NEVER WERE PRO LIFE

Red states are using the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade to expand the death penalty

Death penalty states want the Supreme Court to throw out its precedents and allow the execution of child rapists

By AUSTIN SARAT
SALON
PUBLISHED MAY 25, 2024

Ron DeSantis | Prison Cellhouse interior (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

Even as support for the death penalty wanes across the country, Republican governors, led by Florida’s Ron DeSantis, are signing into law legislation expanding the death penalty.

Earlier this month, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a bill authorizing the death penalty for aggravated rape of a child. The law goes into effect on July 1. Lee’s decision makes Tennessee the second state, following Florida, to apply capital punishment to cases where no one is killed. A third red state, Idaho, is now considering similar legislation.

These laws, as the Death Penalty Information Center explains, “contradict longstanding Supreme Court precedent holding the death penalty unconstitutional for non-homicide crimes.” In fact, they are intended to tee up a case allowing the Supreme Court’s conservative, activist majority to overturn long-established precedent, just as it has done in other high-profile cases.

What the Supreme Court did in overturning its own precedents when it allowed states to prohibit abortion, has sent a clear message and prompted Tennessee, Florida (and maybe Idaho) to defy its long-established precedents in the area of capital punishment.

Proponents of the new laws hope that the court will extend the reach of capital punishment. They also hope to put death penalty opponents on the defensive by painting them as soft-on-crime defenders of child rapists.

Death penalty opponents must work hard to avoid falling into that trap. Their best political strategy, though it might not be a winning legal strategy, will be to say that the court should respect its own precedent rather than mounting a full-fledged campaign to explain why child rapists should not be put to death.

Before looking more closely at the Tennessee law and the political strategy behind it and the others, let’s recall what the Supreme Court has said about using the death penalty for non-homicide cases like rape.In a 7-2 decision handed down in 1977, the court found that capital punishment was “grossly disproportionate” to the crime of rape. Justice Bryon White, who wrote the majority opinion in Coker v. Georgia, turned to history to help explain that judgment.

“At no time in the last 50 years,” White said, “have a majority of the States authorized death as a punishment for rape. In 1925, 18 States, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Government authorized capital punishment for the rape of an adult female. By 1971, … that number had declined, but not substantially, to 16 States plus the Federal Government.”

That situation changed dramatically in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia striking down the death penalty as then applied. Subsequently, more than 30 states reenacted their death penalty statutes, but few reauthorized it as a punishment for rape.

As White explained, it “should also be a telling datum that the public judgment with respect to rape, as reflected in the statutes providing the punishment for that crime, has been dramatically different. In reviving death penalty laws to satisfy Furman's mandate, none of the States that had not previously authorized death for rape chose to include rape among capital felonies.”

White recognized “the seriousness of rape as a crime.” As he put it, “It is highly reprehensible, both in a moral sense and in its almost total contempt for the personal integrity and autonomy of the female victim and for the latter's privilege of choosing those with whom intimate relationships are to be established. Short of homicide, it is the ‘ultimate violation of self.’”

Still, White insisted that “in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public,…(rape) does not compare with murder, which does involve the unjustified taking of human life…. The murderer kills; the rapist, if no more than that, does not…. We have the abiding conviction that the death penalty, which ‘is unique in its severity and irrevocability,’ is an excessive penalty for the rapist who, as such, does not take human life.”

Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice William Rehnquist, who dissented in Coker, accused the majority of “engraft(ing) their conceptions of proper public policy onto the considered legislative judgments of the States.” They branded the decision to bar the death penalty in rape cases “very disturbing.”

Three decades after Coker, in a case called Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that ruling and extended it to cover the rape of a child. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a five-justice majority, conceded that “Petitioner’s crime was one that cannot be recounted in these pages in a way sufficient to capture in full the hurt and horror inflicted on his victim or to convey the revulsion society….”

But he argued that “in determining whether the death penalty is excessive, there is a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape, on the other. The latter crimes may be devastating in their harm, as here, but ‘in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public,’… they cannot be compared to murder in their ‘severity and irrevocability.’”

Justice Samuel Alito, in a blistering dissent, said that he found it incredible that that death could never be an appropriate punishment “no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s prior criminal record may be.”

Understanding the political danger of supporting the court’s decision, in 2008 both of the major party presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, condemned it. “I think,” Obama observed, “that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision that… the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution."

This brings us back to the present.

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The fact that Kennedy and the other justices in the Kennedy v. Louisiana majority are no longer on the Supreme Court(Alito and two of the other dissenters remain) has not been lost on the people now openly defying the Coker and Kennedy decisions. They have also been spurred on by court’s increasingly cavalier attitude toward its own precedents. Nor has the political danger that Obama recognized for those who openly oppose the death penalty for child rapists escaped notice.

Tennessee State Sen. Jack Johnson, who sponsored the bill, highlighted that both when he wrote in an op-ed he wrote last month in The Tennessean. Setting the political trap, he asked “Was the life of a rapist more valuable than the life of an innocent child who will be permanently scarred forever? In Tennessee, the answer is no.”

“Child rape,” he continued escalating the rhetorical stakes, “is the most disgraceful, indefensible act one can commit, leaving lasting emotional and psychological wounds on its victims. As a legislator, and more importantly, as a human being, our responsibility to protect the most vulnerable comes first.”

Critics of this legislation, Johnson continued, “argue that the death penalty is an unjustifiable punishment and ineffective. However, in cases where a rapist is preying on the vulnerability of a child and inflicting permanent harm on them, a severe form of justice is the consequence they must face.”

Johnson was even more direct in talking about the difference the Supreme Court's composition might make when a challenge to the Tennessee law reaches the court.

“All five justices who supported the 2008 opinion are no longer members of the U.S. Supreme Court (Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer). Three of the four justices who authored the dissenting opinion are still sitting justices (Roberts, Alito, and Thomas). Given the makeup of the current court, there is a strong possibility that Kennedy v. Louisiana could be overturned.”

As Johnson put it, “I feel very certain that the Supreme Court believes there is a strong, compelling state interest to protect children, and we believe this Court will support Tennessee's efforts."

He may be right.

What the Supreme Court did in overturning its own precedents when it allowed states to prohibit abortion, has sent a clear message and prompted Tennessee, Florida (and maybe Idaho) to defy its long-established precedents in the area of capital punishment. As Johnson made clear, they are banking that the court will now allow death penalty states to expand the reach of capital punishment.

Doing so would not only be a backward step in the ongoing effort to end the death penalty in this country, but it would also be another sign that, as former Justice Thurgood Marshall once noted, “Power, not reason, is the new currency of this Court's decision-making.”


By AUSTIN SARAT is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. His most recent book is "Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution." His opinion articles have appeared in USA Today, Slate, the Guardian, the Washington Post and elsewhere.

ICYMI

2024: People Starve As The Rich Get Richer

BY GRAHAM PEEBLES

 MAY 24, 2024
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Image by Hennie Stander.

Earning enough to pay the rent or mortgage, cover utility bills and travel costs, buy food and have the occasional coffee is impossible for many. But its not hard for everyone, is it; there are a small number of people living among us who don’t have to worry about the bills, are not troubled when food prices increase or rents balloon.

They are the rich and the obscenely rich. On the surface they look like the rest of us, but they live in a completely different world to the one most of us inhabit. A pristine space of privilege and political influence, for in our corrupt world bereft of principled political leaders, money and power are bedmates.

The statistics around wealth and income inequality are manifold and horrifying.

There are, according to Forbes more billionaires in the world than ever before; 2,781 individuals with fortunes in excess of $1Bn (up 141 on 2023), of which 14 are ‘centi-billionaires’ i.e. fortunes over $100 Bn. Mostly the super rich are men, Oxfam record that, “Globally, men own US $105 trillion more wealth than women.”

During the last ten years, (which saw the 2008 financial crash, Covid and the Ukraine/Russia) the collective wealth of this tiny shiny gang has increased by 120%. As Forbes puts it, “Even during times of financial uncertainty for many, the super-rich continue to thrive.” At the same time, on the same planet, as the hyper rich drown in money and stuff, around five billion people around the world are poorer now than they were in 2019.

The poorest everywhere are women, people of colour (“in the USA, the wealth of a typical Black household is just 15.8% of that of a typical white household”) and marginalised groups; the same sections of society coincidentally that were most severely impacted by Covid.

Remember all the talk during the pandemic of a socio-economic reset, of tackling social injustices, creating fairer more integrated ways of working and living etc, blah, blah blah. Well, Oxfam reveal that, in subsequent years while “average real wages of nearly 800 million workers have fallen” across 52 countries, the worlds billionaires are $3.3Tn richer than they were pre pandemic……and their wealth has grown three times faster than the rate of inflation.”

Unimaginable wealth for a tiny number of individuals while the majority of humanity live in varying levels of poverty or economic hardship. “The wealth of the world’s five richest billionaires has more than doubled since the start of this decade, while 60% of humanity has grown poorer.” ‘Trickle down economics’ (“gush up” as Arundhati Roy rightly describes it) is a dystopian fantasy peddled by those who are swimming in cash.

In parallel to unprecedented concentrations of wealth, the corporations that many of these individuals lead or own have also been making unprecedented profits. Oxfam: “148 of the world’s biggest corporations together raked in $1.8 trillion…in total net profits in the year to June 2023, a 52 per cent jump compared to average net profits in 2018-2021.”

Record profits as the majority are struggling to feed themselves, are in many cases falling into debt and destitution, whilst being told to ‘tighten their belts’, by obnoxious, often wealthy, politicians beholden to corporate leaders.

Virtually all profits are dished out to shareholders, with companies refusing to pay their staff properly; less than 0.5% “of over 1,600 of the world’s largest companies “pay their workers a living wage.” Corporate greed knows no limits, nor the level of worker exploitation.

Corporate political power fuels inequality not just by shareholder payouts, but by keeping wages low, avoiding paying taxes, absorbing and running public services and feeding climate change.

Multiple inequalities

In addition to growing inequality within countries, the gap between the Global north and the Global south is also increasing.

There are various forms of inequality that flow from the underlying cause, financial inequality: climate change, political influence, housing, access to the arts and internet, good health care and stimulating education among others.

Under the socio-economic system of the day, all is dependent on money. Financial hardship/poverty places individuals and nations in a position of disadvantage, making it impossible for example to live in a comfortable home, eat a balanced healthy diet, to attend a good school, visit art galleries and the theatre, access the internet; travel, have a voice that is listened to by the political class.

The systemic cause of this madness is of course the inherent injustice/s sewn into the DNA of the pervasive socio-economic model. The more extreme, the more fundamental the form of capitalism becomes concentrations of wealth intensify and narrow, inequality increases, democracy flounders, social divisions and anger grow.

Since the 1990s, thanks largely to that fanatical duo, Thatcher and Reagan, and intensifying year on year, the socio-economic paradigm has moved from twilight to utter darkness. Neo-Liberalism or Market fundamentalism, has expanded its reach, until it now dominates virtually all areas of life, in almost every corner of the world.

The Paradigm of Greed and Destruction champions excess; sufficiency, simplicity and moderation are dismissed. Everything is seen as a commodity, including health care, education, and people, to be monetised, exploited to the last drop and profited from. Everyone is regarded as a consumer, every nation, city or village analysed as a potential marketplace.

It is a deeply materialistic, extremely crude, albeit complex way of organising society, that humanity is enthralled too and entrapped by. Obsession with objects and sensory experiences has resulted in mankind being divorced from him/herself, from the natural world and that underlying reality, which we call god. It is choking the life out of humanity, poisoning the planet and driving climate change.

Yes, the underlying cause of climate change and ecological vandalism is consumerism, therefore greed. Not consumerism within poor developing nations (including China) of course, but relentless irresponsible consumerism in rich western nations (US leads the pack by some margin), particularly the richest members within these societies. “The richest 1% globally emit as much carbon pollution as the poorest two-thirds of humanity [roughly 5.4billion].”

It doesn’t have to be like this

Keeping the masses poor, physically exhausted and emotionally drained, whilst concentrating wealth into the pockets of the already rich is not a new game of course. As Priya Sahni-Nicholas of the Equality Trust explains, “The super-rich have spent centuries diverting wealth into their hands, making our democracy less responsive to people’s needs and damaging our communities. The result is we [society/nations] are poorer, sicker, less productive, unhappier, more polarised, and less trusting.”

The values of the market are destroying communities and literally making people ill – physically and psychologically (and of course the two are inter-twinned). These insidious tools of control create the conditions for all kinds of conflict, individually and collectively. They fuel tribalism, deny/pervert democracy, encourage corruption, and make peace impossible. All of which is by design; the last thing the ruling elites want is a contented happy, and well informed populace.

Despite the dogmatic rhetoric from politicians of all colours this is not the only way to live, the only option. We can change this, and if we are to prosper.

At the heart of any re-imagining must be that simple attitude and action that parents routinely encourage in their children, – Sharing. We need to learn to share; fundamentally to share the essentials required to live – water, food, shelter; share the knowledge, information, and technology. Ensure everyone, irrespective of income has access to good quality health care and stimulating education, and begin to create a just world where trust can blossom, differences dissolve and relationships form.

Sharing is the first step of such a shift. If introduced as a guiding principle it would have a profound impact, not just in the way basic needs are met, but in the collective consciousness. It would facilitate a kinder, fairer, society and allow a space to open up in which stress could gradually dissolve. The mechanisms for building sharing into the machine could easily be designed and introduced, if, and of course its a colossal if, the political will was there.

In parallel with structural simplification, purpose needs to be rediscovered and actions cleansed. Humanity must – or potentially face extinction – move away from the relentless pursuit of material, sensory pleasure, which demands constant stimulation through consumption, and therefore, ensures perpetual discontent and environmental catastrophe, to a quieter, simpler mode of living.

This may sound ridiculously ambitious, and given the determination by corporations, the exceedingly rich and weak politicians with vested interests, and public apathy, it may well be. But unless purpose is re-imagined, and unless ‘root and branch’ economic ‘reform’ takes place, the social-economic-political divisions will not just continue, they will intensify, and the unbelievable extremes will become normalised, baked into everyday life and everyday politics.

This is the time for such a move; everything is in a state of collapse; all the forms, all the systems and, in societies throughout the world, particularly the West, many of the people are falling apart. If not now, when?

Graham Peebles is a British freelance writer and charity worker. He set up The Create Trust in 2005 and has run education projects in Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and India.  E: grahampeebles@icloud.com  W: www.grahampeebles.org

General election 2024: Read first Keir Starmer speech and key messages of Labour campaign to ‘turn the page’

Keir Starmer
22nd May, 2024


Tonight the Prime Minister has finally announced the next General Election.



A moment the country needs – and has been waiting for. And where, by the force of our democracy power returns to you.



A chance to change for the better. Your future. Your community. Your country.



It will feel like a long campaign – I’m sure of that. But no matter what else is said and done. That opportunity for change is what this election is about.



Over the course of the last four years – we have changed the Labour Party. Returned it once more to the service of working people.



All we ask now – humbly – is to do exactly the same for our country. And return Britain to the service of working people. To that purpose.



We offer three reasons why you should change Britain with Labour.



One – because we will stop the chaos.



Look around our country. The sewage in our rivers. People waiting on trolleys in A&E. Crime virtually unpunished. Mortgages and food prices – through the roof.



It’s all – every bit of it – a direct result of the Tory chaos in Westminster.



Time and again, they pursue their own interests. Rather than tackling the issues that affect your family.



And if they get another five years, they will feel entitled to carry on exactly as they are. Nothing will change.



A vote for Labour is a vote for stability – economic and political. A politics that treads more lightly on all our lives. A vote to stop the chaos.

Two – because it’s time for change.



Our offer is to reset both our economy and our politics.



So that they once again serve the interests of working people.



We totally reject the Tory view that economic strength is somehow gifted from those at the top.



Over the past fourteen years – through all the crises we have had to face – sticking with this idea has left our country exposed, insecure and unable to unlock the potential of every community.



But a vote for Labour is a vote to turn the page on all that. A vote for change.



And finally, three – because we have a long-term plan to rebuild Britain. A plan that is ready to go. Fully-costed and fully funded.



We can deliver economic stability. Cut the NHS waiting times. Secure our borders with a New Border Security Command.



Harness Great British Energy to cut your bills for good. Tackle anti-social behaviour.



And get the teachers we need in your children’s classroom.

But most of importantly of all, we do all this with a new spirit of service.



Country first, party second.



A rejection of the gesture politics you will see in this campaign, I have no doubt from the Tories and from the SNP.



I am well aware of the cynicism people hold towards politicians at the moment.



But I came into politics late, having served our country as leader of the Crown Prosecution Service.



And I helped the Police Service in Northern Ireland to gain the consent of all communities.



Service of our country is the reason – and the only reason – why I am standing here now – asking for your vote.



And I believe with patience, determination and that commitment to service there is so much pride and potential we can unlock across our country.



So – here it is – the future of the country – in your hands.

On 4th July you have the choice. And together, we can stop the chaos.



We can turn the page. We can start to rebuild Britain. And change our country.


Thank you.


Keir Starmer is Labour leader and MP for Holborn and St Pancras.@Keir_StarmerView all articles by Keir Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer: The one-time ‘lefty lawyer’ with his eye on No 10


Sir Keir Starmer (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
By Gavin Cordon, PAToday at 10:36


Three years ago Sir Keir Starmer seriously considered throwing in the towel after seeing Labour crash to a humiliating defeat in the Hartlepool by-election.


A little more than a year into the job as party leader, even allies were questioning whether he had what it took to return them to power after the Tories romped home in the formerly safe Labour stronghold.

The setback was compounded by a series of losses in council elections taking place in England the same day.

The Blairite former minister Lord Adonis suggested he was no more than a “transitional figure” without the “political skills” needed to make it to the top while critics on the left were openly gloating.




Sir Keir Starmer emerges from his home following the Hartlepool by-election. He considered quitting following Labour’s defeat (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Badly bruised by the result, having made repeated visits to campaign in the constituency – “I felt like I had been kicked in the guts” – he told aides that it was a “personal rejection” and he had to go.

In his hour of darkness, his wife, Victoria, was among those who rallied round and persuaded him to carry on.

Having pulled round from that “near-death experience”, and dragged his party back to the brink of electability in the process, he is now preparing for the final push that could see him become the UK’s next prime minister.

But while his trademark grey quiff has become a fixture at Prime Minister’s Questions, he remains in the eyes of many voters an unknown quantity who has yet to define what he truly stands for.

An avid football fan – he is an Arsenal season ticket holder – he may now be challenging for the top honours, but like the team he supports he has struggled to shed the “boring” tag.

A one-time “lefty lawyer” from north London, he has been depicted by opponents as the epitome of a self-satisfied liberal metropolitan elite, remote from the concerns of ordinary voters.

However he grew up in very different circumstances sharing a cramped, ramshackle “pebble-dash semi” with three siblings and a mother who was seriously ill for much of his childhood.



Keir Starmer when he was the director of public prosecutions (Lewis Whyld/PA)

When he stood for leader in the aftermath of Labour’s crushing 2019 general election defeat, he ran on a leftish platform with commitments to renationalise water and energy and scrapping university tuition fees.

He has since been accused of systematically abandoning his principles, dropping key policies one by one, as he has tacked steadily to the right.

To his supporters, he is a pragmatist utterly focused on taking Labour back to power, believing real change cannot be achieved from the impotence of opposition.

And while some on the left have cried betrayal, his critics in the party have been largely sidelined as it recovered to establish a commanding lead in the opinion polls.

A late entrant to politics after a high-flying legal career – including a five-year stint as director of public prosecutions – Sir Keir has seemed to some too “lawyerly” and buttoned up to connect with voters.


His friends insist that such a characterisation is unfair, saying that in private he is warm and engaging, whether propping up the bar, pint in hand, at his local or cooking a meal at home with his family.

A recent biography by journalist and former Labour spin doctor Tom Baldwin cast new light on his apparent reticence in public, describing a difficult childhood growing up in straitened circumstances in the Surrey commuter-belt town of Oxted.




Sir Keir Starmer with Jeremy Corbyn during the 2019 General Election campaign (Jonathan Brady/PA)

Named after the first Labour leader, Keir Hardie, his father, Rodney, was a toolmaker and his mother, Jo, an NHS nurse who suffered from a rare condition which left her with a debilitating form of rheumatoid arthritis normally associated with someone much older.

In constant pain, it meant that for much of his childhood she was in and out of hospital – an experience that was to have a profound effect on him.

At the same time his younger brother, Nick, suffered from learning difficulties, leading to fights at school as Keir and his sisters sought to defend him from bullies.


His father meanwhile was a distant, uncommunicative figure who banned the children from listening to pop music or watching TV shows such as Tiswas or Starsky And Hutch and who hated Margaret Thatcher.

It was only after Rodney died and he discovered a scrapbook of press cuttings he kept chronicling his career that the adult Sir Keir finally understood the pride his father had taken in his achievements.

Difficulties at home did not stop him doing well at school – passing the 11-plus to gain a place at Reigate Grammar School, while his prowess at sport and music earned him the nickname “Superboy” from his siblings.




Sir Keir Starmer demonstrates his football skills during a campaign visit to Glasgow (John Linton/PA)

Determined to break away from his small town background, he won a place at Leeds studying law – a course chosen largely to please his parents – making him the first member of his family to go university.

He drove there in a battered Morris Minor, paid for by a summer spent “punching holes in metal” for his father.


He was at times uncomfortable in his new surrounds – while fellow students talked knowledgeably about which branch of the profession they hoped to follow, he realised he had never even met a lawyer and had little idea of what they did.

Typically he responded by simply working harder than anyone else, his efforts being rewarded with a first honours and a place at Oxford on a postgraduate degree course in civil law.

He was also becoming increasingly involved in politics, helping run Socialist Alternatives, an obscure Trotskyite magazine, and writing articles earnestly proclaiming Karl Marx was “of course” right over the way to achieve real societal change.

After being called to the bar in 1987, three years later he was among an idealistic group of progressive lawyers who formed the Doughty Street chambers, specialising in human rights with half their cases either paid for by legal aid or free of charge.

Mr Starmer, as he then still was, was soon involved in advising the so-called McLibel Two, a pair of environmental activists who famously took on McDonald’s in a marathon David v Goliath defamation case.


He also made repeated trips to Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean and Africa to represent defendants facing the death penalty, work which helped win him a “QC of the year” award, and drew up legal arguments against the Blair government’s 2005 invasion of Iraq.

At the same time, he belied the conventional “lefty lawyer” image by serving as an adviser to the Association of Chief Police Officers and newly formed Northern Ireland Policing Board, and in 2008 he was appointed director of public prosecutions.




Sir Keir Starmer and deputy leader Angela Rayner (Danny Lawson/PA)

The Tories are reported to have compiled a dossier on his time at the Crown Prosecution Service with a view to embarrassing him during the election campaign, although his supporters remain confident he has nothing to fear.

In 2022 Boris Johnson was forced to row back on a claim that Sir Keir failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile for child sex abuse after even some Tories were angered at the then prime minister’s attempt to make political capital of the issue.

Among the notable decisions he was involved in were the charging of cabinet minister Chris Huhne for seeking to evade speeding points and the fast-track prosecutions of offenders following the 2011 riots in London and other English cities.


It was only after his term of office – for which he was awarded a knighthood – came to an end in 2013 that he turned seriously to politics.

In 2015 he was elected MP for the safe Labour seat of Holborn and St Pancras only to see the party suffer its second general election defeat in a row.

He was made a shadow home office minister by new leader Jeremy Corbyn, but was among a wave of frontbenchers to resign in the wake of the tumultuous aftermath of the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU.

After Mr Corbyn saw off the ensuing leadership challenge, Sir Keir – an ardent Remainer – agreed to return to the fold as shadow Brexit secretary.

Pressed subsequently by Tories about why he had done so when he had discarded so much of Mr Corbyn’s left-wing agenda, he claimed he had a duty to help mitigate the effects of withdrawal, fighting to keep open the option of a second referendum.





Sir Keir Starmer with his wife, Victoria, following his 2021 Labour Party conference speech in Brighton (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Not all were convinced by such arguments, but his stance did nothing to damage his prospects within the party.

Following Mr Corbyn’s resignation after leading Labour to its worst result in more than 80 years in the 2019 election – fought on Mr Johnson’s pledge to “get Brexit done” – Sir Keir quickly emerged as the overwhelming favourite to replace him.

One of his first pledges on being elected leader was to rid the party of the “stain” of antisemitism which had taken hold under his predecessor.

He soon revealed a ruthless streak when Mr Corbyn complained that a damning report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission had overstated the problem by sacking him from the Parliamentary Labour Party – an ultimate act of distancing.

His start as Labour leader was overshadowed by the Covid pandemic while the party’s rise in the polls has owed much to the Tories’ implosion, first with Mr Johnson and the “partygate” scandal and then Liz Truss’s calamitous whirlwind premiership.


His allies however insist that credit must also go to his forensic examination of Mr Johnson’s handling of the pandemic and the reassurance he was able to offer in response to the financial chaos created by Ms Truss.

After the nadir of Hartlepool, he has systematically strengthened his grip, with a string of by-election victories while steadily moving to claim the political centre ground, promoting a clutch of Blairites in last year’s shadow cabinet reshuffle.

His hold over the party was underlined by the relatively muted response to his decision finally to drop a flagship £28 billion “green” investment pledge, seen as too easy a target for Tory claims of Labour fiscal profligacy.

If that seemed to some overly cautious, the biggest challenge he has had to face in recent months has come from the war in Gaza, which prompted a series of frontbench sackings and dismissals over his reluctance to call for an immediate ceasefire.

Away from Westminster, Sir Keir’s passion for football runs deep: at the age of 61 he continues to organise and play in regular eight-a-side matches with a group of old north London friends.

On the pitch, he is described as a highly competitive, box-to-box, midfield dynamo: his supporters will be hoping that he has the drive to propel him all the way to No 10.

UK
Corporate profiteering is the main source of inflation and people’s never-ending cost-of-living crisis. Here’s why

Corporate profits soar to 30% higher than pre-pandemic levels

Prem Sikka 17 May, 2024 
Columnists
Left Foot Forward 

Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.

Corporations make obscene profits by squeezing household budgets and workers’ pay to enrich a few executive and shareholders who have no loyalty to any place, product or people. Money is their only God and they have no qualms about sacrificing lives, the environment and social cohesion.

This week, Unite published its report into profiteering by UK corporations. The report looked at the profit margins of 17,000 companies and found that their average profit margins have soared by 30% compared to the pre-pandemic period. Electricity and Gas supply companies were the worst culprits as they increased their profit margin by 363%. With nearly 7.74m unfilled NHS appointments patients have turned to private hospitals for treatment and companies have excelled at fleecing people. Profit margins in health and social work increased by 118%. Altogether, companies made £156bn additional profit over 2021 and 2022, compared to if margins had stayed at 2018 levels. That’s equivalent to £5,500 extra spent by every UK household. Their profit is the main source of inflation and people’s never-ending cost-of-living crisis.

Companies exploit people because they enjoy monopolistic and oligopolistic power in almost all sectors, and are indulged by the state. Oil/Gas and energy company profit margins increased from 8.5% to 16.5% enabling them to rake in an extra £64bn in profit. In 2023, BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies and have handed $100bn (£79bn) to shareholders in dividends and share buybacks. Meanwhile, UK households are struggling to pay energy bills and 6m people are trapped in fuel poverty.

The patronage of the state helps the finance industry to make excessive profits in other sectors too. Big four banks Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and NatWest control 85% of UK business accounts and 75% of current accounts between them. They have the best of all worlds. They are rescued from their financial follies by the state, which also boosts their profits. For example, the government’s anti-inflation policy requires people to hand over their savings and wealth to banks in the forms of higher interest rate charges. Inevitably, they make record profits. Bank profit margins have increased by nearly 50% compared to their pre-pandemic average. They reported £45bn profits in 2023 compared to average of £25bn in 2018/19, an increase of 75%. Some £27bn has been paid to investors in 2023. Meanwhile, since 2015 more than 6,000 bank branches have been axed resulting in inferior services for many. Banks are quick to hike interest rates and also to pass on the benefit of higher rates to savers. Buying a home is an impossible dream for millions.

A plethora of anti money laundering laws has not dulled the finance industry’s appetite for illicit financial flows. This week, the Deputy Foreign Secretary said that 40% of the global dirty money resulting from bribery, corruption, theft, narcotics, human trafficking, smuggling, sanctions busting and tax dodges is laundered through London and UK Crown Dependencies. UK regulators have long been adept at turning a Nelsonian eye to crime in the finance industry. Accountants, lawyers, banks and financial services experts are central players in the global tax avoidance industry, but rarely face any prosecutions. To appease public concern about corporate tax dodges the government rushed out the Criminal Finance Act 2017 to tackle tax evasion but to date not even one company has been charged.

Big supermarkets have increased their profit margins by 19% and made an extra £17.4bn in profits. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Waitrose hold a combined market share of around 70% of the grocery market. This week Tesco announced that its pre-tax profits rocketed from £882m to £2.3bn, a 159% increase. It hiked dividends by 11% and handed £1bn to shareholders in share buybacks. CEO’s remuneration rocketed from £4.5m to £9.9m whilst most of Tesco workers toiled at between £12.02 and £13.15 an hour. CEO collected more than the combined total of 421 workers wages. Thousands of supermarket workers rely upon food banks and social security benefits to make ends meet.

England’s water and sewage companies have a long history of exploiting people. Since privatisation in 1989 they have boosted profits by dumping raw sewage in rivers and seas and failing to plug water leaks. Customer bills have been hiked by over 360%, which is more than 60% in real terms. Companies have paid out over £85bn in dividends but have not built any new reservoirs. Despite the public disquiet, they have increased their profits margins by 43% since the pandemic. They are holding the people to ransom by withholding investment until the regulator approves a 56% price increase and the government hands them a bailout.

The PR spin on profiteering is that this somehow increases investment in productive assets and facilitates higher wages. Such claims rarely withstand scrutiny. The Unite research shows that since the pandemic net investment by FTSE350 companies fell from £37bn per half year in 2018 and 2019, to £9bn between 2022 and 2023. The UK private sector has long been a laggard in making investment in productive assets. In the OECD league table of investment by the private sector, the UK is ranked 27th out of 30 countries. Companies succumb to pressures from shareholders to prioritise dividends over investment. Over the course of 2022 and 2023, the total value of shareholder payouts was £275bn compared to £227bn in the pre-pandemic period of 2018/19, an increase of nearly 21%.

Profits are generated by the brawn, brains, sweat, blood and tears of workers, but companies continue to squeeze labour. With anti-trade union laws and erosion of worker rights, employee share of the gross domestic product in the form of wages and salaries has shrunk from 65.1% in 1976 to less than 50% by March 2024. Zero-hour contracts, fire and rehire on inferior working conditions are rife. Companies like P&O Ferries have openly flouted employment law to fire workers to boost profits.

Workers have not benefitted from the economic growth since the financial crash of 2007-08. The average real wage of workers in March 2024 was less than in 2008. The median pre-tax wage of £28,104 a year is utterly inadequate for an acceptable standard of living. A typical FTSE100 CEO collects more than that in less than 3 days. To prevent workers from taking strike action to secure equitable share of income and wealth, the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 bans millions of workers from taking strike action even though they meet all the requirements for a legal ballot.

The social consequences of corporate profiteering are all too visible. Over 12m people, including 4.3m children, live in poverty. Work does not pay enough for essentials and people rely upon charity and benefits for survival. 38% of the people on Universal Credit are in employment. This week the Trussell Trust announced that last year it handed out 3,12m emergency food parcels, the highest ever, to desperate people including 1.14m children and 179,000 pensioners.

Social housing has been sold off by the government and not replaced. UK builds fewer homes than the vast majority of other developed countries. A house purchase is beyond the means of many workers and private sector rents have spiralled. Tenants typically asked to pay rent of £2,633 a month in London and £1,291 outside. Bailiff evictions of tenants evictions are at a six-year high. The UK alone accounts for more than 80% of the homeless people in OECD countries. The number of English households living in temporary accommodation has increased from 48,000 in 2010 to 112,000 in 2023.

Corporate profiteering has reduced people’s access to good food, housing, education, healthcare and pensions. Due to poverty, healthy life expectancy in England is 62.4 years for males and 62.7 years for females; 61.1 years for males and 60.3 years for females in Wales. Some 28% of over-55s have no other pension saved apart from the state pension. Nearly 32% of Britons are unable to save for a pension due to low incomes Around 93,000 Britons die each year in poverty. Hardship, insecurity and premature death are the human costs of corporate profiteering.

Yet political intuitions are cowered by the power of corporations and no party wants to tackle their excesses. The social costs of poverty, misery and premature death are considered to be just another externality of corporate operations. Just this week, parliament voted to oppose a law which would have criminalised water companies that fail to tackle sewage dumping. Instead of protecting people from corporate abuses, governments protect corporations from the outrage of the people by enacting laws to ban strikes and protests.

No major party wants to democratise corporations by putting worker-elected directors on the boards of large companies; customer elected directors on the boards of utilities, banks and insurance companies, or empowering customers and employees to vote on executive pay and secure equitable distribution of income and better services, or holding corporations responsible for the social cost of their excesses. Inevitably, disenchantment with the political system and possibilities of social instability will grow.