FOR THE first time a comprehensive analysis of the economic and social impact of the war waged by the Tory government under Margaret Thatcher against British industry in a conscious attempt to smash the organised working class has been published.
Thatcher came to power in the 1980s determined to destroy the unions, especially the National Union of Mineworkers, who had effectively brought down the Tory government of Edward Heath in 1974.
Central to this strategy was the destruction of the heavy industry and manufacturing, those highly unionised sectors employing the ‘enemy within’ as Thatcher famously characterised trade unions.
The destruction of Britain’s industrial base was of no consequence to the Tories, modern capitalism didn’t need them, Thatcher proclaimed, the future lay in the financial sector. The vast riches, on paper, generated by the City of London would inevitably trickle down to the de-industrialised areas of the country that had been devastated.
In fact all this worthless paper money stayed right where it was with the banks, which Thatcher ensured were ‘liberalised’, freed of any restrictions to engage in wild speculation fuelled by unlimited credit that has now revealed itself to be debt.
As this new report ‘Jobs, Welfare and Austerity’ by Professors Christina Beatty and Steve Fothergill reveals, the mass closures of mines and factories started 30 years ago has led to misery for the working class and massively advanced the decay of British capitalism.
It has hugely contributed to the mountain of debt engulfing the Tory government; a debt that they are determined will be paid off at the expense of driving workers and their families into poverty levels last seen in the Victorian era.
Fothergill said: ‘The long-term effect of job destruction in older industrial Britain has been to park vast numbers out of the labour market on incapacity benefits. . . . Added to this, low wages in these weaker local economies have jacked up spending on in-work benefits such as tax credits and reduced income tax revenue.’
None of these impacts have diminished over the past 30 years, despite increasingly vicious attempts by the last coalition government and now the Tories to cut all benefits to the bone. According to Fothergill: ‘We estimate that the ongoing cost to the exchequer, in extra benefit spending and lost tax revenue, is at least £20 billion a year, and possibly nearer £30 billion.’
He went on: ‘To put this another way, approaching half the current budget deficit is the result of job destruction in Britain’s older industrial areas.’ The budget deficit is the difference between the government’s income and its expenditure. This difference has to be made up by government borrowing on the money markets, a debt that goes towards the overall government debt of over £1.5 trillion.
The report concludes: ‘The Treasury has misdiagnosed high welfare spending as the result of inadequate work incentives and has too often blamed individuals for their own predicament, whereas in fact a large part of the bill is rooted in job destruction extending back decades.’ This is manifestly wrong.
The Tories never thought that that ‘inadequate work incentives’ were to blame for the high level of benefit claimants, this was a lying, cynical smokescreen behind which Duncan Smith organised the most savage austerity cuts on the unemployed, the working poor and the disabled.
These cuts were designed to make them pay for the destruction of industry carried out since the 1980s by both Tory and Labour governments. This report makes a complete nonsense of all talk from the Labour Party and TUC about ‘reviving’ the industrial base and export-led recoveries.
British capitalism is bust; there is nothing left to revive. The banks, which Thatcher and Gordon Brown always claimed would save the day, are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
The only way out for the working class is to put an end to this system, by demanding that the TUC act immediately to stop all the benefit cuts and end poverty level wages by organising a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers government and a socialist planned economy where the banks and industry will be nationalised and placed under the control and work for the benefit of all the people.