Hackney six put to the test

Submitted by Matthew on 2 March, 2011 - 3:55

Six Labour councillors in Hackney, east London, have declared: “We would like to see local Councils across London leading the charge. They should refuse to adopt cuts budgets as a result of government enforced policies and produce Needs Budgets to show what should be funded”.

One of them, Ian Rathbone, announced at a Hackney anti-cuts demonstration on 23 February that he would vote against all cuts and called for the lobby of the council budget-setting meeting to be so big that councillors would not be able to get into the council chamber to vote for cuts.

With the other five, it is still not clear how what they will do — when the council votes on 2 March — will relate to what they ”would like to see”. Activists are arguing that we can bring what we “would like to see” into view only by upholding its principles in practice, not by waiting for someone else to enforce them.

• Statement of the six: http://bit.ly/gI7jPv

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