We Need Investment in Rail, Not War and Militarisation – Maryam Eslamdoust, TSSA
Ahead of the International Anti-War Conference this weekend, Maryam Eslamdoust, TSSA General Secretary writes on why working people should not foot the bill for an arms race at the expense of public services.
Last week saw the resignation of John Healey, the Defence Secretary, and Al Carns, one of his Ministers, over an apparent lack of funding for British defence. The resignations triggered a round of weekend media debate about how much we should be spending and a clamour to increase it.
While journalists, generals, and former Ministers pressed the case for increasing military expenditure, at our annual Conference in London this weekend TSSA members debated the union’s strategy for tackling job cuts at Network Rail and the transition to Great British Railways.
Over a year ago, unknown sources at the DfT suggested that thousands of people could lose their jobs in the transition to public ownership. Fast forward a few months, and Network Rail announce an “efficiencies” programme that will see potentially 870 of the workers my union represents lose their job. Thousands more jobs are being taken out of the organisation through steps such as not filling vacancies. The job losses are a direct result of cuts to the current budgeting period for Network Rail.
Another example is Southeastern, where jobs have been axed as the Train Operating Company and the Network Rail Southern Region merge functions. When we raise our concerns with Ministers, we are met with words about the “challenging fiscal context” and the need to make savings where it’s possible to do so.
At the Spending Review last year, while the Government announced a host of big ticket rail projects, the headline spend for rail infrastructure was actually budgeted to fall by 1% over the Parliament, while day-to-day spend at DfT fell by 5%.
So, the story for investment in rail – and the good, green climate jobs it creates – has not been a positive one. Conversely, while the DfT has faced cuts, and spending on transport infrastructure is forecast to fall, the big winners of last year’s Spending Review were defence and health.
We cannot object to an increase in investment in our NHS, which is on its knees. But increases in defence spending came as the White House demanded European leaders increase their contribution to NATO. As the US adjusts its defence posture, it has called on its allies to foot the bill.
The headline group to pay the price was disabled people. Last year’s attacks on PIP were attempted to finance the increase of defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, with the longer-term aspiration to raise it to 3%.
For TSSA, the choice should not be between economic security at home and security abroad. We reject the idea that working people should be asked to pay the price for political choices that reduce welfare provision while increasing military expenditure. Our argument is simple: government should be investing in wages, welfare and public services, not forcing ordinary people to bear the cost of an escalating arms race.
But the redistribution goes beyond the benefit system and is embedded in the spending priorities for the whole economy; record investment for the military but cuts and job losses for rail. Now some are calling for an increase in defence spending to 5% of GDP.
Enough is enough. That is why we are supporting the Stop the War Conference taking place this Saturday. Militarisation is diverting resources away from our industry at a time when it is needed most – to drive growth, make our economy more productive, connect our communities, and meet our climate objectives by facilitating a modal shift from road to rail.
The drive to war, and the chaos and uncertainty it has caused, also directly affects the living standards of our members. Too often, governments seek to project strength through military posturing without fully considering the human and economic costs. Workers know that wars do not just devastate communities overseas; they can also drive up energy prices, fuel inflation and deepen the cost-of-living pressures faced by families here at home.
We will not let any government off the hook when decisions taken in the name of national prestige or geopolitical competition risk making working people poorer, less secure or more vulnerable. Our responsibility is to stand up for our members, advocate for peace, and ensure that working-class communities do not shoulder the burden of policies that will fail to deliver social and economic justice.
- Maryam Eslamdoust is speaking at the International Anti-War Conference & Assembly in London on Friday, 19 and Saturday 20 June. You can find out more here.
- Maryam is the General Secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA). You can follow the TSSA on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
- 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.
Oppose militarism and conscription – Shabbir Lakha
Shabbir Lakha spoke at Stop the War’s recent International Anti-War Conference on the need to oppose militarism. You can read her speech below.
If you’ve used public transport recently, you will likely have seen the massive military recruitment campaign plastered all over the place. Do you like football? Join the army.
It might seem ridiculous, but it is just one example of how militarism is invading all parts of our society.
At a time when schools are literally crumbling, when universities are collapsing, when unemployment – and specifically youth unemployment – is rising, our government’s response is to introduce a ‘military gap year’. It has given the military an extra £70m specifically to go into schools and universities to recruit students.
The Ministry of Defence is establishing a Defence Universities Alliance to commit universities to developing military technology and to set up graduate schemes to funnel students into the military industrial complex.
At the same time, the government quietly increased the age limit for recalling military reservists to 65 and lowered the threshold for doing so to include times of “warlike preparations”.
It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the beginning of the reintroduction of conscription – especially when you look at developments across the continent.
Every week, we are fed stories about the Russian threat and the need to expand our military. Last month, they carried out war games in a bunker under a central London tube station, and they boasted about using the same AI targeting system that has been trained in battle by Israel and the US in Gaza, Lebanon and in Iran – you know the one that has consistently picked schools and hospitals to be bombed.
There is a consensus among the political classes across Europe that we need to cut welfare, cut spending on public services, and cut wages in order to fund rearmament on a mass scale. We are being driven at alarming speed towards more war, and more deadly and catastrophic forms of warfare and at the expense of working people.
And the nationalism generated by militarism, the Islamophobia used to justify the butchering of people in the Middle East, the authoritarianism used to stifle dissent, and the austerity that is impoverishing working people are the driving forces of the fascists and the far right.
So opposition to imperialism is the antidote to nationalism and Islamophobia and is absolutely central to the fight against fascism. Standing up for the Palestinian people is the frontline of defending our right to protest. Resisting the drive to war is a crucial part of stopping cuts to wages, welfare and public services.
And that’s why it’s so important that this movement is led by the labour movement, that those unions that have bought into the idea of defence jobs and supporting imperialism are pulled away by rank and file trade unionists.
Out of this conference, we are calling an international day of action for Palestine on 10 October, an international day of action supporting the dock workers’ action in October and an international day of action against conscription and militarism on 21-22 November.
Today in this hall and on those days we are showing the ruling classes that the millions who have marched for Palestine, the general strikes that have shut down cities, the blockades that have closed the ports to stop weapons getting to Israel, the universities that have been occupied and the students who have walked out of school, all the boats that have joined the flotillas – they are not isolated actions but the components of a united popular international movement that is capable and determined to consign the warmongers and the genocide perpetrators to the dustbin of history.
This is not a moment for despair, because it is precisely at this time, when the old order is dying and the new is struggling to be born, that we can have the most impact.
We represent the majority of the people of Europe and of the world and we are carrying on the traditions of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebernicht, of the soldiers that mutinied and ended the First World War, of the liberation movements that brought down empires, of the Palestinian people whose resistance is an inspiration to the world, of Malcolm X when he said we want freedom, justice and equality by any means necessary, of the Paris Communards when they declared 155 years ago:
Nous avons le devoir de lutter et de vaincre. It is our duty to fight and to win.
So let us get on with it. Solidarity.
- Shabbir Lakha is an Officer for the Stop the War Coalition. You can follow her on Twitter/X 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.
Stop the War set to host the most significant anti-war conference in a generation this weekend
Some 3,000 delegates from across the world are set to pack Central Hall, Westminster for the biggest and most significant anti-war conference in a generation, hosted by the Stop the War Coalition.
British, French, Spanish and Swedish MPs, Italian dockworkers, student anti-conscription campaigners, trade unionists from Europe and the UK and many more will be coming together to start to build an international movement to challenge the clamour for militarism and rearmament being ratcheted up globally.
Just here in Britain, one per cent from all government departments will be cut to pay for the defence investment plan, building the military and spending on arms at the expense of the services we all rely on. Even greater percentage cuts will likely be made to net-zero and transport, as though the climate emergency poses no threat to our security.
The conference will also see a unique audio visual collaboration between musician Brian Eno and Peter Kennard, Britain’s foremost political artist.
From Palestine to Paris, Belgium to Britain, Germany to Greece, the US to Ukraine, with other speakers from Italy, Russia, Spain and Sweden, this will be a truly world-wide solidarity conference.
Speakers include (all in person):
Mustafa Barghouti, General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI); Medea Benjamin, American political activist Code Pink; Mothin Ali, Green Party deputy leader; Lorena Delgado Varas, Swedish MP; Diane Abbott MP; Richard Burgon MP; Jeremy Corbyn MP; Zarah Sultana MP; Jon Trickett MP; Jérôme Lagavre, French Assembly member; Eddie Dempsey, RMT general secretary; Fran Heathcote, PCS general secretary; José Nivoi, Genoa docker; Tariq Ali, author and activist; Felix Kreklow Rojas, German anti-conscription student campaigner; Andrew Feinstein, former ANC MP; And many more.
The Stop the War Coalition is one of the main organisers of the conference. Its national convenor Lindsey German said:
“The impact of the war in the Middle East, the increased levels of instability, the ongoing war in Europe, the re-introduction of conscription by our neighbours and increased military spending here at the expense of the services we all rely on show how war and conflict abroad come home to bite. The need for a strong and committed international anti-war movement has never been greater.”
- You can find out more about the Stop the War International Anti-War Conference taking place Friday 19 and Saturday 20 June here and register here.
- You can follow Stop The War on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Twitter/X.
- 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.
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