![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_WhatsApp-Image-2025-11-26-at-185907.jpg\")
A protest took place in Manchester city centre outside the central library on Wednesday afternoon(Image: MEN)<\/p>\n\u201cWe can\u2019t allow the government to keep punishing the most vulnerable in society while the rich keep getting richer”A protest took place in Manchester city centre outside the central library on Wednesday afternoon(Image: MEN)<\/p>\n
Campaign groups gathered together in the rain in Manchester city centre on Wednesday afternoon to demand that the Government “taxes the rich” following the Autumn Budget<\/a>. A demonstration organised by We Demand Change took place at St Peter’s Square at 5:30pm on Wednesday (November 26) with speakers from various trade unions across Greater Manchester.<\/p>\n It comes after Rachel Reeves delivered the Autumn Budget<\/a> in the House of Commons which included various new measures such as a lock on income tax thresholds, an increase to minimum wage, energy bills slashed by \u00a3150, and property tax reform among other changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ahead of the demonstration, a Unison representative said: \u201cPublic sector workers are on the front lines of cuts, we\u2019re constantly overworked and dealing with increasingly difficult situations and crises, we\u2019re being expected to do so much more with less.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t allow the government to keep punishing the most vulnerable in society while the rich keep getting richer. We need to be united to fight back against government cuts and for better lives for all people.\u201d<\/p>\n The demonstration against the budget has been formally backed by seven trade union branches and three regional committees, as well as People\u2019s Assembly, Stand Up To Racism (SUTR), Women Against the Far Right, Stop the War Coalition, climate campaign groups, and two trades union councils.<\/p>\n Kicking off the protest at around 5:30pm, a speaker asked: “Why are we here on a cold November night? Because again, Rachel Reeves has taken to the House of Commons to deliver another budget for businesses. A budget that’s good for business and bad for everyone else.”<\/p>\n Speaking about Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham<\/a>, the speaker continued: “And it’s not going to change with Andy Burnham. For all his talk about becoming the leader of the new Labour<\/a> party, where is he tonight? Where is he when the young workers are standing against the exploitation by the budget.”<\/p>\n A new measure was announced today which means that milkshakes and lattes will be subject to the sugar tax, but the speaker claimed that this is not the problem.<\/p>\n “Milk is not the problem,” the speaker said, “the real problem is the rich. And they refuse to tax the rich. They have not announced tonight, as we have been demanding, a tax on the rich. So if they want to put a tax on the real problem, start by putting a tax on the rich so we can fund out public services which are buckling under decades of pressure and decades of under investment.”<\/p>\n Tony Wilson, Branch Secretary of UNISON at Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) spoke at the demonstration about future action to be taken by TfGM to demand for better pay for the workers.<\/p>\n Bee Network strikes will be taking place this weekend<\/a> as workers had rejected a below inflation 3.2 per cent pay rise and are ‘demanding an increase that reflects the rising cost of living and the increased workloads they have taken on since the creation of the Bee Network’.<\/p>\n Tony shared how the welfare of working class people should be given the highest priority as he said: “There are 4.5 million children living in poverty, while Britain is home to 152 billionaires. Inflation is now rising again.\u201d<\/p>\n The UNISON branch secretary for TfGM also warned that Labour\u2019s failure to deliver change in the autumn budget will continue to pave the way to Downing Street for racist Reform UK.<\/p>\n This year Ms Reeves has been given the difficult task of trying to plug a \u00a350 billion black hole in the nation\u2019s public finances<\/a>. Before the Budget, Ms Reeves<\/a> said that her main aims were to cut the cost of living, cut NHS<\/a> waiting times and cut public spending. However, she has faced significant backlash for hiking taxes and cutting ISA limits.<\/p>\n Among the most significant changes announced today are the removal of the two-child benefit cap, a minimum wage increase, a lock on income tax thresholds and the removal of certain pension perks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe can\u2019t allow the government to keep punishing the most vulnerable in society while the rich keep getting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,71332,285,31692,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-595632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-manchester-central-library","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-the-budget","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115617664166122427","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_WhatsApp-Image-2025-11-26-at-185908-1.jpg\")
The campaigners urged the Government to “tax the rich”(Image: M.E.N)<\/p>\n![\"Several](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_WhatsApp-Image-2025-11-26-at-185909-2.jpg\")
Several different unions showed up to the protest including UNISON and Unite the Union(Image: M.E.N)<\/p>\n