Southampton: Give youth a future!

Southampton Youth Fight for Jobs

Save Southampton City Youth Services held a lively protest outside the civic centre supported by anti-cuts councillors Keith Morrell and Don Thomas, photo Socialist Party (Click to enlarge)

Opposition is growing to the destruction of youth services in Southampton. If the cuts go ahead the council will provide nothing.

Youth workers, young people and parents know what a serious impact this will have, especially for deprived areas of the city where there will be nothing to do and nowhere to go.

Led by a group of determined youth workers and Unison members, the launch of Save Southampton City Youth Services, organised a demonstration outside a recent council meeting attracting over 70 young people, workers and supporters.

Anti-cuts councillors Keith Morrell and Don Thomas came and joined us in solidarity. People came from all over the city including the Newtown centre and the Zoe Braithwaite centre.

Overwhelming response

Save Southampton City Youth Services held a lively protest outside the civic centre supported by anti-cuts councillors Keith Morrell and Don Thomas, photo Socialist Party (Click to enlarge)

In recent weeks there have been regular campaign stalls in the city centre where the response has been overwhelming.

The council is undertaking a consultation process at the moment but refused the campaign an opportunity to speak at the council meeting.

Undeterred, campaigners took to the public gallery and made an appeal to councillors not to vote for cuts. A chant of "No Youth Cuts!" broke out as the campaign marched out.

We will be returning to the council on Tuesday 29 January at 4pm to show a film made by the campaign and explain to the councillors what the impact of the cuts will mean.

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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

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