Press pick up TUSC councillor's call for local Labour to back Corbyn's anti-cuts stance

The call from Warrington TUSC councillor Kevin Bennett for the town's Labour-controlled council to back Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity stance and vote against new cuts to council services has picked up positive coverage in the local media.

Kevin, described as Warrington's 'rebel councillor', points out that he was the only councillor in Warrington who endorsed Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership.

He is then quoted as saying "TUSC believes that in the new situation opened up by Jeremy Corbyn's victory, there really is no reason why Labour councils should not combine together and refuse to implement the Tories' brutal austerity agenda.

"In our view that can only mean setting a needs-budget to defend jobs and services which will meet the needs of our town, as the start of a fightback against the Tory government.

"The government's localism agenda gives local authorities a 'power of competence' to do anything apart from that which is specifically prohibited. This allows councils to resist cuts - if they wish to use it.

"The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), co-founded by the late Bob Crow, is determined that working class people should not pay for a crisis they did not cause and we are happy to work together with Labour councillors who take the same stance.

"TUSC will give full support to those councillors who vote against further cuts but TUSC will also stand anti-austerity candidates against those councillors who continue to vote for cuts.

"Our campaign will send a clear message to the austerity supporters in the Labour Party that any attempt to undermine Jeremy Corbyn will not be tolerated by those who have given him such magnificent support".

The full article can be found on http://www.warrington-worldwide.co.uk/2015/10/20/rebel-councillors-backing-for-corbyn/#prettyPhoto

Kevin also got coverage in the local Warrington Guardian as the mayor of what is an overwhelmingly Labour council abused his position to close down debate (see http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/13881389.Councillor_claims_he_is_being_gagged_by_the_Mayor/ ). Kevin was quoted as rightly saying, "Jeremy Corbyn promised that we would have a new kind of politics from the Labour Party but obviously the Labour group here in Warrington haven't got the message yet".