Liverpool cuts producing Labour split

On 2 March six Liverpool Labour councillors were suspended from the Labour Party for refusing to vote for the Labour council’s proposed budget.

They are opposing the cuts that are being proposed by the Labour party at the behest of the Tory appointed commissioners; they are doing so following several years of corruption allegations and investigations; and they are also opposing the attacks on democracy in the Labour Party that have been seen since Starmer’s election as leader.

The sequence of events is:

Joe Anderson, who was Labour Mayor of Liverpool from 2012 to 2021, was arrested as part of an investigation into building and development contracts in Liverpool. He was arrested on suspicion of bribery and witness intimidation. He was suspended from the Labour party but not charged with any offence.

Candidates in the Labour selection for the new Mayor were barred with no explanation. Anna Rothery, a long-standing Labour councillor of 16 years, was one of those stopped from standing. She subsequently left the Labour party and continues as an Independent councillor.

In June 2021 Tories brought in commissioners who produced a report which has resulted in a budget of further cuts (the commissioners themselves have had a budget of £10 million to cover the cost of their investigation and report).

The Labour Group has gone along with the Commissioners’ budget recommendations and has brought in a cuts budget.

Anna Rothery and six current Labour councillors refused to vote for the cuts: Alan Gibbons, Alfie Hincks, Alison Clarke, Lindsey Melia, Rona Heron and Joanne Calvert. The six were suspended when they made their decision to vote against the cuts known.

£18.7 million in cuts will be made with the largest cut, £11.6 million, in adult social care. These come on the back of years of cuts that have increased poverty and inequality in the city.

In interviews Anna Rothery has declared that the press spin on her actions and that of the six refusing to vote for the cuts has been purposefully misleading. They are not the same as the 47 Labour councillors of the 1980s who were surcharged and banned from office for delaying their budget. The seven didn’t call for an illegal budget. They submitted an alternative budget which was fully costed. She also explains the bullying and silencing of her views which led her to leave the Labour Party.

However, the move by the other six councillors comes against a backdrop of sections of the Liverpool left walking away from the Labour Party following the election of Starmer. Some of the pro-Corbyn left that joined when Corbyn got elected are looking for a way to leave the Labour party in a vain belief that they can build a big new Corbynite organisation outside Labour.

On Skwawk Talk, one of the six, Alan Gibbons, has said that they are looking to form an Independent Socialist party which they hope will spread across the country. From some, the decision to vote against the cuts now may have been more to do with looking for yet another scheme to launch an alternative to Labour than with a serious attempt to build an anti-cuts left in the Labour Party.