Council cancels lobby and public meeting.
The Council house has cancelled a booking for the discussion meeting against the huge cuts being made to Birmingham Council services. This meeting, organised and supported by Communities Against the Cuts, various women’s groups, the Birmingham Trades Union Council, Birmingham Against the Cuts, student unions and others, aimed to discuss the effect of the cuts on Birmingham’s people, and women in particular, and to provide an opportunity for citizens to talk to their Councillors.
Communities Against The Cuts had been printing and distributing thousands of flyers, but have now been left in the cold by the council who have cancelled their booking – which was to cost £800 – just a week before the meeting was due to be held.
The cancellation of this meeting is a continuation of an utterly undemocratic budget process throughout. The four consultation meetings that took place last year have been completely ignored by the council. These consultations received much criticism at the time as they ignored the poorest areas of Birmingham which will be most severely affected by the cuts, and those where ethnic communities mainly live – excluding vast numbers of Birmingham residents from a serious dialogue about the plethora of cuts that will rip apart their communities.
The Labour party has not organised any serious resistance against this attack on the people of Birmingham. ” ALL PARTY’S THE SAME NOT ONLY THE LABOUR’‘ Instead they have meekly implemented ConDem austerity. Labour ran on a manifesto of investment, not cuts. Two letters to the council, signed by hundreds of people across the city, asking them how they planned to achieve the investment rather than cuts, were ignored. Only three Councillors bothered to reply. This meeting on the 25th – the night before the vote – was a final attempt to create a productive dialogue with councillors and host a democratic discussion for the entire city to engage in.
We now feel the council has shut down a legitimate debate on options to resist the cuts. What started out as a tragedy of the cuts to Birmingham has now become a farce, following the council manoeuvre to avoid any debate on resisting the cuts.The families about to be hit by the bedroom tax for £15/week; the households affected by the universal credit reforms costing £71/week; the victims of domestic violence losing their support; and the children being kicked out their care home due to cuts, all cannot wait while their elected representatives manoeuvre and dodge questions. The people of Birmingham need a responsive council, and need action.
We don’t think its OK that the council are canceling meetings of political opposition groups at short notice without giving any reason. We the undersigned want the meeting reinstated, want the council to take action and to stand up for the city – not to simply capitulate so readily to a budget of austerity.
