COALITION OF RESISTANCE

What is the Coalition of Resistance and what does it do?
The Coalition of Resistance …
1. is a broad united national campaign against cuts and privatisation in our workplaces, community and welfare services, based on general agreement with the Founding Statement issued by Tony Benn in August 2010.
2. is linked to no particular political party, but committed to open working in a non-sectarian way with all organisations seeking to co-ordinate resistance; and is dedicated to supplementing, rather than supplanting, trade union, student, pensioner and community opposition to austerity measures.
3. is based on thousands of individual supporters, together with national unions, union branches, anti-cuts campaigns, student, pensioner, unemployed, youth and other organisations which affiliate.
4. seeks to provide a national umbrella for a network of local and sectoral campaigns; and aspires to support, encourage, coordinate, and facilitate a transfer of experience rather than to command.
5. invites affiliation from functioning local campaigns championing public services or fighting the cuts; encourages the establishment of new local campaigns where there are none; and offers local campaigns the opportunity to call themselves local Coalitions of Resistance if they wish.
6. organises newsletters, a website www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk , meetings, conferences, lobbies, rallies, marches, demonstrations and other events.
7. vehemently opposes all proposals to “solve” the crisis by discrimination or scapegoating on the grounds of disability, race, religion, ethnic origin, gender, age, sexual orientation or identity.
8. liaises closely with similar opposition movements in other countries and has issued a call for international resistance to austerity measures.
9. encourages a wide debate on how to protect the welfare state and develop an alternative programme for economic and social recovery in line with its founding statement.
10. is run by a steering committee meeting on a weekly basis and advised by periodic meetings of activist supporters of the founding statement until the Founding National Conference on 27th November 2010.

GPEX Campaigns Coordinator, Romayne Phoenix and Joseph Healy are on the steering committee.
I attended an anti-cuts meeting in Barnet on Thursday night. We were the only party with a stall there. Over 200 people attended. There was an even bigger meeting in Tower Hamlets a few night previously.