Socialist Appeal - Belfast protest against cuts

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Belfast protest against cuts

By Fightback (Ireland)

Thursday, 31 March 2011

6,000 demonstrated in Belfast on Saturday 26^th March - a sizeable number of people, given the population. There’s no surprise there however, the economic situation in the North is crumbling and the huge Con Dem cuts which will be implemented by the Assembly will devastate services and jobs.

The BBC reported the position put forward by Peter Bunting of the Northern Irish Committee of ICTU:

"The alternative to the spending cuts is the £123bn worth of taxes uncollected either through tax avoidance or tax evasion," he said.

"We believe that if that money was recouped it would lead to not one austerity measure being implemented.

"In Northern Ireland, we will see thousands more people cast onto the unemployment register and we don't see any private sector activity which would generate jobs and which would make up for those lost in the public sector."

Certainly the effects of the cuts will be dramatic; they have been estimated at some 48,000 over the next 4 years, some 20 fire stations are under threat. It’s important however to make the point that without a genuine political alternative for workers in the North the Tories and the Assembly are going to be fighting a trade union movement with one hand tied firmly behind its back.

The forthcoming elections might see some shifts in representation in the Assembly, but it’s very unlikely that the voice of thousands of trade unionists, their families and young people will get an echo in Stormont. NIC-ICTU should call a conference of Labour in the north and field its own candidates in the elections fighting on a class programme. The North needs a socialist solution to a capitalist crisis.

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