Sussex LRC

The trades unions founded and continue to fund the Labour Party.  As local trades unionists and socialists, we discuss with union leaders and activists visiting Brighton for TUC conference, MPs and you, how trades unions can change the debate in the Labour Party today.  Refreshments will be served from 5.15pm.  All welcome.

Speakers:

Maria Exall – CWU, TUC General Council & Chair of the TUC’s LGBT Committee

Owen Jones – columnist for The Independent & author of “Chavs”

Len McCluskey – leader of Unite, the UK’s largest union & Labour’s biggest affiliate

John McDonnell MP – Labour MP for Hayes & Harlington and Chair of the LRC

Marsha-Jane Thompson – Chair of UNISON United Left

Mick Whelan – General Secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers’ union

5.45pm, Tuesday 11 September

Friends’ Meeting House,
Ship Street, Brighton BN1 1AF

B&H LRC meets

7.30pm, 16 August, Lord Nelson pub, Trafalgar Street,

An NHS for patients not profits

All welcome

Courtesy of UK Uncut

The Coalition seeks to privatise and fragment the NHS – perhaps Labour’s greatest achievement which, it should never be forgotten, the Tories opposed from the outset.

Despite huge public anger at Coalition attacks on the NHS, this government-without-mandate thinks it can get away with allowing NHS Trusts to go bankrupt, deliberate lengthening of waits for NHS patients, outright privatisation of hospitals and the selling-off of NHS services, such as the blood service.

Nurses, doctors and NHS cleaners are being cut, while Tory donors are making millions in profits from providing agency staff to the NHS.  This Tory attack on the NHS is not about cost-saving or efficiency, but about ideology – opening up another part of our society to profit.

To preserve the high-quality NHS that the vast majority of people support, we must hold Labour to its national promise to repeal Tory Lansley’s destructive Health & Social Care Act. We must also organise to ensure that Labour ditches Blair’s dangerously misguided policies, like PFI-funding and Foundation hospitals, which opened the door to the Tories full-scale healthcare privatisation plan.  But the NHS is under attack now and we cannot wait for an election to save it.

To hear what we can all do now in defence of our NHS, come to the next meeting of Brighton & Hove LRC from 7.30-9.30pm, Thursday 16 August at the Lord Nelson pub, Trafalgar Street, Brighton.  Speakers have been invited from the NHS Support Federation and Keep Our NHS Public.

No future government must feel safe to attack the NHS in the way this Tory-led Coalition has.  We must unite now to defend our NHS and those who work for the good of us all within it.

RMT and the other rail unions, supported by the TUC, have launched a high profile campaign — “Action for Rail — People before profit”. They are fighting to defend rail services, safety and jobs, but there is another issue. The government’s McNulty report also proposes huge fare increases. Whether you are a rail worker or rail passenger you have a serious interest in supporting this campaign.

Brighton and Hove RMT are leading an Action for Rail protest in Norman Baker’s constituency, taking our message against the government’s rail cuts to the home of a key minister responsible.

10.30am – 12noon, Saturday 4 August

Lewes train station

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Fair Fares Now – Demo and National Day of Action 14th August

Action for Rail and Campaign for Better Transport will be staging a range of activity on 14th August to protest against fare rises and cuts to staffing and booking offices.

See http://actionforrail.org/get-involved/ for more details.

Sussex LRC members were overwhelmed and delighted by the positive response we received from people to our stall at Brighton & Hove People’s Day 2012. Thanks to everyone who stopped by – even a few abusive visitors only served to spur us on!

(c) Fred Pipes. All rights reserved.

People’s Day is an annual celebration of community groups.  We chose to be in the Health & Wellbeing zone because we strongly believe that central to socialism is the desire to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone – the many not just the few.  Under the banner of a 1938 Labour Party election poster proclaiming, “Labour Puts Health & Happiness FIRST” we focussed on three main themes:

68 is too late

The 68 is too late campaign opposes the mandatory increase in the state pension age as unfair and discriminatory against those on low incomes and in manual occupations.  From our stall we distributed the campaign leaflet and gave away copies of the model motion – encouraging those interested to move the motion through their trades unions, Labour Party banches or other organisations.  Many people also took free copies of the informative Fair Pensions For All booklet jointly backed by 5 of the main sponsors of this campaign.  Subsequently, we are delighted to report that just a week after our stall, members of Brighton, Hove & District Labour Party overwhelmingly passed the campaign’s model motion when it was moved by Sussex LRC members.

Defend the NHS – “A free health service is pure Socialism” Bevan 

The Coalition seeks to irreversibly privatise the NHS – perhaps Labour’s greatest achievement which, it should never be forgotten, the Tories opposed from the outset.  We ran both the local and national petitions for Defend the NHS/Keep Our NHS Public during the day, which received overwhelming support from all visitors to the stall.  It is our view that the Labour Party should be fully engaged in these campaigns locally, to cement Labour’s national commitment to repeal the destructive Health & Social Care Act.  Consequently, the next meeting of B&H LRC will focus on the NHS.

Save Remploy – stop the closures!

The Coalition’s callous destruction of the lives & livelihoods of people, both locally and across the country, has been demonstrated by its policies of job losses, benefit cuts and the demonisation of benefit claimants.  This was typified in the week before People’s Day with the casual announcement of the closure of the Remploy factories – which Labour set-up as protected workplaces after WW2.  We informed people that the Remploy workers are continuing to fight to save their jobs, countered some of the mis-information that the general public has been exposed to through the Tory media and gathered countless signatures in support of the “Save Remploy” petition.  Thanks to everyone who signed, both at People’s Day and at B&H DLP on 21/05/12 – we have sent those petitions off.

Fun, games & thanks

During the day we also ran a B&H quiz for adults and had socialist-themed games for kids.  No one submitted a new design for the now famous Sussex LRC badge collection, although quite a few badges were sold and many stickers and other campaign literature given away.  Thanks to Unite the union, PCS and TUC Future that Works for materials, which we were delighted to distribute.  Thanks also to Alex and Anne who worked hard all day on the stall, as well as to Ed Hall who designed our banner – that was a focal point of our display and attracted many people to our stall.  Lastly, thanks to the most delightful young lady lion whose political education we hope we got off to a good start!

LRC is Labour

We had fun & games running this Sussex LRC stall and would recommend the experience to others.  We judge it to have been a success especially since, subsequently, the local Labour Party has been receiving praise and taking credit for organising such a great Labour stall.  A bit cheeky perhaps, but we have no real objection since, if you reflect on this, it is brilliant to know that everyone we spoke to identified LRC policies as Labour Party policies.  Now to work upon this inside the Party!