“Whilst cuts continue in many areas, the never-ending ‘magic money tree’ for war and nukes continues.”
By Matt Willgress
The great German socialist and revolutionary martyr Rosa Luxemburg famously said that “the most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening.”
In Britain today, this is as true as ever. Deep crises on multiple fronts can be seen in every direction. The immense levels of human suffering resulting from these crises are obvious to anyone walking down any high street, yet more often than not they are blatantly ignored by the ruling class (or to put it another way, ignored by much of the media and political establishment, including Keir Starmer’s Government).
There are so many statistics that show the extent of this suffering that it is simply not possible for me to include them all in one column.
On poverty, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s “UK Poverty 2025” report last year vividly illustrated the inhumane levels of poverty here as the cost-of-living emergency deepens for millions.
More than 1 in 5 people (21%) were in poverty in 2022/23 – 14.3 million. This figure included 8.1 million working-age adults, 4.3 million children and 1.9 million pensioners.
Around 2 in every 10 adults are in poverty, with about 3 in every 10 children being in poverty.
In a damning indictment of the failures of austerity and neo-liberalism, both under Tories and Labour, it commented that “It is 20 years and counting since we last saw a prolonged period of falling poverty. Taking a longer view, we can see that overall poverty barely changed during the Conservative-led Governments from 2010 to the latest data covering 2022/23. The last period of falling poverty was during the first half of the previous Labour administration (between 1999/2000 and 2004/05), but it then rose in the second half of its time in power.”
On pay, wages today are lower than they were in 2007, and they are not forecast to reach 2007 levels again for years more.
In this context – and we have only scratched the surface when it comes to looking at the desperate situation here – it is striking how the ‘Labour’ Government and Tory opposition front benches offer no new policy solutions at all to these problems, but continue to cling relentlessly to the neo-liberal, austerity policies that have failed for decades.
Tied to this approach, the first year and a half of the Starmer-led Government has seen a policy agenda that continues to protect the interests of the billionaires and profiteers.
Privatisation and part-privatisations continue; a “rip-it-up” approach to planning and environmental regulations will inevitably lead to catastrophe, and redistributive taxation to better fund public services remains firmly off the agenda.
Yet whilst cuts continue in many areas, the never-ending ‘magic money tree’ for war and nukes continues, as the Government acts as a global cheerleader for Trump’s war agenda in Venezuela, the Middle East and beyond.
Like Trump, the Government is also waging war on migrants and refugees, joining the Tories, Reform and others in disgusting levels of scapegoating, including through Keir Starmer’s arch-reactionary “island of strangers” speech, stoking up racism, hate and division.
In the face of this situation, as well as proclaiming “loudly what is happening” – exposing the failures of this rotten Government and the rotten profit-led capitalist system it defends – 2026 must see us build massive resistance on every front against the continuing racism, war and cuts we face.
And additionally, the Left (across different parties and none) must come together to build movements for – and popularise the arguments for – the radical, transformative changes needed to tackle the grave economic, social and environmental crises we face. For this, a clear, alternative economic policy platform is urgently needed from the Left, putting forward an unashamedly socialist agenda that puts public need before corporate greed.
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