OVER 200 PEOPLE TAKE TO THE STREETS OF HARINGEY AHEAD OF BUDGET CUTS ANNOUNCEMENT
Report from Indymedia 19th October 2010
Over 200 people took to the streets of Haringey to protest against proposed cuts to public services. Local residents and workers responded to a call by Haringey Alliance for Public Services, and marched to the Civic Centre in Wood Green.
At the rally, on Monday 18th October, protestors called on Haringey councillors to demand adequate government funding, reject privatisation, and oppose and refuse to implement cuts – or resign.
Organisations from across the borough brought their banners and spoke at the lively rally on the council steps. These included Haringey Friends of Parks Forum, Haringey Federation of Residents Associations, PCS union, Haringey Solidarity Group, Day-Mer, UCU CoHENEL branch, Sustainable Haringey and Haringey Disability First Consortium.
Below is a statement from a member of the ‘Enabling Haringey’ Forum a newly formed disability forum to support the needs and rights of disabled people in Haringey delivered on his behalf at the demonstration by Mhairi McGhee.
” A statement on the looming coalition cuts from Mr Atique Khan – he sends his apologies as he is unable to attend this evening’s rally due to ill health. Mr Khan is a member of Haringey Disability First Consortium’s forum, ‘Enabling Haringey’ and their sub-group on transport ‘Out and About’. Mr Khan is 74 years old, a pensioner and has multiple disabilities. He has lived in Haringey for nearly 15 years and worked in the borough for even longer.
“In my view these cuts are going to impact on the most vulnerable in Haringey, pensioners and the disabled, and on the most essential services – transport, health and social care, and housing. These cuts have to somehow be fought and the government told they should not renege on their promise to safeguard key benefits for the elderly and infirm.
If cuts need to be made they should be made to cruise missiles, nuclear defence, aircraft carriers and withdrawing from unnecessary wars – this would save billions!
As a pensioner and a disabled person I am totally against these cuts and would urge every individual in Haringey to stand up and fight against them. ”
The demonstration was testimony to a growing movement against the cuts. In September, over 120 anti-cuts protestors braved a very wet autumn evening to show their opposition before the Council Cabinet meeting.
Haringey Council estimates it will make £60m cuts over the next four years. This is on top of the £17m which central government has already cut from our local services in the last four months. If these cuts go unchallenged, threatening further privatisation of our public services, it will prove devastating for all sections of our local communities. HAPS is encouraging everyone from across the borough to get involved.
Sustainable Haringey speech for Haringey Alliance for Public Services
- as delivered at the rally at the Civic Centre, 18.10.2010
“ We are focused tonight on the cuts to public services. But we should not forget that this is just one of the crises threatening our communities and quality of life. Climate change, the running down of oil and gas supplies, and the consequent looming crisis of food security are all connected.
To tackle these problems, we know what is needed. We need massive investment in home energy efficiency, in renewable energy, in local heat networks, in sustainable food production, in low-carbon transport. We know that doing this would create hundreds of thousands of jobs all over the country, and opportunities to train young people up to fill those jobs. We know this would reduce the scourge of fuel poverty, where households struggle to pay their heating bills in leaky buildings. It would improve health. It would reduce our dependence on imported food and fuel.
We can pay for this by cutting unsustainable spending on roadbuilding and arms, by plugging the tax leaks and raising fair green taxes, and of course by reducing the unemployment that adds so much to the spending bill.
There is a real danger that we will miss the narrow window we have to do this and help avoid catastrophic climate change. That we will tip into a double-dip recession with diminishing tax revenues and weakening prospects of investing sustainably to get out of it.
That is why we have to work with the widest alliance of unions, community groups, environment and development campaigns, with local authorities and the renewables industry to spell out the threat and the way out of it. That work won’t stop tonight, or after the CSR on Wednesday. It will carry on for years to come. Friends of the Earth and Sustainable Haringey will continue to work with others on this.
Thank you. ”
Joan Curtis of Haringey Friends of Parks Forum (affiliated to HAPS) said: “Friends of parks groups have worked hard to rescue our local green spaces from the scandalous state they got in after Government cuts in the 1980s. We must not let this happen again, and urge all residents to attend the demonstration and to speak out.’
Michelle Lawson of HAPS Publicity Group said: “These cuts are not inevitable. The Government’s propaganda and myths are being increasingly challenged as local campaigns like ours spring up throughout the country.’
More reports: Right to Work Campaign
Leave a Reply