Zack Polanski Photo: Rob Browne/CC

Archie Betts, Liverpool Socialist Students

Zack Polanski addressed a meeting at the student fringe of the World Transformed event at Manchester Students Union on 11 October.

Manchester Socialist Students member, Robbie Davidson was able to ask a question in the discussion:

“Hi, I’m Robbie from Socialist Students. We welcome many of the things you’ve said Zack. But the Green Party has over 800 councillors across the country. Unfortunately, where the Greens have control of the councils, like in Bristol, they’ve carried out £50 million worth of cuts whilst simultaneously adding £60 million to the council reserves.

“The Green Party has the opportunity to implement a no-cuts budget in Bristol, by using those reserves, alongside the council’s borrowing powers, to fight austerity, not in words, but in action. Building council houses, funding local services, then fighting central government to restore the money. This approach of setting legally balanced no-cuts budgets is in line with the official policies of the local authority trade unions: GMB, Unite and Unison.

“Zack, will you instruct your over 800 councillors across the country, to fight for these no-cuts budgets?”

Polanski’s response: “If councils do no-cuts budgets, lets talk about Bristol in particular, what happens is, they effectively down tools, and then the government comes in and then do all the cuts anyway.

“And the councillors actually have nothing to do about it, and it can be even worse than actually making the cuts in the first place.”

Ultimately, Polanski’s response of hiding behind the threat of government commissioners, is an excuse not to fight back. Why should democratically elected councillors follow orders from unelected commissioners anyway?

Councils defying government austerity, funding services and building council homes, would be hugely popular. That would make it very difficult for the government to get away with taking over the council and ‘doing the cuts anyway’.

Bristol’s Green leader of the council told the BBC last year that “the reality is we have to work within the constraints that are placed upon us.” Why accept the ‘constraints’ of a capitalist system that forces the working class to pay? The Greens’ inability or refusal to fight for an alternative to capitalism will lead to them holding back working-class struggle.

Socialist Students members prepared for the meeting by drawing up a model question that we shared among those of us in attendance to increase the chances of it being asked. This ended up being the correct tactic as, of the six questions asked, only three were taken from the floor. The other three were prepared questions from the chair of the meeting.