THE annual conference of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) that starts this Sunday in Brighton is taking place as British capitalism is crumbling under the impact of a world capitalist crisis, that has spun out of control of the ruling class and its political representatives.
Britain, which counts as one of the weakest of the major capitalist nations, is steadily being crushed under the weight of a massive national debt of over £3.2 trillion, and rising by the day, as the financial markets demand increasing interest repayments on their loans to the UK government.
The Labour government under Keir Starmer was elected by a landslide just over 15 months ago. It pledged that after 14 years of Tory rule, and austerity attacks on workers’ wages and the welfare state, a Labour government would ‘grow’ British capitalism out of its recession and collapse.
Starmer, along with his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, promised this would be achieved in a partnership with the banks and corporations, with Reeves pledging to adhere strictly to ‘fiscal rules’, on not spending anything more than capitalism could afford.
It didn’t take long for workers and their families to find out what this meant when the first acts of Reeves was to attempt to slash benefits to the old, sick and disabled, while Labour refused to end the atrocious Tory two-child cap on benefits.
Reeves and Starmer’s attack on the vulnerable was defeated by a rebellion of Labour MPs who, driven by a working class rising up in revulsion, forced Starmer into a humiliating climb down.
Reeves, who is clinging to her job by her finger tips, now has the job of producing an Autumn Budget in November that will attempt to cut government spending in the only way possible – through super-charged austerity to smash up the NHS through privatisation, cuts in all benefits and the slashing of public service jobs.
The massive economic crisis has found its reflection in a political crisis within a Labour government that, despite its massive majority, is splitting apart and crumbling along with the capitalist economy.
Clearly, the leadership of the TUC is worried about the depth of hatred that workers have already demonstrated against a Labour government determined to ‘rescue’ bankrupt British capitalism by making the working class pay for the cost of the crisis.
Yesterday, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak broke the silence that the TUC has maintained over the catastrophic crisis engulfing the UK, when he offered up the TUC’s advice to Reeves and Starmer, on how to keep workers from rising up and bringing Labour down.
Nowak begged Reeves to ‘consider’ a range of wealth taxes in the Budget to help boost investment in public services.
Nowak called for consideration of a tax on ‘windfall profits which the banks and financial institutions have seen over the last couple of years’ and for a wealth tax on the rich. He also called for a ‘grown up conversation’ over taxing the banks, corporations and the obscenely wealthy.
In a desperate effort to convince workers that Starmer’s government was really ‘on the side of workers’, Nowak proclaimed: ‘I think this country’s got a really bright future, but we really do need the government to step up to the plate and deliver.’
In fact, it is time for the TUC to step up to the plate after 15 months of covering up for the Labour government, refusing to organise any opposition to its policies, designed to force millions into abject poverty and now begging for ‘consideration’ of a wealth tax that every worker knows the capitalist class are masters at avoiding.
The crisis of British capitalism will not be resolved through the wealth taxes that Reeves and Starmer have already ruled out.
The future for workers under bankrupt British capitalism is a future of economic recession and starvation level poverty, on a scale that will dwarf that of the Great Depression era of the 1930s.
The working class must resolve this crisis by demanding that the TUC immediately call an indefinite general strike to bring down the Starmer government, replacing it with a workers government that will expropriate the bankers and bosses, and build a socialist planned economy.
Join the lobby of the TUC on Sunday 7th September to demand a general strike now!
Join and build up the Workers Revolutionary Party and a mass Young Socialists movement to lead the successful British socialist revolution that will play a major part in burying the bankrupt capitalist system worldwide and bringing in a worldwide socialist planned economy, dumping bankrupt capitalism into the dustbin of history!