On Monday morning, Keir Starmer left 10 Downing Street to make way for his appointed successor as Labour Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who immediately announced his intention to start a ten year plan to restore bankrupt British capitalism.
Burnham’s first job was to reveal the new set of Labour ministers after sacking former allies of Starmer – a purge of Starmer loyalists designed to impress workers that he, Burnham, represented a complete break with the previous government that had become hated throughout the country.
First for the chop was Rachel Reeves, replaced by John Healey as Chancellor of the Exchequer placing him in control of the UK government finances.
Healey is credited with triggering Starmer’s departure following his abrupt resignation as Defence Secretary last month.
Healey resigned in a dramatic fashion claiming that Starmer was ‘putting the UK in danger’ because the Treasury was ‘unwilling’ to spend the billions demanded by the UK military in order to beef up the armed forces for war against Russia.
A notorious supporter of imperialist war in Ukraine, in February 2026 Healey demanded British troops be sent to fight to prop up the Zelensky regime as part of ‘a coalition of the willing’.
Now Burnham has handed the keys to the UK economy to Healey, allowing him to plough tens of billions into the UK’s military – paid for by savage austerity cuts imposed on workers and youth.
Burnham, of course, has tried to hide this fact behind all the rhetoric about establishing internal unity and alleviating the economic hardships suffered by the working class.
Yesterday, Burnham proudly announced plans to cut VAT on electricity bills, a move that would reduce these bills by an average of just £45 a year from October.
This cut would be paid for by scrapping the Digital ID programme according to Burnham and Healey.
In fact, it quickly transpired that the Digital ID programme was unfunded, meaning no money is saved by scrapping it and the funding will come from cuts as yet not identified.
A cut of £45 a year in the skyrocketing costs of energy as a result of the US-Israeli war on Iran will not prove a lifeline for the millions of workers and their families who live in extreme poverty or ‘bring back hope’ to them as Burnham claims.
Burnham is certainly falling over to ingratiate himself with US president Donald Trump.
In his first phone call immediately after becoming Prime Minister Burnham invited Trump to Manchester for next year’s G20 summit, with Trump saying he’d had a ‘very good’ talk with him.
The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that Trump ‘expects’ Burnham to let US forces strike Iran from British bases, an issue that caused a rupture in relations between the US president and Starmer who was unable to submit to US demands out of fear of a mass rebellion from workers who overwhelmingly oppose imperialist wars in the Middle East, and Trump is now assessing that Burnham will carry out his demands.
With Healey now in charge of the government finances and a dedicated supporter of imperialist war, Trump clearly has great hopes that Burnham will drop the pretence of being anything other than a loyal stooge for US imperialism.
Starmer, hated by the working class, had become a liability for the capitalist ruling class for his inability to carry out the vicious austerity cuts to the welfare state, wages and jobs demanded to try to stop British capitalism from collapsing under the weight of a £3 trillion national debt.
Dumping Starmer for Burnham will not solve the historic economic and political crisis tearing British capitalism and the entire capitalist world apart.
The working class can resolve this crisis by demanding the TUC call a general strike to bring down the Labour government and bring in a workers government that will nationalise the banks and major industries, placing them under the management, and for the benefit, of the working class under a socialist planned economy.
This means the building up of the WRP and Young Socialists to provide the leadership necessary for the victory of the British Socialist Revolution.
Join today – there is no time to lose.
