Earlier today Birmingham's Labour council voted through another £148m of cuts to local services. To do this they walked past a mass demonstration outside the Council House of bin workers, families from Harborne Day Centre and others.
Below we reproduce the text of the leaflet Socialist Party members distributed on the protest:
Co-ordinated Union Action To Defend Jobs, Pay and Services!
An estimated £200m to fix the failing IT system ‘Oracle’. £184m spent on the common wealth games. Perry Barr Athletes Village sale losses at £320m. Overpayments to West Midlands Pension Fund at over £500m.
The figures speak for themselves over the failure of Birmingham City Council’s leadership. Like any time of financial crisis, it is us, the working class who are told to dig deep and foot the bill.
2025 is set to be a year of further deep cuts to public services and jobs for Birmingham council staff and residents. Unelected Tory commissioners are still overhead and Birmingham assets and land are being sold off like a cash cow.
This is the consequence of over a decade of Tory austerity (with Birmingham losing £1 billion since 2010) and Council mismanagement. The Labour controlled council carried out the Tories dirty work while saying they had no choice.
Last year we saw a Labour government elected and yet still we are being told to tighten our belts! The UK is the 6th richest country in the world with 165 billionaires - their combined wealth totalling £182 billion! The money is there to help special needs children get to school and keep our streets clean but we need working class political representation and a new mass worker’s party who is prepared to fight for it.
Overnight Keir Starmer has pledged extra funding to defence. There is always a magic money tree to be found when it comes to defending their system. With Labour’s popularity already plumetting, mass resistance can win back the money our city needs!
If Birmingham’s Labour councillors won’t stand up for our city then they should be challenged by anti-cuts candidates at the 2026 council elections. This would be a step towards building a new mass working class party nationally to take on the political establishment.
A different kind of council is possible - look to Liverpool in the 80s, led by Militant socialists, they defied Thatcher and won funding to invest into the city!
Stop The Demolition of Ladywood
Birmingham is facing a housing crisis. But rather than fight for the funding to build and refurbish existing council homes to decent standards, BCC is allowing property developers to run riot. At an estimated cost of £2.2 billion, the Ladywood regeneration project is not going to help the 25 thousand plus people on Birmingham’s housing waiting list. Instead it will line the pockets of property developers.
We need more housing - but affordable, high quality council homes, with community oversight of the developments. This can be a demand fought for at the ballot box, along with protecting our services and standing up to rogue landlords in the private rental sector.