Brighton Green Councillors and the Cuts

What really happened in Brighton on Feb 23rd

Many Greens are clearly dismayed that Brighton Green councillors decided not to resign from the leadership of the city and voted for a ‘cuts’ budget.

Let’s be clear what happened - 22 out of 23 of them voted to accept the budget after Labour and Tories combined on an amendment to reject the Green proposal to raise Council tax by 3.5% in order to avoid cuts. The thinking behind this rise was that Eric Pickles’ ‘bribe’ to induce councils not to raise tax is only for one year, so that much bigger increases will be needed later to avoid major cuts from April 2013 onwards. However the amendment put the Green group between a rock and a hard place. Several, according to one report 12, Green councillors had said 48 hours earlier that they would vote against the amended budget and local Green MP Caroline Lucas also said publicly that voting to accept it was a mistake.

The effect of the amended budget with no tax rise is; £1.2 million cuts THIS year (to make up for the lack of extra tax revenue despite the Pickles money) and £3.6 or £3.7 million NEXT year – that’s compared to the budget the Greens wanted. In terms of costs per Brighton household, the tax increase would have been 57p per tax bill per week – not a fortune, unless you’re on benefits when you shouldn’t be paying it anyway. ((see http://www.jasonkitcat.com/tag/brighton/, Nov. 7 entry)
The Brighton Green group (see press release at www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=c1261195...med and media coverage at http://newsfrombrighton.co.uk/brighton-hove-city-council/live-brighton-hove-budget-setting-meeting/ ) can still claim credit for having, so far at least, avoided compulsory redundancies and mainly preserved frontline services, though with some casualties due to the no-tax-rise amendment. Jason Kitcat, Green group leader, says on www.jasonkitcat.com that the amendment ‘slashed funding for our sustainability team, cut funding for training staff, reduced council communications with residents, cut funding for bringing private empty homes back into use whilst adding an additional £3.6m cut to next year’s budget’
Apparently the cuts also include some music teaching in schools. Green Left people at conference doubted whether redundancies could now be avoided, though no clear details have so far emerged.

What does this mean for the Green Party and anti-cuts campaigning ?

Those within the Green Party who have been backing a ‘no cuts’ line within the national Coalition of Resistance, and taken a prominent role in that organisation, are outraged and embarrassed by what they consider a betrayal of principle. They ask, can the Green Party hold up its head now in the anti-austerity movement ? And in Haringey, what can we say to the HAPs (local cuts campaign) people who will wonder what we are up to ?

Firstly, many Greens, including locally in Haringey, never did say ‘no cuts at all’. We wanted a creative and service-protective, job-protective local response to central government’s cuts. This might include energy saving, transport saving, and spending from reserves, as well as cutting wasteful expenditure where we can find some. In most councils there is scope for energy saving and in many, including Haringey, there are spendable reserves. Brighton apparently has little reserves and have probably done what they can on the energy front.

What Greens can do now – in Brighton

Secondly, Brighton has a chance to do things which are NOT in the annual budget – they can in principle institute certain changes at any time – and to work for creative solutions for next year when they need to find much more money to avoid cuts than they do this year. These might include, I would suggest:-

• Raising parking charges for tourists, with exemptions for residents’ vehicles showing a ‘cheap parking’ badge that they could send out withe the council tax demand. (Westminster can decide to sting visitors at any time – why not Brighton?). Offended hotels could be given a chance to buy cheap tickets for their guests. Ask the railway companies, who will make extra from these measures, to provide free advertising and funds for signage.
• Set up a community trust to support services for vulnerable people and children which are at risk, and ask both residents to contribute what they would have paid if the Council tax increase had gone ahead. According to a local Tory survey, over a third of the population DID support the tax rise.
• Establish a local lottery to support vulnerable people’s services and local schools – the Isle of Wight (see http://www.isleofwightlottery.com/about-us/ ) did this years ago and made a lot of money to support local jobs

What Greens can do now - nationally

Howard Thorpe, in a valuable piece on http://capitalism-creates-poverty.blogspot.com/2012/02/green-party-must-not-repeat-mistakes-of.html
(thanks Howard!) makes some further good suggestions to Brighton Greens and to the national party:-

1. host a national anti-cuts conference be to explore alternatives to austerity , inviting as many councils and groups as possible.

2. explore every avenue possible for a radical party to alleviate the damage done by the cuts and raise revenue to fund services. This could include issuing local bonds and setting up a local currency

3. hold a referendum in the autumn for a greater than 3.5% council tax rise and explain to the people of Brighton that this is necessary because of the cynical actions of Labour and the Tories, and essential to help maintain services, and resign if they lose it


Haste makes bad decisions

Within the Green Party, the issue became very emotive at the conference that finishes today in Liverpool, and some were further outraged that conference refused to discuss the Green Left emergency motion criticising Brighton Green councillors. Speculation is rife about why the conference floor voted not to debate it. Personally, I think that if that debate had taken place, it would have been poorly informed and even more divisive. Brighton Council met on Thursday evening 23 February; conference began the following day and most participants had little knowledge of what had happened – people pay little attention to the media when they are travelling and debating non-stop, and in any case the details only began to come out on web sites over the weekend. A well-attended and highly charged Green Left-organised session on Saturday evening heard Alex Phillips, the only Green councillor who voted against the amended budget, describe how rushed and difficult the decision itself had been, with the opposition amendments only known at 5.30pm on Tuesday. Surely the Brighton group needs time to think and a bit of creative advice from their friends. Jon Essex (Surrey) called for creative forms of resistence – like asking the banks to bail out Brighton. It’s Bank of Ideas time and with the bulk of the problem – the £3.7million cuts needed in 2012/13 – falling next year, there IS a space to think.