I heard about this in the wake of the Election Results last week, and decided to head along as Ive attended other events put on by the Peoples Assembly like the Hustings on Housing and the May Day Parade.
Gathering by the size of the room for the meeting the turnout must have been at least double what was expected, which was great – nothing like the Tory Party to get people out and agitated!
We discussed the upcoming Anti-Austerity March, which is taking place at the Bank of England on June 20, and made plans about how to get up to London and what banners to make, etc. All fairly straight forward and pragmatic.
Following this however, we moved to the ‘Strategy Discussion’ which looked at what direction the movement was to follow over the coming months and years, and here the conversation became a little more complicated.
It was good to see so many student activists from ‘Free Education - Sussex’, and their enthusiasm was marvellous, but their lean towards police confrontation and high tension scenarios proved divisive with other members of the meeting.
Not that I have any experience myself, but I would say that history teaches the only way to gain public or government sympathy when faced with police aggression is to adopt a non-violent response, a la Gandhi or Martin Luther King. Scenes of vandalism and violence will not achieve anything except to solidify an impression of ‘Lefty Anarchists’ in the mind of the average Tory voter watching at home on television.
What is much more useful, as one person suggested, is to create a ‘positive narrative’, an ‘alternative to austerity’. This approach brought many excellent suggestions from the group, mostly focussed around educating people as to why austerity is bad. Suggestions included:
Radio Free Brighton
Stalls around town
Outreach groups
Leafletting
The goal is to prove to people that austerity is an ideology, not an economic strategy; that it is a way to transfer money and power from the poor to the rich. The UK is the sixth wealthiest country in the world, so why are we in the midst of massive welfare cuts to ‘eliminate the debt’?
Seems to me the best way to 'elimate the debt' is to ensure that multi-national corporations pay their fair share of tax, rather than cut services from the vulnerable, and I was wracking my brain to think of what could be done to put pressure on these companies, but, (sigh), its a conundrum.
Boycotts of Amazon, Starbucks, and Boots until they can evidence honest tax returns? A hard sell people who can't connect the dots... I need to think on this more.
As one man noted, “there’s no shortage of money in this country, its just in the wrong hands”.
Amen comrade
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