The Liverpool members of the Industrial Workers of the World union would like to extend our solidarity to the Love Activists, who are currently occupying the former Bank of England site on Castle Street. By providing free food and shelter to some of the city’s growing numbers of homeless people, they have highlighted an aching social need for free access to basic services. By inviting Labour Mayor Joe Anderson to talks – a plea he has refused to acknowledge in person – they have demonstrated the fact that the capitalist class holds the the working class in total contempt.
And the people of Liverpool – a city with a great history of class struggle and class conciousness – support them. Despite the Labour-friendly Liverpool Echo and other media moaning about some imagined affect on local business and alleged damage to the building, 52.5% of respondents to an Echo poll voted that the Love Activists “should stand firm” and continue occupying the building! This even after the ruling class court decided that possession of the building should be given to bloodsucking property dealers!
So Liverpool IWW wholeheartedly supports the occupation, and calls on the working class people of Liverpool – the huge majority, to expand this challenge to capitalist business as usual. We must defend the occupation. And following the elections, whichever pro-capitalist parties hold the balance of power, we must build on these small but significant signs of resistance, and create a new working class movement to defend, and then advance, our collective interests.