“Despite claims by Reeves & Starmer that there will be no return to austerity, Labour rhetoric has echoed key austerity talking points.”
Labour Outlook’s, Sam Browse, reports from the “No more cuts – why real change means ending austerity for good” meeting.
This Tuesday, hundreds tuned into the online Arise/GFTU meeting “No more cuts – why real change means ending austerity for good”, with the economist and author, Grace Blakeley, John McDonnell MP, and Gawain Little, General Secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions.
The meeting, chaired by BFAWU General Secretary, Sarah Woolley, came as Rachel Reeves seems intent on implementing yet more cuts in October’s budget.
Despite claims by Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer that there will be no return to austerity, Labour rhetoric has echoed key austerity talking points – including attacks on benefit claimants. This has been accompanied by austerity policies that cut winter fuel support for pensioners and retain the two-child benefit cap, which has continued to push thousands of children into poverty.
John McDonnell said ‘there’s always a great deal of mystification about the budget process. But there are some basic questions that underlie any budget: what is the society that you want to create? And what are the economic measures needed to create that society?’
‘Wages have virtually stagnated since 2008, there’s been a wave of casualisation and under-employment, and public services are on their knees.’
‘I completely understand the scale of the challenge that the government faces. On the other side, we’re the 6th largest economy in the world. Debt to GDP is 100%; Atlee carried a 160% debt to GDP ratio and he still constructed the welfare state.’
‘This budget cannot be another austerity budget. It has to focus on investing, by borrowing, but also redistribution through a fair taxation system. Labour has to deliver the change people voted for – and I repeat my fear that a failure to do that will act as a recruitment tool for the far right’.
‘It’s a toxic inheritance from the Tories, but if we’re talking about renewal and rebuilding this will only prove true if the budget is radical in scope and scale’.
Grace Blakeley added ‘Rachel Reeves has said this isn’t a return to austerity, but it very much is. The idea that this black hole in public finances appeared out of nowhere is absurd; there was a very obvious case to be made that if Labour stuck by Tory fiscal rules then cuts were in the pipeline.’
‘It’s important to say we never really left austerity. If you look at demand relative to what we’re spending on public services, to get to a point where we reverse austerity we would have had some investment in public services to match that, but we haven’t’.
On explaining why we haven’t seen that investment, she argued that ‘what we’ve seen over the last 10 years, but generally over the rise of neoliberalism, is the state trying to crush opposition and mass movements’.
‘Those things that we can do in our communities in our workplaces and on the streets will be vital for holding the Labour Party to account, pushing back, and for tackling the sense of hopelessness.’
‘Any form of community political organising will fight back against these feelings of isolation and alienation, and also create a form of organised power that allows us to hold those at the top to account.’
‘The ruling class is extremely well organised. The alternative to that is having a very well organised populace – an organised labour movement, communities that make local demands, a protest movement.’
‘It’s not irrational to feel hopeless if we look at party politics; but we have to put our hope and trust in each other’.
Gawain Little added ‘we are at a crisis point both economically in terms of the impact on living standards, but also socially. This comes off the back of 45 years of a massive transfer of incomes to the very wealthiest people in our society’.
He argued that we need ‘the control of prices, rent caps, and an increase in wages – and we need to fight for above inflation wage increases. But more fundamentally, and in the long term, it means investment in Britain’s productive economy.’
‘This should be an opportunity for change – to reset, to redistribute wealth and restructure our economy’.
‘But at the very time when we need a labour movement and Labour Party that goes on the offensive, what we’re actually seeing is a very different path; in effect, continued austerity and the politics of partnership. The reality is, unless we reverse the long term trends we are tied into a partnership where we have no power.’
‘Without pressure from working people organised in workplaces and communities, we are not going to see this shift. We need to ensure we have a movement that’s up to the challenge.’
We agree. Real change means ending austerity for good, building the resistance to austerity, and making the case for investment in our future. Join us in our future series of events opposing and explaining the alternatives to never-ending austerity.
- No more cuts – With Grace Blakeley, John McDonnell & the GFTU was hosted by Arise Festival on 8 October – You can watch the event in full here.
- Join an online budget review with Richard Burgon & Özlem Onaran on Monday, 4 November at 6.30PM. Hosted by Arise – A Festival of Left Ideas. Register and find out more here.
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
