On 3 July, Nottingham RCG and FRFI supporters joined a march for the NHS called by the Nottingham University Hospitals branch of Unison. Around 100 people attended. The demo was part of a national day of action in defence of NHS pay and opposing privatisation. In Nottingham alone, five GP surgeries have recently been gutted and turned over to Operose health, a subsidiary of the US owned Centene, a megacorporation making billions off health care while inflating costs and driving down standards.
The RCG was first asked to support the demonstration on 22 May, by a Unison officer who was one of the principle organisers for the protest. We agreed and mobilised, and in the lead up to the demonstration we were in touch with the Unison organisers who promised we could have a speaker as part of an open mic at the start. On the day they backtracked on this, citing pressure from unnamed sectarians who were apparently determined to prevent the RCG from speaking. Bizarrely, while the RCG was excluded a conspiracy theorist was allowed to use the Unison platform to scaremonger against vaccines. Refusing to be silenced, we used our own sound system, once the Unison platform had finished, to give a speech to the demonstration about socialist Cuba’s shining example in providing healthcare, both domestically and internationally, with five state-organised Covid vaccines going through trials. This, in stark contrast to the collaborationist role of the Labour Party in selling off state-owned healthcare in Britain and supporting the Conservative government’s disastrous Covid strategy.
After marching a short distance to a park, the march gathered to listen to speeches in a platform dominated by local Labour MPs. Labour in Nottingham have shown their true colours towards privatisation of health services many times, as evidenced most recently by the Labour-run city council’s decision to close the John Carrol leisure centre, a vital resource for the health of the local community in Radford. Nottingham’s Labour MPs have achieved nothing in their so called “fighting” for the NHS and against austerity.
Nottingham RCG stands firmly against the plunder of the NHS by private multinationals. We uphold socialist Cuba as a revolutionary example for how healthcare should be managed and understand that only a socialist system can put people before profit. We understand that Cuba’s revolutionary achievements are only possible because of the mass democracy present on the island and understand that we in Britain must too put democracy at the heart of every movement. If you wish to fight privatisation and understand the need for a socialist health care system, then join us!
