“The Left needs to popularise a socialist economic strategy based on taking on the corporate profiteers head-on and ending cuts for good.”
Matt Willgress argues that the depth of the crises we face means the Left needs to put forward socialist policies for the transformation of society.
May’s local election results were a disaster for Labour, confirming what Party activists have been saying since the Government’s election – that it had been haemorrhaging support at an alarming rate. They directly led to Keir Starmer’s resignation and Andy Burnham being made the new Prime Minister, with the promise of a cost-of-living-focused government.
Alongside unpopular, reactionary attacks on civil liberties and migrants that have dramatically undermined Labour’s previous coalitions, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’ continued adherence to austerity policies was a key driving force in losing support. It has also meant that at a time of great crises – including the cost-of-living emergency, the climate catastrophe, and the era of permanent wars – the Government has had no answers to the scale of the challenges it has faced, at best “fiddling while Rome burns.”
Examples of right-wing economic policies included the cuts to Winter Fuel Allowance and disability benefit cuts. Meanwhile, the Government refused to tax extreme wealth and kept pledging more and more military spending. Sadly, the signs from the new Government on these two points – especially the latter – are not good, to put it mildly.
Such choices and priorities – made again and again by Starmer and Reeves – are not only deeply unpopular with historical or possible Labour voters but cause great human misery, which is why we on the Left must put forward a bold alternative.
Around 14.2 million people in the UK (over one in five of the population) are currently living in poverty, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Of this total, a record 6.8 million people are living in “very deep poverty”—meaning their household incomes are too low to afford basic essentials like food and heating.
In such a context, the Left needs to popularise a totally different approach: a socialist economic strategy based on taking on the corporate profiteers head-on and ending cuts for good. Such an agenda is outlined in the updated ‘Workers Can’t Wait’ demands, supported by over 22,000 people:
- Control costs and for the right to food – energy price freezes now back at April 2022 rates; enshrine the right to food in law; universal free school meals. Rent controls plus price controls for food and other essentials.
- Stop the corporate rip-off – public ownership of energy, water, transport, broadband and mail to bring bills down and end fuel poverty. Lower public transport costs. Higher taxes on profits and the super-rich.
- Wealth taxes and extra resources to create universal public services – stop cuts and privatisation; Save our NHS – for a national care service; for free education; properly fund local government, plus an in-sourcing revolution. Tax wealth to fund services.
- Welfare not warfare, Wages not weapons – no more ‘magic money tree’ for war, nukes and weapons of destruction. As TUC policy says, prioritise investing in people and planet.
- Britain needs a pay rise – National Minimum Wage raised to at least £15 an hour for all; the pay rise public sector workers are asking for; increase Statutory Sick Pay to a real living wage for all from day one.
- A universal social security system to end poverty – scrap all proposed disability benefit cuts; boost and inflation-proof benefits; for a minimum income guarantee.
- Homes for all – no more evictions or repossessions full stop; tackle the homelessness emergency; fix the housing crisis with a mass council house building programme.
- Decent jobs for all – for full employment; end insecure working and ban zero-hours contracts; for the right to flexible work on workers’ not bosses’ terms.
- Defend and extend our right to organise – reverse all the anti-trade union laws and repeal the draconian anti-protest laws; for a second Employment Rights Act, ‘finishing the job’ for full union rights to bargain for better pay and conditions.
- End austerity for good – invest in our future with a Green revolution – end the dependency on fossil fuels and soaring oil and gas prices; for a massive investment in renewables, green infrastructure and jobs; insulate buildings to bring bills down.
These socialist solutions both have great public support, and the potential to become even more popular. For example, polling shows that 82% of Britons favour water being run in the public sector, whilst support for bringing energy into public ownership ranges between 55% and 63%.
Let’s work together across the Left for a radical, socialist alternative – comrades, we have no time to lose!
- The Red Weekly Column will appear regularly on Labour Outlook from one of our regular socialist contributors.
- Add your name to the Labour Assembly Against Austerity petition calling for these policies here.
- You can get tickets to Arise’s TUC conference fringe event “For an Irreversible Shift in the Balance of Power and Wealth” here.
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