CONTINUOUS cuts to local councils have become the norm for well over a decade now. Our local high streets lie empty, council-run services continue to be liquidated into the hands of private monopolies and public transport has been decimated. These cuts are a conscious choice. 

At a national level, the Scottish government does have the power to allocate crucial funds away from the private enterprises and back into the council-run services. They have made the conscious choice not to.

Locally, it is the officers of the council who establish budgets based on cost-cutting. Councillors should be playing a vital role in opposing budgets which see services and facilities liquidated. Many councillors across Scotland have failed in this duty to their constituents, most notably in Lanarkshire. 

When it was announced that cuts would be made to council-run leisure facilities that would amount to closure, the elected councillors did not oppose. Labour North Lanarkshire Council leader Jim Louge put forward £4.7 million cuts that would have seen 12 of its active leisure facilities closed, six libraries shut — as well as the mobile library service — and 25 community facilities close in a two-year closure process. 

The local community, in conjunction with the local trades union council stood against these cuts and the council was forced to do a “U-turn.” Now the council is looking at alternative cuts such as the slashing of school transport.

Against this there is the flow of capital into London which showcases the wider British government’s role in the attacks against our class and the very few things that we “own” in our communities. 

The British government has pledged a total amount of £12.5 billion to Ukraine, money which should be going back into local communities with investment into rail, national industry, the NHS and more. Instead, this commitment to imperialist capital fills the pockets of the CEOs and board members of BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Elbit Systems through rolling contracts in an ongoing proxy war against Russia and China and the genocide of the Palestinian people.

The council tax system plays a crucial role in the extraction of wealth from our localities. Some would say the council tax system is broke. In reality it works exactly as designed — liquidating council-run and controlled services into the hands of private enterprise who then charge us double for the pleasure. The sell-off to private enterprise is sold to us on a base of ensuring “efficiency” and “better quality of service.” We know this to be false. The effects of privatised services have already been highlighted by unions such as the GMB, Unison and Unite.

With the upcoming general election, both SNP and Labour candidates will be playing a game of political ping-pong. Each party and candidate blaming the other for the cuts to local councils. No candidate from the Establishment parties has established a clear manifesto, or independent approach, to working with trade unions, local TUCs, and community groups/campaigners in order to address the glaring issue of cuts, lack of council housing, privatisation of transport services. The failure to link up with organised labour locally leaves the joint progressive labour movement fractured. All of us are weakened. 

What we need are candidates who have a track record and a written statement within their campaigns to build a united front — working with the trade unions, TUCs, community groups/campaigners, joining them together and ensuring that our communities do not succumb to the division posed by the Tories, Reform, SNP, Labour or Lib Dems. 

The failure to cohesively link together international issues, housing, immigration, privatisation, the NHS, environmentalism has resulted in a drastic case of disassociation from the democracy we have, limited though it is. In Clydebank, and the council by-election in which I stood this month, a mere 24 per cent turnout was achieved from 11,702 electors. From the canvassing I conducted, the same conversations were had. 

People have “lost faith” with the Establishment parties. They do not see them as capable of dealing with local issues. They only see them as existing for the purpose of populist campaigns without relevance to economic and social realities. 

While many workers are starting to believe that the key to their problems cannot be found solely within the ballot box, we must be there to organise them into the broad left labour movement. Failing to do this leaves them to be prayed upon by fascists and right-wing opportunists who are once again on the rise in Britain. 

Nathan Hennebry is an active trade unionist, a member of Clydebank Trades Union Council and was communist candidate for the Clydebank Central ward in the June 13 by-election.