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The battle for amnesty Louise James looks at the tasks facing the anti-poll tax movement now.
IS THE ANTI-POLL TAX campaign over? Following the abolition announcement in March, Ken Livingstone and most other left Labour MPs paid up their arrears. The Scottish National Party (SNP), at a special conference in March, voted to end support for non-payment. Jim Sillars, SNP MP for Govan, argued that "the major trouble with some people... is they don't know a victory when it's staring them in the face." (Scotland on Sunday, 24 March 1991) Now, according to the Municipal Journal, only five MPs are still not paying. (The Times, 19 July 1991) But before declaring victory and leaving the battlefield, there has to be an assessment of how far the aims of the struggle have been met and what remaining tasks there may be. The Tories have been forced into an unprecedented series of retreats over the poll tax, the most spectacular being those since the removal of Thatcher. The £4.3 billion conced ed to reduce poll tax bills by £140 - with the $1.3 billion community charge reduction scheme - were last ditch-attempts to keep the 'everybody pays' element of the poll tax. Yet one month later the government were forced into a further retreat and these 'principles' abandoned.
PAY NO POLL TAX True, the decision not to introduce the council tax immediately has left the option open for the Tories to launch a new offensive at a later stage. In reality, they have deferred the question of how local authorities will be financed - ie how to attack local government - until after a general election. Meanwhile, new bills have been sent out and the government has made it clear to councils that enforcement procedures must continue against non-payers. The jailing of Terry Fields. pay off their arrears, has highlighted that this battle must still be fought. The task of the campaign to defend non-payers remains. Nonetheless, the effect of abolition has been to defuse the issue of the poll tax. There is a general feeling that the battle is over. This is reflected in the general winding down of the structures of the campaign. Estate-based anti-poll tax unions have tended to fold, with the remaining activists grouping themselves together in borough or city-wide structures. The issuing of new bills was not greeted in the same way as last year when local anti-poll tax groups organised bill-burnings and public meetings to launch a mass non-payment cam.
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140 MIR Summer Poll tax
What does
say now?
paign. The lobbies outside the town halls when the poll tax levels were set were smaller. The activities of the local anti-poll tax campaigns now largely concentrate on defending nonpayers. The campaign has shifted from organising activity around the demand, 'Scrap the Poll Tax', to a defensive campaign for an amnesty.
Does abolition and this shift in the campaign mean that mass non-payment as a tactic is no longer effective?
Not at all. Underlying the campaigning activity that will be needed to paralyse the enforcement procedures - which would be a de facto amnesty - must be continued mass nonpayment of last year's and this year's bills. It has been the combination of an organised campaign and the sheer scale of non-payment that has created the enormous problems councils face in carrying out enforcement procedures.
According to the Audit Commission, reported in The Guardian on 30 May, 2.2 million people had been summonsed to court. Around 100,000 of these have turned up to contest their case They estimate that a total 7 million people will be summonsed for non-payment of 1990 bills. If people continue to turn up at the same rate it would mean a further 200,000 people contesting their cases! The time taken to deal with liability orders has already impinged on the court time allocated to councils to deal with committal hearings for non-payment. The As sociation of Metropolitan Authorities (AMA) have reported that court actions leading to imprisonment take a lot of time and, as courts were clogged, councils were finding that they were unable to get magistrates to issue committal summonses against people for last year's poll tax. Continued non-payment of the new bills would make the councils job even harder.
Clearly, then, those who advocate paying up now because they believe the struggle is over, are relaxing the pressure on the councils and allowing them a free hand to continue to pursue those who cannot afford to pay off their arrears. Anti-poll tax organisations have a duty to continue advocating non-payment.
Early indications are that non-payment this year is increasing, in Scotland but also in England and Wales. A Municipal Journal survey, covering 39 of the 366 councils in England, found that the proportion of the population which had not made a payment this year was 3.4 per cent higher than at the same time last year, rising from 22.7 per cent to 26.1 per cent. (The Times, 13 July 1991)
Nonetheless, success in maintaining non payment levels will be determined by a number of factors. A major consideration for many will be, of course, the size of their bills. In Lambeth new bills were sent out for £800, with last year's arrears being included. The government's concessions will do little to convince people to pay up there!
But what about those areas where the new bills are so low that the majority of families are better off than they were under the rates? Should anti-poll tax unions in those circumstances abandon the tactic of non-payment?
There may be those who choose to pay the new reduced bills, mistakenly thinking that they will not be pursued for their 1990 arrears. However, all this will do is ease the burden on the council and free them to pursue those non-payers who cannot afford to pay off their arrears. Non-payment cannot be argued here simply on the basis of 'can't pay'. APTUS may find it harder to gain an echo but they could convince many non-payers to stand firm by linking the question of continued non-payment to the withdrawal of enforcement procedures, especially jailings, against those with arrears for 1990 bills.
Indeed, the success of local campaigns against the various methods of enforcement - liability orders, wage and benefit arrestments, bailiffs etc - is also an important factor in maintaining non-payment levels.
In Scotland the campaign has successfully defended those threatened with warrant sales. Around 250 attempts by the sherifts to conduct these sales have been met by 250 mobilisations of non-payers to drive off the sheriffs. Incredibly, 2.3 million warrants have been issued, yet there are only 3.7 million people on the poll tax register in Scotland! While an 'amnesty' has not been declared, enforcement is collapsing and non-payment is increasing. Poll tax payments for 1991-92, according to Jean MacFadden, president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), are "only trickling into council coffers". (The Guardian, 2 July, 1991)
In England and Wales a victory is being scored over the bailiffs. With the bailiffs enjoying no right of entry in England and Wales, the struggle against them has been less intense than in Scotland. Victories have been won merely through the anti-poll tax unions penetrating the community with information regarding nonpayers' rights. Now the struggle is moving into the decisive stage in England and Wales, the battle against imprisonment.
Where imprisonment has been threatened by
councils it has so far proved an unsuccessful frightener. The Association of Metropolitan
Authorities has conceded that even "those
cases which had resulted in prison sentences
had not yet produced an incentive to nonpayers." (The Guardian, 30 May 1991)
According to figures collated by the All-
Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation an estimated
50 out of the 400 local authorities in England and Wales have summonsed around 700 people. Only 35 of these have resulted in jailings,
which falls far below the average +00-a-year jailed for non-payment of the rates. According
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to government figures, of those summonsed
about 50% turn up. Of those who turn up, apart
from the 35 jailed, the councils have come to
some agreement over terms to pay. Only 15 of
the 50 local authorities have jailed anyone.
So why have councils at this stage retreated
from the threat of widescale imprisonment?
Simply because of the local resistance
generated by the threat of jailings. In fact half of
those imprisoned were in areas where no
campaign was mounted prior to the committal
hearing. If campaigns had been launched then
probably the numbers jailed would be even lower.
In fact, during local campaigns against com-
mittals some councillors, having unleashed a movement they had not expected, have offered more than just a withdrawal of the cases.
In Bradford, after jailing an anti-poll tax activist, the council retreated to a position of setting up a debt counselling committee to which every case would be referred, to examine ability to pay. In Thanet, Kent, the campaign against the jailing of Ruby Haddow, the first woman to be imprisoned for nonpayment, drew a verbal assurance from the Tory leader of the council that he would move a resolution to stop all future committal hearings. This represented a complete climbdown from the council's previous threat to jail 30 people! In Manchester, 48 councillors have signed a motion opposing poll tax committal hearings. These are just glimpses of how local 'amnesties' may be brought into effect.
One line of retreat that councils could be forced down is writing off the poll tax arrears of those who receive 80% rebates. Recovering this money is financially not worth their while and is seen as a purely punitive measure. This demand could be achieved on a local basis as enforcement becomes more difficult with increased resistance to jailings.
AS SUCH LOCAL 'undeclared amnesties' are achieved, would there be a point when the anti-poll tax campaign ceases to advocate nonpayment?
This must be considered carefully. Local and national factors would have to be taken into account. At the height of a campaign against a particular threat of jailing, local councillors may well offer to retreat. But how would they respond at a later stage when faced, for example, with a threat from the district auditor of surcharge if they refused to implement the full recovery procedure? The balance of contending forces, both locally and nationally, will be the decisive factor in determining which way they shift.
The conduct of the district auditor during the events in Liverpool in 1985-86 - even the timing of the move to surcharge the councillors - shows clearly that the network of district
noGE OLLTAX
auditors, through the national Audit Commis-
sion, act largely in concert with central govern-
ment. If non-payment did start to crumble,
locally or nationally, at a certain stage pressure
would be exerted on district auditors to take
action. What makes the small minority of
non-payers who actively participate in battles
against enforcement a contending force, is the
weight of the more inert forces behind them.
This includes the possibilities for industrial
action, tor example, taken to prevent a non-
payer being sacked. But above all, at this stage, it means the scale of non-payment.
Nonetheless, continued non-payment under the present circumstances does pose some difficult tactical questions for the anti-poll tax campaign. During the course of the struggle for amnesty there will be many people, particularly local leaders of the campaign, who will refuse to pay on principle whether or not they are ottered a compromise by the council. Some have argued in the movement. especially since the announcement of abolition. that it is a futile gesture to 'invite' imprisonment in this way, because for many workers imprisonment will mean the double penalty of losing their job.
Andy Walsh, an executive member of the bankworkers' union BIFI. and chair of the Trafford Federation. was the first trade unionist to be threatened with imprisonment for nonpayment. Andy was ale threatened with losing his job. A campaign a launched on two fronts. In the local area it centred on the demand for the council to drop the committal proceedings. In his workplace the key demand was for the union to campaign to protect workers from the sack it imprisoned tor non-payment.
Greeting Sheriff's Officers.
01
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Terry Fields has stood by
his class.
160
Initially, the campaign launched in the local area failed to force the council to retreat. They were determined to imprison Andy. They rejected an offer made by Andy to provide the information to enable them to begin the procedure for a wage arrestment. If this had been accepted it would have shifted the battle onto stronger ground. The union had already secured an agreement with management that wage arrestments would not lead to disciplinary action.
Once it became clear that the only choice was to pay up or go to prison, the campaign was escalated. The North West TUC and NALGO North West and Wales District. passed resolutions stating their opposition to jailings. Days before Andy was due to be imprisoned, the BIFU national executive committee, under pressure, held an emergency meeting at the BIFU conference. The union agreed that if any of their members were imprisoned for nonpayment of the poll tax, the union nationally would demand their earliest possible release. They would contact the TUC and their retained MPs and demand that they do the same. They would ensure that all NEC members were informed of the whereabouts of those imprisoned and inform the local area union. The general secretary also agreed to approach the Prison Officers Association to relay the union position.
This is the most advanced position to date that a national union holds in relation to imprisonment for poll tax debt, although it stops short of calling for industrial action in the event of sackings. However the campaign suceeded in forcing the management to retreat and Andy still holds his job. A precedent has
now been set.
Moreover, Trafford council, in the face of mounting opposition to jailings, has indicated that they would not apply for committal hearings for the next nine months. The courageous stand that Andy took inspired and built the non-payment campaign.
Andy was first threatened with imprisonment before the abolition announcement, although he was finally imprisoned in May. Even though abolition has changed the mood and nature of the campaign, with a correct approach an imprisonment can strengthen the resolve of the non-payers to stand firm. However anti-poll tax unions have to be extremely sensitive as to what it is possible to achieve during this stage of the campaign.
There is a growing opposition to jailings. Unions such as COHSE, BIFU and NUPE have all adopted positions calling for an end to jailings at their recent conferences. The Tories are not confident of launching an offensive such as mass jailings at this stage. In the run up to a general election they fear re-opening the issue of the poll tax.
In fact they are still working out their line of retreat. It is significant that the Lord Chancellor agreed to meet the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation in June to discuss legal aid for representation in court for committal hearings. In Scotland the Federation met the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss agreements around the conduct of the sheriff's officers. Reports have been produced by a number of bodies, including the Audit Commission, arguing that it is unrealistic for people on the full 80% rebate to pay as they can not afford it.
Under pressure the Labour leaders also have made it clear that will not pursue those in this 20% bracket. Charles Gray, the Labour leader of Strathclyde Regional Council, has conceded that "thousands of poor people must have their poll tax debts written off', adding that "$50 fines for failing to register could be overlooked." (Glasgou' Evening Times, 2 April 1991)
The general election will have an important impact on the course of the campaign. The election of a Labour government, despite the protestations to the contrary by Neil Kinnock, would raise the expectation in the minds of millions of non-payers of a full amnesty. Having failed to enforce the poll tax in the face of fierce resistance, Labour councils would in turn exert enormous pressure on a Labour government for help to alleviate the immediate financial crises they will face.
The campaign is far from over. The nature of the battle has changed but for now the tactic of mass non payment is still the key weapon in fighting for the victorious conclusion of this historic struggle.
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