Counterfire presents a model resolution for members to take to their trade-union branches to help relaunch the anti-austerity movement

Austerity is not an economic necessity, it is a political choice. It is a political choice made by bankers and financiers. Its purpose is to empower the elites and weaken the trade unions. It threatens to lead us into an abyss. The NHS is on its knees. Higher Education is facing the worst funding crisis in its history. One in five local authorities are in danger of going bankrupt. The answer can only be to invest in our public services – the opposite of austerity.

Instead Keir Starmer is going along with the wishes of a ruling class bloated with money taken from us, and the poorest in society are being squeezed to find the cash. Pensioners and families facing fuel poverty, workers on low wages and a housing and care crisis need better than what Starmer is offering. Workers have no choice but to fight Starmer’s austerity.

We need to get organised and unite around the demand to end austerity and tax the rich. Below is a model resolution for trade union branches that offers a first step in the fight to stop Starmer’s austerity, to be altered for your branch. You can download it as a Word doc here.

This Branch / District notes:

• That the policy of austerity has failed to bring prosperity to the UK; has increased the gap between rich and poor; and has been used to limit the role of trade unions in the face of privatisation and pay cuts.
• That austerity has dramatically increased the number of households living in poverty and using foodbanks.
• That austerity has increased the number of billionaires in the UK with billionaire wealth increasing by almost £150 billion between 2020 and 2022 alone.
• That while austerity has hit working-class living standards, military spending by the British government has only continued to increase with the Ministry of Defence spending topping £25 billion pounds for the first time in the last financial year. Labour is continuing to spend huge sums on arms.
• Labour has refused to lift the two-child benefit cap and has taken away the winter fuel payments from pensioners. This is austerity. Labour is not proposing any policies to tax the rich.

This Branch / District believes:

• That austerity is a political choice and that the alleged ‘black hole’ in public finances is nothing more than a manufactured reason to justify cruel cuts such as keeping the two-child benefit cap and the removal of pensioners’ winter fuel payments.
• Attempts to divide workers and pensioners should be resisted.
• That Labour’s penchant for ‘tough decisions’ and ‘fiscal responsibility’ reveal their intention to make working-class people suffer while giving free rein to profiteers, increasing the power of capital over labour. 
• Austerity has to be resisted by mass campaigns in the labour movement and beyond.
• That it is the role of trade unions to fight against austerity and to expose the bogus reasons for it. 
• That austerity will render any benefits from Labour’s New Deal for Working People all but worthless.

This Branch / District resolves:

• To support any union or campaign, both locally and nationally, that is taking action against the effects of austerity.
• To begin an immediate political campaign against the implementation of austerity measures by the Government and to demand investment in our public services.
• To campaign for economic policies that will improve the lives of working people and seek to establish economic and social justice, e.g. the redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation.
• To withdraw our support for any Labour MPs that vote for austerity.
• To affiliate to the People’s Assembly Against Austerity both locally and nationally.