YESTERDAY in Warwick, Labour leader Miliband mustered a battery of very ‘moral’ arguments about ‘fairness’, and the colonial origins of non-dom status, as if these were necessary to convince workers that the sickening situation, where billionaires from around the planet are made welcome to the UK on the basis that they will avoid all taxation, must be put an end to.
In fact, he was seeking in this convoluted fashion to distance himself from the outlook that was pushed by the last three Labour governments, of both Blair and Brown, that ‘only the rich were godly’, that Labour was a businessman’s government, and that in the view of Blair and Mandelson, the rich should be worshiped, cosseted, imitated and their favours sought, as both Blair and Brown did with the Murdoch media empire.
Brown went as far as selling off the gold reserves, and declaring that on the basis of his expansion of credit, there was no longer such a thing as ‘boom and bust’, and that he had resolved the crisis of the capitalist system, triumphing over Karl Marx.
He said this in his budget speech on the eve of the greatest crash in the history of capitalism, which came as a gigantic shock to this lover of the system.
Now after many years of austerity, with much more to come, even Balls and Miliband have been able to work out that they stand no chance of political survival unless they make a few gestures against unbridled profiteering capitalists and bankers.
In fact Miliband and Balls are doing the least possible when they propose slapping the wrists of the oligarchs of the planet, who have made London their great tax free estate and playground, by proposing that they pay some taxes!
These oligarchs are pretty sure that London belongs to them. There is even a scheme afoot to make the US plutocrat, Bloomberg, the next Mayor of London, of which he now owns some large chunks, to allow the current Anglo-American Mayor, Johnson to move on to become leader of the Tory party!
In fact, as Miliband and Balls know, the centre of London is being cleansed of workers, who are being evicted en masse or being driven out by super high rents so that the oligarchs of the planet, the ‘non-doms’ can have it for their sole use!
Miliband in his speech was forced to refer to the way that the workers were forced to rescue the ‘wealth creating’ bankers and other crooks in 2008-11.
He said: ‘Britain doesn’t need a government which is the political wing of the off-shore tax avoidance industry.’ In fact, he knows that the working class will not stand for another such Labour or Tory government.
He said: ‘We are still paying – you are still paying – the British people are still paying – for what happened because of the global financial crisis.
‘We were told that the wealth flowed from these institutions, and, while it appeared that in bonuses, practices and cultures, there were a different set of rules, that was to our benefit.
‘And if only the regulation came off, the wealth would magically flow. For a time, it did. And then we saw the financial crash. What the banks called over-regulation turned out to be the dam protecting us from a tide of disaster. The dam was weakened and it burst.’
In fact, bigger crises are ahead, as both Miliband and Balls know!
However, the worthy Miliband added – to try and keep his friendship with the bosses and bankers – ‘I want to be clear that I don’t blame either the banks or the energy companies for working with the rules they had.
‘It’s just the rules weren’t right. And if it is true in those sectors, it is true too of individuals. And there is no bigger symbol of this failure to expect people right to the top to play by fair rules than the failure to deal with tax avoidance.’
The truth is that the working class will not put up with more austerity. It will not be placated by the oligarchs being made to pay some taxes!
What is emerging here in the UK is a huge movement of the working class to maintain all of its gains by putting an end to capitalism with a socialist revolution.
This will unceremoniously place Miliband and Balls into the dustbin of history where they can continue their association with the bosses and bankers.
