An Anti-Austerity Alliance?

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood told BBC Breakfast (April 7th) that she now spoke fairly regularly to the Scottish first minister
'It's about politics and policies,' Ms Wood told the programme. She added that if the smaller parties hold the balance of power, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens would work to -
'Present the alternative to austerity regardless as to who are the key people involved'. (Ms Wood was responding to an earlier barbed BBC question - aimed at Nicola Sturgeon -  about which Prime Minister the two leaders would prefer.)

The SNP have set a new agenda for the coming UK General Election. Unsurprisingly perhaps many English people who watched the April 3rd 7 party debate on television tweeted, messaged and phoned in to the relevant TV channels asking if they could vote SNP! It is undoubtedly a breakthrough in British mainstream politics that a group of serious and popular albeit smaller political parties are presenting an alternative to austerity, whatever the different guises for it that have been adopted by Westminster's 3 main traditional parties.

Some left groups, Left Unity, the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) and others have put up candidates who oppose austerity. There are also others, like the National Health Action Party, who are standing candidates to challenge the results of austerity politics in specific fields. (The NHS Action Party is standing in 13 seats including Cameron's constituency and Health Minister Hunt's constituency in Surrey - where successful Lewisham Hospital campaigner, Louise Irvine, is the NHS Action Party's candidate.) Candidates, however well meaning, but who are unknown quantities, are unlikely to retain their deposits. Most will be lucky to garner more than 200 votes. Up to now the Labour Party had only 5 MPs prepared to vote down the Coalition motion on the need to cut £30 billion in the first two years of the next parliament. This whole dismal scene has now been substantially altered by the initiative of the SNP.

The disproportion between the vast numbers of Britons who oppose austerity on the one hand and on the other, the tiny potential political representation of the anti-austerity cause in Westminster, remains cavernous. Nevertheless the political crisis in Britain has at least opened out the opportunity for a stronger radical voice in Parliament post May 7. The absolutely critical social question of course remains the need for a tremendous mass movement to join and to force the battle. The Peoples Assembly with its social and trade union alliances remains the decisive actor in that case. The National Anti-Austerity demonstration on Saturday 21 June will begin the mobilisation of the common people against any Westminster attempt to carry on cutting. Within that social context, a sharp political fight, provoked by the new anti-austerity MPs, will inevitably start inside Labour. At the moment it looks like Parliament will need to win its majorities issue by issue. A mass movement will have a big say in those circumstances. As will the growing handful of anti-austerity MPs.

Hold onto your hats. It will be a bumpy ride in these first big movements that the Westminster Parties and Parliament are forced to make in order to look as though they are aligning themselves more accurately with the people they pretend to represent.