Edinburgh Anarchists

While the Tories get all the abuse about the new government, their partners in the cuts coalition don’t deserve to get off scot-free. SolFed in Liverpool are calling for a Radical Workers’ Bloc at the demonstration against the LibDem’s conference:

The Merseyside Trades Union Council have called a demonstration at the Liberal Democrats’ annual conference. This has been billed as “against coalition cuts in public jobs and services” – but we want more.

Of course, we need to protect jobs. Every job lost to redundancy means more workload for those who remain. An injury to one really is an injury to all. We also need to stop the cuts that take away vital services, hard-won by generations of struggle. But these are not Liberal Democrat, Tory, or even coalition cuts – they are cuts by the ruling class, which we would be facing whoever got into power.

Liverpool Solidarity Federation and others are forming a Radical Workers’ Bloc on the demonstration. We reject the notion that a different government will bring about a solution for us – the cuts will be defeated on the streets and on the picket lines, not at the ballot box.

We need to send a message not only to this coalition government but to all political parties. The working class will not take these attacks on our livelihood lying down. We do not need anyone’s permission to fight back, and we do not need politicians or bureaucrats to lead us.

Join us on the Radical Workers’ Bloc on Sunday 19th September (new date, see comment below) at the Echo Arena in Liverpool. Look for the red & black flags and the Liverpool Solidarity Federation banner.

Privatisation for council services, climate-change promoting oil-intensive industries. Opposite concerns? No, linked by the need for the rich to keep making money off of our backs. Fight one, you should fight the other too.

Handily, you can do one then the other, with time for coffee in between

Join the Lobby of Edinburgh City Council

Thursday 19 August 8.30am, Quadrangle Edinburgh City Chambers.

We will  call on the council not to privatise our services and not to cut our jobs and attack our working conditions
STOP THE CUTS – FIGHT FOR EVERY JOB – DON’T PRIVATISE OUR SERVICES

Edinburgh Council leader Jenny Dawe said: “The council faces increasingly difficult financial times in the years ahead due to the unprecedented nature and scale of the global recession and the UK budget deficit. This will be starkly reflected in the government settlements we can expect”. Edinburgh City Council aims to cut it’s budget by more than £90 million by 2012 and states it will be forced to “slash” core services. Council chiefs have short-listed 15 firms to take part in talks about running everything from bin collections to school meals and payroll.

” We need to lobby the council and urge them” : NOT TO CARRY OUT THE TORIES “DIRTY WORK”

Bring banners, placards, loud hailers but more importantly get others to come along. Already in Edinburgh we have had great victories against school closures, community centre closures, outsourcing of care services and the bin workers have shown great strength in resisting the cut of thousands of pounds in wages by voting recently to reject the councils deal. All our public services and thousands of jobs are at stake, which means we need to raise our level of struggle into a mass coalition of all those prepared to fightback against every attack on services, jobs and against privatisation. JOIN THE LOBBY on Thursday 19th August

And then there’s the Climate Camp “swoop”

SWOOP TO TAKE THE LAND

Thursday 19th August 2010, 12 noon, Edinburgh

This year, once again, there will be an exciting public swoop to take the land for the Camp for Climate Action 2010.

Everyone is invited to join, whether on foot or bike. The more people that join us the more successful it will be.

HOW DO I JOIN THE SWOOP?

1) CHOOSE A MEET-UP POINT Firstly, select your meet-up point in Edinburgh for the day of the Swoop. Each spot will be greeted by a different flag on the day:

• The Castle Gates will be greeted by the Black and Green flag
• St Andrews Square will have the Pink flag
• Bristo Square there will be a Rainbow flag
• The Bike B-loch will be meeting in the car park at Duddingston Loch accompanied by the Skull and Cross Bone flag.

2) SIGN UP FOR SWOOP TEXTS Sign your phone number up to our text messaging alert system. Please do this! It will keep everyone in the loop as we collectively swoop to take the land. Sign up at: http://climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010/swoop and remember your phone on the day!

4) GO TO YOUR MEET-UP POINT Arrive at your chosen swoop point by 12 noon on Thursday 19th August, look out for your flag, and prepare for action!

Friday 12 noon, PF’s office on Chambers Street.

PROTEST THIS FRIDAY OUTSIDE CROWN OFFICE AND PROCURATOR FISCAL ON CHAMBERS STREET. SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON!

(THIS HAS BEEN CALLED ON VERY SHORT NOTICE, SO PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD QUICKLY AND WIDELY)
In solidarity with the protest outside the Department of public prosecution going on in London called by various people including the Tomlinson family.

Ian Tomlinson was killed by police action at the G20 and not even any charges brought. The utter disgust at what has happened by the general public has been encouraging and so to show support towards Ian’s family and the complete hatred and contempt we have for the legal system that works in the favour of them and not us – we have decided to call for demo outside the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal in Solidarity.

If you work, try and …get half a day off like many of us are doing. Most importantly spread the word to all your friends and family.

Everyone to the streets! Never forget Never forgive

BUDGET DAY PROTEST

Tuesday 22nd June

Rally 6pm at the Mound, Edinburgh
March to Charlotte Square

STOP THE TORY CUTS
SAVE OUR PUBLIC SERVICES
DEFEND JOBS – MAKE THE BANKERS PAY

Demo backed by;
Edinburgh Trade Union Council, Fire Brigades Union Scotland, PCS Scotland. Unite Voluntary Sector Branch, Unite Scottish Housing Branch, Communication Workers No.2 Branch, Industrial Workers of the World Edinburgh Branch, Right to Work Campaign, Edinburgh Support Workers’ Action Network (SWAN), Positive Action in Housing, Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty, Save Our Homecare Services, Anarchist Federation Edinburgh Branch, Edinburgh Stop the War Group.

The new Tory-Lib Dem Coalition government is preparing to unleash a savage attack on public services. The emergency budget on the 22nd of June will contain unprecedented cuts to the services that people need and deserve.

In Edinburgh a group of trade union representatives, community activists, campaign groups and student activists have come together to build for a Day of Action ”against the cuts”. A rally and march will take place in Edinburgh on Tuesday 22^nd June (the day the “emergency” budget is announced).

The event in Edinburgh against the cuts will coincide with similar rallies in Glasgow, Dundee & Aberdeen as well as across most major cities throughout the rest of the UK.

The rally will gather at 6pm at the Mound, and march to Charlotte square.

Fraud-riddled sponges off of the tax system A4e, who specialise in forcing benefit claimants into unpaid “voluntary” positions (featured here before), are the target of countrywide protests this Wednesday at 11am. Their Edinburgh office is at Earl Grey Street (i.e. Lothian Road).

Details at Indymedia.

Local organisers, Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty, condemn A4e’s multi-millionaire owner, Emma Harrison, for “raking it in”, while “ the sick, the disabled, the unemployed, single parents and other people who need support face cuts in services and the prospect of being made to work for their benefits.” ECAP continue: “We want to let Emma Harrison and her pals in government know that welfare is a right and should not have to be earned. People not in waged work contribute a lot to their communities. Single parents are already working and deserve a decent wage.

“Welfare to work” effects us all, waged or unwaged.  Low income, temporary and insecure jobs will be replaced by “work for your benefits”. Privatisation of the Department for Work and Pensions role, e.g. bringing in profit hungry firms such as A4e, is an attack on DWP/ Jobcentre Plus workers and on our rights to access welfare.

Been a bit slow in plugging the Scottish Activist Legal Project (SCALP). Their website could turn out to be a valuable resource for anyone put on the wrong side of the law when trying to do what’s right.

They say:

SCALP is a recently formed loose collective of activists who are often involved in legal support. Through the principles of mutual aid and solidarity we aim to support anti-capitalist political activists who come into conflict with the law.

…they’ve arrested 1000 people demanding that the summit produce meaningful action.

While the rich governments try and fix things so they stay rich and oil companies finally get their hands on Iraq’s oil, the main certainty is that whatever comes out of Copenhagen, they’re determined that it won’t be decided by people on any of the world’s streets. The “indiscrimate” arrests are reported to have been focussed on the Libertarian Socialist Bloc, calling for System Change Not Climate Change.

It’s hard to be hopeful about the COP15 process but if delegates don’t come up with a satisfactory deal, and people in Copenhagen were to blockade them in the conference centre until they do, then history isn’t going to condemn them as much as it would for inaction.

A reader has sent us this first hand report of the protests against the SDL’s march in Glasgow.

The protests in Glasgow against the Scottish Defence League can broadly be called a success. Anti-fascists were certainly successful in preventing the group from assembling in any significant way on the street, and the number of people who came out to fight the fascists was extremely impressive. However, as was the case in Leeds where a comrade was handed over to the police by a steward, the actions of the self-appointed leaders of the anti-racist movement – Unite Against Fascism (UAF) – were disgraceful.

Anti-fascists met outside the St. Enoch Street subway station in significant numbers with the intention of going to Cambridge street, where the majority of the SDL were drinking in a bar behind a sizeable police line. We set off through the streets towards their hideout as a loose group, but soon the UAF banner was at the front of the march and Weyman Bennett was stopping for photo opportunities, and commandeering a megaphone to tell the group to slow down to accommodate the cops! Despite this, those who were interested in actually opposing the SDL on the streets walked on towards the bar.

Having got to Cambridge street, Bennett and his supporters once again took control of the megaphone and began telling protesters to head to the ‘Scotland United’ demonstration at Glasgow Green! This created a split in the group leaving only 50 behind to oppose the SDL where they were, with the majority following the UAF banner away from any confrontation and towards the official protest. This not only left those who stayed in danger, but also allowed the SDL briefly outside the bar.

The actions of the UAF group on Saturday were despicable, but not unexpected. Their history of state collusion against radical anti-fascists and collaboration with religious groups, political parties and the forces of the state is no secret. It is becoming increasingly clear that they cannot be trusted as a genuine anti-fascist group, and are not an effective means of combating fascism in Britain.

This Saturday the English Scottish Defence League are coming to Glasgow. They claim to be non-racist and protesting about “Islamic extremism” but it doesn’t take much for their true colours to show.

Any resemblence to pissed-up Nazis is coincidental. Honest

So there’s a counter protest:

Anti-fascists will be assembling at 10am outside St Enochs underground on the 14th, with the intention of stopping the SDL from being able to assemble and organise in our city. Bring flags, banners, placards etc!

Arrive in groups and stay safe. We would encourage everyone to come down early and be at St Enochs for 10 – even if you intend to later go to the Glasgow Green event.

Someone who will be with the SDL in spirit, is the racist murderer Christopher Miller, convicted this week of the unprovoked murder of Kunal Mohanty.

Christopher Miller, 25, slashed father-to-be Kunal Mohanty, 30, in the neck as he walked to a restaurant with his friends in March.[...]

As Mr Mohanty lay dying in the street with blood gushing from his neck, Miller and his friend John McGrory, 20, were seen on CCTV running through a car park celebrating.

Racist killer & his victim

The Nato Welcoming Committee have tea and cakes ready for the arrival of the world’s least favourite military alliance. Sign up for text alerts (not with your everyday mobile, natch) to be informed of the meeting point and be there sharp at 11am.

Full message from NatoWC here.

For months the NATO Welcoming Committee has been calling on people to come to Edinburgh and take part in action against NATO and against militarism. We have now produced a map of the city centre of Edinburgh showing the location of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and some other institutions which are linked to the militarist system. Our primary target remains the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, the location of the NATO meeting. However, if we cannot reach it, it is important to remember that there are many targets around the city of Edinburgh just as deserving of attention. To find the target maps and other maps visit http://natowc.noflag.org.uk/the-target

To make it as hard as possible for us to be contained and stopped from taking action the meeting place for the demonstration will not be announced until 10.30 am. People should be in the city centre in their affinity groups or with friends by this time. Once the location has been announced people should move to the meeting place and assemble at 11am sharp.