Tag: labour-party

Real change needed

5th May 2025

Nigel Farage – delighted to see Reform UK take over Durham County Council

After UKIP and the Brexit Party, the latest incarnation led by right wing nationalist, Nigel Farage, is Reform UK.  As with the previous manifestations of the Farage ego, Reform UK is a party of the rich, for the rich, run by the rich, masquerading as the voice of the people.  The Farage brand, the ordinary bloke down the pub with common sense opinions, is as phoney as any marketing ploy adopted by the leaders of other parties to try and burnish their fading fortunes.

Like US President Donald Trump, Farage presents himself as an outsider, the scourge of the establishment, the man with a mission to ‘drain the swamp’, stop the waste of taxpayers money, root out corruption, a real man of the people.  All part of the branding.

Farage, like Trump, is not against the establishment he is just another, more vicious manifestation of it.  The attacks upon concepts of equality, diversity and inclusion; the trashing of targets for net zero carbon emissions;  the anti trade unions stance; the attacks upon local government; and the massive emphasis upon reducing migration to Britain are all simply extensions of policies which have been lurking on the right wing of the Tory Party for years and sound like easy solutions to the deepening crisis of capitalism in Britain today.

In taking over control of Durham County Council in the North East of England Farage was quick to pronounce that any staff working on equality schemes or the green agenda should be looking for new career paths.  The idea that money spent in such areas of local government activity could be diverted to address the problem of potholes in roads was flagged by Durham CC Reform Cllr Darren Grimes, a man who has recently posted,

“Not a chance I’ll support migrants getting keys to homes while locals get kicked to the kerb.”

This posing of one issue against another, equality work versus potholes, migrants versus homelessness, is classic right wing demagoguery, which is a cover for not wanting to reveal the fact that the entire capitalist system is failing working people  and needs to be overthrown in its entirety.

The rise of Farage and his ilk is only possible because the party with the deepest roots in the working class and trade union movement, the Labour Party, has abandoned any notion of tackling head on the real issues faced by working class people in Britain.  The shrinking of opportunities through advancement in education; the decimation of local government services on which the most vulnerable rely; the creeping privatisation of the NHS; the waste of money on weapons of mass destruction; the need to invest in green infrastructure in order to create jobs and prosperity.

The Labour Party leadership is afraid of its own shadow, is afraid to stand up and say that we do not have a migration crisis in Britain, that the numbers of migrants is small and can easily be accommodated.  The Labour leadership is afraid to say that weapons of mass destruction do not create jobs, they simply divert resources away from more socially useful production while making Britain a target.   The Labour leadership is more concerned with clinging to its illusion of power than making the case for real change for the working class of Britain.  It’s not that they won’t go down without a fight, it’s that they won’t put up a fight in the first place.

All of which leaves a void to be filled by the ‘bloke down the pub’ politics of the likes of Farage, with no-one piping up to point out that the bloke down the pub is usually half tanked and talking bollocks.

Reform UK gaining 677 councillors and control of eight local authorities, as well as overturning a 14,000 strong Labour majority in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election has to be awake up call.  Whether the Labour leadership has the political acumen or nous to realise this is another matter.  They clearly have no understanding of the depth of the crisis US imperialism faces globally, with the growing efficiency of the Chinese economic model, even less understanding of that for the British economy and seemingly no clue as to how to begin the process of carving out a place for an independent socialist Britain which could truly address people’s needs.

Pundits across the press and media have been proclaiming the end of the two party system in Britain over the past few days, following the 1st May election results.  What they fail to realise is that, whether there are two parties or five, what is broken is the entire system which, whatever combination of parties make up the House of Commons, remains geared to serve the interests of the banks, corporations, the City of London and the military industrial complex.

Begin to challenge that and real change may then be possible.

Spring statement: For the few, not the many

27th March 2025

Chancellor Rachel Reeves – not winning friends amongst the working class

In a classic guns not butter statement yesterday Britain’s Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, hammered the poor in order to enrich the arms industry.  To add to the £2.9 billion already earmarked for the military budget next year Reeves found a further £2.2 billion, a grand total of £5.1 billion extra next year alone, with the promise of more to come.

In order to build this additional military capacity, to defend against a mythical Russian threat, Reeves not only hammered the poor in Britain with welfare cuts but cut the overseas aid budget further, just to ensure that the pain was spread at an international level.

Reeves claims to have cut welfare in Britain by £4.8 billion but the Resolution Foundation think tank calculates that  about 800,000 claimants will have reduced personal independence payments, saving the government £8.1bn by 2029-30.  It is estimated that this will affect 3 million families.

While Reeves pins her hopes on economic growth and getting people into jobs to offset the slashing of welfare, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) halved Britain’s economic growth forecast for next year from 2% to 1%, which hardly suggests a boom in employment of any kind, let alone one which could compensate for the ripping away of the welfare safety net for many.

A recent economic analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, projects that living standards for families in Britian will be worse in 2030 than in 2025, with those on the lowest incomes declining twice as fast as middle and high earners.  The report indicates that the poorest third are being disproportionately affected by rising housing costs, falling real earnings and frozen tax thresholds.  Increased military spending, along with the other measures in the Spring statement, will further exacerbate this trend.

Even the Treasury’s own impact assessment estimates that  250,000 more people, including 50,000 children, will be left in relative poverty after housing costs by the end of the decade as a result of the government’s squeeze on welfare.

Just to add to the wider uncertainty about the economy US president, Donald Trump, this week announced a 25% levy on car imports to the US, with the possibility of further measures to come.  The danger of being sucked into a trade war, due to the actions of Trump, will further undermine the notion that Britain has a ‘special relationship’  that will allow it to be excluded from Trump’s wider tariff war.

However, speaking on Sky News, Reeves was firmly wedded to her deluded projections saying,

“I am absolutely certain that our reforms, instead of pushing people into poverty, are going to get people into work. And we know that if you move from welfare into work, you are much less likely to be in poverty.”

Given the nature of capitalism, as an exploitative system dominated by private sector companies whose main objective is to increase profit, not wages, Reeves vision is at best utopian, at worst simply an attempt to mislead and dissemble her way out of the fact that the cuts proposed are not out of necessity but are from political choice.

Of course, Reeves is not a one woman band.  She has the full backing of Labour leader Kier Starmer, the Cabinet and a majority of Labour MPs, so responsibility runs deep within the Parliamentary Labour Party, even though approval for the actions of Labour’s leadership is not shared by many trade union affiliates or local party activists.

Unite leader, Sharon Graham, condemned Reeves for rigidly sticking to her self imposed financial rules with the evidence of ruin in working class communities all around, stating,

“Rachel Reeves is right; the world has changed but why is it always everyday people that have to pay the price. They paid the price after the 2008 crash, the Covid pandemic and are now expected to pay the price again. It is simply wrong.”

Unfortunately Graham is unable to make the link between attacks on working class communities and the increase in military spending, going on to congratulate the government for  pledging to “invest in our defence in an uncertain global world”.

GMB General Secretary, Gary Smith, was more succinct stating,

“Tackling huge economic problems is a historic challenge. That’s why we need proper investment in key industries – and must nationalise them if necessary.”

On behalf of the TUC General Secretary, Paul Novak, took issue with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), stating,

“It is time to review both the role of the OBR and how it models the long-term impacts of public investment. Short-term changes in forecasts should not be driving long-term government decision-making.”

Posting on X former Labour leader and Independent MP, Jeremy Corbyn, was absolutely clear,

“This Labour government could have taxed the wealthiest in our society.  It is disgraceful that they are choosing to go after the poor and disabled instead.”

Unity around the concepts of jobs not bombs, welfare not warfare and organising society in the interests of the many, not the few, are key to moving towards lasting socialist change.  There is clearly still work to be done across the Labour movement and within working class communities to  build support which recognises that these issues are linked and the common denominator is capitalism.

Ongoing mass extra Parliamentary action will play a key role in building that support  and that political understanding, vital in the progress towards a socialist future.

Wealth tax reform not welfare cuts

13th March 2025

Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, ignoring UN warnings on poverty in Britain

In April 2024 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Disabled People (UNCDRP) published a report into its findings regarding provision for disabled people in Britain, including the impact of welfare reform.  The UN found that  Britain has ‘failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.’

As signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People the British government agrees to periodic reviews of its provision for people with disabilities, the latest being initiated in 2023 and its report concluding in 2024 finding that  ‘grave and systematic violations’ of disabled persons rights had taken place since 2010 and that welfare reform had “disproportionally and adversely” affected the rights of people with disabilities. 

The report concludes that there has been no significant progress with independent living rights and active regression in relation to work and social security rights, recommending urgent measures be taken in relation to improvements in these areas. 

Given that much of the period of the review was covering the 14 years of Tory government such harsh attacks upon the rights of people with disabilities comes as no surprise.  The ‘skivers not strivers’ narrative is one that the Tories and their right wing media allies in the Mail, Express and Telegraph have been pursuing for some time, in order to deflect attention away from the obscene profits made by the super rich and the increased wealth of billionaires in Britain, which rose by £35 million a day last year.

This month the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) issued a series of recommendations to tackle poverty in the Britain.  The report urged Keir Starmer to reverse the five-week wait for universal credit in a warning that the British government is infringing human rights with the ongoing poverty crisis.

The report highlighted  fears over the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) welfare reforms that have resulted in severe economic hardship, increased reliance on food banks, homelessness, negative impacts on mental health and the stigmatisation of benefit claimants.  It further urged government to up spending on benefits, remove the benefit cap and scrap the two-child limit, which prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children.

Labour’s Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, does not seem too perturbed by the UN’s findings.  With a Spring statement from Chancellor Rachel Reeves due on 26th March welfare reform, a euphemism for cuts to benefits, is clearly high on the agenda of both Kendall and Reeves.

Kendall’s stated position is that,

“I think the only way that you get the welfare bill on a more sustainable footing is to get people into work. And you know, we will be bringing forward big reforms that actually support people into work, that get them on a pathway to success.”

All of which may sound fine in a press conference but in the real world of de-industrialised, zero hour contract, low wage economy Britain it has a hollow ring.

Labour’s claim is that welfare reform is necessary to fill the fiscal black hole Reeves has discovered due to the economy not growing fast enough.  Kendall has refused to deny that the Treasury is looking for £5 billion of cuts to her budget. 

As ever, government economic decisions are about political choices, whatever issues may arise in relation to the world economy.  The current Labour government has ditched the notion of ‘jobs not bombs’ and gone for bombs, £12.8 billion to Ukraine alone, before the cost of supporting Israeli genocide in Gaza is factored in, or weapons sales to dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia.

There is clearly a case for reform of the welfare system in Britain, as the UN has pointed out, but that is not the same as making a case for swingeing cuts which will plunge people into further poverty.  There is certainly a case for reform of how the wealthy are taxed in Britain.  As Nadia Whittome MP for Nottingham East has pointed out,

“If we implemented something very moderate, like a 2% tax, a threshold of assets over £10m a year, that would only impact an estimated 20,000 people in the UK but would raise £24bn.”

These are the real choices a Labour government faces, yet again.  War or peace, rich or poor, capitalism or socialism?   Currently Keir Starmer and the Labour leadership are getting it wrong on all three counts.  There is clearly some pressure from progressive Labour MPs within Parliament but only mass extra parliamentary action will apply sufficient pressure to move the Labour leadership.  Putting wealth tax reform ahead of welfare cuts would be a step in the right direction.

Kickstart or stalling?

4th February 2025

Reeves on economic growth – kickstart or cold start?

British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, are in danger of having to eat humble pie when it comes to their ability to deliver on the promise of economic growth.  The mission of the present government has been made clear, economic growth, but simply repeating the mantra does not deliver the desired outcome. 

The keynote speech on the subject by Reeves  last week has only succeeded in re-opening the 20 year long debate about a third runway at Heathrow Airport; whether or not this will actually deliver growth anyway; how it will help Britain meet its net zero carbon targets; and why so much emphasis on investment in the South East when the rest of the country is crying out for economic support.  The aspiration to turn the corridor between Oxford and Cambridge into Britain’s Silicon Valley just reinforced this point.

Reeves claims that 60% of the benefits of a third runway at Heathrow will be felt in areas other than London and the South East, though without giving details as to precisely how.  The geographic distribution of investment may in any case be an academic point as the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small minority, rather than ownership and production being in the hands of the people, will ensure the maintenance of Britain’s class system.  The working class are not going to be the ultimate beneficiaries, whether in John O’Groats, Land’s End or anywhere in between.

Socialism, or any aspiration towards it, is not on the agenda of this government, in common with all previous Labour governments, so tweaks to how capitalism functions is the best that they hope to deliver.  Even in those terms however, Reeves does not seem to have won any allies.

What used to be regarded as the environmental lobby but is actually articulating the interests of many in saving the planet, has been up in arms about the third runway proposal, as well as the possibility of the government consenting to the Rosebank development, Britain’s biggest untapped oilfield. 

The project is being led by Norwegian company, Equinor, and having had a consent application rejected in Scotland recently they are  expected to return with  a further proposal later in the year, claiming that “Rosebank is critical for the UK’s economic growth”, a euphemism for Rosebank being critical for Equinor’s profits and its shareholder’s dividends.

There are potential routes to economic growth, even in the short term, within the straitjacket of capitalist economics.  Investment in renewable energy technology would be an option that would both promote growth and contribute to net zero carbon targets.  Diverting spending away from the cost of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear submarines would free up resources, which could begin to address the crumbling schools and hospital infrastructure.  Investment in renewing the health and education systems would in itself help promote economic growth.

A renewal of the national rail network, charging point infrastructure to encourage the take up of electric vehicles, more resources for the creative industries, proper financing of local government, all of these things would contribute to economic growth, as well as providing the platform for arguing that public, and ultimately the people’s, ownership and control is the key to lasting economic change.

Sadly Starmer, Reeves and the Labour Cabinet have no such vision and remain trapped within the confines thinking that reform within capitalism is a sufficient goal.  Clearly it is no such thing, as working class families continue to grapple with rising water and energy costs, rising food costs, rising housing costs and deteriorating local services.  That was never going to be reversed in six months but a roadmap towards it could have been outlined and a vision fought for.

As it stands the demagogues of the far right are making up ground in Britain and across Europe; Zelensky in Ukraine, Meloni in Italy, Le Pen in France, Alternative fur Deutschland in Germany, to name a few. 

It is not impossible to see Reform UK taking seats off both Labour and the Tories at the next General Election  and shifting the political landscape in Britain even further to the right.   A YouGov poll published in The Times today (4th February) puts Reform on 25%, Labour on 24% and the Tories further behind on 21%.  While Britain is still a long way from a General Election if this trend continues Labour’s dream of a second term could easily be wiped out.

A response to such polling figures should be to mount a robust challenge to the politics of Reform and the Tories.  However, too many in the Labour Movement are afraid of being accused of being “woke”, a term that has become a pejorative in the hands of the right wing media to demonise anyone with progressive ideas or left wing politics.  The fact is that anyone not woke is, by definition, asleep and that will usually come with being bigoted, xenophobic, homophobic and in denial of the climate emergency.

Capitalism as a system, designed to serve the interests of the rich and powerful, cannot be modified in the interests of the working class, it must be overthrown.  The more the Left pussyfoots around this reality the more emboldened the right wing will be to push their simple answers to complex solutions.  This is the message the Labour and peace movements in Britain need to grasp and campaign upon, before the world is reshaped entirely in the image of Donald Trump or Elon Musk.   These are the people who must be stopped.  Theirs are the ideas that must be quashed.

Popular policy to put people first

5th January 2025

Cuban medical workers – under pressure but an example to the world

The year begins with much media speculation about the collapse in popularity of the Labour government and its leader, Keir Starmer.  The economy is not showing signs of recovery. The winter fuel allowance issue is returning to haunt Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves, as the cold weather kicks in.  The much trumpeted review of the NHS does not report until the Spring and the reform of social care will take until 2028.  Business leaders continue to use the increase in employers national insurance as an excuse not to recruit, or to resist wage increases, in spite of hefty profits going to shareholders.

Public services are struggling with the need for investment to function efficiently or, in the case of the energy sector, with the obscene profits made by companies failing to deliver an effective service to communities.  The water industry is the biggest offender  but others in the sector are equally guilty of milking profits from hard pressed working class families while not addressing the need for investment in modernisation.

The crisis in the NHS is a major case in point.  Recent reports suggest that every acute hospital trust in England is failing to hit the target to treat 92% of patients within 18 weeks.  There are 7.5 million people on the waiting list for treatment.  The government did promise a £22.6 billion increase for the NHS in the last budget plus an additional £3.1 billion for capital investment.  This is welcome and, with the hard work and dedication of staff in the NHS, may result in some short term improvement.

However, even these figures are a sticking plaster over a gaping wound.  Britain currently spends £64.6 billion per annum on weapons of mass destruction and the military.  Labour is committed to increasing that figure to £87.1 billion to meet its commitment to spending 2.5% of GDP on the military.  The equipment plan alone for the Ministry of Defence over the period 2021-31equates to £238 billion plus, according to official forecasts, £117.8 billion on nuclear weapons.  CND estimate that the latter figure will in fact be nearer £205 billion. (see The Fight for Peace and Disarmament by Gary Lefley – Socialist Correspondent Issue 53 Winter 2024)

The obscene spend on the military is argued for by the ruling class, with Labour support, as being necessary for defence but in fact just makes Britain a potential target.  Given the craven support of the British ruling class for US wars of intervention across the world, including the Ukraine and Israeli genocide in the Middle East, and the backing given to US sabre rattling over China, this danger is likely to increase.

Meanwhile, ambulances are queued outside of hospitals waiting to register patients, who cannot be admitted because beds are occupied by people without any social care arrangements, and emergency calls suffer as a consequence.  It is a vicious circle and one which will undoubtedly impact disproportionately upon working class communities.

If Starmer and the Labour government want to increase their popularity, shifting the balance of resources from weapons of mass destruction to investment in health, social care and education would be a progressive step. Shifting the emphasis in both foreign and domestic policy onto improving the lives of working class communities, rather than put them under threat would be a huge leap forward.

At present the health service, in spite of the emphasis upon community health, aimed at preventing hospital admissions and promoting healthier lifestyles, cannot cope with the needs it has to address at the acute end of the healthcare spectrum.  Any additional resources inevitably go into trying to prop up the needs of the most vulnerable and little is left for prevention work.

In a socialist system this would be different.  This is not theory, there is a practical example in the form of Cuba.   In spite of the 60 year long illegal economic blockade, imposed by the United States, the Cuban healthcare system is an example to the world in terms of its approach.    Community based care and access to local medical centres are key  but struggle because of the lack of resources due to the US blockade.  The Cuba Vive Medical Aid Appeal is currently crying out for sutures, syringes, catheters, antibiotics, butterfly needles and paracetamol. These are just a few of the items on the list of needs for Cuban hospitals and polyclinics.  https://www.cubavive.org.uk/donate/

The resources available in Britain however means that there is no excuse not to invest and properly resource the NHS, as well as the social care system.  It is an act of state negligence not to do so.  Labour would do well to look less towards supporting the imperial ambitions of the United States and more towards the needs of working class communities in Britain.   That would be popular in every sense.

Superficial change

5th July 2024

The keys to the door – Kier Starmer about to enter 10, Downing St

Having smuggled the metaphorical Ming vase across the threshold of 10, Downing St, Kier Starmer and his team need to decide whether its fragility is worth preserving or whether they just smash it and take advantage of their massive 170 seat majority to effect real change.  Given the character of Starmer and his team the prospect is that the vase will sit quietly on the mantelpiece ready to be dusted off in 2029.

The scale of the Labour majority may give the illusion that the politics of Starmer and the Labour leadership have swept the country and that they expect to be hoist aloft on the shoulders of the people.  The reality is not so clear cut.

Interviewed on Radio Four today architect of New Labour, right wing Labour henchman Peter (now Lord) Mandelson, described the Labour victory as ‘efficient’.  Mandelson pointed out that Labour did not just stack up votes in safe constituencies but managed to gain seats in more marginal areas too.  However, much of this was as a result of Reform splitting the Tory vote in some areas with the Lib Dems taking votes from the Tories in others.  The collapse of the fractured and fractious SNP in Scotland was also a contributory factor.

The national turnout was low at 60% with Labour only gaining 35% of the votes across the country, slightly up on the 33% achieved under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership in 2019 but well down on the 40% share Corbyn achieved in the 2017 General Election.   Jeremy Corbyn retaining his seat as an Independent in Islington North was a small victory for the Left and the election of four other Independents on the back of Labour’s weak position on Israeli genocide in Gaza signalled to Starmer that there will be more progressive voices of dissent in the House of Commons.

The single word which characterised Labour’s campaign and was the title of its manifesto was Change.  Starmer spent much of the campaign not just emphasising the word change in the context of change for the country but change in the context of the Labour Party itself.  The purge of many on the Left, over recent years, is certainly testament to Starmer’s efforts at internal change.  This was characterised by the imposition of Starmer friendly candidates in many constituencies, ensuring a House of Commons that will be largely compliant and reliant on the largesse of the leader.

The reality of the next five years is going to be one in which the adjective ‘superficial’ could precede the change mantra which is Starmer’s watchword.   The pledge of Starmer to ‘unite the country’, in his first speech outside Downing Street, presupposes that the country can be united, Irish Republicans and Scottish Nationalists will disagree, or that the interests of conflicting classes can be harmonised.  There is no evidence that Labour will do anything to stop the rich getting richer or that they will fundamentally challenge the causes of poverty which are endemic to capitalism as a system.

For the working class however, there is no doubt that getting the Tories out of government is a step forward.  A Labour government at least gives the possibility of more progressive policies with the prospect of influence from the Left, from the trade union movement and from mass extra parliamentary action, potentially shifting Labour in a more positive direction.

Once the flurry of excitement about the Tory meltdown subsides the job of ensuring Labour is more focused on the issues in towns and backstreets, rather than the City of London, must be a priority.  The rise of so-called populism, in the form of the Reform vote, offering the illusion of easy answers to complex problems, will need to be tackled in working class communities. 

The importance of the need for real change, socialist change, as the only answer to really address the needs of working class communities will need to be articulated.   There is certainly no sense that the Labour leadership under Starmer will do this but until it is part of Labour campaigning, simply repeating the mantra ‘change’ will not be enough to make it happen.

Ambition for real change?

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.

Resisting the call up

26th May 2024

Rishi Sunak in Belfast this week – life jacket essential!

The decision by British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to call a General Election for 4th July has been greeted with bemusement, not least within his own Party.  The merest hint of economic good news, that prices continue to rise but by 2.3% rather than the double figures of a year ago, seemed to be enough to fire the starting gun for the campaign trail.

However, given the predictions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), neither of which hold out much hope for growth in the British economy over the next year, July may be Sunak’s best, if still slim, hope.

The OECD see growth at 0.4% this year with the IMF suggesting 0.7%.  The IMF went on to suggest that the government’s sums for the next five years would see a £30 billion gap between what it proposed to spend and the amount it expected to raise in revenue.  True to form the IMF suggested that the government would need to increase borrowing, raise taxes or cut public spending to meet these targets.  With Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ruling out more borrowing, proposing to cut taxes, that just leaves another assault on public services in prospect if the Tories did pull off the minor miracle of re-election.

While Sunak pores over economic spreadsheets and concerns himself with the opinion of the Financial Times readership, the outlook in the real world is quite different.  Quite apart from the catastrophe of 14 years of Tory government, with the damage inflicted upon public services and working class communities, there is the fact that since the calamity of the Liz Truss mini-budget alone shop prices are 20% higher than they were in 2021.  For families eking out a living on the margins, forced to make the dreaded choice of whether to heat or eat, these figures have a massive impact.  Inflation reducing to 2.3% will make little difference.

The first few days of campaigning have reinforced the sense that Sunak is out of touch with the real world.  His initial announcement outside 10, Downing St in a torrent of rain, was to a serenade of Things Can Only Get Better, quite audible in the background.  As the rain poured and the music blared, Sunak did not look like a man with any grip on his destiny.

The week has continued with a visit to the Titanic museum in Belfast, prompting a journalistic wit to ask if Sunak was the captain of a sinking ship.  One senior Tory has been quoted as saying,

“It’s quite staggering that we’ve managed to call a snap election that took ourselves by surprise.”

Not exactly a vote of confidence.   Former leadership candidates, Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove have announced that they will not be standing for re-election.  Gove is misleadingly described as a ‘big beast’ in the Tory ranks, though the only jungle creature he shares traits with is of the distinctly reptilian variety.

The latest Tory attempt at a vote winning campaign wheeze has been the announcement to bring back National Service, compelling all 18 year olds to serve a year in the armed forces or be engaged in some form of community service.    Clearly Tory focus groups have not included anyone in the youth demographic, for whom this suggestion will have all of the buoyancy of a lead balloon.  No doubt young people will already be mobilising to resist the call up.  Another five weeks of this and Labour’s strategy of saying as little as possible will begin to look astute!

The Guardian columnist, Marina Hyde, has characterised the approach of Kier Starmer as being like “watching a very buttoned up man try not to have an accident.”   It is certainly true that the Labour leadership could be more adventurous and that the commitment to supporting working class communities and trade union rights could be more robust.  The six point plan announced by Kier Starmer is very much a dilution of the platform upon which he was elected leader and has been countered by the Left in the form of the Socialist Correspondent, which has suggested the following 6 steps towards peace and socialism:-

  • Peace and Non-Alignment
  • Sustainability
  • Health and Education
  • Public Ownership
  • Public Housing
  • Democratic and Workers’ Rights

The full article articulating the case for the above points can be found here https://www.facebook.com/story.php?id=100064546488320&story_fbid=846049760889899&__n=K

A vote for Labour will be essential in order to get the Tories out.  A Labour government led by Kier Starmer however, will need to be kept under constant pressure not to succumb to the demands of the City of London and big business, not to make working class communities pay for the failings of the capitalist system and to begin the process of real, not just superficial, change in the interests of the working class. 

The next five weeks will be crucial in ensuring the election of a Labour government; the following five years will be even more crucial, in ensuring that a government serving the interests of the working class emerges.

Shadow and substance – Labour’s six point plan

19th May 2024

Starmer drama but where is the plot?

Much of the presentation of political debate in Britain, by political parties and the news media, is couched as theatre.  Clashes at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons are regularly reported in dramatic terms.  Head to head television debates at election times pit candidates against one another with billings worthy of heavyweight boxing title fights. Personalities, rather than policies become the stuff of tabloid headlines as the popularity of TV soap opera is translated into political drama.

Presentation has become as important as content for those seeking the keys to 10, Downing St.  With a General Election just months away the respective teams of Kier Starmer and Rishi Sunak are developing their communications plans and public relations strategies with a vengeance, in the hope of getting their man more media time, more positive coverage and more votes when it comes to the crunch of an actual election.

This week’s set piece from Kier Starmer was the presentation of Labour’s six point plan, an event which could not have been more theatrical.  With a team of Shadow Cabinet colleagues behind him and an audience in front Starmer, in rolled up shirt sleeves, no jacket or tie, was presenting as a man who just wanted to get on with the job and get things done.  TV cameras and news media were there of course to capture the key moments and translate them into the headlines such dramatic presentation was deemed to warrant.

The six points were emblazoned above Starmer,

  • Crackdown on anti-social behaviour
  • Launch a new Border Security Command
  • Deliver economic stability
  • Set up Great British Energy
  • Cut NHS waiting times
  • Recruit 6,500 new teachers

All very rehearsed and choreographed, no doubt tested through focus groups and with a certain type of Labour activist, but does this list represent the concerns of working class communities, where parents may be working two jobs to pay the bills, where the cost of childcare may mean the difference between taking a job or not, where Carer’s Allowance is being clawed back if earnings creep a penny over the princely sum of £151 per week?

Apparently, Kier Starmer does not mind being compared to former Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, because Blair was a three times General Election winner, and who would not want that comparison?  Which gives away Starmer’s philosophy entirely.  Winning elections only matters if changes are made as a result of election victories, the winning in itself is unimportant otherwise.

Blair’s three election victories did not result in reversing the anti trade union laws of the Thatcher years.  They did not abolish the right to buy which has seen the run down of Council housing stock and the decline of affordable homes.  They did not reverse the privatisation of water and energy companies and prevent private shareholders from reaping vast dividend payouts while bills soared.  They did not reverse the break up of the comprehensive education system, abolish university fees or impose greater regulation upon the City of London, to prevent the gambling, greed and speculation which led to the 2008 financial crash.

The Blair/Brown years of Labour government did not see a reversal of the damage done by the Thatcher/Major Tory governments but a consolidation of the errors, an acceptance of neoliberal economics and the cult of the individual as being of key importance, rather than the collective wellbeing of the community.

There is nothing in the six points outlined by Starmer that Rishi Sunak would not sign up to or disagree with.  There is nothing which suggests a challenge to the status quo or any shift in the balance of power from the entitled few to the downtrodden many.  Starmer describes the plan as Labour’s first steps on a mission towards change but after 15 years of Tory imposed austerity working class communities are crying out for giant strides not baby steps.

Is it possible to be a mere shadow of something which does not have substance?  If so, Starmer fits the bill as being a mere shadow of Tony Blair who, in spite of his election victories, did nothing to improve the lives of working class communities.  Starmer is set on the same course, in danger of taking working class votes for granted, an election victory for granted and hoping that a programme which does nothing to scare the King’s horses will be enough to get him there.

It is said that history may at first play out as tragedy but repeats itself as farce.  The Blair/Brown Labour governments tragically let down the working class, keeping capitalism safe for the ruling class and the return of the Tories in 2010.  While voting Labour at the General Election will be necessary, after so many years of Tory austerity, we must resist the danger of a Keir Starmer government keeping the seats at the Cabinet table warm for the return of the Tories in five years time.

Mass extra Parliamentary action to compel a Labour government to act in the interests of the working class and to develop a manifesto for real change is vital in the run up to the General Election and beyond.  Without it we will have a Tory-lite, Blair-lite episode from Labour and it may matter little who wins an election in five years time.

Right to a home, not the right to buy

12th May 2024

Labour leaders Kier Starmer and Angela Rayner – is housing policy radical enough?

The insidious ‘right to buy’ policy was one of the mainstays of the Thatcher government in the 1980’s.  The policy was not sold as the privatisation of Council housing as a means to enrich private landlords or to inflate house prices, generating lifelong debt for many.  That would have been too honest, too direct for the Tories.

Instead, the policy was sold as a chance to get on the housing ladder, an opportunity for home ownership, the golden ambition promoted as part of the philosophy of the individual above all, as the Tories marched onward in their determination to dismantle any semblance of post war social provision in housing, education and health.  

The impact of the policy has been to increase uncertainty for working class families as Council stock diminishes, private rents increase and mortgages soar.  As a consequence homelessness and poverty have spiralled.

Figures published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) at the end of last month showed a sharp rise in the number of children living in temporary accommodation.

There were 145,800 children in temporary accommodation as of the end of December last year, up by a fifth on 20 years ago when records for this measure began, and up 15% on the same period in 2022.

Michael Gove, the DLUHC Secretary of State has admitted that “for years now we have not been building enough homes” and that the Government has missed the supply target of at least 300,000 new homes per year.  However, building homes only addresses part of the problem, making those homes affordable and secure for working class families is the real challenge.

Recent Freedom of Information requests, sent by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), found that 41% of all council homes sold under the right to buy scheme are now being let on the private market.

The research also found that the number of homes bought under right to buy and now in the private sector has risen by 3.2 percentage points since 2014/15.  This means that around 109,000 more former council homes are now being let privately.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) has called for a ‘suite of powers’ over housing policy to be devolved from Westminster to local authorities, which would give councillors the “ability to make decisions regarding the future of their council housing stock and give them greater control over the tenure balance of homes in their area”.

Insecurity in the private sector is supposedly being addressed with reforms to the private rented sector.  Gove has insisted that the long-promised plan to end tenants being forced from their homes under section 21 notices will take “a matter of months”, but could not give an exact timetable.

With housing security being such a key issue for working class families and with a General Election looming it would be timely for the Labour Party to have a radical approach to housing and look to repeal the right to buy legislation in order to give Council’s more control over housing stock.

Labour does have a plan for housing, which focuses on building on brownfield sites and on poor quality and ugly areas of the Green Belt, which it has redesignated the Grey Belt.  Affordable homes are mentioned, in the context of new developments having to target at least 50% affordable housing when land is released.  Which sounds fine but a target is not an obligation and housing can quite quickly become unaffordable, when it is on the private market, or it can get sucked into the private rented sector.

As with many policy commitments the Labour leadership position on housing is kept vague in an attempt to avoid any direct criticism.  Meanwhile, Homeless Link, the national membership charity for frontline homelessness organisations, criticised the UK government for not uplifting funding to match rising inflation. The group found there were 39% fewer accommodation providers and 26% fewer bed spaces for people experiencing homelessness in England in 2021 compared to 2010 with funding cited as one of the main reasons for the decline.

Abolishing the right to buy would be a massive step towards a policy which could make housing truly affordable for working class families.  Labour need to prioritise giving working class families the right to a home, over the Tory philosophy of the right to buy.