Gove sends in Commissioners to raid Birmingham

On 19 September, the ironically titled Levelling Up Secretary, Michael Gove, announced he would be sending in commissioners to take over the running of Birmingham city council. The commissioners will very likely oversee the plundering of Birmingham, with the sale of council assets such as landmark buildings, jobs cuts, and funding cuts that will massively impact the charity sector.

Two observations. One, for years the argument from the Labour Right and the official Left has been that Labour councils shouldn't actually resist implementing austerity (as with Lambeth and Liverpool councils in the 80s) because the Tories will send in the heartless commissioners who would cut even deeper. Well, in Birmingham's case, this has happened anyway due to effective bankruptcy, despite the centrist Labour council toeing the line on austerity over the last decade. Wouldn't it have been better if the largest council in the country had actually put up a fight and resisted implementing the cuts? It may have resulted in the same outcome, but at least it would have demonstrated some labour movement fight, and it could have acted as a catalyst for wider struggle against damaging cuts across the country. If a joined-up approach had been built across a number of major Labour councils in the 2010s, it could have forced the Tories to back down (or more).

Two, Birmingham now looks set to become the scene of a grand Tory experiment in 'crisis management' of a major city. The expectation is that Birmingham will lose its share in the airport, the state-of-the-art library (only a decade old), much of its land, and possibly some heritage buildings. Council workers will be worried about swingeing jobs cuts and attacks on pay and conditions. It is imperative that the labour movement is organised in response to this likely scenario, and the unions must be ready, as they have been in the bin workers and homecare workers disputes, to resist all coming attacks.