A Disabled People Against Cuts (Dpac) protest in central London as Labour announced its Spring Statement (Picture: Guy Smallman)
The Summit of Resistance is our chance to turn the tables on Keir Starmer. Almost 2,000 people signed up in advance of the giant meeting in London on Saturday because they want a fightback.
Labour pushed through even more austerity in chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement on Wednesday. And that came only a week after it unveiled vicious cuts to disabled people’s benefits.
Jeremy Corbyn MP—one of the speakers at the summit—has slammed Reeves, saying it was “unconscionable that a Labour government would choose to deepen” cuts to disability benefits. “None of these cuts are necessary—this government could tax the super-rich,” he said.
Ellen Clifford from Disabled People Against Cuts (Dpac) is speaking at the summit. “The cuts are worse than anything that the Tories did, our worst fears are confirmed,” she said last week.
“It feels like a big social experiment that is going to cost lives and destroy communities.”
The summit brings together the Palestine solidarity and anti-racist movements, climate campaigners, striking workers, trade unionists and others. It’s the place for all those who’ve had enough of the government—and want to ramp up action.
“The time for being polite is over,” Arthur from the Youth Demand direct action group told Socialist Worker. “The world is being run by billionaires who just want to drill more oil and gas to keep themselves rich and powerful.
“The summit is important as a place where we can come together, overcome our differences and discuss how to act in unity and how to escalate our actions.”
Arthur added, “Trade unions are really important because strikes are essential to making big changes like in the Egyptian Revolution.”
If we don’t hit back, Nigel Farage and far right party Reform UK will keep growing out of the disillusionment with Labour. As Gary McFarlane, a Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) activist in north London, told Socialist Worker, “We need to get organised and build a massive movement that shows our power.
“We need more strikes and demonstrations to turn the tide against Reform UK and Labour.
He added, “There’s a need for an electoral alternative to Labour and its anti-working class policies and to Reform UK and its racist policies.
“We need people to shout from the roof tops—tax the rich, make them pay.”
Carly Slingsby is a teacher in east London and sits on the NEU union’s national executive. She told Socialist Worker she was coming to the summit to “put pressure on the Labour government”.
“Local Labour MPs and councillors were quite happy to come to our picket lines when we were striking under the Tories,” she said. “But now that we are striking under Labour, where are they? You don’t see them.
“Labour needs to understand that working class people are not going to put up with these terrible conditions and that real change is needed, the change that Labour promised.”
Climate change is a class and trade union issue. To avoid a catastrophe we must strengthen our bonds with the wider movement and take the struggle forwards’
Green Jobs Alliance secretary Tahir Latif on how important it is for campaigners to come together
Terry Sullivan, an NEU branch secretary in north London, agreed and said he hoped the summit would be a place to organise action.
“With the latest attack on disability benefits, people are aghast,” he told Socialist Worker.
“But what we need now is big victories that show we can make a difference—that we can actually win. We need victories that make people realise that fighting is what leads to important changes.
“Having so many people at the summit shows there is a real appetite for a fight back. But what we need is a national victory that will start a massive strike wave.”
Disabled campaigner Oonagh will be at the summit to better link up with other activists.
“We need to link the disability struggle with everything else that’s going on—with housing and attacks on migrants,” they told Socialist Worker.
“The key thing about the summit is that everyone is together in one place. It’s great to see the solidarity disabled people are already getting around the latest cuts.
“It’s high time we stopped seeing these struggles as separate, that each group has to fight for themselves. And we need to show that Reform UK is not a viable option for any of us.”
We voted to support the summit because we understand how important it is to develop a national fightback against cuts and job losses’
David Bates, secretary of Newcastle University UCU union, which is fighting against mass redundancies
Supporters of the Palestine movement are also planning to make their mark on the summit.
Kwabena Devonish, a Palestine campaigner from Cardiff, is being targeted by the state. She faces charges under the Terrorism Act in connection with a speech at a demonstration in November 2023.
She explained to Socialist Worker why she thinks the mass gathering is so important. “People are in the streets demanding an end to Britain’s complicity in Israel’s genocide, but we need to take that further,” she said.
“We need to take the movement to arms factories, not just to lobbying MPs. We need get back into mass direct action, despite the levels of state repression, and the summit is where we can come out stronger.
“Labour is pushing military spending and cutting welfare. The Palestine movement needs to be a part of the fightback against that. We need to bring our vibrancy and militancy—but also the politics of the Palestine movement.
“It’s an anti-racist movement and it is anti‑imperialist, and those will be huge questions at the summit.
“We’ve seen the importance of mass protests, but the summit is a place to up the level of resistance.”
Summit of Resistance, we demand change | Saturday 29 March, The Cause, 60 Dock Road, London, E16 1YZ | 11am-5pm | Book your place at https://wedemandchange.uk
See timetable wedemandchange.uk/timetable
19 homes have been destroyed and at least 19 more damaged
Another Blairite gimmick
Human rights groups say the sentences are 'torture'
