Anti-cuts activists from across Britain announced today that they'll come together in June for a historic assembly against austerity.
MPs, the unemployed and trade unionists are expected to flood Westminster Central Hall in the summer in a bid to show that the cozy pro-cuts consensus doesn't exist outside parliament.
MPs, the unemployed and trade unionists are expected to flood Westminster Central Hall in the summer in a bid to show that the cozy pro-cuts consensus doesn't exist outside parliament.
Dozens of trade unionists, MPs and grass-roots activists called on those angered by public-sector cuts and privatisation to rally at a "national forum for anti-austerity views which, while increasingly popular, are barely represented in Parliament."
Their launch statement said: "This is a call to all those millions of people in Britain who face an impoverished and uncertain year as their wages, jobs, conditions and welfare provision come under renewed attack by the government.
"A people's assembly can play a key role in ensuring that this uncaring government faces a movement of opposition broad enough and powerful enough to generate successful co-ordinated action, including strike action.
"The assembly will be ready to support co-ordinated industrial action and national demonstrations against austerity, if possible synchronising with mobilisations across Europe," it concluded.
Key organisers Coalition of Resistance chairwoman Romayne Pheonix told the Morning Star that the event was inspired by the mass grass-roots fight against austerity in Greece and across Europe.
"I think what we have is an exciting opportunity to bring together official delegates from the whole of the trade union movement with campaign leaders from across the country," she said.
The conference - scheduled for Saturday June 22 - will follow a swathe of welfare cuts effective from April.
Funding for council tax subsidies will be cut by 10 per cent, while increases in housing benefit and a raft of other benefits will be capped at half the current rate of inflation.
And the launch of the Tories' Universal Credit will give bosses the power to stop workers' benefits if they go on strike.
- To register for the assembly visit www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk.
The signatories
Katy Clark, Labour MPJeremy Corbyn, Labour MP
John McDonnell, Labour MP
Murad Qureshi, Labour London Assembly
Dawn Butler, ex-Labour MP
Caroline Lucas, Green MP
Natalie Bennett, Green Party England and Wales leader
Robert Griffiths, Communist Party of Britain general secretary
Bill Greenshields, Communist Party of Britain chair
Fred Leplat, Socialist Resistance
Richard Bagley, Morning Star editor
Bob Crow, RMT general secretary
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary
Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary
Christine Blower, NUT general secretary
Kevin Courtney, NUT deputy general secretary
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary
Manuel Cortez, TSSA
Billy Hayes, CWU general secretary
Mick Whelan, Aslef general secretary
Paul Mackney, Natfhe (now UCU) ex-general secretary
Vicki Baars, NUS VP union development
Kevin Donnelly, Trade Union Council
Tariq Ali, author
John Pilger, journalist
Ken Loach, filmmaker
Owen Jones, writer
James Meadway, New Economics Foundation senior economist
Lee Hall, playwright
Roger Lloyd Pack, actor
Josie Long, comedian
Francesca Martinez, comedian
Iain Banks, author
Arthur Smith, comedian
Roy Bailey, folk singer
John Rees, Counterfire editorial board
Wendy Savage and John Lipetz, Keep Our NHS Public
John Hendy QC, People's Charter vice-chairman
Imran Khan, People's Charter co-chair
Rachael Newton,People's Charter
Zita Holbourne, Co-chair, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts
Anita Wright, Secretary, National Association of Women
Joginder Bains, Association of Indian Women
Shang Gahonia, Indian Workers Association
Colin Hampton, Co-ordinator, National Unemployed Workers Centres Combine
Carolin Jones, Director, Institute of Employment Rights
John Hilary, Director, War on Want
Romayne Phoenix, Coalition of Resistance chair
Sam Fairbairn, Coalition of Resistance co-chair
Clare Solomon, Coalition of Resistance vice-chair
Andrew Burgin, Coalition of Resistance vice-chair
Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition convener
Kate Hudson, CND senior economist
Bruce Kent, peace campaigner
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