Mancunians who are more reluctant to welcome the Tories to the city centre than the council may well be interested in what they’ve been getting up to since they swarmed out of Piccadilly on Sunday. From the looks of it, they’re hardly likely to have endeared themselves to anyone.
Around 30,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Manchester today to protest against the Conservative Party Conference. The demonstration, named ‘Manchester for the Alternative’, was organised by the Trades Union Congress and the Right to Work campaign and drew in unionists and anti-cuts protestors from around the UK, with some coming from as far away as the West Country and Wales.
The start of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester this weekend will be marked by large-scale demonstrations against the coalition government’s programme of public spending cuts.
Asylum seekers and human rights activists have submitted a formal letter laying out their concerns over the handling of the collapse of the UK’s largest charitable provider of immigration legal aid. The statement was presented last Thursday, 60 years to the day since the United Nations approved the status of refugees in international law.
Last week the Immigration Advisory Service went into administration, leaving thousands without representation. Its fall comes only one year on from the bankruptcy of Refugee and Migrant Justice, itself one of the largest providers of legal advice, adding to widespread fears of mounting damage to publicly funded justice.
Thousands marched through the streets of Manchester today in support of public sector strikes called against proposed pension reforms and in opposition to the government’s austerity drive. Trade unionists in the city took part in industrial action involving hundreds of thousands of workers nationwide.
As trade unions ballot their members across the country for authorisation to call a day of coordinated strike action on June 30, unionists in Manchester are urging the public to turn out and support them.
