UK

Break up the establishment’s ‘permanent austerity’ consensus

2nd March 2024Leave a Commenton Break up the establishment’s ‘permanent austerity’ consensus

“What is becoming clearer by the week is that the whole political establishment seems intent on never-ending austerity.”

Matt Willgress, LAAA

By Matt Willgress

We’re in the middle of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in generations, which has become a permanent cost-of-living emergency for millions.

Councils are going bust. Poverty and inequality are spiralling. Homelessness is out of control. Unemployment could be set to jump dramatically. People’s living costs just keep going up and up while wages and benefits fail to follow.

In this increasingly desperate context, it has been widely realised by millions in recent years that the Tories are more interested in doing the bidding of their rich backers than securing our jobs and livelihoods – but what is becoming clearer by the week is also that the whole political establishment seems intent on never-ending austerity.

On the Labour side of Parliament, this is reflected by Rachel Reeves’ increasingly conservative ‘fiscal framework,’ which is working through to the abandonment or watering-down of policy after policy that could start tackling the cost-of-living crisis, from public ownership of energy and water to the ditching of popular green investment policies, and much more besides.

On the left, we can’t let a new consensus for ‘permanent austerity’ be formed by the ruling class. It is the route to economic and social catastrophe, and to a further rise of far right politics in the years to come.

We therefore need urgently to put forward – and mobilise now for – policies that could both actually address the depth of the crises we face, and provide the basis for action in our workplaces and communities in the months and years ahead.

As part of this effort, and as a contribution to discussion across the left, labour and social movements on the programme we need – we are renewing efforts to get further support for the Workers Can’t Wait demands online, including these 10 measures:

• 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 social security system to end poverty – scrap the two child benefit cap, reverse the Universal Credit cut and extend the uplift to legacy benefits; boost and inflation-proof benefits; for a minimum income guarantee.
• Control costs – energy price freezes now at April 2022 rates, cap rents and basic food costs.
• 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. Open the books – back the workers’ commission on profiteering.
• Extra resources to create universal, comprehensive public services – stop cuts and privatisation; Save our NHS – for a national care service; properly fund local government. Tax wealth to fund our public services.
• Homes for all – no evictions or repossessions; tackle the homelessness emergency; fix the housing crisis with a mass council house building programme.
• For the right to food – enshrine the right to food in law; universal free school meals all year; for a National Food Service.
• 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 anti-trade union laws and repeal the draconian anti-protest laws; ban fire-and-rehire; for full union rights to bargain for better pay and conditions.
• End austerity for good – invest in our future with a Green New Deal – 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.

Moving forward, we also need a new and urgent discussion on how to co-ordinate, renew and strengthen all those initiatives that seek to address the cost-of-living emergency and support struggles for an end to austerity.

Please add your name, take the policies to labour movement and community groups for endorsement and discussion, and keep mobilising against austerity – and for investment, not cuts.

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• Matt Willgress is the National Organiser for the Labour Assembly Against Austerity. This article was originally published by LabourHub here.
• Join over 20,000 others and add you name in support to these demands here
• No cuts – Tax the Rich – Invest in our Future! Online event. Mon. Mar. 4, 18.30. Register here.  With John McDonnell MP // Richard Burgon MP // Sarah Woolley (BFAWU) // ZIta Holbourne (BARAC) // Jess Barnard, Labour NEC.  Just before Sunak & Hunt’s 2024 Budget, join us to discuss how we renew resistance to austerity and popularise left economic alternatives to never-ending cuts.