Welfare not Warfare

13th September 2024

UNITE General Secretary, Sharon Graham, calling for a tax on the wealthy

The Labour Party leadership, backed by a majority of MPs in the House of Commons, this week agreed to the axing of winter fuel payments to all but the poorest pensioners, in order to save an estimated £1.2 billion as part of a £22 billion package of financial measures, which will effectively mean a continuation of austerity for many working class families.

The day after the Commons vote, Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, in Ukraine with United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, announced a further £600 million package of support to Ukraine, to sustain the current NATO proxy war, increasingly in danger of becoming an all out NATO confrontation with Russia.  While pensioners in Britain will struggle to keep the home fires burning, British money will be paying for weapons to keep the flames of war alight in Ukraine.

Labour leader, Kier Starmer, and Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, constantly talk about “tough choices” they will have to make on the economy.  Starmer almost wears as a badge of honour his assertion that Labour will have to carry out measures which are unpopular.   However, it is hard to credit that even the current leadership cannot see that the winter fuel payments measure is a clear political own goal, which will come back to haunt them for many years.

Such a measure was not a manifesto pledge and while Reeves promises to keep the pension ‘triple lock’ in place and provide, as yet unspecified, other means to support pensioners, the current furore could so easily have been avoided.

The UNITE trade union have been campaigning for a wealth tax, as have a number of independent MPs in the House of Commons, including Jeremy Corbyn.  UNITE estimate that a 1% levy on those with wealth estimated at over £4m could raise up to £25 billion which, if accurate, is more than enough to fill the £22bn budget gap Reeves is concerned with and maintain winter fuel payments. 

While the world of economics does not always work out as simply as this, it is still an indication that Labour have choices.  If Starmer is so unconcerned about being unpopular why not choose to be unpopular with the super rich, rather than the pensioners at the other end of the spectrum?

The fact is that Starmer and Reeves are running scared of the City of London and the banks and corporations which have the real clout in the economy.  Reeves’ caution even extends to claiming that without austerity measures there could be a run on the pound, which would weaken the economy, a claim not backed up by any evidence.

While austerity is the name of the game at one end of the Cabinet table the prospect of more cash for weapons is  the reality at the other end.  Quite apart from the ongoing and apparently open ended commitment to fuel the war in Ukraine, the government is committed to increasing military spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP).  As one of NATO’s biggest spenders at the moment this commitment will only add to the pressure upon vital day to day services which local communities need.  If an old slogan needed to be dusted down and resurrected the classic Welfare not Warfare may well be ready for a comeback.

In addition to which, apart from the obvious material and human cost of war and weapons of mass destruction production, the arms industry is a massive carbon emitter, thus contributing to the acceleration of the climate emergency.  It would seem that for weapons manufacturers and their backers, that if the planet cannot be destroyed by one means, it will be destroyed by another.

It has taken very little time for the gloss of the Tories being ousted in July to be taken off the prospect of a shiny new Labour government.  The proverbial Ming vase which Labour leaders carried across the General Election weeks still seems to be passing between them with no-one wanting to be the one to drop it.  Caution, far beyond what even conservative capitalist economists would expect, is being exercised by Labour in order to show the ruling class and its media that they are ‘worthy’ of office.

However, these are vacillating and unstable allies at best and, at worst, an active fifth column.   Once the smoke clears on the Tory leadership campaign, and if anyone deemed to be a credible candidate emerges, the right wing press and media will rally to their side and Labour will find themselves in the usual dogfight with the press.

If that is the case then why not take the fight to them and give them something they can really worry about, like abolishing the ‘right to buy’; resurrecting the NHS; massive public investment in green technology; cutting the military budget, including stopping arms sales to Israel; withdrawing from NATO; cancelling the renewal of Trident nuclear submarines?   Not in the manifesto?  The precedent for that has already been set!