Anti-Poll Tax Campaign

Watch your local Council !
The Poll Tax (alleged Community Charge) has now been in operation for over six months in England and Wales (over eighteen months in Scotland) and has met a tremendous resistance from working people, with others such as pensioners and those on low incomes being involved. Considering the whole nature of the Poll Tax it was only to be expected. Organisations such as Anti-Poll Tax Unions have been set up to give advice and defend people before Courts, in attempts to slow up the process of people paying the Poll Tax. They are doing as well as can be expected in confronting the state, in this case also the state in its local form. These groups are disarmed precisely because they do not fully understand what they are taking on. They think they are just taking on the Government in Westminster, when they are having to deal with all of the state, from the top to the bottom including local councils, with detours through the Courts. These are all parts of the State.

The Poll Tax was brought in as an alternative tax to the old local Rates, which was a property based tax. Much debates in the political parties of the bourgeoisie had taken place around the local Rates, especially as increasing state expenditure had devolved down to the local Councils. As a portion of the local Council expenditure had to be raised locally (the rest comes from central Government), the old way was for a levy on the value of properties in the area concerned, known as the rateable value. The increasing unpopularity of the Rates led to it being scrapped and replaced by a flat-rate charge on every adult of 18 and over (whether they have a place to live in or net!). Of all possible alternatives, this particular one of a Poll Tax was specifically designed to throw the burden upon the working class. Workers tend to live in the smaller properties and had expected to pay less (as often they received less of the Council services anyway) than those on higher incomes in the better-off areas.

As an alternative local tax the Poll Tax was a deliberate attempt to turn the population in the larger cities against the Labour Party. Unable to enthuse the workers with a perspective of privatisation of services and other aspects of the market system, the Tories implemented a system which could not fail but to end with large taxes for working people, but with equal (as against graduated demands for people in the wealthier areas) bills for others. The clear intention was to try to turn the workers against “high spending Councils”. If people had demonstrated in a violent nature against the high costs of the taxes against Labour Councils, then this would have been “democracy in action”, but if they demonstrate against the Government and the new Law, then they are trouble-making rioters who should be thrown in gaol.

Certainly, the Government is the villain of the piece and chief culprit. But what of the local Councils, are they just unwilling victims dragged into the new tax system? Hardly. They are the ones who will implement the new tax system whether they like it or not. Irrespective of what the advocates of “local democracy” claim or not these local Councils have no power to act, or even to function, without the authority of Parliament. In their existing forms (leaving aside some very old Parish Councils) they exist only because of Acts of Parliament say that they should exist, and these Acts define their powers, if any, and what they can do and what they must do. Without going into the area of Administrative or Constitutional Law, the frame-work of the actions of the local and County Councils are laid down clearly, along with their ability to raise money, whether under the old Rates or under the new Poll Tax. The only issue is how much. Councils are required to carry out various functions, called statutory, although how much of it is provide is often left to themselves to decide. So it isn’t really “local democracy” which the various bourgeois parties go on about, even less the fabled accountability of the Tories, but what Central Government will let them get on with. Even with Councils on official collision courses with Central Government, much of the revenue which comes from the Government has all sorts of conditions attached so that the local Councils must jump through the required number of hoops to get it. Whitehall and the Civil Service have a great deal of expertise in ensuring that local Councils conform to the needs of the higher state bodies, and have powers aplenty in reserve to compel local bodies to do their bidding.

These points above may or may not be clear to many, but what is also important to be pointed out is that the Councils are employers and landlords to many and this should be taken into account. It is easy to rush off and “defend democracy”, but what about when these same Councils are precisely the ones likely to turn on their employees and tenants. Which Labour Council hasn’t at some time or other, whether Right-wing, soft-Left or hard-Left, moved to “sort out” some department, victimising workers and worsening conditions at work, raising rents (or if not letting the houses people live in fall further into disrepair). These Councillors may bleat “what else can we do”, but then nobody asked them to stand for election in the first place. They don’t have to be the persons carrying out these actions. Balancing the books, industrial and estate management are carried out just as if they were private capitalist concerns (whether they make profits or not, in fact they do make profits but they go to the banks in the form of interest). Socialism is defined by the defenders of local democracy as being “Jobs and Services” and providing these are maintained then everything is okay. To them its doesn’t matter that Council employees are there to be exploited and ordered about, or the services are provided without understanding what people actually need, then these local democracy advocate have a very peculiar notion of what Socialism should be.

The Poll Tax levels are set (within reason) by the Council concerned, but the rebates allowed against it are not. These the Government set as part of the Social Security system. To get up to 80% rebate off the Poll Tax (the Government insists that people must pay something even if they have no income at all – never mind anywhere to live) then the people concerned will be on the same level as Income Support, the amount the state would expect those without work – and wages – to live on. So those who qualify for rebates, the Government’s “generous” assistance must end up on the same level as the unemployed – no wonder many pensioners and others on fixed incomes are out-raged by this new tax. It means every adult must pay, which in the case of married couples, both must be reduced to the same low benefit rate in order to qualify for anything. Dependants and others living in house-holds are expected to pay, but what has been happening is that people are now “disappearing” out of the system. They are also not appearing on the electoral register, because Councils will use them to compile the Poll Tax lists. To declare for the “privilege” of voting can be very expensive. Perhaps those who run the 3D Campaign, Don’t Pay, Don’t Collect, Don’t Implement the Poll Tax, will add Don’t draw up Electoral Registers, but then again that would be a flagrant attack on Holy Democracy wouldn’t it!

It is the local Councils which are beginning to take people to Court for not paying their Poll Tax. The Law does not give any defence against non-payment, and it will be the Councils which will rigorously take Court action. Councils such as Grampian in Scotland have taken the most strenuous action against the local population possible in collecting the Poll Tax. In Oldham the Labour Council has started to presume people live at various addresses whether registered on not, single women being billed for male partners not there, no doubt on the basis that they are hiding away somewhere. In the case of Liverpool, unable to process the Poll Tax arrears through the Courts as yet, are intensifying their campaign to collect in arrears of Rates and alleged over-payment of Housing Benefits, etc. Nobody in the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign has complained about this as no doubt they consider the old Rates as being “fair”. Workers will continue being picked up by police to be held over-night in order to face a Court over non-payment of Rates, but without picket-lines of the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign. After all this has been happening under Labour Councils as much as under those of other parties.

By just condemning the Poll Tax as not “fair” disarms people about the nature of taxes. Taxes are to pay for the state expenses. For us the state is a bourgeois one, so make the bourgeoisie pay for it. However, there are no simple solutions to these questions, least of all whether any of the taxes are “fair” or not.

In confronting the offensive of the (local) state against the working class to implement the Poll Tax, we issue the following watchword: Watch your local Council !