Demonstrate against the Con-Dem budget!

Protest supported by UNISON, GMB, PCS, RMT, Keep Our NHS Public, Right to work, Brighton Benefits Campaign & Youth Fight For Jobs.

On 22 June the government will unveil its 'emergency budget', after having already announced £6 billion of cuts. Now this coalition of millionaires is due to impose yet more cuts in public services. It really is an emergency!

Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost on top of already soaring unemployment, public services will suffer enormously as resources are stripped out and our welfare state is dismantled. The problems with debt were created by huge bank bailouts but it is going to be the working class that foots the bill.

After the second world war, in a situation of even higher debt, the NHS and the welfare state was created. Now it seems debt will be used as the excuse to pull them apart, while we continue to spend money on Trident nuclear submarines, and let the super rich evade taxes.

We are protesting to say to the government that we won't pay for the crisis, and to tell our councillors that their job is to represent us, not push through government cuts.

Join us in saying NO to the cuts!
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Trades Council demo unites Brighton fight back

[Words and pictures, Peter Knight - Brighton Thursday branch]













"They say cut back, we say fight back" was the chant that roared through the streets of Brighton on Saturday as hundreds of working class trade union activists, socialists and campaigners brought the city's streets to a standstill.

In one of the largest trade union organised demonstrations in Brighton for many years, over 600 people representing union branches from workplaces right across the city united to inspire others to join a growing fight back against mounting job losses and the monstrous attacks on public services.

Recent work place closures in the city have seen the loss of hundreds of jobs with bookshops, bank branches, off licenses and manufacturing plants closing down in the last year.

With the continuing threat of redundancies and savage service cuts looming over the heads of thousands more local workers, the Brighton, Hove and District Trades Union Council organised March for Jobs demonstration has provided the spark for a united fight back campaign.

Socialist Party members played a central role in organising the event which was supported by local trade union branches including the GMB, NUJ, NUT, PCS, RMT, UCU, Unison and Unite.

Last week the local Save Our Nursery campaign, which has united parents and workers against plans to close an outstanding childcare service at the University of Brighton, forced management to consider a union proposal to keep the nursery open after a large vocal rally boosted by Socialist Party members was held outside the board of governors' meeting.

Carole Hanson, secretary of the University of Brighton Unison branch representing the nursery workers, said at the rally on Saturday: "The impact that action has had on our branch, to see those workers absolutely united against the cuts to the nursery, the cuts to provision, the cuts to their jobs, has galvanised our branch into action and it's really uniting people in their opposition to any cuts."

The fight towards victory for the Save Our Nursery campaign saw their contingent lead the March for Jobs demonstration.

GMB members from the Brighton bin depot joined the march to inspire fellow workers in struggle after their victorious battle last year. Over 300 refuse workers were facing massive cuts in their pay of up to a third, but took united action and forced the council into a quick retreat after only a two day strike.

Dave Russell, GMB rep at the Hollingdean depot in Brighton, said at the rally: "We won the battle but the war has only just begun. I hope our victory can inspire you in yours."

Job centre workers in the Public and Commercial Services union, who are due to walk out on strike on Monday and Tuesday, marched side by side with unemployed campaigners who are being attacked with cuts to already poverty level benefits. Both unemployed and public sector workers face ongoing privatisation plans or the introduction of punishments for not excepting low paid or unpaid work.

But organised activists remain confident of the unity that the March for Jobs event provided. Kevin Dale, a PCS rep at Brighton job centre, said: "PCS workers are taking industrial action in defence of their compensation scheme which, if cut, cheapens everything up for the privatisation and cuts to come. So we're taking all out action on Monday and Tuesday. Today's demo gives us every confidence we can win this battle."

Dominic McFadden from the PCS national executive committee echoed one of the demonstration's key slogans when he spoke at the rally at the end of the march. Yellow placards with the slogan "jobs and services not bail outs for the rich" were waived in the air by the crowd at Brighton town hall as he said: "When moat-owning Douglas Hogg MP steps down at the next election he will walk away with a pension pot worth more than £40,000 a year. The average pension for a civil service worker is only £84 a week. So much for gold plated public sector pensions. Perhaps the government could collect the billions of avoided and evaded tax payments owed by the rich before they start attacking low paid public sector workers."

With 76 per cent of an 80 per cent turnout backing strike action - a national record turn out for a UCU ballot - workers at the University of Sussex are growing in confidence that united action can force a nervous management to concede defeat over plans to axe over 100 jobs.

Support on the local campuses is growing with the Stop The Cuts campaign uniting workers and students who have organised peaceful occupations and demonstrations in which Socialist Students have played a leading role.

However, in a sign of desperation, the university's vice chancellor Michael Farthing called in police to violently break up the latest protest expelling six of the students without any hearing.

Socialist Students and workers involved in the Stop The Cuts campaign joined Saturday's demonstration to gather signatures in support of the six victimised students. Along with their petition and news of a demonstration planned for next week, they also provided the march with the chant "workers and students unite and fight" highlighting the strength and depth of the unity that is building across the city.

Radical poet Attila the Stockbroker provided some lively and stirring music and prose that captured the upbeat mood of workers and their families on the demonstration.

The anger over job losses and cuts is not lost in the local labour movement, but the March for Jobs demonstration has given everyone involved in struggle a massive boost that has united a lot of the battles taking place across the city.

Bill North, general secretary of Brighton, Hove and District Trades Union Council said: "What we've achieved today has been absolutely brilliant but if we left it there we would have failed. This is the start of a campaign for jobs and services that can be built to defeat those who wish to make us pay for their crisis. We’ve shown that we can work together, act together so let's stick together and let people know there is a fight back going on."

Fundraisers!

This upcoming Sunday 26 April features two fundraising events for two important working class campaigns.

Brighton's local Keep Our NHS Public campaign group are holding a vegan Sunday roast during Sunday lunchtime between 1pm and 4pm to raise funds for the fight to prevent the privatisation of our publicaly-owned National Health Service. The campaign has been a primary frontline in Brighton for the last five years against the New Labour, Tory and Lib Dem neo-liberial attacks on health services. For more information visit brightonkeepournhspublic.blogspot.com. The event takes place at The Cowley Club, 12 London Road, Brighton (opposite Somerfield) and costs just £5 for a vegan roast and dessert! Bargain. Arrive early to avoid dissapointment!

Then on Sunday evening join socialists, trade unionists and campaigners for a fundraiser night with drink, music and information on the campaign to build for an historic electorial alternative to capitalism and fascism in this year's European elections. The No2EU Yes to democracy coalition plans to stand in all 11 regions including the Southeast. This could well be the opportunity for the formation of a new workers' party that will stand up and fight for all working people, not just in Britain, but internationally.

For more information come along to the gig. Meet 8pm at the Horse and Groom public house on Islingword Road. £5 entry. Visit no2eusoutheast.blogspot.com and www.no2eu.com

Celebrating 60 years of our NHS

On Saturday 5 July the Keep Our NHS Public campaign group, along with Socialist Party members in support, celebrated the 60th anniversary of the creation of our NHS. With balloons, birthday cake, badges and t-shirts the group raised funds for its campaign along with awareness about the attacks and attempts to privatise services and cut services and staff.

Brighton and Hove's health trust is planning to open GP services up to the private sector, yet almost everyone who took part in the group's public ballot on the stall in Churchill Square was against privatisation. Campaigners, the public and Socialist Party members want to know why there has been no public consultation about this? When talking to people about the potential for companies like Richard Branson's Virgin Health to get involved the reaction was one of worry. Over and over again people responded with comments like "privatising things never works" and "they're only in it for the money".

Our NHS is one of the most proudest achievements and is evidence of what can be achieved by a united, organised and fighting working class. Now we need to mark the NHS' 60th anniversary with a renewed struggle to save it.

Get involved with the KONHSP group. Campaigners meet every fortnight on Wednesdays, 7pm downstairs at the Phoenix Community Centre (see map in the lefthand column). The next meeting is Wednesday 30 July.

Keep Our NHS Public fundraiser: 1pm Sunday 20 April

Don't just celebrate the NHS - Fight to save it!

[First published on our national website by Liz Cowell, a district nurse: November 2007]

OVER 7,000 people took to London's streets on 3 November for the long-awaited trade union-called national NHS demonstration. While billed as a 'celebration of the NHS', many on the march were commiserating at its ongoing destruction at the hands of the Labour government.

As one nurse said: "I'm here to protest at privatisation." Another nurse who has worked for 45 years said: "Remember how lucky we are to have the NHS; some countries can't afford money for health care and other countries such as America, charge you for your health".

The march and rally, described as "flat" (by a PCS member) and "great" (by a Unison union official) brought many NHS staff and members of the public together chanting "PFI, no way, NHS here to stay".

The Trafalgar Square rally had speakers including Joe Harris, National Pensioners Convention general secretary, highlighting that he sees "good staff, trying hard, they are overworked and underpaid - and still 40% of older people leave hospital malnourished".

Another speaker explained that when he was born the NHS was there, when he went to Glastonbury and got an abscess the NHS was there, when he wanted to give up smoking using nicotine replacement - the NHS was there. He hoped it would still be there when he died.
Many speakers reiterated the principles upon which the NHS was founded, with a Unison Scotland speaker recounting how rich and poor are treated alike, poverty is not a disability and wealth is not an advantage.

Dave Prentis, Unison general secretary, claimed that his union only supports MPs who stand up for the NHS. Well, if Alan Johnson, the man planning to bring in US health insurers to help Primary Care Trusts commission services is "someone we can do business with", Mr Prentis appears somewhat misguided.

Nonetheless, a physiotherapist in the NHS described how, while tired of reforms, staff commitment had reduced waiting times and brought about improvements. But these are the very staff the government expects to take a below-inflation rate pay increase - in effect a pay cut.

The question on many people's lips was: "Will this make any difference?" There were no solutions offered from the platform but many videos of individuals saying how they loved the NHS. One union official said that hopefully this will be the last one (march/demo). Personally I hope it's just the start of many more, but not just marches but more serious, sustained action.

Around 280 copies of the socialist were sold on the demonstration. The meeting after the rally organised by the Socialist Party had 70 attendees with many new faces and many more unable to get into the venue.

At the meeting, there was unanimous backing for breaking the union-Labour Party link, for co-ordinated campaigning and for a new workers' party to properly represent workers and public alike. That's because, as a hospital porter said on the march: "There's plenty of money around but it's just in the wrong hands".

Second Brighton march to stop the privatisation of the NHS

[First published on our website: 1 July 2007]



On Saturday a vocal crowd of around 70 people turned out for a demonstration called by Keep Our NHS public in Brighton. This was a protest against the cuts and closures that are being pushed through across Sussex including plans to shut down accident and emergency centres, and to raise public awareness that is the privatisation of our NHS that is driving the changes.

Despite the heavy rain the demonstration made its way through the centre of the city receiving much support from the public who had braved the weather to head out. Chants included "Public health not private wealth" and hundreds of leaflets explaining the truth behind the private contracts suffocating NHS funds were handed out to the public.

The 'reconfiguration' of hospitals across Sussex will see accident and emergency centres closed and downgraded in major hospitals surrounding Brighton. Haywards Heath, Shoreham, Worthing and Eastbourne hospitals are all under threat.

Many services will be centralised to the Royal Sussex County in Brighton, a hospital already strained, having a major part of its A&E provision privatised with staff still bracing themselves for job cuts this year. On top of this appalling cut in health provision, we have seen in the past few weeks that the PFI-built New Princess Alexandra Children's Hospital having to begin to pay rent to its private builders even though its is still not ready, and mental health services across Sussex will be made into a foundation trust - another form of privatisation.

Despite the overwhelming public support for a publicaly-owned and publicaly-run health system, the Labour government is determined to bring the market into the NHS so profit decides. This process, if not halted, will signal the end of the NHS as a public health system.

Keep Our NHS Public will continue to support the hospital workers and raise the arguments against privatisation. We will now be continuing our work towards the national demonstration called by the health unions in London on 13 October

Fundraising gig for NHS campaign

[First published on our website: 28 June 2007]



On Wednesday 27 the Prince Albert Pub in Brighton played host to a sell out benefit gig in aid of the local Keep Our NHS Public campaign in which Socialist Party members play a leading role.

Two local bands - Sweet Nothing and Dirty Dig - generously playing for free, and entertained the packed out room with angular punk and classic blues rock being the order of the day. With tickets at just a fiver each, the gig easily sold out and raised £500 to keep the campaign running and producing material in a period when the battle to defend the NHS from privatisation is as bitter as ever.

The gig came about as the Brighton Keep Our NHS Public group desperately needed funds to continue its campaign against the cuts, closures and privatisations being carried out on the health services in Brighton and the surrounding area. Socialist Party comrades lead the campaign group and it was encouraging to see a turnout that included many Socialist party members, health workers, socialists and people new to the campaign. With this captive audience, it also provided an opportunity to raise the profile of the campaign, to build for the demonstration the following weekend and explain the views of the Socialist Party concerning the need for an end to privatisation of the NHS and the introduction of a publicly owned comprehensive health care system, free of all charges.

Public meeting gathers support

[First published on our website: 6 June 2007]

On Tuesday 5 June over 40 local health workers, trade unionists and campaigners attended a successful public meeting to discuss concerns over private sector involvment in our NHS and plans to decimate local health services.

The meeting was organised by the local branch of the Keep Our NHS Public campaign group which has been at the forefront of the battle locally to protect public interests in local health services.

Platform speakers included John Lister, a national health campaigner from Oxfordshire, Socialist Party member and chair of the local Keep Our NHS Public group, Phil Clarke and Mick Malloy, Brighton's GMB Health representative.

Phil Clarke opened the meeting by describing the role of the Keep Our NHS Public campaign and the current situation in Brighton and the surrounding towns regarding private involvment in the NHS. One example included the current and ongoing PFI fiasco which will see the local trust struggle to meet the inflated repayments for a new children's hospital which guarantee large profits for the contractor, Kajima. In total, the local NHS trust will end up paying about five times the £37 million value of the building! That's £163.3 million! Or five new hospitals!

The main thrust of Phil's contribution centred around concerns over the creation of privately-run 'minor' A&Es. The Strategic Health Authority's plan is to leave the only NHS-run A&E department at the county's busiest hospital, the Royal Sussex in Brighton, with privately-run Urgent Care Centres (UCCs) operating in towns across Sussex. As part of this development, these UCCs will only be able to treat the very minor, and profitable, injuries while people in critical conditions will have to travel many more miles to reach the only A&E in the region. From as early as next year patents may find themselves directed to a privately-run UCC to take over part of the Royal Sussex's A&E site with tenders invited from the private sector for £30 million of depleted NHS funds over three years!

These insane, life-threatening and wasteful plans to involve the private sector in the creation of downgraded minor injury clinics, follows another example of this current obsession with privatisation in the local region.

The local health trust, which is already £15 million in debt, is paying £18 million from its funds to US private health firm Mercury Health in Haywards Health. They are being paid in total for only carrying out half the number of operations they are contracted to do because they are cherry-picking the easiest cases! That's money for nothing!

And all of this is occuring while 500 jobs are under threat and 109 beds are set to close at the Royal Sussex alone!

John Lister followed Phil's contribution by speaking passionately about the campaigns going on up and down the country in defence of a publicaly-owned and run NHS. GMB Health representative Mick Malloy gave a firm and supportive speech in appreciation to the work of the local campaign for building solidarity amongst campaigners and health workers. In particular, he drew attention to two GMB health reps present at the meeting who have been the only compulsory reduncies so far. Mick suggested that the health authority is obviously on the defensive up against a strong campaign group if it is sacking those it knows can win if united action is taken by health workers, trade unionists, socialists and community campaigners.

New people interested in joining the local campaign gave their contact details and now the build up is underway for the group's second public demonstration on Saturday 30 June

NHS union members attacked in Brighton

[First published on our website: 1 February 2006]

The Royal Sussex County in Brighton is the hospital that many services will be centralised to, as the NHS on the south coast is butchered. But it has had the loss of 10 per cent of its workforce hanging over it for months.

The planned compulsory redundancies have been put off until the summer, although shrinking the number of agency workers and the use of 'natural wastage' continues. But this has not stopped the workers' organisations in the hospital coming under attack.

In the last week two GMB reps were frog-marched off site by security, having been informed they were the first compulsory redundancies. These long-standing trade unionists had to sneak back in later to inform their colleagues of what was going on.

The GMB branch at the hospital has begun the process to ballot for strike action to combat this clear case of victimisation. Staff morale is at an all-time low and their confidence will have to built up if these attacks and the job losses are going to be stopped.

Brighton Socialist Party, through its active involvement in the local Keep Our NHS Public group, will be building local events to support the union and health workers. What is also needed is a national demonstration against the destruction of the NHS that would show these workers that they are not alone. A date for a national protest must be named soon.

The first united demonstration

[First published on our website: 29 November 2006]



On Wednesday 29 November 150 health workers and campaigners from local groups across the southeast gathered outside a Brighton hotel to demonstrate against job losses, cuts and closures in the NHS. People from campaigns in Worthing, Hastings, Eastbourne, Crawley, Chichester, Brighton and Haywards Heath rallied together to form the first united demonstration of its kind to protest collectively against New Labour's neo-liberal mis-management of our National Health Service.

The South East SHA (Strategic Health Authority) is the unelected public body that chooses how to spend the region's health budget. They were inside the Brighton Metropole Hotel for the day, along with 500 managers and market consultants, deciding how to close our hospitals and divert NHS money to private companies.

Josephina, a welfare rights caseworker who walked out of the conference to join the demonstration, said: "They were speaking in a smug and insulated world of their own, telling us lies and rubbish about 'patient choice' and the need to involve private companies in health provision. We all know what they really mean: cuts to our health service and privatisation of the NHS."

Over the past months anger has been growing across Surrey, Sussex and Kent with thousands attending meetings and rallies all over the region at concerns to close hospitals and wards and downgrade services. Local Socialist Party members called for the need for regional co-ordination when we intervened in these early demonstrations and was part of the main thrust our own successful Keep Our NHS Public march, also in Brighton. At the end of October campaigners and Socialist Party members from across the three counties met and the united 29 November demonstration outside the SHA conference was planned.

An organiser from the Brighton Keep Our NHS Public group said: "This is part of the first steps in bringing together all the groups across the region who are against the market reforms that are ruining our NHS. What is happening locally is part of a wider plan to decimate the National Health Service. Therefore, the need to link up all of the local campaigns, right up to a national level if possible, is crucial in building a strong, united and confident voice that can successfully defend our publically-owned NHS."

The demonstration proved to the campaigners themselves that the unity of their cause against those inside the SHA conference was a sign of strength, and confidence grew as hundreds of passing cars and vans honked their horns in support.

Leaflets publicising the recent success of action taken by staff at Whipps Cross Hospital were handed out to health workers at the demonstration who were inspired by the brave fight that their colleagues had fought. Campaign for a New Workers' Party leaflets were also well received by politicised campaigners desperately seeking an alternative to the same old prescription of privatisation and cuts offered by the main parties.

In these developing stages, as the NHS campaign grows, the Socialist Party must play this important role in uniting people and workers from all local campaigns, and to build the confidence in their movement to save the NHS.

Thousands march to save NHS - Now build for further action

[First published on our website: 1 November 2006]



Thousands of people descended on parliament on 1 November to demonstrate their anger at the devastating cuts and closures to the National Health Service. They came from all over the country. From Yorkshire to the south coast. From areas where the local hospital, which thousands rely on, is due to close, or from one of the towns where the accident and emergency or birthing unit and other wards are to be axed.

Nurses came in their uniforms and marched with banners saying: "Save Our NHS." And hundreds waved the Socialist Party placards calling for a national demonstration. The march was to the TUC lobby of parliament, but lobbying parliament is not enough.

No part of the NHS is safe in this government's hands. 20,000 jobs are to go. Cuts are planned across the board as hospitals are forced to 'balance the books', which means in ordinary language, making slashing cuts. Meanwhile, the private health care sharks are waiting in the wings to buy up NHS services. That's why the march to parliament was clear in its demand to stop privatisation. These cuts are about the privatisation of the NHS from top to bottom. The London region of the National Pensioners' Convention had done an important job in caling the demo and using it to bring together NHS campaigners from all over the country.

Denise Wood, from Hinkley and Bosworth Pensioners explained why she was there: "The NHS is the jewel in our crown. Without it, we are nothing. I think all the nurses and other health workers who have come on this demo should be proud of being here at the beginning of a massive, national campaign."

The calls for a nationally co-ordinated campaign which can unite local groups and trade unionists are becoming stronger and this organisation is coming together at grass roots level.

Two weeks ago in Nuneaton eight campaign groups from around the country met to set up People United Saving Hospitals (PUSH). They have called another national meeting for 2 December.
Vanessa Casey, one of the organisers of PUSH, told the socialist: "This is a brilliant demo. We've had a great response on the streets and we've met loads of people from different campaigns from all round the country. We have invited every local campaign to come to our meeting on 2 December and we want to have an inaugural day of action across the country on Friday 15 December."

The response from Wednesday's demonstration for this co-ordinating meeting was tremendous. We now have to campaign to make it as big as possible. The main call of those backing the Nuneaton meeting is for the unions to immediately name the day for a mass national demo.

Let's build on the march and lobby of parliament. Hundreds of people signed up to be part of a national campaign. Now lets give them the opportunity to do just that.

KONHSP Brighton demonstration

[First published on our website: 14 October 2006]

"People are going to die because of these reforms!" exclaimed one woman in the build up to Brighton's first organised demonstration against NHS cuts which took place on Saturday 14 October.

The local Keep Our NHS Public campaign attracted 200 working class people from across the city to the march with the Brighton branch of the Socialist Party playing a key role in the publicity and organisation of the event.

With the loss of up to 500 jobs (10% of the Royal Sussex hospital's workforce) and 109 beds, and with vital orthopaedic and cardiac services being cut to the bare minimum, this anti-cuts anti-privatisation demonstration was crucial in allowing local people to display their concern over New Labour's handling of public health services.

Following Tory-led non-politicised demonstrations in nearby Chichester, Worthing, Eastbourne and Haywards Heath which local Socialist Party members intervened in, the Brighton demonstration was the first to call for the unity of all local campaigns and the first to offer a political working class perspective to the local struggle with many names added to the Campaign for a New Workers' Party petition. This call for united action must be the next step in the campaign to build the national demonstration in London on 1 November and to save our NHS from the hands of the privateers.