FRESH from his defeat at the Labour Party Conference by the successful vote against his policy to scrap the winter fuel payment to pensioners, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has launched a vicious counter-attack. Labour will force those on long-term sickness benefits back to work!
Previously, he had stated that there would be a tightening on what he called ‘benefit fraud’ to reduce the number of those economically inactive because of illness.
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, revealed what this actually means, declaring: ‘We will send crack teams of top clinicians to hospitals across the country to cut waiting lists,’ and that the first 20 hospitals to be targeted will be located in areas across the country with the highest numbers on sickness benefit, with unspoken sanctions being an implied threat hanging over their heads.
Following the parliamentary rebellion over cutting the winter fuel payment, it represents a major split in the Labour Party (LP) with Starmer and the right wing imposing draconian discipline on MPs who openly opposed Starmer’s attacks on the working class, like the suspension from the LP of seven MPs who voted against the two-child benefit cap recently.
Sharon Graham, leader of Unite, Britain’s second largest trade union, has already denounced the government’s cuts to the winter fuel payment. This revolt must be stepped up to drive Starmer and the right wing of the Labour Party out of the government.
The trade unions must begin a campaign to kick out Starmer and the right-wing gang around him and to ditch all attacks to privatise the NHS, cut benefits, raise taxes and get rid of thousands of jobs, all to save the capitalist billionaires in an economy that is collapsing into recession and is breaking apart.
So dire is the economic crisis of British imperialism that sections of the armed forces’ leadership are already openly calling for the introduction of mass conscription as the present size of the army at 72,500 is not large enough to ‘protect Britain’ in a modern war scenario where the main ‘enemies’ are Russia and China and a very discontented working class and youth at home.
‘UK citizens must develop a sense of national emergency to protect the nation,’ a report by the Lords Committee for the international relations and defence committee has found.
‘The current size of the British army being inadequate,’ and ‘unprepared to meet the growing threat posed by Russia to European security,’ it said, calling for the country to adopt ‘the mindset of a nation under genuine threat’.
The former head of the British army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, also recently said that the public would be called up to fight in a war because’ the military is too small’.
Not for the first time the British capitalists and the military are preparing new wars against Russia and China as a way out of their desperate crisis!
This arrogance has spread into the leaders of the Labour government with its declaration over the winter fuel crisis, reacting to their Conference defeat, by stating that they will press ahead with the Winter Fuel Allowance cut to stabilise the economy, no matter what.
In this situation of extreme capitalist crisis, trade unions must call a general strike to bring down the Starmer clique and bring in a Workers Government to nationalise the banks, utilities and major companies under workers’ control, to meet the needs of the working class and raise everyone’s standard of living.
However, imperialism is preparing for new wars abroad and war against the working class at home.
Capitalism and imperialism must be overthrown by the working class of the world to liberate the productive forces and avoid being thrown back to the Stone Age through new world wars and dictatorships.
Now is the time to join the Workers Revolutionary Party and Young Socialists to lead the struggle for a general strike and socialist revolutions to smash capitalism and imperialism once and for all, liberate all oppressed nations and establish the state of Palestine.