9th June 2024
On the buses – but will Labour commitments short change?
While the political boomerang that is Nigel Farage, newly re-installed as leader of the Reform Party, wants the looming General Election to be about immigration, that will not be the major issue concerning working class people in Britain. Farage has for many years now pedalled his own xenophobic agenda and, while he has succeeded in fooling some of the people, some of the time, he will not fool all of the people all of the time.
Net migration into the UK is running at around 650,000, hardly a massive issue for a nation with a 65 million population and a responsibility to those it has forced to become migrants due to its complicity in bombing Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Iraq in recent years. The least the British government can do is to give those displaced due to imperialist wars a place of shelter.
The real issue underlying everything facing the British electorate is, as ever, the economy. Capitalism is not a system designed to help, support or alleviate the suffering of the working class. It is a system based upon the exploitation of that class by a property and land owning autocracy, fronted by the Church of England and the Monarchy. Its representation in Parliament is ostensibly through the Conservative Party, although the occasional safe Labour administration is allowed to slip through the net, while the Tories untangle themselves from a political mess of their own making, or have simply been in government so long that people desire a change. The current point finds the Tories under pressure for both reasons, hence the likelihood of a Labour government on 5th July.
In which case, what will Labour do about the economy? The Labour leadership is absolutely committed to capitalism, so that will not change. The Labour leadership is committed to renewing Britain’s weapons of mass destruction, in the form of the Trident nuclear submarine programme, so less scope for spending on desperately needed schools and hospitals.
Labour’s manifesto will commit to the creation of GB Energy, a publicly owned green power company. It will commit to 40,000 more NHS appointments per week and the recruitment of 6,500 new teachers to shore up the flagging education workforce. It will even contain a commitment to recognising a Palestinian state, as part of the peace process.
Yet as positive as these pledges sound, there is still no real commitment to invest in order to grow the economy or address the issues of job insecurity faced by working class families. Sharon Graham, general secretary of UNITE, one of Labour’s biggest trade union backers, has said that she cannot endorse the document as the union has reservations about Labour’s position on hire and fire practices and zero hours contracts.
Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been the standard bearer of economic caution, promising not to spend more than the economy can allegedly afford and not to boost public spending. The reality is however that to address the needs of working class people, in order to improve their lives, public spending is essential.
A recent report by the Resolution Foundation think tank suggests that the next government will have to make £19 billion of annual cuts to unprotected departments by 2028-29 if budgets are to be sustained without new tax rises. Both the Tories and Labour are committed to military spending increasing to 2.5% of GDP, an area both will protect, while local government, the deliverer of key services to help working class families survive is afforded no such protection.
There are ways to raise additional funds, quite apart from not buying weapons of mass destruction in the first place. A wealth tax of 1% to 2% on those with assets of more than £10 million, just 0.04% of the population, would raise £22 billion annually. That would pay for 75% of the entire social care bill for a year. In 2020 the Wealth Commission recommended a one off wealth tax for five years, which could raise a tidy £260 billion. Recent YouGov polling suggests that 78% of people support an annual wealth tax on the super rich. Clearly not a vote loser!
No one is expecting a Labour government led by Kier Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves to make a call to build the barricades and tear down the capitalist system. However, it is disingenuous of all three to suggest that there is not money there to support working class people and to make their lives more bearable.
Electing a Labour government on 4th July remains a necessity but, with a majority which could be nothing short of monumental, that government ought to be firmer in its commitment to challenging the clear inequities in the system and putting in place policies to challenge them. Such a small step would make a minor dent in the edifice of capitalism but could make a huge difference to the lives of many working class families. Pressure must remain upon the Labour leadership to be more radical and to see getting the keys to 10, Downing St as the beginning of an ambition for real change, not the conclusion.
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