It was with much sadness that the recent meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) all-Britain steering committee learnt of the passing of Don Thomas, a Southampton councillor from 2007 to 2019. Don had sat on the TUSC steering committee from 2013-2014 and his record of defiant opposition to Labour local austerity, alongside his comrade and fellow Coxford ward councillor Keith Morrell, still stands as an important reference point for today’s struggles.

Don (in 2007) and Keith (in 2010) were originally elected as Labour councillors, in a period when Southampton council had a Tory administration, and were part of the Labour Group that took majority control of Southampton council at the May 2012 local elections held under the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. But very soon they came up against the new Labour council leadership who were not prepared to lead a struggle against the Con-Dems’ austerity agenda. The Labour council’s own local austerity measures included a proposal to close the Oaklands swimming pool in Keith and Don’s Coxford ward.

Keith and Don resisted this and the other attacks on council services being made by the Labour group and by autumn 2012 they were sitting in the council as an independent Councillors Against the Cuts group, discussing with TUSC what to do next. Around this time they even addressed a meeting of the RMT transport workers’ national executive committee at the invitation of the then general secretary, Bob Crow, who had strongly supported the RMT conference decision that year for the union to join the TUSC steering committee and was looking for examples of how the working class could fightback on all fronts, industrially and politically.

And so, as explained in the TUSC Preparing A No Cuts People’s Budget briefing document, Keith and Don presented a ‘no cuts’ amendment for Southampton’s 2013 budget-making meeting. Their proposals met the legal requirements of a ‘balanced budget’ – it was not a ‘deficit budget’. But the Mayor made a chair’s ruling, backed by the Labour Group, that the amendment would not be debated, so afraid were they of just two ‘rebel councillors’ pointing a way forward.

Keith and Don, however, were not to be silenced; in the community – both were subsequently re-elected as Coxford councillors in, respectively, 2014 and 2015 – or in the council chamber. The TUSC pamphlet reprints Keith’s speech at the 2013 budget meeting and below we publish what Don said on that occasion too.

As Don Thomas and his record of consistent defence of working-class interests showed, councillors have a choice. There are alternatives to implementing austerity in the town hall. But still today as then the capitalist establishment party councillors choose not to take them. The fight for a workers’ political voice, pioneered by unsung representatives of our class like Don, goes on. ■

Speech to the Southampton council budget-making meeting by Councillor Don Thomas, 13th February 2013

“Politically the last period has been a painful time for both of us, and never would we have believed that we would be where we are, here today”.

“It was not that long ago we both were on the campaign trail with our fellow – at that time – Labour councillors fighting against cuts to jobs and services”.

“Locally in Coxford we told residents time and time again that a Conservative council administration if re-elected would be devastating locally”.

“We said the Tories would never ever want to re-open Oaklands swimming pool, and eventually they would want to go further and close down children’s homes such as ‘Our House’ in Lordswood. I remember saying at the time the Tories would want to take funding away from youth services, explaining on the door-step the impact that would have on all our young people”.

“So how ironic after winning these arguments and the campaign, the new Labour administration’s very first act within weeks was to take away funding forcing Oaklands swimming pool not to re-open. How do you think that made the three Coxford Labour councillors feel, let alone the users and the staff? All three of us – Sally Spicer, Keith and I – promised we wouldn’t do that”…

“Labour won a landslide last May and I played my part in that victory, with promises which I believed at the time were truthful, honest, and sincere”.

“We were going to prevent the dismantling of local government. We were going to stop cuts being directed at the most vulnerable in society. The poor, the disabled, the young and old, could depend on us. Vital public services were going to be safe in our hands”.

“I’m sorry to say none of those things are being delivered and I get no pleasure in saying it was dishonest. The reality is that we and some others in the Labour Group at that time were taken in, we never saw it coming, and that is the truth”…

“The argument from the Labour Group leadership that the government are forcing you into making these cuts and the council cabinet have no choice is just a false one. We are not puppets of the government”.

“Saying we have no alternative than to carry out the government cuts is a crazy argument; if that’s the case why should residents ever go out and vote in local elections in the first place? What difference can a choice of political candidates make if that is really the case?”

“But we all know that’s not the case. We are politicians – we put ourselves forward because we believe we can make better choices, certainly better choices than our opponents”.

“History is peppered with government U-turns and with a well-organised local authority campaign it would be more than possible to force another one”.

“We have the money in society; it is just in the wrong hands. A 50% tax on banker’s bonuses would give us £3.5bn; dealing with tax evasion would raise anything from £35bn to £70bn; reversing the cuts to corporation tax, there’s another £4.5bn; let’s stop subsidising reliefs on incomes over £100,000, another £14.9bn; a tax on empty properties, another £5.5bn; and of course £76bn could come our way over the next 40 years by cancelling Trident”.

“The truth is that the £1.2 billion cut in grant funding to local councils was never necessary and funding should be increased in these times not decreased. Cuts are making matters worse not better, and I call on councillors to stand up and refuse to implement them”.