KEIR STARMER, at a press conference yesterday, defended last week’s budget and crucially made a last ditch attempt to save his job and that of his Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
The bourgeois media have concentrated their fire against Reeves over accusations that she had effectively lied to Parliament and to the public about exactly how dire is the situation facing the UK economy, in order to justify the largest increase in taxation since records began.
This revolves around forecasts released by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) following last week’s budget which claimed that Reeves’ analysis showed that the UK government was heading for a budget surplus.
Starmer leapt to the defence of Reeves and her budget insisting that she had not misled anyone over public finances and that the tax raid of £26 billion was necessary to shore up British capitalism.
This £26 billion will come from the working class through extension of the freeze on tax thresholds which means that as people’s earnings increase they are automatically forced to pay higher rates of income tax.
Those in the bottom 30% of earners will be hit the hardest, with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimating that the average household will be £850 poorer in 2029.
None of these stark figures were even mentioned by Starmer, as he set out his defence of the Labour government, insisting he is ‘proud’ of the budget.
Instead, journalists were treated to Starmer outlining the next steps for the economic ‘renewal’ of British capitalism. He outlined his plans to reform welfare and grow the economy by ‘removing barriers to business’, starting with an attack on regulations.
Starmer quoted from a report that damned ‘pointless gold plating, unnecessary red tape, well-intentioned but fundamentally misguided environmental regulations’ that made building nuclear reactors too expensive.
Starmer was in fact regurgitating the old Tory pledge of a bonfire of the regulations to unleash British capitalism, this time with a view to building nuclear plants across the country.
The next in line was the welfare state, with Starmer insisting the government had a ‘moral mission’ to ‘fix the welfare system’ by forcing young people into work.
Starmer went to great lengths to claim ‘morality’, especially in respect of the decision to end the two child cap on benefits – a cap that has caused hundreds of thousands of children to be left in poverty.
He omitted to explain why both he and Reeves had previously claimed that ending the cap was unaffordable and last year voted to suspend seven Labour MPs for voting against the government on an amendment to scrap it.
The only ‘moral’ imperative for Starmer is to try to cling on in a crisis that has spiralled out of control.
At the heart of last week’s shambolic budget was an attempt by Starmer and Reeves to placate the international bond markets and at the same time keep Labour MPs from tearing them apart as they reneged on Labour manifesto pledges.
The international bond markets had been demanding brutal austerity cuts to bring down the massive national debt, which is fast approaching £3 trillion.
What scared the bond market vigilantes, who brought down Liz Truss over her unfunded tax cuts in 2022, was the danger that if Reeves danced openly to their tune then her days as Chancellor would be numbered.
In the end, Reeves produced a budget that raised £26 billion from increased taxes on workers with Starmer now pledging a new programme of introducing the wholesale slashing of the welfare budget in the hope this will placate the bond markets while holding off any immediate challenge to his leadership.
The chaotic situation that has erupted over last week’s budget is a symptom of a Starmer Labour government that is rapidly crashing under the pressure from international bond markets, and a powerful working class that is refusing to accept being driven into the gutter of poverty to keep bankrupt British capitalism from collapse.
Only the working class has the power to resolve this crisis by insisting that the TUC call a general strike to bring down this Labour government and bring in a Workers Government and a socialist planned economy.
This is the only way forward to the organisation of the British socialist revolution!