AT A press conference yesterday morning, prime minister Keir Starmer attempted to reassure workers that the Labour government would protect them from the economic crisis triggered by US imperialism’s war on Iran.
Starmer is scared that the war to crush Iran has escalated far beyond the extremely limited imagination of Trump and his administration, and that the resistance of the Iranian people and Iranian military has pitched the global capitalist economy into a full-blown economic meltdown.
Starmer was desperate to try to convince workers that the war is nothing to do with him, insisting time and again that the Labour government had ‘no involvement in the initial stages of the war’.
This hasn’t stopped Starmer from giving full support to the US and Israel in their genocidal war in Gaza, and the attempt to completely subjugate the entire Middle East and its people by crushing Iranian resistance to imperialism.
The US and Israeli regime might not have thought it important to involve minor imperialist nations as they launched their unprovoked and illegal war, but the effects of it are causing shock waves throughout the world and impacting directly on the lives of workers in the UK.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has driven up the cost of oil and gas on the international markets, forcing up energy prices in Britain.
Starmer used this press conference to announce that Labour would extend the energy price cap for three months while pledging £53 million in support of the most vulnerable to help with fuel costs.
Insisting that the UK would not be ‘drawn into the wider war’, he drew a distinction over the issue of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital choke point for oil and gas which has been closed by the Iranians.
Starmer claimed that the UK is working with allies to come up with a ‘viable plan’ to reopen the Strait, although he couldn’t say what that plan is – but didn’t rule out use of the military.
Starmer is stumbling around trying to convince disbelieving workers that the Labour government ‘will always support working people’.
Meanwhile, UK workers and youth face being pushed even further into poverty by the imperialist war which economists are warning threatens to leave over 100,000 out of work within months.
An article in the financial website ‘This Money’ said ‘a prolonged conflict is likely to trigger another bout of inflation, disrupt supply chains and delay interest rate cuts.’
The article quoted James Smith, UK economist at investment bank ING, who said that higher energy prices ‘will likely add to the recent rise in unemployment’ as businesses offset higher costs with job cuts or hiring freezes.’
Jordan Rochester, at the Japanese bank Mizuho, told The Daily Telegraph that job seekers could face an even tougher time finding jobs because of the war, adding: ‘If the rate of unemployment’s ascent matches that of the past year, it would defy forecasts again and put us closer to 6% rather than 5%.’
Official figures published last month show the UK was already facing an unemployment crisis reaching a five-year high of 5.2% – the highest level since the Covid pandemic.
Now the war being waged by US imperialism and its Zionist ally is set to cause this rate to explode, as the UK economy, which imports the vast majority of its oil and gas supplies, crashes into recession.
The working class and youth will never accept being driven into poverty and forced to suffer mass unemployment caused by imperialism’s hopeless war to reorder the world.
The time is now for the working class in the UK to unite with workers in the US and Europe to force their trade unions to take action by calling general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and replace them with workers’ governments and socialism.
The urgent task today is to build up the WRP and Young Socialists in Britain and sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to organise the victory of the World Socialist Revolution.
Join the WRP and YS today – there is no time to lose.
