Change the climate of debate

The new government has shown that all parliamentary parties are essentially the same in their attitude to British workers. This is underlined by the government’s cowardly attack on the living standards of the more vulnerable section of our class.

The removal of the winter fuel allowance, one of the “tough decisions” the government says it has had to make, is the most obvious example. It claims to have discovered a £22 billion hole in the nation’s accounts – a fig leaf for its fiscal policies.

In truth this government, like all its predecessors, is in slavish subservience to the needs of finance capital – the financial markets that they worship and believe are sacrosanct. Yet the global capitalist firms and their owners are immune from tough decisions – “private profit, public loss” is their rule.

Starmer’s government has abandoned even any lip service to socialism. It has shown itself to be no more competent than the last government. For example, it has shown no sign it is able to meet the requirements of creating a healthy environment – exemplified by the ongoing fight for unpolluted rivers and coasts and clean water supplies.

There are many other important demands including efficient transport and a reliable energy supply. Labour prefers to fixate on achieving even more stringent net zero targets – unlikely to be achievable, costing a fortune and trashing British industry in the process.

Starmer and Lammy strut around on the international stage, promoting war in Ukraine and full support for US foreign policy in the Middle East. The nation’s coffers are to spend billions on military aid, with a promise to continue – “for as long as it takes” in the case of Ukraine.

But there’s no similar commitment when it comes to attending to the urgent national needs of health care, education, jobs, food security, housing, border security and so on. These are issues that most concern our class – but we are told what we need is not affordable.

'The economic ills we face are endemic to capitalism, and not because too much is spent on public services or paying workers in line with inflation...'

Starmer and Reeves repeat the tired old refrain: “We’ve inherited a mess from the previous government.” Do they really think British people are that stupid? The economic ills we face are endemic to capitalism, and not because too much is spent on public services or paying workers in line with inflation.

The role claimed for finance capital is that it is a catalyst for industrial development and growth. The truth is the opposite: it sucks money away from investment in useful production and puts it back to work to create even more capital – as well as enriching the already obscenely wealthy.

The Blair Labour government massively ramped up the Private Finance Initiative, introduced by its Conservative predecessors. Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, touted this as the answer to decades of Tory underinvestment. It didn’t quite turn out like that and we (British taxpayers) are still paying the price. PFI repayments to “investors” are expected to be over £10 billion this year.

Reeves and Starmer don’t mention that. Yet in their vanity they are heading down the same route with the International Investment Summit held in mid-October. Touting Britain to international finance in return for not very much.

The Starmer government postures as the champion of working-class interests. It claims, falsely, that it alone was responsible for the recent awards on pay and conditions. But it was the workers in those disputes who achieved this. Their claims had already been agreed and settled by the previous government after prolonged and bitter struggles.

Workers have no need of self-appointed champions or for anyone to speak on our behalf. Emancipation of the working class from the dictatorship of finance capital and its lackeys is the work of the working class itself.

All this has left many who voted for the self-styled “party of change” bitterly disappointed – and that disillusion has come rapidly indeed. For those in Britain who said this would be the case, there is no satisfaction in being proved correct. What we must do is to honestly explain to our fellow workers that this cycle of false hope and disappointment cannot go on for ever. We have to change the climate of debate in our class.