The mood was not of anger, nor even
that of resentment, but of militancy towards those who were placed in
their positions to represent us, the workers.
Tonight (September 7th), I
felt the winds of change. Not just in the general state of things
globally but in my community in particular where over 120 people came to
have their voices heard at the ‘Edinburgh East Save our Services!’
meeting in Portobello’s town hall. The mood was not of anger, nor even
that of resentment, but of militancy towards those who were placed in
their positions to represent us, the workers. The same representatives
who are elected to fight against the dictates of big business and place
our needs first.
Labour was represented by MP Sheila Gilmore who put forwards the
party line of the right-wing leadership and spoke against reversing the
ConDem’s atrocious cuts to the welfare system. Instead of supporting the
interests of struggling workers, she gave a vague defence of more
affordable housing, provoking the 120 people present to outrage. With
the chair struggling to regain order people were shouting out ‘leave the
poor and get the rich!’ and ‘labour has to come out on October 20th to fight with us the Tories!’.
Labour wasn’t alone in hearing the truth from the people. The SNP
representative, who had to back down several times from the outrage of
the room, had his veil of Scottishness ripped away from him. After
criticism of cutting services, epically from those most vulnerable in
Scotland it was clear that the showmanship of the SNP had dissipated.
With people calling out that independence and the SNP offer no real
alternative for Scottish workers, the focus was again placed on labour
to return to its base and start working for the people again.
It was clear that despite the mistrust of labour, the workers are
still focused on calling the Labour leaders out for their treachery
rather than turn their backs on the party, and rightfully so. Ordinary
people don’t abandon their party lightly, but will seek to force it to
do the job it was made for – to defend and fight for working-class
interests. The criticism of the massive failures of the right wing
Labour leadership is only the first step towards turning this party
round. As a Labour member I can only hope that this continues, so that
we might, take our party into workers hands, and use it to fight for a
clear socialist alternative.
