Lindsey German on the reality of business-facing Labour and the persistence of imperialism

It is obvious what most people want from Rachel Reeves’ budget due next week. After decades of public spending cuts, eroding living standards, growing inequality and a collapse of privatised services, working class people want to redress the balance. They don’t want to pay more tax but think the rich should do, they want privatised profiteers in water, energy and rail brought back into public ownership. And they want to see health, housing and education properly funded.

None of this is going to happen from Reeves’s budget. The threats to non-doms, private equity firms and those inheriting large sums of money which featured in Labour’s election propaganda are vanishing or being severely curtailed at the slightest hint of outrage from the Tory press, or threats to leave the country from the rich.

Promises not to raise income tax, VAT or National Insurance, again pledged before the election, are being evaded. The budget looks like raising NI for employers although not for workers. This isn’t exactly what was promised but no problems there – except it will be used to avoid taxing the rich very much. Inheritance tax only affects those who have a lot to inherit but it is a one off and not a regular tax on those who can afford it most.

Meanwhile the freeze on tax thresholds is going to be extended. This is a tax rise by stealth, ensuring that those who are present pay no tax will start to and pushing some workers into the higher tax bracket.

This is all before we get to cuts in government spending departments. Apparently some ministers have written to Starmer asking for the budget to avoid deep cuts in their departments. There seem to be jitters about spending on transport, housing and local government, and anything that isn’t already ring fenced. Cuts here will simply continue Tory austerity meaning everything from closed libraries, worse social care, more privatisation of services and an exacerbated housing crisis.

Starmer and Reeves won’t give a damn about all this. We’ve already seen their heartless cuts to pensioners’ winter fuel allowance, the maintenance of the two child benefit cut which condemns children to further poverty, and we now have their threats to the disabled, the obese and the mentally ill, all in the name of getting them back to work. The idea that people diagnosed obese can be subject to injections to make them lose weight and so therefore be more fit for work (the injections provided of course by big private medicine companies who were welcomed at last week’s investment conference) is grotesque, as is the question that Liz Kendall will preside over mental health patients being assessed during treatment as to whether they are fit for work.

But we should expect nothing less from the Starmer and Reeves boot camp. These are Fabians without even their sense of social engineering and reform from above. Instead they are armed with tasers, cattle prods and worse to keep the welfare bill until control and ensure that everyone who possibly can is subject to exploitation for as long as possible.

The falling opinion polls and sense of unease over the budget are not simply about what it will contain but of what it represents: a Labour government elected to give voice to at least a few of the aspirations of working class people employing the methods of the 19th century workhouse.

And the stern tones and talk of hard choices are in marked contrast to the treatment of the wealthy businesses at the investment summit, whose conference at the Guildhall was followed by a reception at St Paul’s with the king and a banquet prepared by a Michelin starred chef.

Beyond all the manoeuvring among Labour ministers lies a deep unease – they know what they are doing is unpopular and much of it regarded as unjustified. They know that the personal ratings of every prominent government minister are falling hard. And they just keep hoping that nothing will happen to upset their plans.

We should make sure we are doing everything to cause that upset and to insist that we make the rich pay and stop attacking the poor. This is a time when socialists and trade unionists have to step up to fight a Labour government acting in the interests of the capitalist class -which means against us.

It’s all about occupation

The horror of Gaza and Lebanon goes on. There is no real pretence of stopping the Israelis by the US or any other government. Instead the lie continues that the daily round of bombing and destruction, the targeting of hospitals and refugee camps, the routine murder of children, are all part of Israel ‘defending itself’ against terrorism.  The killing this week of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar allowed the elaboration of that theme.

The western powers have used the death to make new calls for a ceasefire, claiming now that Israel has won the war against Hamas. Netanyahu meanwhile has said the war continues. Why would he stop now when he is fighting in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon with impunity, and has a green light to further attack Iran?

But those who think that Sinwar’s death will be the end of Hamas are likely to be mistaken. We have been told this time and again. Remember the death of Osama bin Laden, watched in real time from Barack Obama’s White House? The death of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, has   not stopped the war between Hezbollah and Israel. Not is it likely to do. The conflict is often framed in terms of ‘evil men’, ‘fanatics’ and so on, but in reality it represents a fight against occupation and oppression.

That is why despite the high level of casualties among Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, they represent more than themselves and will almost certainly be replaced by others. Only a resolution of the conflict which means justice and equality for the Palestinians, will change that.

This week: I will be going on the demonstration against Tommy Robinson next Saturday, speaking at a Camden PSC meeting on Friday, and going to Counterfire’s Revolution event where I will be speaking on women’s oppression and the family today – which has changed a lot but maintains its essence.

Book your ticket for Revolution! now