PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY DEMO. PHOTO: JIM AINDOW
Starmer’s attacks on welfare, the disabled and the poorest must be resisted on the streets, writes Susan Newman
In her much anticipated ‘growth speech’ on 29 January, Rachel Reeves outlined the government’s intention to go ‘further and faster’ to boost growth as its ‘number one mission’. This will involve efforts to reform planning, reduce so-called red tape and further deregulation.
To achieve its growth mission, public spending will play an indirect role, as support or subsidy for the private sector. Take for example, the Labour Government’s increased housing targets aimed at getting ‘Britain building again’.
These mandatory targets imposed on local authorities come with no direct funding for housebuilding; rather central government ‘will provide councils and housing associations with the rent stability they need to be able to borrow and invest in new and existing homes’ at the next fiscal event.
The plans rely on local authorities ‘streamlining’ planning processes, removing red-tape and reviewing existing greenbelt all under the close eye of central government, fixed on meeting targets.
This amounts to reliance on private developers and incentives to induce private investment. History shows us that the present reliance on private housing – originating in Thatcher’s government with the introduction of Right-to-Buy and deregulation of mortgage markets – has been the cause of the present housing crisis.
It is why social housing stock is at its lowest since the 1980s; why 1.3 million households are stuck on social-housing waiting lists and over 161,000 children are denied a safe and stable home in the sixth wealthiest country in the world.
Labour has refused to lift the two-child benefit cap, a policy that keeps half a million children in poverty. At the other end of life, winter fuel payments were cut. Many pensioners on low incomes are ineligible for pension credit and have faced the cruel choice of whether to heat or eat.
The impact of these decisions was not assessed by the government prior to the policy but we know that this will have a lasting effect on society already battered by fifteen years of austerity.
Between 2010 and 2019, austerity resulted in approximately 335,000 excess deaths. The first wave of austerity saw almost a year and a half shaved off average life expectancy.
At the end of last month, Starmer set out plans to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. This is over half of spending on education (4.1% of GDP in 2023/24).
In the first instance, additional funds will be diverted from an already heavily shrunken international-aid budget – re-reoriented to supporting British private capital in the Global South – but we have been warned by the government that taxes must rise to prevent further austerity.
In the lead-up to the General Election in 2024, Labour pledged to maintain day-to-day spending in real terms. Given that spending per pupil remains significantly lower than pre-2010, this pledge shows a commitment to the maintenance of austerity Britain and its lasting legacy.
Austerity 2.0 involves the maintenance of austerity in the provision of health, education and social services while raising taxes to fund war and support the private sector in a growth mission only thinly disguised as socially progressive.
This could be a pivotal moment in British politics. Whether it is to forge a left electoral alternative or a successful campaign against Austerity 2.0, the decisive factor in society is what people will or won’t do. The decisive thing will be whether we can build mass resistance against austerity and against war.
Start mobilising now! All out for 7 June!
