WHATS THE POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE TO THE CUTS?
Speaker: Eamonn McCann, Author and Journalist
Date: Wed 3rd Nov. 7.30pm
Venue: Culturlann, Falls Road Belfast.
The Con-Dem Comprehensive Spending Review of 20th October declared the worst attack on public services and the welfare state since its establishment.
The Tories are gearing up for class war – they want to make working people pay for the crisis caused by their rich friends in banking.
Further restrictions on housing benefit for under- 35s, coupled with those already contained in the June budget, will mean even more people faced with homelessness.
Some of those now in housing trouble are families who were urged and pressurised into buying the homes they were living in. Now they face the possibility of repossession. This is an outrage and should be fought all the way.
We are told that everybody is facing tough times, yet the salaries of the FTSE 100 CEOs went up by a staggering 55% this year. They are getting richer but want us to pay for the massive bailout of the banks.
Although it doesn’t always come across in coverage of the ‘cuts’ there is an alternative to wrecking public services and people’s lives. Last week’s ICTU rally in Belfast was a brilliant start in this ongoing war against the Tories. We need more protests and strikes in order to make sure we don’t pay for their crisis.
It will be the Executive in Stormont which decides the scale of cuts in Northern Ireland when they agree the budget. Whilst some Assembly parties posture against the Tory cuts they have been implementing cuts for years now. They need to see that there is real opposition in workplaces and communities to any cuts in jobs or services.
At the same time we need a political alternative that goes beyond the Orange and Green which has dominated politics in the North of Ireland and which represents the interests of working class people, from whatever community come. Such an alternative should have no truck with any form of paramilitarism, oppose all ‘punishment shootings’ or beatings – as well as building resistance to the Tory cuts.
The People Before Profit Alliance is bringing together people from across NI who want to see such a political alternative and to resist attacks on living standards. Wednesday night’s meeting is a chance for people in West Belfast to hear about the politics of People Before Profit and the alternative to the cuts.
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