Dear Friends and Comrades
I write, at this critical time, to urge you to:
- become an individual member of Coalition of Resistance (CoR) and affiliate your organisation to CoR ; and/or
- make a regular donation of £2 a month (more if you can) by Standing Order;
- Download a standing order form here…
Tony Benn, President of Coalition of Resistance
You can also register for our mailing list http://eepurl.com/PHID, visit ourwebsite and join our Facebook group.
The Coalition of Resistance (COR) emerged from an appeal I made in August 2010, for a broad movement against the ConDem government’s malicious attempts to dismantle the welfare state.
The first Coalition of Resistance Conference of over 1,200 people was held on 27 November 2010. In recognition of the international nature of the crisis, we also hosted a European-wide Conference Against Austerity of over 600 was held on 1 October 2011.
Our aims are detailed on this page, but basically we are seeking to develop and sustain an umbrella organisation to bring together the local and national campaigns to defend the education, NHS, pensions, housing and the Welfare State.
We have seen many demonstrations, including three magnificent student demonstrations, culminating in a TUC march of half-a-million on 26 March 2011. We are also witnessing an unprecedented outbreak of occupations across the globe.
A new phase began with the co-ordinated pensions strike by UCU, NUT, PCS and ATL on 30 June. With 3 million workers being balloted, we are now heading for the biggest nationally co-ordinated strike since the 1926 General Strike on 30 November. Whilst the formal dispute is over public sector pensions, it is clear that November 30th also represents a fundamental challenge to this relatively unstable ConDem Government.
Our immediate task is to turn the 30 November Pension strike into a Festival of Resistance against cuts and privatisation and in defence of the Welfare State. Everyone can be involved in this, seehttp://www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk/2011/10/make-n30-a-festival-of-resistance-to-cuts.
We will need to be ready to sustain the fight beyond that date – for example to organise a common day of protest across Europe. To do this we need to consolidate the affiliations and increase funds for the Coalition of Resistance.
Yours in comradeship
Tony Benn
President of the Coalition of Resistance
