The 18th of August marked the anniversary of the Battle of Peterloo, when 60,000 people protested in Manchester in support for the vote and political reform. The struggle for a democracy which is truly representative of the people continues today. In Manchester, the latest threat to democracy is the Government’s devolution deal. Devolution in general something we support. We believe important decisions about local areas should be taken by those closest to those areas. However, the devolution deal does not offer more accountability to the people but less. For example Greater Manchester is currently represented by an unelected Mayor, former Labour MP Tony Lloyd, and this will be the case until 2017.
There seems to be an ongoing argument within the Labour Party over whether the leadership contest will cause or is causing a split. It is hard to see what the debate is about. It seems apparent that there is a split. Greens in Manchester were aware of a split long before the leadership campaign began. The gaps were apparent in the differences in views between Manchester City Council and local MPs over the devolution deal for Greater Manchester. While the Council was and is very happy to sign a deal with George Osborne, local MPs were and are much more skeptical about the long-term consequences of the deal.
If Jeremy Corbyn is elected it does appear that the gap between him and Sir Richard Leese (the leader of Manchester Council) will be a large one. For a start Mr Leese has given his backing to Yvette Cooper. The differences are the greatest when it comes to housing and tackling poverty. While Mr Corbyn agrees with the Green Party and argues for the building of new social housing, the Council prioritizes the building of private homes. It has recently unveiled plans for new projects across the City Centre. Of the thousands of new flats and houses, none of them are set to be social housing; and none of them are even to be set as ‘affordable’. This is despite the fact that there are currently 20,000 people on the social housing waiting list in Manchester. The Council sees rising rents as a positive economic indicator and recently spent over £100,000 on evicting and taking legal action against homeless protesters in the City Centre. We believe that this approach from the Council has encouraged social housing conglomerate One Manchester to come up with plans for Hulme which don’t include any social housing.
We look forward to working with the supporters of Mr Corbyn in developing and implementing plans to create more social housing and combating inequality across Manchester.
