1. Fighting the transport cuts
Boris Johnson, a former mayor of London no less, is overseeing cuts and a major power-grab on London government that raise big political questions for devolved politics in the capital.
London faces the most serious attack on devolution in London since the abolition of the Greater London Council and it needs the full weight of public opinion to fight it.
Strikes this week on the London Underground – including over the threat to six hundred posts on the Tube - have brought home once again that funding decisions imposed from central government have real consequences for Tube users and workers in London.
They came in the same week that the RMT union confirmed strike dates for action at a national level over cuts to pay and jobs. The Tories are severely mismanaging essential transport infrastructure. The TSSA union warns of “devastating consequences” from job cuts on the railways. Aslef has just announced strike action over pay by drivers at Greater Anglia trains, Hull Trains and on Croydon Tramlink. TSSA today served notice to ballot hundreds more staff for strike action and action short of strike. Members at train operators Cross Country, East Midlands Railway and West Midlands Trains will be balloted for action in a dispute over pay, conditions and job security.
In London, part of the backdrop to TfL’s woes is that fare revenues collapsed in the pandemic: the government took the opportunity of that funding shortfall to attach punitive conditions to its bailout of London’s transport system. Those conditions – including fare rises and reduced services – mean that while Londoners did not create the pandemic, its transport users have been made to pay for it. Transport for London has talked of ‘managed decline’ of transport services. The whole package is not only one of cuts but also of centralisation, in which government at a national level imposes conditions that override the elected leadership of London.
Trade union members on the underground argue that it is impossible to lose six hundred jobs without a negative impact on the remaining staff or the travelling public. The dispute extends into pensions and staffing levels. RMT has now confirmed its next strike date for 21 June, coinciding with the first of three days when the union’s members will take part in a national rail strike.
At the same time as the Tube faces this round of job cuts, TfL is currently consulting on more cuts to the bus network, affecting around sixteen routes - including to high-profile examples such as London’s oldest unchanged bus route, the number 24. A purge of bus services has led to widespread dismay and local campaigns in opposition. From the point of view of busworkers, Unite’s General Secretary, Sharon Graham, has responded to say that “we will defend our members to the hilt from any attempts to make them pay for this crisis with pay cuts and job losses. Why should TfL workers pay for a crisis which is not of their making.”
London’s transport system is living through the consequences of these existing battles whilst confronting a fast-approaching new deadline. The next funding deal between government and London is needed by 24 June.
When a city is under attack in this way, it is not possible to deal with each individual case on its merits alone. They need to be pulled together into a campaigning force that builds the biggest possible alliance against the Tory government. Otherwise different groups end up facing against each rather than their common opponent – the Conservatives. So far no such co-ordinated movement exists.
Sadiq Khan has sought to reduce the impact of the Tories’ approach. It is not what a Labour mayor of the city wants.
By imposing austerity measures on London’s transport services and insisting on unpalatable conditions in return for funding, Johnson’s strategy is to divide people and to turn opinion against London’s elected government.
As an example of how this can unfold, in this clip Transport for London’s chief operating officer may leave the listener with the impression that the reduction in staffing numbers on the underground has been minimised and can be absorbed with no impact.
But that leaves the large numbers of people who are opposed to the cuts – let alone the workforce themselves – with no voice. There has to be a space both to express and direct legitimate concerns of the workforce and the widespread public anger about what the Tories are doing but also to deploy that back against the government to make cuts harder.
Although one transport boss told BBC London’s transport correspondent Tom Edwards “it's all getting very political and we are stuck in the middle,” the attack on London’s transport is highly political. Since London is being treated as a guinea pig for a Tory attack on its funding levels and its basic right to make decisions on its own terms, so it follows that London requires a political movement that faces outwards to the public and pulls together everyone affected – from passengers to workers - with the objective of exerting huge pressure on the government to back off. People are being punished through the fare box; through their service levels; through threats to pensions and jobs. The great bulk of opinion in London that opposes this punishment deserves to be organised, mobilised and directed.
The natural focal point to organise that opinion is the mayoralty.
Some may argued that organising a huge civil society campaign against the transport cuts would provoke the Tories into punishing London even more. But the mayoralty would go into negotiations fortified, not weakened, if the government saw that massive public opposition was organised. Assembling a bigger coalition to put pressure on Johnson’s government would strengthen London’s hand.
And the political terrain is currently difficult for the government. Living standards across the country are being hit hard. Many millions of people are seeing their real incomes drop. Boris Johnson’s response is to warn of a wage-price spiral – in other words to discourage pay rises.
Many public services face cuts, including thousands of civil servants. Boris Johnson has been severely – probably fatally - weakened and his Chancellor is no longer an asset. The fight around the transport funding cuts imposed on London is part of this bigger picture.
London is often cited, rightly, as the transport model that other cities and regions strive for – in turn a bigger movement to fight to protect its services from the Tories has the potential to draw a major dividing line with the government.