EVEN before George Osborne’s ideologically driven deep cuts in the latest “emergency” Budget, the effects of austerity in Britain have been devastating to our communities.

Over the past five years we have seen foodbank visits reach over a million a year, while changing the legal definition of child poverty doesn’t change the lives of the 3.5 million children who live in poverty. Now, further benefit cuts are to be inflicted with deeper and deeper malice.

Meanwhile, the Local Government Association says that councils are at breaking point, we have seen the ongoing privatisation of our NHS and the government seems determined to end social housing as we know it. Only the very wealthiest will go untouched — indeed, through skewing the tax system further in their favour they will gain.

This is just to skim the surface of the impact of Cameron, Osborne et al so far. And yet after being elected by just one in four voters they are committed to the deepest round of cuts so far. They do this in a political debate that has become increasingly poisoned, as hostility is whipped up against benefit claimants, including disabled people who are being hit the hardest by cuts. Additionally, racism is on the increase, with seemingly no mainstream political party prepared to defend the benefits of immigration to our society and economy.

But there is also growing opposition to the cuts agenda. On June 20, myself and Jeremy Corbyn joined 250,000 people who marched through central London calling for an end to austerity.

But just as our strength is growing as a movement against austerity, as part of the wide-ranging “austerity offensive” there is also an attempt to limit people’s ability to organise and mobilise.

Before the general election, when the People’s Assembly Against Austerity demonstration was first discussed the Metropolitan Police raised the prospect of charging for peaceful demonstrations. It is a measure that would have, with one fail swoop, stopped all but the richest of organisations being able to undertake an internationally recognised democratic and human right — the right to protest. It did not succeed. But earlier on the Con-Dem government did introduce the Gagging Act in what groups such as Friends of the Earth saw as an attempt to restrict the work of those organisations legitimately campaigning against damaging government policies.

Like the cuts, broader assaults on our rights and civil liberties are also accelerating under the Tory-only government. After the election they were quick off the mark with the announcement that they wished to repeal the Human Rights Act. While the immediate backlash meant this is no longer a short-term goal, we should not be complacent that it will not return as a proposal.

Meanwhile, the Extremism Bill, introduced under the guise of preventing terrorism, would in fact, if passed, introduce into our legal system prosecutions not for actions but for thoughts. And while the emotive language of terrorism is used, it leaves the definition of “extremism” broad, raising the spectre of legal measures being brought to bear against any who stand outside of the dominant political narrative.

It sits alongside the Prevent strategy, which National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower has expressed grave concerns about, saying: “In many schools, Prevent is causing significant nervousness and confusion among teachers” and that “if pupil wellbeing and safety is the aim, the Prevent strategy is felt by many teachers to be counterproductive and wide of the mark.” As she rightly says: “It risks closing down the very opportunities where the classroom can be used to develop democracy and explore human rights.”

Finally, as part of a raft of policies that seemingly restrict the rights of broader and broader section of society that are leading opposition to the government’s unpopular agenda, there is this week’s Trade Union Bill.

When discussing these latest attacks, we should also remember the context. Following the Thatcher government’s anti-union laws and Labour’s shameful failure to repeal them during the New Labour years, Britain already has some of the most restrictive trade union rights and weakened employment rights in Europe. Indeed, we are in breach of several of our international obligations on the right to strike, which are set out in International Labour Organisation conventions.

Now, further restrictions on the right to strike are proposed. This proposed legislation makes strikes unlawful unless 50 per cent of those entitled to vote take part in a ballot, with a threshold of 40 per cent support of everyone eligible to vote needed in public services.

Frances O’Grady has said this would make striking near impossible and that other elements of the proposals may criminalise picket lines, while Unison general secretary Dave Prentis has rightly said that “if the government is going to take away people’s right to organise and protest, it is a civil liberties issue.”

Furthermore, the Tories have even announced new plans, which were not discussed in the run-up to the election, to change the way trade unions conduct their political levy ballots — so that members have to actively opt-in to contribute rather than a proportion of their subscription being automatically allocated to this fund. 

As Ian Lavery of the Trade Union Group of MPs has put it: “This is yet another direct attempt to silence the political voices of working people who already feel increasingly removed from those in the political arena who respond to greater inequality in our country by giving millionaires a tax cut while increasing numbers are forced to rely on foodbanks simply to make ends meet.”

If we’re going to defend our communities, Labour in London and nationally must not only stand by the trade unions against these attacks, but oppose the ever-increasing list of assaults on our civil liberties and human rights, alongside putting firm opposition to austerity at the heart of our  message.

• Diane Abbott is MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and is running to be Labour’s candidate for Mayor of London. For more information or to sign up see www.diane4london.co.uk.
  - For more information and to get involved in campaigning on the different issues raised in this article, please visit the websites of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom and Liberty.