The Tory-led government elected in May has been preparing a package of “shock therapy” to dismantle what remains of the welfare state. The Comprehensive Spending Review on the 20th October will mark the end of the phoney war when the details are released of the 25% cuts in public spending This Review can be expected to reveal that the Tories’ plan is nothing less than a massive onslaught on public services, pay and conditions, designed to roll back the remaining gains of the welfare state and union organisation. This attack is not restricted to Britain. Across Europe and the North America, employers and governments have launched austerity programmes which will hit severely workers and the poor, and in some countries such as Greece and France resistance is growing.

The scale of the attacks from the government is clear from the declarations about unaffordable public sector pensions, restricting yet more the rights to strike and union organisation, more privatisation such as in education, health and the post, wage freezes and pay cuts, the rise in VAT, or cutting back benefits. Privatisation is being extended to all services, with councils such as Barnet or Suffolk looking at putting everything out to contractors. The list is endless and reveals the extent and depth of the attacks.

The impact of the cuts alone on individuals and families will be dramatic. The spending cuts alone, excluding cuts in pay or benefits and the rise in VAT, will be equivalent to an income loss of 4.9% for a single person and rising up to 11.2% for a lone parent. Mass impoverishment on such a scale can lead to despair, demoralisation and passivity if there is no resistance and a vision of an alternative.

The massive deficit incurred by the banks in 2008, which were bailed out by public funds, has now been transformed into a public deficit which we all have to pay back. From it being their crisis, it is now turned into our crisis and that “we’re all in it together”.

The absence of any ideological opposition to the cuts programme from New Labour and the TUC to since the election explains partly why up till now, there has been no mass opposition. There has even been support in opinion polls to the government’s austerity measures. A Guardian/ICM poll in mid-August revealed that 44% believed that the government was doing a good job in securing economic recovery against to 37% who thought he was doing a bad job. The Tory ConDem government has used the crisis to frighten people into believing that there is no alternative to massive and immediate cuts except for the collapse of society as we know it.

The TUC’s position on the debt was explained in a Statement adopted by the General Council in September, just before the Congress, which stated that “the deficit can and should be reduced over a longer time frame”, and that “the TUC is calling on the coalition government to commit to a Fairness Test tax rises and spending cuts…(to) ensure that (they) do not unfairly impact on the poorest in society”. The acceptance of the logic of the cuts has disarmed most unions and disoriented communities who would want to resist. In a signal of a possible capitulation, the TUC had even decided in June to invite David Cameron to address conference. To confront the assault on public services and jobs that is coming, it is necessary not to retreat an inch from a line which clearly states that this crisis is not our crisis, that we will not pay for it, and that we will oppose every cut and privatisation.

In the last few weeks, the implication of the cuts have started to hit home. Local meetings of anti-cuts campaigns have are becoming. There has been strikes on London Underground, at Astra Zeneca and Coca-Cola. There was a massive demonstration by firefighters who are preparing for industrial action, and there will possiblybe a strike at the BBC on the 20th October.

The change of mood away from the government is confirmed by a recent poll in the Times reveals that 45% believe the government is handling the cuts well, but 47% badly, and that 65% believe that the economy will do badly next year.

The decision adopted by the TUC Congress to campaign vigorously against the cuts, and a greater awareness of the implications of the government’s austerity programme, has helped to change the situation and give renewed confidence in a fight.

It has been a long time since a TUC Congress has attracted such media attention. The major unions no longer have to support a New Labour government and can now unite in their attacks, at least verbally, against the Tories. The TUC composite resolution calls for maximum opposition to the proposals in the Comprehensive Spending Review, and for co-ordinated campaigns and industrial action locally and nationally. Whether the TUC General Council will allow this resolution to be implemented with the determination it requires, remains to be seen. However it opens the door for activists to legitimately organise for mass campaigns and for industrial action and turn the new sense of a readiness to resist into action.

The TUC composite against the cuts is also, at least on paper, a leftward shift which will encourage activists in workplaces, union branches and communities, to be more confident in arguing that we will not pay for the crisis and that we need radical solutions such as nationalisation to stop closures and redundancies, putting the banks under democratic control, placing a cap on the earnings of the rich and creating a million green jobs to tackle the climate crisis.

The resistance against the cuts must measure up to the scale of the attack. The response to the all-out war from the ConDem government must be a mass united and broad based movement not seen since the campaign against the Poll Tax in 1990 or since the Stop the War Coalition at its height in 2003. The scale of the task can be seen by the mobilisations in France and Greece. In Britain we will need to match these turn-outs on the streets and along with a sustained co-ordinated industrial action at a national level. As this attack is across Europe, the resistance will also have to co-ordinated across the continent.

To achieve such mass mobilisations, the anti-cuts movement will need the maximum possible unity and democracy, and to support all initiatives. Making the most of the possibilities opened up will mean that activists in the unions and the communities make a break from the routine activities of the last few years, and be prepared to work with everybody on the simple basis of no to all cuts.

The relative success of the newly launched Coalition of Resistance reflects the vacuum so far at a national level due to the lack of a fight and of an open democratic campaign. The Coalition of Resistance has gathered together a range of important individuals on the left, and is hoping to provide a national democratic coordination for the many local groups which are springing up rather than be a competitor or substitute to other existing organisations. Already, a closer relationship is being developed with the People’s Charter and it is hoped to involve other organisations at its national conference on the 27th November. The Coalition needs to be a delegate-based coordination of local and national organisations, as well as allowing individual membership. Such a structure would make it easier to build real unity and a mass movement.

The movement against the cuts needs to have deep local roots and focus on every local privatisation, cut or closure of a public service whether it is hospital, library, or school. But the movement also needs to have a national focus and initiatives towards the government because a national political solution is required. Local groups being set up need to be open and democratic, and not just the local franchise of a national organisation. This means relating not just to the Coalition of Resistance, but also the Right to Work campaign, the People’s Charter, and other campaigns such as Keep Our NHS Public or the Anti-Academies Alliance.

There are some key events for the movement in the months to come. The first are the demonstration outside the Tory Party conference on 3rd October, and the protests on the 20th October, the day of the Comprehensive Spending Review. The Coalition of Resistance is organising a rally at Downing Street on that evening which feeder marches will join. The conference of the Coalition of Resistance on the 27 November will be an opportunity for the movement to plan the stepping-up of the campaign. The TUC is organising a national demonstration on March 26 next year which must be even bigger that the anti-war demonstration of 2003. But between now and then, the movement must go out to every street and workplace to put out the message that we won’t pay for this crisis and that everybody should join the resistance against all cuts and privatisation.

KEY DATES TO MOBILISE:

* 3rd October: Demo in Birmingham against cuts during Tory conference
* 20th October: and the protests on thethe day of the Comprehensive Spending Review. CoR is organising a rally at Downing Street on that evening which feeder marches will join.
* 27 November: conference of CoR, opportunity to plan the stepping-up of the campaign.
* 26 March 2011: The TUC national demonstration on March 26
* Between now and then, the anti-cuts movement must go out to every street and workplace to put out the message that we won’t pay for this crisis and that everybody should join the resistance against all cuts and privatisation.

This article is based on a resolution adopted by the Socialist Resistance national committee in September.