THE Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in the first major assessment by a leading international economic think tank of the economic impact of the US-Israeli war on Iran, stated that the UK economy will be damaged more than any other industrialised nation.
The OECD analysis warned that the war has worsened the economic outlook for many countries but would hit the UK particularly hard.
Pointing to the UK’s dependence on international trade and Britain’s reliance on imported fuel, the OECD said it had downgraded UK growth in 2026 due to expected higher levels of inflation than previously expected.
The OECD also noted that along with oil and gas supplies being ‘disrupted’ by the war, fertiliser shortages would send food prices soaring.
The report said: ‘The breadth and duration of the conflict are very uncertain, but a prolonged period of higher energy prices will add markedly to business costs and raise consumer price inflation, with adverse consequences for growth.’
Official figures last month showed the UK was already facing an unemployment crisis reaching a five-year high of 5.2% – the highest level since the Covid pandemic with economists warning earlier that the war on Iran threatens to leave over 100,000 workers out of work within months.
The working class and youth in the UK will be expected to bear the brunt of the rapidly unfolding economic crash as bankrupt world capitalism dives into recession.
Not content with having to deal with the catastrophic economic devastation caused by the illegal US-Israeli war, Labour prime minister Keir Starmer this week effectively declared war against Russia.
Starmer was speaking at the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) leaders’ summit in Finland where he announced that ‘Western nationals are facing a war on two fronts’, against both Iran and Russia, giving a lie to all his previous claims that the imperialist conflict in the Middle East had nothing to do with the Labour government.
Starmer declared that he had given approval for British forces to seize Russian tankers carrying oil.
British forces have already been involved in tracking Russian ships carrying oil and have supported other countries in seizing them.
Now Starmer is boasting that British troops will be directly involved in a confrontation that could escalate into a direct war with Russia.
Yesterday Labour Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper amplified Starmer’s warlike posturing saying that the Labour government is ‘deeply concerned about the links between Russia and Iran.’
She said: ‘Frankly, Iran cannot be able to just hold the global economy hostage’, as a result of its entirely justifiable and legal response to the illegal war and deliberate murder of its leadership.
According to Starmer and Cooper, Iran does not have the right, although enshrined in international law, to defend itself from unprovoked and savage attacks launched by Trump and the Israeli Zionists five weeks ago.
In the same way Russia does not have the right to export its oil to other countries because of ‘western powers’ attempting to achieve an impossible victory in yet another unwinnable imperialist war to secure regime change in Russia.
Starmer bangs on about ‘illegal’ Russian fleets and threatens to go to war with Russia while remaining silent over all the war crimes committed daily by US imperialism in its indiscriminate bombing of Iran, just as he is silent about the genocide being committed by the Zionist regime in Gaza.
The powerful working class will never accept having their lives destroyed by imperialist wars.
The time is now for the working class and youth to demand that the TUC stop all complicity and support for a Starmer government and call a general strike now to kick out the would be ‘Labour War Prime Minister’ along with the entire Labour government bringing in a workers government and socialist planned economy.
This will win the support of workers across the US and Europe to take action to bring down their capitalist governments opening the path for the victory of the World Socialist Revolution.
