Trade unions and campaigns focused on housing, welfare, and health rights are uniting for a mass demonstration against a new wave of austerity in Britain, set for June 7. Under the umbrella of the People’s Assembly, the groups will march to demand that the Labour government fund public services, prioritize workers over big business, and stop targeting disabled people. Their announcement comes shortly after the Labour Party suffered significant losses to the far right in local elections, leaving party leaders scrambling to regain support.
“Attacking those with the least is easy,” the People’s Assembly stated, referring to Labour’s decisions to cut winter fuel support for the elderly, maintain the two-child cap, and reduce assistance for people with disabilities. “Real tough choices would be for a Labour government to tax the rich and their hidden wealth, to fund public services, fair pay, investment in communities and the National Health Service (NHS).”
Yet Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his allies appear unresponsive to concerns from the base. “It’s surprising to me that although the big issues in the council elections and by-elections last week were winter fuel tax cuts and Personal Independence Payment cuts, Starmer has chosen to talk about immigration in Enoch Powell-terms,” MP Diane Abbott stated during the presentation of the June 7 plans.
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Starmer recently suggested that immigration to the UK needed to be controlled to avoid social breakdown. Anti-racism activists quickly condemned his remarks as pandering to Nigel Farage and others on the far right, warning that such rhetoric legitimizes hate-driven narratives. Criticism also came from within Labour, with MP Richard Burgon writing: “Migrants didn’t cause the housing crisis. Migrants didn’t cause the NHS crisis. Migrants didn’t drive up poverty levels. Years of austerity did that.”
Groups campaigning for a stronger public sector warned that scapegoating migrants would only accelerate the erosion of essential services. The Keep Our NHS Public campaign called the government’s plan to limit the number of migrant health workers absurd. “Paired with even more cuts to NHS budgets and the growing involvement of the private sector in healthcare, this also paints a worrying picture for the future of the NHS,” the campaign said.
Trade unionists representing workers affected by austerity have also backed plans for a national demonstration. Onay Kasab from Unite the Union, who is supporting striking refuse workers in Birmingham, warned that years of budget cuts have devastated local services, and further austerity would push workers past breaking point. “When we’re talking about local government we are no longer talking about defending local services,” Kasab stated. “We’re talking about rebuilding them all over again, because some of them have been completely and utterly destroyed.”
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Campaigners argue that if Starmer’s Labour government proceeds with austerity 2.0, it will only strengthen the far right. To prevent this, a decisive policy reversal is necessary. “The problem is that Starmer – and the people who manage Starmer – what they know how to do is smash the left of the Labour Party – but they hadn’t really thought through running the country,” Abbott said.
