UK Uncut blog

Guest post: Meeting Points For London Action

2012-05-16T10:00:00+01:00

This is a guest post for the London UK Uncut action on May 26th, there are more actions taking place all over the country, find your nearest one here

It’s just under two weeks until the only London street party worth going to – UK Uncut’s Great London Street Party. You’ve invited all your friends, you know what bloc you’re going to be in and you’re ready to show that we won’t line up to celebrate the Queen and the Olympics while the government is destroying the services we hold dear – we will celebrate our resistance instead.

Here are the meeting points so you know where you need to be at 11am on Saturday 26th May:

The future’s not what it used to be… for women

Meeting point – outside 1 London Bridge

“Domestic violence victims don’t go and storm the local town hall to demand more help; rape victims don’t go to the local paper to complain that there isn’t a good service for them. They are invisible.” Women are facing the heaviest burden across all of the cuts – it’s time to show this government of privileged white men that women will not be an ‘easy target’.

The future’s not what it used to be… for the NHS

Meeting point – Opposite University College Hospital, Euston Road

It was in this hospital that David Cameron unveiled the results of the ‘listening exercise’, promising that the NHS would be safe in their hands. The NHS is now being starved of cash and sold off to private firms and tax dodgers, yet as we all know “The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it”. Show this government that there are still millions of people who still have the faith to fight!

The future’s not what it used to be… for the Welfare State

Meeting point – Waterloo Station Concourse

Half a million disabled people are set to lose government support, EMA is being axed and almost every form of welfare payment is being cut – this bloc is fighting back against the demonisation of ‘benefit scroungers’.

This is the most accessible bloc for the party. In order to maintain access, disabled participants have the option of travelling via a more accessible route that is direct and reduces changing modes of transport. We have checked our travel plans with disabled activists and can provide accessible transport from Waterloo to the party. So, if you’ve got any specific needs or you’re concerned about travel on the day, please email ukuncut@gmail.com so we can make arrangements for everyone.

The future’s not what it used to be… for real democracy

Meeting point – Parliament Square

The Houses of Parliament, the ‘mother of all parliaments’- home to a rich and disconnected elite forcing through law after law that the majority of the public didn’t vote for. Economic policies dictated by bankers and financial markets, unjust wars opposed by millions, and big business calling the shots on every decision – this is not real democracy. Join the movement for real democracy to decide our future together.

Things to bring!

- A tfl zone 1-6 off peak day travel card so you can get to the secret party location (£8.50, best bought in cash)

- Food – it wouldn’t be a street party without plenty of food to share

- Water – you’re going to be out all day, so make sure you’re prepared with lots of water

- Friends! – bring all your mates to this party, the more the merrier

- Costumes – dress up for the day, your vision of the past, the future, or the services closest to your heart that are facing cuts – make it fun and spectacular!

- Games & fun – we’re going to be out in the street all day, so bring fun games, instruments and things to do while we’re there

- All the family – this should be a good day out for all ages from newborns to great grandparents. The Welfare and Women’s blocs are the most accessible for people with push chairs or wheel chairs. Please bring everything you need with you for a full day out, like a folding chair or pillow and the possibility of some standing, walking, dancing and stories of the past and of the future to share.

- Waterproofs, warm clothes, sunscreen and a hat – you just never know!

- Your rights – we never know what police reaction will be like, please come prepared with information from Green and Black Cross.

- Tons of enthusiasm and energy – needed for partying, thinking, making new friends and creating a better future

Don’t bring:

- Bikes – you may need to leave them behind for a little while (up to you)

- Dogs (except guide dogs) – not everyone is a fan

- Loads of booze – Quite apart from the possibility of limited toilets and overpriced bags of salted peanuts at the action, alcohol will dehydrate you very quickly (and may well turn you into a liability for others)

- Huge things or heavy things – make sure you’re able to move around fairly easily and get on public transport

See you at the party!

An invitation from Rahel and Shirley: UK Uncut's 1948 Street Party call out video

2012-05-15T21:55:00+01:00

Meet Rahel (age 6) and Shirley (81+3/4)

Rahel and Shirley would like to invite you to a party. A street party – with a twist. On the 26th May they’ll be taking to the streets to protest against the governments cruel and unnecessary cuts. It will be a celebration of resistance – an alternative street party where we define the future we want to see. A future uncut.

Rahel isn’t new to UK Uncut, her first occupation was back in February 2011. She helped us transform Natwest Camden branch into a creche to protest against the cuts to childcare services. Rahel’s holiday club is closing down because Camden Council cuts, so she’ll be there on the 26th May to fight for her future (hopefully she’ll have mastered the art of making ‘balloon cake’ by then).

Shirley you may recognise from another UK Uncut video, Shirley is 81 years old and has been campaigning to save the NHS for many years. She recently got carried away (literally) whilst unelected Lords voted on Lansley’s disasterous Health & Social Care Bill and says the fight ain’t over yet.

Join Shirley, Rahel, and UK Uncut on the 26th May for our 1948 alternative street party. Bring food, friends and fun.

Go to our action page to find your nearest street party. Look out for announcements running up to the day. Get yourself some bunting.

See you on the streets.

The Jubilee is a national sedative- this is a national wake up call

2012-05-14T13:58:00+01:00

by Anna Walker, a member of UK Uncut

Cameron wants to see ‘the mother of all parties’. The Queen is old – celebrate! The Olympics are in town – celebrate! Ignore the fact that we are screwing you, your parents, your grandparents, your children, your friends and neighbours. Ignore the fact that we will monitor your emails, tap your phones, sell off the hospitals and schools brick by brick to the private companies. Have an extra day off, have a party, drink some tea, preferably drink some Pimms. But whatever you do, don’t remember the unemployment figures, the number of disabled people who are killing themselves because their benefits are stopped or the number of services you use that are being scrapped.

Don’t dissent. Don’t resist. Don’t protest. If you do, you are unpatriotic, a killjoy, a ‘dangerous anarchist’. We will arrest you if you put an anti-Olympics poster in the window, we will stop and search if you’re wearing a hoodie too near the Olympic stadium. We will pre-emptively arrest you and slap an ASBO on you if you dare to suggest that all is not well and try to do something about it.

UK Uncut also wants to party – but for completely different reasons. We want to undermine the government’s propaganda and the Jubilee pageantry. The idea of UK Uncut holding street parties of resistance came from anger that the government will use Jubilee celebrations as a national sedative and a justification to clamp down on political protest. We want people to remember and to resist the cuts being rammed through by the government. We want people to celebrate a different future, determined by everyone.

The last time the Olympics were held in London was in 1948. The country had an enormous national debt yet the NHS and welfare state were introduced. We are not saying that we wish we could go back to this time, but that the introduction of free healthcare for (almost) everyone is a good thing. That it is better to have some form of support for disabled people, children, single parents and people without work than not. We are not saying that Britain was a perfect place for everyone then or now. Discrimination against people of colour, women, disabled people, LGBT and queer people, migrants, travellers and Roma people was rife then and remains today. Colonialism was vicious and persists in new forms today.

The flag is a symbol which means very different things to different people from pride to football hooliganism to far right extremist views. What does it mean to be British? Again, it’s different for different people, so we’ve asked people with different perspectives to write guest blogs which will be posted on the UK Uncut site over the next two weeks.

We live in communities that make up this country. And those communities are suffering. We are asking- what do we want society to look like in a future Britain? You decide. You decide together how you want resist the attack on our services, rights and future. Do what works for you wherever you live.

As opposed to the sedative effect of Jubilee parties, UK Uncut’s street parties are intended to wake up new ideas, new connections and new collective power. They are not about celebrating Britain as it is or as it was in 1948. They are about defiance and the definition of a future that we want to see, where we live – that is determined by us all – not for us, by a bunch of men who think they own power, money, business, government, us and our future.

Guest post: Join the Women's Bloc at the Great British Street Party

2012-05-07T14:44:00+01:00

This is a guest post by Roxanne Halsey, UK Feminista

Photo credit: Judy Gr

We’ve all heard many times the ways in which women are disproportionately affected by the cuts. The arguments are already out there, whether it’s because the majority of public sector jobs to be cut are held by women, whether it’s that we use the NHS more in our lifetimes, or whether it’s to do with the closed down SureStart centres, Rape Crisis centres, or cuts to childcare benefits.

We know the story. I’d like to tell you something different.

Yes, we are facing an attack on women’s equality. But this has led to a resurgence in feminist action, especially from younger women and men. We have seen UK Uncut activists turn an HSBC into a crèche to protest the cuts to childcare, a group of women lie down in the road to block Osborne’s budget and many more.

So let’s do it again.

On May 26th, UK Uncut are hosting their own Great British Street Parties as an alternative to all those Jubilee Lunches we are supposed to be having. When all the world’s eyes are on us and the government wants us to politely eat cake and wear a smile, I would rather talk about what’s really going on.

The parties are inspired by the year 1948, a moment in history that holds many parallels to 2012. There were parties that year to welcome the Olympics, and to celebrate a feeling of hope and pride that people felt as they looked forwards from the war and built the Welfare State and the NHS, never mind that the post-war deficit they faced was much bigger than ours today.

Of course, there are many differences between the lives of women in 1948 and now in 2012. I’m sure we all agree that we’ve come a long way! But what are our biggest achievements? Yes, it is more acceptable to be unmarried or a single mother, but these achievements now seem nominal when they're not safeguarded at all by the government’s cuts programme. Yes, it’s easier for us to work, but will this be for much longer, as we have seen women’s unemployment soar to it’s highest level in twenty five years?

Direct action is an amazing way for women to take the power back. You don’t need to have studied politics or even to have gone to a protest before. All you need is your self, and the willingness to stand up and call for change. As a volunteer for UK Feminista, I am keen to see women everywhere taking action for gender equality, and I think this is a good place to start.

So instead of having a party for the Queen or the Olympics, let’s have a party for the services we want to protect. Instead of taking the Government’s austerity measures without a fight, let’s discuss the alternatives for ourselves.

I will be attending the street party in London and joining the women’s bloc. I will stand with other women on the front line of this fight against the cuts, and then join the party and look to the future we want to see. If the government isn’t interested in giving women the power we want, then we’ll just have to take it ourselves.

Guest post: Unions are you and me

2012-05-01T16:10:00+01:00

This is a guest post by Steve Turner, Executive Director of Policy, Unite

We often talk about trade unions as though they’re institutions which exist on a foreign planet somewhere. We read it in the papers: ‘the unions are thinking this, the unions are doing that,’ as though we have no control over, or relationship with, trade unions.

In fact, unions are you and me. They are part of society, like a church or a school. The union movement in this country consists of seven million working people. At Unite, we’ve just opened our membership up to the unemployed. So unions are part of everyday life: they are part of the community.

The most empowering aspect of unions is that they are controlled from the bottom up. Ordinary members at branch meetings decide what they would like the union to do, and then tell the people at the top – not the other way around. The people at the top then try to make sure that these demands are heard by politicians. Some unions form a relationship with the Labour Party (which trade unions founded in the first place), others try to influence politics through campaigns.

May Day is an important day for trade unions because of the important role they had in creating the modern working day: in 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions demanded an eight-hour workday in the United States, to come in effect as of May 1, 1886. The demand was met, and May Day is our international celebration of what can be achieved when people organise together.

It’s appropriate that UK Uncut’s Great British Street Party is taking place in May – the month when collective action is remembered. UK Uncut’s newest action reminds us, as the unions of 1884 did, that a fairer future is possible. It reminds us that there is an alternative to austerity; one we can fight for together.

These cuts will affect an enormous amount of people across the country, so it’s important that the response is unified and all-encompassing. We want help the parents who are worried about changes to child benefits to stand up to the government. We want young people on workfare to realise they do have a choice. We want public sector workers losing their pensions to fight for what is rightfully theirs. Trade unions want a movement of British people to stand together for what is right and decent, and above all, we want to be there to build it, just as we’ve always been.

Guest post: Cuts! Climate! Action!

2012-04-30T14:07:00+01:00

This is a guest post by the Climate Justice Collective

On May 3rd, executives from EON, EDF, Scottish Power, Shell and BP will be convening at the UK Energy Summit in London. Organised by The Economist magazine, the event will see CEOs and policy-makers discuss how to ‘secure a sustainable energy future’. With tickets at £1000 per head, it’s clear that only those who can afford it will get a seat at the policy-making table.

Meanwhile, household energy prices are up 15% on average from last year and the Big Six energy companies – Centrica (British Gas), EDF, EON, RWEnpower, Scottish Power and SSE – continue to hold a monopoly over 99% of our energy, determining everything from where it is sourced to how it is priced. The control that energy companies have over our lives and our environment is still the dinosaur in the living room.

At The Big Six Energy Bash, Climate Justice Collective and friends – including anti-cuts groups, anti-poverty campaigners, environmental activists and Occupy London – will be taking to the capital's streets to put a spanner in the works of the energy monopoly going on behind closed doors at the Summit.

While tackling cuts to our collective heritage of public services in the UK, we need to keep climate change on the agenda. Climate change represents the biggest global cut to our global collective heritage of an ecological commons. The slogan ‘Nature doesn’t do bailouts’ has never been more prescient. It is us and our children who will be paying for the oncoming crises. In spite of technofixes, the rush towards nuclear, and the recolonisation of Africa through biomass and solar projects, climate chaos is still on the cards, and we are not too big to fail.

The reason we’re targeting the Big Six and Big Energy is not just because of their control over how energy is sourced, accessed, and priced, but also because they’re positioning themselves as the answer to the climate crisis. These companies, with their logic of profit at any cost, are driving the marketisation of resources that should be protected- that should not be commodities at all.

Warmth, decent housing, and decisions on where we source our energy from are our democratic right. They are not privileges to be decided behind closed doors in government, boardrooms or conferences that cost thousands of pounds to attend.

Keeping climate change on the agenda means acknowledging the intersection of struggles around austerity and energy: fighting cuts and environmental destruction should go hand in hand. As the rising cost of fossil fuels (alongside Big Six profiteering and savage welfare cuts) made our energy bills bite harder than ever before last winter, the problem is clear for all to see: our energy system, and our economy, is being run for the benefit of greedy companies, who have the government sitting comfortably in their pockets.

There are alternatives to the current profit-driven fossil fuel energy system and to the methods and goals of industrial production that rely on it. We need to ask questions not just about what type of energy we use, but also about what ends our energy is being produced for. We need a contraction of industry, and the reconfiguration of work as we know it, to gear it towards needs, real development and sustainability rather than expanding markets, competition, consumption and profit.

Less work for the sake of work or a wage; more cooperation, with the right to a healthy environment, stability and family time. We need to follow the lead of people in Manchester, Brixton, Brighton and Bristol, who are reclaiming their futures by co-operatively running their own community-controlled renewable energy.

Come out on May 3rd and show the Big Six, Shell, BP and the other fossil fuel dinosaurs that they cannot keep robbing us and our planet, and that the government cannot keep cutting, privatising and leaving us to freeze. We can and will take our power back.

The Big Six Energy Bash is supported by:

Biofuelwatch, Bristol Energy Cooperative, Campaign Against Climate Change, Disabled People Against the Cuts, Fuel Poverty Action, Global Women’s Strike, Kick Nuclear, London Coalition Against Poverty, London Rising Tide, Occupy London, Rising Tide UK, Stop Nuclear Power Network, UK Tar Sands Network, UK Uncut.

climatejusticecollective.org

Twitter: @CJ_Collective

facebook.com/climatejusticecollective

Guest post: Together we can make a future that’s Uncut!

2012-04-27T13:19:00+01:00

This is the first in a special series of blogs that will be published here in the run-up to UK Uncut’s Great British Street Party on Saturday 26th May. On that day people in towns and cities around the country will be coming out onto the streets to show they are ready to be disobedient and disruptive in order to demand a future where they- not big business or a cabinet of millionaires- call the shots.

These blogs will be written by trade unionists, women’s rights groups, members of the occupy movement, NHS and environmental campaigners and other writers and thinkers. We want to open a discussion about what an alternative future, without austerity, can look like and how we can create it. We want a future that isn’t dictated to us by tax avoiders and corrupt politicians but decided by us all- together.

This is a guest post by Matthew Carter.

The battle against this government’s cuts and austerity plan involves a range of issues. Whether it’s cuts to housing benefit, disability living allowance, the privatisation and dismantling of the NHS or library and youth centre closures, the coalition is attacking a way of life people in this country have fought to build over many years.

The Great British Street Party is about bringing people together so they can assemble and discuss how to work together to create a future which many feel they’ve lost- one based on fairness, opportunity, dignity and co-operation rather than the current politics of fear and uncertainty. We have to prevent the next generation from losing out and make sure they don’t carry the burden of an economic crisis, caused by the banks and spurred on by politicians, which they had no responsibility for causing.

At this time of flag-waving, when the government hopes the upcoming Jubilee and Olympics will create a ‘feel-good-factor’ to hide the devastating impact of their unfair and unnecessary cuts programme, we must question and debate what this country is really about and what we, as a society, with progressive, democratic values, want it to be.

Let’s look at the facts. We’ve just had a budget that again took from the poor and gave to the rich. This is despite the fact that a million 16-24 year olds are out of work- the highest for ten years at a rate above the EU average- with Britain’s female unemployment rate hitting a 25 year high. Austerity may be working for bosses and the banks but it isn’t working for Britain.

Since it began, UK Uncut protests have been about challenging the government’s lies and the fiction that there is no alternative to the cuts. Almost every day we hear about a new tax-avoidance scam that shows that this country isn’t broke- it’s just that rich individuals and powerful corporations aren’t paying their fair share.

At a time when Cameron, Osborne and Clegg can only come up with more cuts as an answer to further economic decline, we must keep on highlighting the alternatives to austerity and demand that the government protects our public services, our rights and our welfare system.

Please join me and the many others on 26th May who want to take back our future and make sure it’s uncut. It’s time to show that we are ready to go further in using direct action and civil disobedience to stop the government’s ruinous cuts and lies. We will put ourselves- and our bodies- in the way of the people who are trying to dictate our future to us. Organise a street party where you live to celebrate the services that are under attack and resist their closure. Hold it in the road, the high street, or outside your local library and reclaim your future.

Get in touch to find out about actions near you: ukuncut@gmail.com

Guest post: Disabled People Against Cuts

2012-04-17T23:56:00+01:00

This is a guest post by Andy from Disabled People Against Cuts.

So it’s back to the streets.

People ask us why. We ask- why not?

When everything you have is systematically taken away, why not make a stand? When your voice is taken away, why not shout from the roof tops? When you look over your shoulder at the privileged, protected from this mess by their ability to bypass public services through flexing their financial muscles, why not get angry?

There’s nothing left to lose. Welfare, health, social care, support funding, voluntary sector, housing, legal aid... there isn’t anything this government (or the opposition) won’t dismantle or sell to the lowest bidder.

The deal you thought you had with the state has been broken. You were led to believe that if you worked hard, kept your head down and paid your way that your money would be used to build a society built on fairness and equality.

Instead, your money funds private moats, duck ponds and an Olympics which will break the financial backs of those who are least welcome at it – us.

So why not resist, why not make your own space when none is offered? We have shown in our long history as a movement that we are not going quietly into the night. We aren’t passively accepting our lot and being grateful for the crumbs we are offered.

We will fight back. To the last man and woman. We have no choice.

Join Andy on Weds 18th April, in London at McDonald's, Leicester Square at 1.30pm to support the Disabled People Against Cuts' civil disobedience.

For accessibility info including travel arrangements into London, email DPAC: mail@dpac.uk.net

Press release: UK Uncut to hold protest ‘Great British Street Parties’ before the Jubilee and Olympics

2012-04-12T09:16:00+01:00

UK Uncut, the anti-cuts direct action group, has today announced a new plan of action to start shortly before the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations and the Olympic period. The group, best known for targeting tax dodgers, will hold street parties in major towns and cities across the UK in the run up to the Jubilee and Olympics which will ‘resist the cuts and celebrate a future that is decided by us, not a handful of billionaires'.

The UK Uncut planned events will take place on the weekend before the Queen’s Jubilee. UK Uncut has dubbed these events as street parties with a ‘twist’. They plan to block major roads and high streets up and down the country to call for a ‘future uncut’ and protest the government’s cuts, austerity agenda and the closure of local public services.

In a statement on their website, UK Uncut drew heavily on parallels with British society in 1948, the year when the Olympics were last held in London. They stated that although Britain’s post-war national debt was much higher than it is today, there was a future for people to look forward to. This included free universal health care, a new welfare state- that would protect and support the most marginalised in society- and human rights. They argue that these are being axed by the present government and that people can choose to fight for a future which they decide.

UK Uncut will hold training sessions across the UK in the coming months to encourage people to organise mass street parties in their regions and block roads in major cities across the UK.

Rachel Woodhead, supporter of UK Uncut said:

“We know we are paying the price for the banks’ greed and recklessness. We know that the government lets big business dodge tax and slashes tax rates for the wealthy while choosing to punish us. We know that multinational companies rake in billions in profits but contribute next to nothing, despite sitting on massive surpluses of cash. We know it’s not right. And so we have a choice. We can let the government and corporations control our future. Or we can fight, taking our future out of the hands of a tiny group of millionaires to instead create a future which benefits everyone.”

UK Uncut has no plans to directly disrupt the Jubilee ceremonies or Olympic games. The group say they will resist the cuts and celebrate the future people want to see during the summer through The Great British Street party because the future is not what it used to be.

ENDS

UK Uncut's Great British Street Party

2012-04-11T16:22:00+01:00

Let’s go on a journey back in time to the year 1948…

Britain was emerging from a World War and had a huge national debt. Much bigger than the one we face today. Did we see painful cut backs and austerity measures?

No, quite the opposite. We saw the birth of our National Health Service and the Welfare State. The UK was the first country to make health care, social care and financial security accessible to all.

1948 saw the launch of ground-breaking new laws designed to protect and care for everybody in our society, including universal unemployment benefits, universal child benefits, disability benefits, rights to housing and the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

1948 – a year when the Olympics were last in town and – at last – the people of Britain were looking forward to the future.

Britain back then really was ‘all in this together’. The future looked better than the past. So, we partied in the streets and dreamt of what we could achieve as people and as a country.

Fast forward to 2012 and things feel rather different. The government is not playing fair: its spending cuts are the deepest for decades and it's cheating ordinary people by forcing them to suffer for an economic crisis they didn’t cause.

The government is also lying: it actively enables big business to dodge tax and slashes tax rates for the wealthy. Right now, for us, for ordinary people in this country, the future’s not what it used to be.

So now is the time to party like it was 1948. Street parties are going to be all the rage for the Queen’s Jubilee. But let’s make ours have a twist.

On Saturday 26th May join UK Uncut’s Great British Street Party to demand that we keep our public services, our rights and our welfare system and to celebrate a new future that isn’t dictated to us by a handful of millionaires but decided by us all – together.

Hold a street party where you live to celebrate the services that are under attack and resist their closure. Hold it in the road, the high street or on a roundabout and reclaim your future.

Over the next few weeks, a group of volunteers will be touring the country to help deliver skill shares on direct action, communications and legal rights that will help to prepare you and your friends/family/neighbours to pull off a massive street party that inspires everyone in your region to resist the cuts and celebrate our future.

Get in touch if you want to help organise a UK Uncut skill share in your region and/or if you will hold a street party locally. Contact us on ukuncut@gmail.com and list your action on the website.

The future’s not what it used to be – let’s get it back.

Check back here over the next few days and weeks for more information and ideas on how to make this the best UK Uncut action yet.

See you on the streets!

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Here are the actions planned so far for Saturday 26 May:

Billingham, Middlesbrough