THE People’s Assembly was launched in June 2013 with “a call to all those millions of people in Britain who face impoverishment and uncertainty as their wages, jobs, conditions and welfare provisions are under renewed attack by the government.”

Since then it has helped to electrify and unify the movement against austerity, creating a genuinely national organisation.

It has steadily grown over the months, and in June 2014 over 50,000 people joined the People’s Assembly national demonstration in London, with speakers ranging from comedian Russell Brand to union general secretaries Matt Wrack and Len McCluskey, to Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott.

In June this year, after the election, it will again show the way with a national demonstration and festival in north London calling for an end to austerity and policies to put people first.

But it is not just in these kind of national mobilisations and initiatives that the People’s Assembly movement has been successful.

A further key part of the People’s Assembly’s work has been a series of local initiatives, demonstrations, other campaign actions and meetings, with tens of thousands of new people hearing speakers the need for co-ordinated national resistance to the government’s plans and, of course, the importance of building a national movement against austerity.

Across the country in recent months — from Newcastle to Manchester to numerous university campuses — People’s Question Times have taken place, engaging thousands of people across the country in not only discussion and debate about what the policy alternatives to austerity are, but also how we can unite and work together to break the cuts consensus.

For our own part in north London, we have held a variety of activities since our formation in the spring of 2013, including public rallies with high-profile speakers from across the anti-cuts movement and street stalls asking people to say what policies they would like to see in a people’s manifesto.

Our next event tomorrow includes:
n A People’s Question Time.
n Five workshops on alternatives to the cuts, from the need to stand up to racism to the economics of the alternative.
n A closing rally with major speakers on breaking the cuts consensus and building the national anti-austerity movement.
For this and our previous initiatives, we have seen an amazing range of people and campaigns come together from across different boroughs in north London and across political parties and sectors of society to come together to unite against austerity and demand progressive alternatives.
In a context where some 80 per cent of the austerity measures are still to come, we now need to continue to push the need to end the failed policies of austerity, and arguments for investment not cuts, to the top of the agenda.
Even without further cuts, we already have over one million foodbank visits a year and the harshest cuts to living standards on record.
And — from the crisis in our NHS, to the appalling levels of tax avoidance by corporations and the richest in society getting exposed more each day, to the seemingly ever-increasing levels of poverty and inequality — the failures of austerity are being more and more exposed.
The People’s Assembly Against Austerity has shown it is well placed to play a vital role in bringing together campaigns against cuts and privatisation with trade unionists in a movement for social justice.
If you’re not involved already, you could contact your local group and see how you can help bring together all those opposed to cuts in your area, and if you’re in London, why not join us this Saturday?

The North London People’s Assembly Against Austerity Alternatives to the Cuts event takes place tomorrow at 1.30pm at the Cypriot Community Centre, Wood Green, Earlham Grove, N22 5HJ.