What is the Coalition of Resistance and what does it do?
The Coalition of Resistance …
- is a broad united national campaign against cuts and privatisation in our workplaces, community and welfare services, based on general agreement with the Founding Statement issued by Tony Benn in August 2010.
- is linked to no particular political party, but committed to open working in a non-sectarian way with all organisations seeking to co-ordinate resistance; and is dedicated to supplementing, rather than supplanting, trade union, student, pensioner and community opposition to austerity measures.
- is based on thousands of individual supporters, together with national unions, union branches, anti-cuts campaigns, student, pensioner, unemployed, youth and other organisations which affiliate.
- seeks to provide a national umbrella for a network of local and sectoral campaigns; and aspires to support, encourage, coordinate, and facilitate a transfer of experience rather than to command.
- invites affiliation from functioning local campaigns championing public services or fighting the cuts; encourages the establishment of new local campaigns where there are none; and offers local campaigns the opportunity to call themselves local Coalitions of Resistance if they wish.
- organises newsletters, a website www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk , meetings, conferences, lobbies, rallies, marches, demonstrations and other events.
- vehemently opposes all proposals to “solve” the crisis by discrimination or scapegoating on the grounds of disability, race, religion, ethnic origin, gender, age, sexual orientation or identity.
- liaises closely with similar opposition movements in other countries and has issued a call for international resistance to austerity measures.
- encourages a wide debate on how to protect the welfare state and develop an alternative programme for economic and social recovery in line with its founding statement.
- is run by a steering committee meeting on a weekly basis and advised by periodic meetings of activist supporters of the founding statement until the Founding National Conference on 27th November 2010.
I am a town cllr. 10yrs. now and a full time carer having given up my job on nights after 15 yrs. gillian my wife has huntingtons d.and needs full time care .I left my job through agrement with the company that i worked for who made me seek a full report from the dhss and they wonted to help- in a postive way that we would be fine and ok The information that we gained meant that our mortgage could be payed [berr in mind that we have worked very hard and for long hours in our lives i think some thing like 95/100yrs of work based on a 40hr. week and payed a lot of money to the state we have now been tolde that the gov. is to change the interest rate they will pay at this will mean we will have to find a lot more it wrong for two reasons 1 people on benefits have had this hanging over there heads for weeks which with other things is wrong it a lot of unnessary worry 2must of us pay in to the state with a giving hand it is our money we payed it in in good faith and it is theif to steal the working peoples money and fight unlawfull wars and pay the banks with our money and then turn on the very people who payed in through hard work in the 1st place it is disgussing to do this to people i have been interviewed by the bbc news in cornwall and made a full report of my own personal dealing with this corrupt goverment
My own situation is causing me such anguish that I feel I must try to do something positive to try to right the injustice that is being done by these cuts and the devastating stress that myself and my family are under.
I am a 37 year old mum of 3 (2,6 and
who has worked since the age of 17 in the caring profession. I am a qualified nurse with a degree, a Masters degree, a Psychological Therapist qualification and yet after 15 years still only earn £32000 a year working full time (further insult to be so low paid as nursing predominantly female profession).
A year ago my partner and I split up after years of being torn apart by trying to provide for our family, we both worked hard when the children were very young me as a nurse and him as a self employed floor sander and my memories of those times are of either working long days or nights while he looked after the kids or being on my own with the children while he worked.
We had no quality time together as a family and it was inevitable that our relationship was going to suffer, unfortunately it suffered to the extent that we split up.
Last year when he left I tried working full time, part-time and my ex helped as much as he could financially however his business was collapsing, he had some health problems and he was homeless as did not have the additional money to pay for his own accommodation.
This went on for 6-9 months at which time we both decided that for the sake of us all we had to look at alternatives. I was stressed working long hours to pay someone else to look after my children, my ex was homeless trying to keep his business afloat with no finances to invest in it or to pay for somewhere to live.
In June 2010 I gave up work as financially I couldn’t manage, our interest only mortgage on a 2 bed bungalow in Brighton is £950 a month and I was finding that my wages were going entirely on mortgage, bills and childcare.
Upon making this difficult decision to take a career break, I have settled into a less stressful life my children are benefitting from spending more time with me, my ex is beginning to get back on his feet financially and emotionally having more money to invest into his business and I have been keeping busy doing voluntary work in health and social care and spending more time with the children. I have claimed income support and child tax benefits and have after 13 weeks been able to apply for the interest to be paid on my mortgage.
Unfortunately I have now been informed that the financial assistance available to me to pay the interest on my mortgage is being cut, this affects me by reducing the assistance offered from £900 a month to £550 meaning that each month I will have a further £500 arrears added on to the £4000 that I have already since leaving work in June.
This situation gives me grave concern that myself and my children are going to lose our home and once again I am living daily life severely worried and stressed about how I can support my children and survive financially. I know that if our home is repossessed that we will be homeless and that there are no homes available for even homeless families and so it is likely we will end up in emergency hostel accommodation, the thought of this fills me with dread.
My only option appears to be to return to work but I know I need to earn more than have on past salary so I will need to work longer hours or commute to London and the situation then would have to be that my children go back to constant childcare or their dad gives up his work to live on income support to look after them or continues living on a friends sofa so that he can help out financially with keeping a roof over his kids head.
I feel as if I am in a no win situation here in that it is likely that I am going to have to become a weekend mum only able to see them at weekends, as there is no support available to me to help me manage until they are all in full-time school.
I know my ex cannot support us financially and that emotionally he will struggle being the main carer for 3 children living on £60 a week. It feels unjust that we are being denied help when we really are a family being torn apart by financial and social difficulties which are largely related to political and economic climate (low wages, high property prices) and I cannot believe that after years of paying taxes, this is the first time either of us has ever claimed benefits this is how we are being treated in our time of need.
My children don’t deserve to see their parents stressed and tired, anxious and preoccupied but that has been what they have always had to see, this fills me with sadness and I wonder how I can ever make it up to them, clearly I can’t as this is it the only childhood they’ll have. We as a family have so much to give others, we are good, honest people who care for others and want to be the best we can, how can we provide for our children if no one will care for us or help us, in our hour of need.
My question to you is to ask if there is any advice you can give on whether there is anything that I can to politically to take this further. Very impressed that you have been interviewed by BBC how did you arrange that?
I need to do something positive to help reduce the distress and frustration that I feel and I feel I am a good example of how cruelly these cuts are affecting ordinary families just going through a temporary difficult time, and as you say people that have more than paid their share in to the system.
Thank-you for taking time to read this letter and I hope that I may hear back from you with some advice or suggestions.
Best Wishes
Hi CR,
collected flyers from Alexander today and have distributed them around Islington: South Library, Sally Army (Upper street) Post officer (highbury Corner, fire station Upper Street. Islington South Library (Lobby), JCP Barnsbury Road. will do the rest later in the week
cheers
Lesley
I w
I agree with Tony Benn,and the greedy banks and the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan, cost millions a day. Why do we have to pay for the bankers greed?
Your sincerely,
Raymond Wilson.
1. Those wars ARE illegal. ALL Government and Civile Service Officials whose work supports these wars in any way are engaged in ‘conduct ancillary to the comission of a war crime’. Since 2001, the UK Government has been an illegal Government, and all laws created since then are legal fictions. This applies to all ‘cuts’ legislation currently being prepared.
2. We, the people, did not act to preserve the Law, since 2001.
3. The STOP THE WAR CAMPAIGN could have, in 2003, called for a General Strike to bring down the Government on the basis of their illegal actions, and made it clear that any Government elected post that event would HAVE TO FOLLOW THE LAW, arrest those involved in the wars, and prosecute them in open public trials. They didn’t call for that. They KNEW the LAW and the Legal Status and yet said NOTHING. Worse THEY DID NOTHING.
4. It is time for Independent Grass Roots Political to emerge as the only means to take back that which is ours – the response ability, the intelligence and the determination to be the decision makers (not merely voters who in reality have no leverage on Power).
It must be made VERY CLEAR that the reccommendations of the 2006 Power Iquiry must be implemented in full, proposals that were made by odrinary folk across the UK that would transfer decision making processes to the people, and place Civil Service and Government in the role of facillitating OUR DECISIONS, at every level of Governance, from Parish to The Executive, with oversight and re-call available to the people to retain Power over those entrusted with facillitating our decisions at the very core of Governance.
5. This, and only this, can end the current Power Paradigm, that in reality has operated to use the People, and their Children, as a ‘resource’ to be exploited on behalf of the very very rich.
6. Appealing to the current Power Structure to change is naive at best, utterly corrupt at worst (if it is, as many suspect, merely a charm game, a clever distraction). The current Power Structure must fall. The People must rise to meet and fulfill our response ability, using our intelligence, demanding that our desire to take our own lives in out own hands and work to build a society that is decent, balanced and one in which the children and their futures are at the very centre of our concerns, is fullfilled.
We must unite as the people who have worked and paid for governments to do the bidding of the the very wealthy. We must unite with our brothers and sisters whose struggles to keep their families without the money needed kept them stuck below wellbeing. The wars cost us all yet the richest prospered. We must demand transparent governments that are accountable. Governments are there to serve the people. Let’s make them do it.
Are there any flyers, badges or stickers that individuals can have/buy? some of us live too far away from centres of action but would like to show support. Ta
Amanda, sorry no one seems to have responded to your post. It is sad but maybe I understand it. This is a campaigning/protest site with many quirky nooks and crannies. Confusing at times. Some may feel it was not the place. It is an odd site. Unless we have a public meeting to announce no one seems to speak to each other here.
I disagree. Any corner of the web is most definately the place for anxious posts at this time. Your situation, and I am sure you know many worse, are what this campaign is about.
What is happening is a social crime. For my part I may soon have my pension put back and reduced, when I was just a few years from it. After 36 years bloody long slog in the public sector.
Just one thing you said struck a familiar chord. The 6 month end to mortgage interest help.
Many ‘sign on’ having no idea what they are facing. So many having believed until then the right wing/Murdoch Press about a ‘cradle to grave scrounger net to fall into’. Not saying that is you. I work for the system that pays you. Hence only my first (not real) name. I would be sacked if I wrote this at work.
It is no consolation I know but in the past two years we have seen some people who never dreamed they would need to darken our doors. The 6 Month ‘slap in the face’ being the one bite too much.
Publicity Amanda? There are thousands upon thousands like you. Many worse off if you can imagine,
Find a Welfare Rights Centre for advice, Debt Counselling. Even the CAB.
But above all get political. It does not have to be this way. It is David Camerons choosing. (Personal wealth last estimated at 30 million. That is without his millonaire wife and family. Without his property)
Take care and hope to meet you on the picket lines.
I am a single mum and have just found out that when my child turns five in just under a year, I am going to have to loose my income support and be forced to look for a job. In my opinion, being a mother and providing a loving home environment is the most important JOB in the world, far more important than money or greed. The thought of having to send my child to after school clubs, and having to get a childminder in the holidays terrifies me as I bought my child into the world suspecting that I might nurture and bring him up myself – not pay someone else to do it for me, and not have any quality time to spend with him. I am a young parent, and did not ask to be single. It is not a crime. Fair enough, I don’t want to have to claim benefits forever, but I have just finished a college course, and am hoping to start up my own business. This will take more than a year and I thought I would get more support in trying to ”better myself”. I am now very scared for our future, and worried that I do not have much time left to spend quality time with my little boy. Stopping people who claim jobseekers allowance and are not even trying to get a job would be understandable, but they shouldn’t take it from people who really need it. Five is way too young, and I don’t think these cuts in income support are going to solve anything – hello, but there are hardly any jobs going anyway, and I expect it will lead to more people getting pregnant in order to stay at home!
Where were all these Muppets when the overspending went on, when you have an economy that is doing well that is when you cut the budget deficit. Why were you silent when you knew that all this spending could not be paid for, borrowing money to build hospitals, schools and the other things we need costs more than paying off the debt and then being able to spend your money on what you need. Yes reducing the spending to an affordable level is not the ideal thing to do at this time and in a normal cycle you would be increasing spending now but we are not in a normal cycle since we raided all the pensions piggy banks etc to go on an unfunded uncosted spending spree over the last few years. We now have to deal with the dire situation stop moaning about it, get out there set up a small business, create some jobs or do something positive don’t sit on your backside and say it is all the fault of some bankers or other remote easy target group. If you have time to deliver useless leaflets you have time to make a small change for the better.
The truth is Mark since time began the wealth created by the many has been kept by the few. There is vast ammounts of money in this world/country and it is time for fairer redistribution. If we stop all the theft of tax through avoidance our money created by those on the shop floor and third world exploitation and the taxed the bankers , who have the audacity to still say themselves billions in bonuses then we could have a decent standard of living for all. Introduce the Robin Hood tax now! A TAX ON THE GREEDY RICH NOT THE ORDINARY AND THE POOR. I have been incredibly proud of our welfare state where we protect the most vulnerable and needy it is not charity it is insurance that people pay into to support ourselves and each other in times of need. It is so sad that wot cannot appreciate the pain expressed by others here whore lives are being devastated. The condem cuts will cause extreme deprivation and suffering leading to homelessness, family breakdown mental illness and suicide. May you never find yourself in the most vulnerable shoes – there but for the grace of god.
Rachel, you are sadly deluded, tax the rich and they would all leave the country and go and live somewhere else, thus leaving us with NO tax revenue. We need to declare war on the real enemy – the MIDDLE CLASSES. Can you believe the absolute greed of these people earning £50000 a year and still whining that they want benefits in the form of tax credits? Unfortunately, most of these protesters are, erm, from the middle classes. Maybe they should declare war on themselves and do all us working class people a favour?
Good response Mark, concise and to the point.
The trouble with the UK is that most people havent realised the good deal they have had this far and have taken everything for granted!
Now back to ground zero as reality bites!!
I am so angry over this.
There seems to be a real hate campaigne orchestrated against those on IB ESA and disability lately, very clever move ,as it means that the hate is targeted towards this group of people as the cause of the countries financial problems, not the bankers, or tax evaders, or funnily enough the Government!
We all seem to be tarred with the same brush, as lazy, fat, useless scroungers, never having done a days work, expecting to be kept in a nice lifestyle.
Yet, the norm is that it probably couldn’t be further from the truth for most of the people who are claiming. I’m not disputing that there are those who might be taking advantage of the system, and it would be interesting to know the estimated percentage of claimants that are fraudulant. And this abuse should be stopped.
It almost smacks of Hitlers campaign against the Jews, so that they became the focus of hate, and all that was wrong with the country. the same’s happening here.notice the headlines and media coverage, using emotive words such as scroungers, lazy , undeserving etc………
Before I became ill, I happily paid my taxes, and was more than happy that it went towards those that needed help for what ever reason, after all, we are supposed to be a civilised society, never expecting that one day I’d be in need of it myself.
On the support forum that I go on, a lot of very sick people there are worried as to how they’re going to cope.
It seems that a very small percentage in total are being moved to the support group most being migrated to the other groups.With a huge amount of appeals that follows too, the system will soon be in melt down. Funny how the private ATOS company who does the medicals is making a fortune out of this……they get a bonus for every person they pass as fit for work…..no conflict of interest there then!
These people are housebound for goodness sakes, some barely able to get out of bed, yet unbelievably they are still being assessed as fit for work by a couple of completely innapropriate questions in the medical, such as can you lift a pen?????? Can you talk on the phone?????, they might be able to do that in the medical, but could they travel to work, stay in a workplace without collapsing?
People have openly said that they can see only one way out !!!!!!! and talk quite openly of ending it all because they can see no other option. How sad a reflection is that on our society.
They’re too sick to work, but are going to be made to work to be able to keep a roof over their heads and survive, this in turn, will only make them sicker.
We should be looking after our sick and elderly, and those who need temporary help, not attacking them as scroungers and undeserving, after all, you never know whats around the corner, I certainly didn’t!
I wish to god I was well enough to be out working again, have my life back again, and i’d damn well be out there protesting with the best of them.
I can only give my full support to this coalition of resistance. I have, after watching a debate on Housing Benefit on BBC Parliament, been reduced to speechlessness on the proposed actions of ConDem. And it is no surprise that Tony Benn is involved with this movement. A distinguished man, and a fine politician. Thank you.
Do you have links with any organisations in Plymouth?
Dear Sue,
I agree wholeheartedly..here I am, terrorised bu the fears of our furturs, so yet another sleepless night, all due to thr pressue of welfare ‘cuts’ (too innocent a word), welfare ‘crimes’. I had the audacity to get sick years ago, but the NHS wouldn’t diaagnose me; so the years went by, I kept working (wanting to end it all every day as the pain was too much & uncontrolled ny drugs)..I got sicker & work came to an end when could nolonger fucnction (& 4 surgeries in a year). I’ve hated being vilified this way when my body has been attacking me so violently; to the point of hoping for someone to smother me to take it away (morphine didn’t)..and they’ll think I’m a scumbag for this?? I didn’t need further assualts on my being. Not yet had a medical Nazi interrogation; but am depressed at the foregone, corrupt conclusion. They don’t even care what’s wrong with anyone; if you’re not yet dead; you’re workin sunshine. It’s clearly designed to worry people into not claiming.. just to stop the bullying.
I was a conscientious worker, helpful, sociable, before illness & stress arrived; more importantly, before the ConDems destroyed all that we were hopeful for. It’s been a fraught few weeks in this house, as I am cared for by a Tory parent.. once she woke up to their scandalous wasy; she has booked to see ‘our’ MP and I hope she gives him (well-mannered) what for!
Ministers Of Mass Depression
can any one tell me what defend democratic rights at (LSBU)stands for sorry to ask i am new to the campaign thank you
The community website at King’s Cross has just posted the following about tonight’s demo:
http://www.kingscrossenvironment.com/2010/11/national-cuts-protest-at-york-way-set-to-grow-tonight.html
I work in a public library, I live in a council flat and I have mental health issues, for which I receive DLA and tax credits. There is no aspect of my life that the Banker thieves and their billionaire politician friends won’t touch. We should resist the cuts with all our might, or else our life, and the life of our children, won’t be worth living. Austerity is ideologically driven and won’t clear the banks debts -look at Ireland! All of our ‘elected’ representatives have let us down -the expenses scandal showed the true face of professional politicians. ALL OF THEM MUST GO! We need a NEW POLITICS, and a new foundation for life- Participatory Economics and Participatory Democracy!
The statement above indicates that the COR is
“linked to no particular political party”. It should be, or atleast, it should openly state a commitment to Marxist politics. After all, the capitalist class don’t for one moment hide their own affiliations and interests. Neither should we. This is all too reactive. There needs to be an overt political organisation and structure to this resistance. There are some very brave and inspiring words spoken, but we should not under-estimate the power and organisation of the coalition, the British state, and capital, which knows no territorial boundaries. Do you really think a general strike for a day will stop this?
A Coalition of Resistance is welcome, but we need a new workers party. A new political voice of ordinary people, the trade unions, socialists and all progressive forces. It could be massive. But we need to break with the three parties of capital who will never represent the interests of the majority. Its that simple!
Clegg: verb: to lie deceive promise to do one thing but actually do the opposite;eg ‘I swear to oppose any increase in student tuition fees’
We’ve been here before. The Situationist International of the 1960s exposed the very worst of an outmoded form of capitalism that is still with us today. The Coalition of Resistance must be more resilient than the Situationists and put an end to the charade of “we’re all in this together”.