Tuesday 30 April 2013

From green to true blue in 2 years

The Green party are on the fringes of politics and for a very good reason allot of what they say is not true and they much like the others cannot be trusted either. This has rung true every time and is no different now in Brighton city council where their administration is forcing through big cuts to jobs and services. Despite riding to power on an anti cuts message they are now going back on every promise they ever made. Sounds familiar right? As the socialist party pointed out at the time if the greens were not prepared to stand up and fight the cuts they would be forced into doing the Tories dirty work. Talking about fighting the cuts and duping workers into thinking your any alternative is shameful when you then come in and look to attack jobs and services with as much vigour as any of the other main political parties. Even Caroline Lucas a reformist in every sense has stepped back from her green council this could create big splits within the greens but we all know they are different greens when things go wrong they say that’s nothing to do with us we’re the other nicer greens not stopping to think they all bear the same name. The Green Party, in the style of other protest movements, has spent a good deal of time attacking the uniformity and failures, both real and imagined, of the political establishment. And, following the typical trajectory further, once they are in power, they have sold out further than the major political groups could be accused of. It is very similar to Animal Farm in that way. In 2009, the then Conservative-run council tried to impose a pay deal on employees which meant a cut of up to £95 per week, with the burden falling particularly heavily on low-paid cleaning staff. Rightly, trade unions disputed the plans and a negotiated settlement was reached. For a while, it seemed that the matter had been put to bed. The last people observers expected to draw up similar plans was the incoming Green administration, which claimed to be on the side of the low paid. Yesterday, the GMB union was warned by a senior council member that its plans for industrial action (after negotiations collapsed) against the slashing of its members pay would be similar to the ‘ Winter of Discontent’ partly attributable to Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power. It would appear that the party, which the member insisted was still the most trade unions friendly, wants council employees to roll over and accept savage pay reductions without any protest. Is this inconsistency as simple as ‘we like trade unions, as long as they don’t bother us’? ‘Yes, you should be able to strike, but if you do it’ll destroy you’? As the GMB said: “from Green to true blue in just two years”. Brighton like other councils needs a fighting socialist alternative. Only TUSC stand against all cuts and would unlike the greens and the labour party come to mention it fight all cuts and mobilise to take on this rotten government who is determined to make workers pay for a crisis not of their making.

No comments:

Post a Comment