(en) Britain, AFed - Nottinghamshire Black Arrow - Bedroom tax and Council Tax campaigning takes shape in Nottingham ? an anarchist viewpoint

A meeting in the Meadows last night has hopefully sown the seeds of a local fightback 
against benefits cuts with the beginnings of a new neighbourhood group : ?Meadows Against 
the Bedroom Tax?. ---- Now the new parts of the Welfare Reform Act are being implemented, 
households are already getting demands from the City Council for the Spare Room Subsidy 
which is better known as the ?Bedroom Tax?, using what the Council thinks they know about 
occupancy from Housing Benefit data. At the same time a Council Tax benefit cut has been 
put in place which means people of ?working age? who had 100% rebate are being told to pay 
8.5% this year, increasing to 20% next year, although some people are exempt, like 
pensioners. Many people of working age (who are unemployed or on low pay) are being hit 
with both at the same time, taking benefits down to less than the ?53 a week that Iain 
Duncan-Smith reckons he could live on. Annual benefits increases have also just been 
limited to 1%, well below the rate of inflation.

Because of the above and other changes and due to the dire general economic situation and 
price rises of essentials, hardworking advice workers & volunteers and independent 
initiatives such as https://www.facebook.com/Ng7FoodBank are also distributing food to 
individuals and families who literally have no money at all. An advice worker from the 
centre in St. Ann?s reported 135 people accessing a food bank in the old laundrette on 
Robin Hood Chase where a ton of food was distributed in the first week alone. Access to 
crisis payments have also been massively hit and groups are also having to organise 
donations and distribution of appliances (cookers etc.) as a breakdown will no longer be 
dealt with.

This is the reality of the cuts right now, plus the new Disability Living Allowance came 
in on Monday, called the Personal Independence Payment. Access to PIP will be heavily 
tested in the same way as Incapacity Benefit/Employment Support Allowance was in the last 
few years by a tickbox form scheme (run on behalf of the Dept. of Work and Pension by a 
private company ATOS Healthcare). Nasty changes have been put into PIP, like the maximum 
distance you can walk has now got to be down to 20m (rather than 50m) to be able to get 
help with mobility, for example. People already on DLA will be facing testing over the 
coming years and everyone will be subject to retesting from then on.

Some of these changes are being opposed in the courts (e.g. PIP mobility) but this is 
time-consuming and stressful for the individuals involved, and to cap it all Legal Aid has 
just been taken away from benefits cases so fighting back this way requires money or 
lawyers who are prepared to work for free (although ask your Advice centre about what else 
might be available). As we have seen with workfare, the government is also quick to 
challenge and sidestep legal gains by amending the rules. In the Poundland case, the 
Labour opposition helped the Coalition prevent a benefits payback to claimants after the 
legal win. The Welfare Reform Act has been designed to allow flexibility in implementation 
which is making room for legal challenges but also means it is hard to see what is coming 
up, and for every win there are losses which sap energy and confidence.

After a period of little widespread neighbourhood activity in Nottingham since the 
1980-90s, there are now signs of renewed grassroots political organisation against the 
reforms. Nationally, groups like London Coalition Against Poverty and networks such as No 
To Welfare Abolition have attempted to weather the storm throughout the period of New 
Labour to where we are now with the Tory/Libdem Coalition which is pushing through the 
latest attacks on benefits.

Locally the Anarchist Federation Nottingham group has most recently supported direct 
action against ATOS and providers of workfare (mandatory work activity ? the other side of 
the benefit cuts for many claimants). This has on occasion resulted in repression by the 
police, but this has also been successfully resisted and charges dropped by the efforts of 
spontaneous solidarity initiatives like Nottingham Defence Campaign.

Other grassroots initiatives supported by Nottingham AF that have arisen in the last few 
years include Notts UnCut (part of UK Uncut) ? which has focussed on the tax paid (or 
rather not paid) by high-street shops and charities, many of which are now also saving 
money using workfare victims, and Notts Save Our Services, a broad anti-cuts coalition 
that was active from 2010-12. Both of these campaigns drew from a wave of activity that 
started with the student protests and occupations in 2009-10 and were replicated across UK 
cities and towns. Also, inspired by the Office Angels temping agency victory (a Solidarity 
Federation national action supported by the Anarchist Federation) and a speaking tour by a 
Seattle-based organisation, Seasol, the idea of Solidarity Networks has taken off, which 
in Nottingham has had some successes against debt collectors and dodgy employers who have 
not paid for work done (see 
http://nottsblackarrow.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/nottingham-solidarity-network-call-out/ 
for one of the actions Nottingham AF supported, and was supported by). Nottingham IWW is 
also involved with anti-workfare activity.

In the later 1990s anarchists were involved with Nottingham Claimants Action which 
campaigned against the earlier welfare reforms which saw introduction of the Job Seekers 
Allowance and the earlier workfare schemes of the Major and Blair governments (Project 
Work and the New Deal). This also drew on some of the lessons learned from anti-poll tax 
campaigning of the late 80s/early 90s which involved both mutual aid and direct action, 
and was part of a broad anti-JSA network called Groundswell which shared experiences and 
knowledge.

Organisers of the meeting in the Meadows from Notts Against the Bedroom Tax and 
Nottinghamshire Defend Council Tax Benefit Campaign (many with experience from the 
anti-Poll Tax days through to Notts SOS and Notts UnCut) made it clear that to mount a 
successful campaign this must be organised in the neighbourhoods where people live and 
know each other. Solidarity gets a quick start that way. The danger as always, from an 
anarchist perspective, is that the party political affiliations of individuals can often 
be hidden, and so hierarchies and agendas are not explicit to the eventual detriment of 
the campaign. This is why Nottingham AF members always identify themselves as such in 
meetings and always aim to foster maximum and equal involvement in the decision-making as 
well as legwork in campaigns we support. In addition the hypocrisy of any Labour Party 
pretence of opposing the effects of welfare reform as a counter to the ?Tories? must be 
exposed at every turn, especially considering the Party?s deep involvement in the ongoing 
drive to ?claims management? where allowances have become heavily-tested benefits and the 
idea of a ?social wage? has been eroded to almost nothing since the 1970s.

Self-organisation has to be the way forwards! We hope that these and other seeds of 
fightback will result in a vibrant culture of solidarity that is able to resist the wider 
attacks on welfare, something which could also be generalised to a renewed wider mass 
struggle against austerity.