People’s Assemblies: Norfolk’s Experience

Re-posted from The Morning Star.

Norfolk People’s Assembly has been at the forefront of the battle to beat the Tories. David Peel explains how the group has had such an impact

Look around. Our country is being torn apart. People are suffering and dying. Lives are being wrecked. Public services destroyed. Changes we never believed possible are being forced through against our wishes. They call it "austerity forever"—the idea of a handful of arrogant, aloof Eton public schoolboys and their rich friends.

However, as Karl Marx once said about capitalism, they are creating their own gravediggers. The British people, true to centuries of tradition, are rising like lions. We are on the move and our movement is called the People’s Assembly. Our message is simple—no cuts, no austerity, and if it won’t listen, no coalition government.

Since we launched in June last year around 100 assemblies have sprung up across Britain, rooted in local communities. This is our movement’s great strength, and why we are here to stay. We have united thousands of activists and campaigners with ordinary people, many of whom have never been involved in this kind of “politics” before. And we don’t get together to bemoan austerity. We plan and take action.

In Norfolk, this has been particularly successful—but why? And what drives us?

Here’s one reason. People with severe mental health needs in this county and in Suffolk are taking their own lives in utter despair as a direct result of cuts in services.

When Norfolk People’s Assembly was told about these deaths from comrades in the mental health services we took action straight away and occupied the constituency offices of “Care” Minister and local MP Norman Lamb. We filmed a statement from inside his office, rightly blaming him and his coalition for the deaths, and uploaded it to the internet. The minister was dragged kicking and squirming onto the media to answer the charges. Thousands saw our angry message and witnessed his discomfort. Today the campaign against mental health cuts which have plunged the service into crisis is one of the biggest, most active and successful we have seen in years. Mental health staff, patients and carers have been given the confidence to blow the whistle and fight back. They now have the mental health trust board of directors by the balls, and their campaign is saving lives. It was kick-started by a People’s Assembly initiative.

Here’s another reason. Today in Norfolk, no coalition cabinet minister dares breeze in, make a few sham announcements and breeze out again. They are met with vigorous protests. When Prime Minister David Cameron visited, demonstrators crowded round every entry to the TV studios where he was to be interviewed. Those who later saw the broadcast said he looked rattled. I didn’t see it. I was inside a police station, under arrest for attempted criminal damage to his armoured Jaguar car having thrown a small cardboard placard at it—allegedly. The Crown Prosecution Service recently dropped their case. On local radio, listeners calling a phone-in about the incident backed our action, criticising the media for its craven attitude to coalition ministers. When Chancellor George Osborne came his car was surrounded and stopped by our activists. It disrupted his speaking engagement. We were interviewed by the media, catapulting the People’s Assembly onto news bulletins watched by tens of thousands. No coalition minister—or shadow minister who supports austerity—should be able to visit any People’s Assembly area, anywhere in Britain, without protests.

Here’s a third reason for our success. When Norwich City Council threatened to evict families for bedroom tax arrears, we put down a public question, then turned up the volume with a highly visible Spanish-style pots and pans protest outside. Inside the chamber we were verbally abused by ruling Labour group councillors, but we extracted a precious and very public promise from the deputy leader. No tenant would be evicted for bedroom tax arrears. It put us—and the council pledge—on the front of Norwich evening news.

We are not fools. If the council betrays its pledge, we will have a "stop evictions network" of activists around any home threatened by bailiffs. They shall not pass. We have marched, occupied banks like Virgin, shops like Primark, stood on picket lines with firefighters, handed out leaflets at schools supporting striking teachers and hassled local MPs like Brandon Lewis, Chloe Smith and Simon Wright. We are the self-appointed official opposition to austerity in Norfolk where every mainstream political party is implicated in hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts.

Our activism never ceases, as readers of the People’s Assembly house newspaper the Morning Star will know. Every local assembly in Britain planning action should be telling the Morning Star. This is the only daily newspaper on sale round this country which is fighting austerity tooth and nail. In Norfolk, we have a sympathetic newspaper too, the Kett Gazette, named after home-grown rebel leader Robert Kett. We always warn visiting coalition ministers that they will get "a robust Kett county welcome" if they come here.

In just six months Norfolk People’s Assembly has transformed the best activists in the county into a force to be reckoned with. We spoil coalition PR opportunities, put anti-austerity on the agenda and inspire others to join us and fight back. Action is the life of all. People join us because we take action. We have courage and commitment, but don’t get us wrong—we are not hotheads. Our actions are thought through. Campaigners come to us because we have experience. We can organise demonstrations, liaise with police, set up and speak at public meetings, lead occupations, ambush ministers, hold councils to account, lobby charities and churches and build networks which are broad and strong.

Our media profile is strong. We pour out information, shaping the debate and thinking around austerity. We never get defensive when criticised but stay upbeat, positive, and proactive. Our campaigns are creative and imaginative. We cannot be ignored. We have earned respect.

We are led by women, most of our officers are women, the majority at our meetings are women. Women alongside the disabled are hardest hit by this austerity. We are inextricably bound to trades councils and trade unions fund us. We go to union meetings. They come to ours. It gives us a militant, organised edge. For the first time in years, we are bringing members of the public to strikers’ picket lines.

The People’s Assembly is about to step up several gears. Perhaps here in rebellious Norfolk we have blazed a trail. Here might be one strategy for growing this movement in our communities, taking it to a place in our national life where we can turn the tide of austerity, and history, and bring this unelected coalition down.

PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY: A call to action

More than 4,000 people from trade unions and community campaigns attended the vibrant and successful People’s Assembly Against Austerity om 22 June in London’s Westminster Central Hall. You can read full detailed reports of sessions on the CPB website and on the Morning Star website, below is the final declaration of the event:

We face a choice that will shape our society for decades to come. It is a choice faced by ordinary people in every part of the globe.

We can defend education, health and welfare provision funded from general taxation and available to all, or we can surrender the gains that have improved the lives of millions of people for over more than 50 years.

We do not accept the need for the government’s austerity programme. Banks and the major corporations should be taxed at a rate which can provide the necessary resources.

• Austerity does not work. It is a failure in its own terms resulting in neither deficit reduction nor growth.
• It is not just. The government takes money from the pockets of those who did not cause the crisis and rewards those who did.
• It is immoral. Our children face a bleaker future if our services and living standards are devastated.
• It is undemocratic. At the last election a majority voted against the return of a Tory government. The Con-Dem coalition has delivered us into the grip of the Tories’ whose political project is the destruction of a universal welfare state.

We therefore choose to resist. We refuse to be divided against ourselves by stories of those on “golden pensions”, or of “scroungers”, or the “undeserving poor’. We do not blame our neighbours, whatever race or religion they maybe. We are not joining the race to the bottom. We stand with the movement of resistance across Europe.

We are clear in our minds that our stand will require us to defend the people’s right to protest, and so we support the right of unions and campaigns to organise and take such action as their members democratically decide is necessary.

We stand with all those who have made the case against the government so far—in the student movement, in the unions, in the many campaigns to defend services, the NHS, and in the Coalition of Resistance, the People’s Charter, UK Uncut, the environmental movement and the Occupy movement.

We do not seek to replace any organisations fighting cuts. All are necessary. But we do believe that a single united national movement is required to challenge more effectively a nationally led government austerity programme.

We have a plain and simple goal—to make government abandon its austerity programme. If it will not it must be replaced with one that will.

We will concentrate on action not words. We aim to provide the maximum solidarity for unions and other organisations and others taking action. We support every and all effective forms action and aim to build a united national movement of resistance.

Our case is clear. The government’s austerity programme does not work—it is unjust, immoral and undemocratic. Alternatives exist. Debts can be dropped. Privatisation can be reversed and common ownership embraced. A living wage can begin to combat poverty. Strong trade unions can help redistribute profit. The vast wealth held by corporations and the trillions held by the super rich in tax havens can be tapped. Green technology, alternatives to the arms industries, a rebuilt infrastructure including growth in manufacturing are all desperately needed. We are fighting for an alternative future for this generation and for those that come after us.

Proposed Actions

• The People’s Assembly will support every genuine movement and action taken against any and all of the cuts. We support all current industrial actions by the unions. We encourage and will help to organise the maximum solidarity action with the PCS and teaching union members taking protest and strike action the week after the People’s Assembly, as well as with other action by unions planned for the autumn.
• Peoples Assemblies against the cuts should be organised in towns and cities across our nations, bringing all those fighting the cuts together into a broad democratic alliance on a local basis.
• The national and the local Assemblies, in partnership with Trades Unions, Trades Councils, campaigning and community groups, can unite our movement and strengthen our campaigns. Local Assemblies will help us to organise a recalled National Assembly to review our work in the early spring of 2014.
• We will work together with leading experts and campaigners both here and abroad, and friendly think tanks, to develop rapidly key policies and an alternative programme for a new anti-austerity government. We will continue to welcome support from all who fight the cuts.
• We will call a national day of civil disobedience and direct action against austerity on November 5thand a national demonstration in Spring 2014.
• We will support the call for local demonstrations on 5thJuly, the 65thBirthday of our NHS and specifically, at Trafford Hospital, Manchester, the birthplace of the NHS.
• We will work with the trade unions, campaign groups and others to organise and mobilise for a national demonstration at Conservative Party Conference in Manchester in support of our NHS on 29thSeptember 2013.
  

The People’s Assembly

Report from London 22 June, 2013 by Respect For the Unemployed & Benefit Claimants:

Unemployed activists, disabled campaigners and trade unions warned today of a co-ordinated action against the Government’s spending cuts. Thousands of activists gathered to highlight the impact of the coalition’s controversial austerity measures. The People’s Assembly brought together the unemployed, unions, politicians and campaign groups amid complaints that minsters were “deaf” to the concerns of ordinary people.

Respect For the Unemployed and Benefit Claimants warned:
Today’s People’s Assembly cannot be a one-off rally that brings people together in anger but without focus and practical results. It must serve as the first step towards a broad-based movement that joins communities and established organised forces around a new economic programme to put ordinary people, not the forces of capital, in the driving seat.




Civil disobedience, direct action, protest, and coordinated mass strike action—all will be part of the arsenal. But without clear, achievable goals based around the kind of society we desire such efforts will remain isolated gestures of resistance.

More than 4,000 people packed into the Methodist Central Hall Westminster, cheering speeches from union leaders including Len McCluskey of Unite the Union, Mark Serwotka of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Christine Blower of the National Union of Teachers, politicians including Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, and officials from a number of protest and campaign groups. McCluskey said the UK economy was “dead in the water”, and accused the Government of refusing to consider alternatives to austerity:

Our message is different—make the tax avoiders pay, make the wealthiest put their hands in their pockets to bail us out of the crisis they have caused. If the government spent one tenth of the resources that they do hunting down so-called “welfare fraud” in tackling tax avoidance, in tackling tax dodging then the budget deficit would start to melt away.

McCluskey said local People’s Assemblies should become a mobilising force against cuts, adding:

We need to demonstrate, protest and lobby, and we need to do more—take direct action to let the elite know we are here. We must all work together to build the fighting spirit which creates the climate for mass industrial action. Let me make it clear to politicians of all parties—if it is right to strike against austerity in Greece, in Spain, in France, then it is right to strike against austerity here.

Delegates attending the conference agreed to mobilise for a day of civil disobedience on 5 November against the Government’s austerity measures. They also agreed to support a union-organised demonstration at the Conservative Party annual conference in the autumn.

Mark Serwotka of the Public and Commercial Services union said:

In the face of a government that is borrowing more for failure and inflicting on us the longest economic slump in living memory, we need to be united. We need unity among our trade unions, in our workplaces and in our communities, and we need to be working together and co-ordinating protests, industrial action and civil disobedience.

He added:

We must also recognise that the People’s Assembly isn’t just a reaction to this government’s policies, it is an opportunity to say that austerity is not the answer now and nor will it be under any government. It is an opportunity to set out an alternative that can inspire people, one where we invest in our communities and our economy for the benefit of the millions, not just the millionaires.

He summed up his speech with a succinct message, saying:

Let our slogan be ’stuff your austerity, we want something different.’

A series of People’s Assembly meetings have been held across the country in recent months, which have been packed with members of the public. A survey of almost 1,500 adults in England for the Unite union revealed two thirds wanted the coalition to concentrate on investing in jobs and growth, even at the expense of deficit reduction. The poll showed two out of three people faced money troubles or job worries, with many voicing concern about soaring energy bills at a time of pay and benefit cuts.

McCluskey said the survey, published ahead of next week’s Government Spending Review, revealed “genuine worries” among the public:

The Government is deaf to the everyday worries of ordinary people struggling to get by in towns across England. These figures remind us that deteriorating living standards, low wages, youth unemployment and job insecurity are now a major part of people’s everyday lives.

He added:

Next week an out of touch Chancellor from an out of touch Government will claim that austerity is delivering the green shoots of recovery. Ordinary people seeing their young people on the dole, food bank queues stretching even longer and the NHS breaking will not buy this.

Green Party of England and Wales MP Caroline Lucas said:

The huge numbers of people here today show that there’s a growing movement supporting alternatives to austerity—alternatives like investment in the green economy, which is far more labour intensive than the fossil fuel economy it replaces, and which would create hundreds of thousands of jobs at the same time as reducing our carbon emissions.




The anti-austerity campaign and the environmental movement have to work together to deliver a safer and fairer society. Our challenge now is to make our voices larger, louder and clearer and build a joined up movement that will stand up for the many not the few.

People's Charter joins call for a People's assembly

Anti-cuts activists from across Britain announced that they'll come together in June for a historic assembly against austerity. MPs, the unemployed and trade unionists are expected to flood Westminster Central Hall in a bid to show that the cozy pro-cuts consensus doesn't exist outside parliament.

Dozens of trade unionists, MPs and grass-roots activists including the People's Charter called on those angered by public-sector cuts and privatisation to rally at a "national forum for anti-austerity views which, while increasingly popular, are barely represented in Parliament". Their launch statement said:

"This is a call to all those millions of people in Britain who face an impoverished and uncertain year as their wages, jobs, conditions and welfare provision come under renewed attack by the government. A people's assembly can play a key role in ensuring that this uncaring government faces a movement of opposition broad enough and powerful enough to generate successful co-ordinated action, including strike action. The assembly will be ready to support co-ordinated industrial action and national demonstrations against austerity, if possible synchronising with mobilisations across Europe."

Coalition of Resistance chairwoman, Romayne Pheonix, said the event was inspired by the mass grass-roots fight against austerity in Greece and across Europe.

"I think what we have is an exciting opportunity to bring together official delegates from the whole of the trade union movement with campaign leaders from across the country."

The conference—scheduled for Saturday, 22 June—will follow a swathe of welfare cuts effective from April. Funding for council tax subsidies will be cut by 10 per cent, while increases in housing benefit and a raft of other benefits will be capped at half the current rate of inflation. And the launch of the Tories' Universal Credit will give bosses the power to stop workers' benefits if they go on strike.

To register for the assembly visit www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk.

The signatories:

Katy Clark, Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP, John McDonnell, Labour MP, Murad Qureshi, Labour London Assembly, Dawn Butler, ex-Labour MP, Caroline Lucas, Green MP, Natalie Bennett, Green Party England and Wales leader, Robert Griffiths, Communist Party of Britain general secretary, Bill Greenshields, Communist Party of Britain chair, Fred Leplat, Socialist Resistance, Richard Bagley, Morning Star editor, Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary, Christine Blower, NUT general secretary, Kevin Courtney, NUT deputy general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, Manuel Cortez, TSSA, Billy Hayes, CWU general secretary, Mick Whelan, Aslef general secretary, Paul Mackney, Natfhe (now UCU) ex-general secretary, Vicki Baars, NUS VP union development, Kevin Donnelly, Trade Union Council, Tariq Ali, author, John Pilger, journalist, Ken Loach, filmmaker, Owen Jones, writer, James Meadway, New Economics Foundation senior economist, Lee Hall, playwright, Roger Lloyd Pack, actor, Josie Long, comedian, Francesca Martinez, comedian, Iain Banks, author, Arthur Smith, comedian, Roy Bailey, folk singer, John Rees, Counterfire editorial board, Wendy Savage and John Lipetz, Keep Our NHS Public, John Hendy QC, People's Charter vice-chairman, Imran Khan, People's Charter co-chair, Rachael Newton,People's Charter, Zita Holbourne, Co-chair, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts, Anita Wright, Secretary, National Association of Women, Joginder Bains, Association of Indian Women, Shang Gahonia, Indian Workers Association, Colin Hampton, Co-ordinator, National Unemployed Workers Centres Combine, Carolin Jones, Director, Institute of Employment Rights, John Hilary, Director, War on Want, Romayne Phoenix, Coalition of Resistance chair, Sam Fairbairn, Coalition of Resistance co-chair, Clare Solomon, Coalition of Resistance vice-chair, Andrew Burgin, Coalition of Resistance vice-chair, Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition convener, Kate Hudson, CND senior economist, Bruce Kent, peace campaigner.

Morning Star, Wednesday 6 February 2013