DOSIFICACIÓN BASADA EN LA EXPERIENCIA EN OBRA O EN MEZCLAS DE PRUEBA

As aforementioned, it would be expected that contestation would foremost be directed towards the Conservative Government, in keeping with the decades of ‘anti Tory’ sentiment characteristic of the city (Chapter 2). However, contemporary forms of resistance were overwhelmingly levelled towards the local Labour City Council, reflecting more the post- 1980s trajectory of socialist politics within the city, where socialists had generally moved away (or had been expelled) from the Labour Party, and had become disillusioned with New Labour (Taylor, 2011). Since these individuals had thereafter moved into revolutionary parties positioned in opposition to Labour, their targeting of local Labour can be seen through the lens of party politics, in addition to keeping with the Trotskyist strategy of mobilising the crisis for revolutionary ends. Although entryism is no longer viable, pressuring the council to confront central government certainly echoes this past; if the council refuses, it is hypothesised that their class betrayal will be revealed for all the citizenry to see, and that people will resultantly switch their support to the socialist parties.188

By means discussed above (6.5.1), the strategy of critiquing the council carried discursive and organisational purchase through LATC, despite the misgivings of some activists.189 _{This also}

reflects the former Militant outlook of being more grounded in ideology and symbolism than pragmatism (Kantor et al., 1997), yet this style of struggle gained little purchase over the

187 _{Cllr Jane Corbett, interview (Chapter 5).} 188 _{Member of a socialist party, interview.} 189 _{Private discussions, field notes (various).}

Chapter Six: The Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Anti-Austerity Contestation’

159 research period.190 This is evidenced by the overall difficulty in mobilising forces, where public demonstrations at the Town Hall regularly attracted fewer than thirty people,191

compared to, for example, the hundreds of parents, children and Sure Start workers who joined hands around the iconic Cunard Building in support of the council-approved demonstration against central government cuts.192 _{Anti-cuts activists were conflicted, and many refused to}

participate.193 Councillors argued that local people accepted the standpoint of the Labour council, and that they blamed central government for the cuts.194 Figure 6.2 shows the rhetoric of Sure Start demonstrators, whose slogans ‘No Central Governments Cuts’ and ‘Liverpool leads the way saving children’s centres’ contrasted markedly to the anti-austerity protest of 27th _{May 2015, in which the main bloc led with “Joe [Anderson] Must Go”.}195

Figure 6.2: Sure Start Demonstration at the Cunard Building, 28 February 2015 (Source: Author).

For activists, the role of the Labour council closed down potential political opportunities: I think a massive issue for us is that we’ve got a Labour Council, and it’s a very strong, safe Labour area; people have been brought up where their families have voted for

190 _{Some groups, such as OSAC, argued that a “victorious campaign” against the council was responsible}

for preventing library closures (Socialist Voice, 2015a: 3). Councillors (various interviews) and also other activists disputed the campaign’s significance. The significance of the Socialist Voice is explained in footnote 236: p. 168.

191 _{Field notes (various).}

192 _{Field notes (28/02/15); Liverpool Echo (2015h).} 193 _{Field notes (03/03/15).}

194 _{Interviews with councillors (various); field notes (30/02/15).} 195 _{Field notes (28/05/15).}

Chapter Six: The Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Anti-Austerity Contestation’

160 Labour, they vote for Labour, they see Labour as being the voice of the working-class in Liverpool.196

The establishment of a strong local political consensus (Chapter 5), led by Liverpool Labour and supported by the major trade unions, was ultimately disempowering and debilitating, while the reluctance to sympathise with Labour, or to collaborate with the local state, prevented new alliances from forming. Where nearby Labour-run cities such as Manchester and Birmingham have seen relatively popular engagement with the People’s Assembly Against Austerity,197 this movement gained little traction in Liverpool due to its reluctance to criticise Labour councils.198 The organisation quickly dissipated, and one of the organisers shortly after became a Labour councillor. One campaigner disputed this: “we weren’t anti-Labour, we were anti- Liverpool Labour; we were anti-Joe Anderson and his interpretation of what you should do, which was cuts, cuts, cuts”,199

although austerian realism has of course been a defining feature of all Labour councils in the UK. This highly antagonistic relationship with the council was mutual, as outlined in Chapter 5, where councillors reportedly told activists that “you’re wasting your time [protesting], you need to go down and start knocking on doors of Tories”,200

while another activist explained:

I’ve been in council meetings and Tony Mulhearn has spoken, it’s embarrassing to watch [Anderson’s] response. I consider Tony to be far superior to him politically and intellectually, and he quite clearly sees [Mulhearn] as a threat because his responses to him are really derogatory and rude. Joe Anderson is right-wing as far as I’m concerned.201

Another discussed:

Interviewer: Can we work with the council?

Respondent: No, I don’t think we can. [Anderson] has said too many things about us

and we’ve said too many things about him, we just couldn’t do it. If Anderson went I

196 _{Member of LATC, interview.}

197 _{The People’s Assembly Against Austerity is a national organisation that formed in 2013 calling for}

a broad-based movement to forge common campaigns against austerity. It included a range of politicians and activists, and “members of Counterfire, the Communist Party of Britain, the left-wing of the Labour Party, Greens and trade unionists from the Trade Union Congress, Unite, the Public and Commercial Services Union, the National Union of Teachers, and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers” (see Maiguashca et al., 2016: 41); People’s Assembly Against Austerity ‘No More Austerity’ National Demonstration in London, field notes (23/06/14).

198 _{While in 2013 the first two meetings in Liverpool saw participation within the hundreds, the People’s}

Assembly soon fell away. Some activists attempted to revive the local organisation in 2015, but to little avail.

199 _{Member of LATC, interview.} 200 _{Member of LATC, interview.} 201 _{Member of LATC, interview.}

Chapter Six: The Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Anti-Austerity Contestation’

161 think it could be a different matter because it’s very personal now, the politics in Liverpool...202

While the mayor was perhaps dealing with confrontation in ways typical of the gritty, robust nature of Liverpudlian politics, this contributed to the failure to initiate meaningful dialogue, and served to marginalise activists from political debate. In contrast, working in Liverpool on issues of decarbonisation, North et al. (2017) suggest that forming alliances with sympathetic local policy-makers can produce productive outcomes; yet campaigners were unable to depend upon the meaningful support of councillors or their officers, trade unions, or the third sector, or to generate effective alliances. The importance here is not to propose that anti-austerity imaginaries should ‘scale up’ their protests or seek to transcend the ‘local’ to the ‘universal’, but to suggest that within these specific political configurations, contesting austerity primarily at the municipal scale proved disempowering and debilitating over time, and prevented new solidarities from emerging, locally and nationally. This is also not to downplay the broader internationalist outlook of the coalition, as clearly many socialists harboured more globalist ambitions, and many groups at least rhetorically attempted to generate solidarities across borders, although some attempts developed better than others.203 Rather, this action operated at a level of strategy rather than outlook.