Communist, the Reform-run Lancashire County Council threatened to close five care homes and five day centres for the elderly, forcing them into private care.
In response to these attacks, UNISON organised a campaign, culminating in a rally on 17 January. Ten Preston RCP comrades went along.
Around 500 attended – including trade unionists and left groups from across the North West. We saw plenty of anger in the crowd. But we also saw the shocking hypocrisy of two Labour councillors and a Labour MP being invited onto the podium to decry Reform’s cuts – as if Starmer’s party isn’t brutally attacking the working class across the country!
Before the demo, we prepared for this – expecting that Labour could be let off the hook, and that the fight back would be presented as simply ‘applying pressure’ on Reform next to ‘opposition voices’ (which, it turned out, could include Tories, Labour, Lib Dems, and anyone else!), without any real way forward.
Unfortunately, a lot of the speeches were unpolitical, and therefore uninspiring. Notably, however, the speech by UNISON’s new left-wing general secretary, Andrea Egan, stood out: she spoke more radically about workers leading the struggle, and the need for strike action. This gained the best reception.
These words are very welcome from the leader of such a large union, but now need to be translated into deeds. The workers of this care home themselves had indeed threatened strike action.
We chose to emphasise clear, independent, class-based politics, after all, all of the above parties are responsible for brutal cuts to public services, wherever they have been in power. The Communist bloc led with chants including “Farage and Starmer, all the same: cuts and closures in their name!”, “No more cuts, no more losses: take the money from the bosses!”, and chants calling for revolution, which were all picked up enthusiastically by other demonstrators.
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Partial victory
Along with pressure from the wider campaign, the march in Preston led to Reform backing down, and announcing that care homes will not be closed. This is a great victory, and shows the power of the workers’ movement when mobilised.
Day centres, however, remain under threat, so the victory is only partial. And, crucially, services all over the country are under relentless attack. Only a national coordinated campaign against this can resist the tide of austerity, and ultimately only a struggle against capitalism can end it. This is something that a union such as UNISON has the power to do.
Mobilising for this rally was a great educational experience for the Preston district of the RCP. It helped confirm to us in practice that radical, militant, and even revolutionary slogans can easily get a positive response within these day-to-day struggles. But someone has to give the lead.
The U-turn by Reform is also very significant, showing already how deep the contradictions they face are, as soon as they make electoral victories. The appetite for a fight back will only grow, but the leadership will not build itself.
Our comrades are more determined than ever to keep building the revolutionary party for precisely this purpose. On the back of this activity, two of our supporters agreed to become full members!
The RCP in Preston has resolved to bring out larger blocs of students and young people to future demonstrations – to fight even more boldly and militantly for the overthrow of the entire decrepit capitalist system!
