More than two weeks after the general election, Theresa May has finally sewn up her dirty deal with the DUP. In a desperate bid to cling to power, she’s done a deal with a party well outside of the political mainstream. More than that, she’s stumbled and fumbled her way towards a deal, only securing it with a billion pound payment promised in a backroom deal.
Of course, at UNISON we’re always pleased to see investment in our underfunded public services. We hope that this money is spent on the jobs and wages of hard-pressed public servants who have been squeezed so hard in recent years. Yet after years of being told that there was no money to spend, that there was no alternative to austerity and that we needed to do more with less, suddenly there is more money available – just very specifically for Northern Ireland, and only as a result of a deal to keep the Tories in power.
Theresa May couldn’t find the money to save UNISON members jobs, but she found a billion pounds to save her own job – perhaps it feel from the magic money tree she’s always talking about.
It’s now time for the Prime Minister to stop playing games and admit the truth about austerity – that it was always a political decision not an economic necessity. After the battering her reputation has taken in recent weeks, the decent thing for her to do would be to resign – but in the absence of that, the very least she can do is commit her party to reversing the punishing cuts that have ravaged our communities.
Of course, she won’t do that – such a change of heart is not in the DNA of the Conservative Party.
That’s why it’s so important to be out on the streets, making our voices heard against this failed government and the failed ideology of austerity. This weekend I want to see UNISON members out in force on Saturday’s People’s Assembly demo, raising their voices and standing up for our public services. By standing together we can and will change our country.
And we can show the whole country that people are sick of this wretched government, and their hobbled Prime Minister.